Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
The Lord Champion | |
Office: | Deputy Leader of the House of Lords |
Term Start: | 21 October 1964 |
Term End: | 7 January 1967 |
Primeminister: | Harold Wilson |
Leader: | The Earl of Longford |
Predecessor: | The Viscount Blakenham |
Successor: | The Lord Shackleton |
Office1: | Minister without Portfolio |
Primeminister1: | Harold Wilson |
Term Start1: | 21 October 1964 |
Term End1: | 7 January 1967 |
Predecessor1: | Eric Fletcher |
Successor1: | Douglas Houghton |
Office2: | Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries |
Primeminister2: | Clement Attlee |
Term Start2: | 26 April 1951 |
Term End2: | 26 October 1951 |
Office3: | Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal |
Term Start3: | 11 May 1962 |
Term End3: | 2 March 1985 Life Peerage |
Office13: | Member of Parliament for South East Derbyshire (1950-1959) South Derbyshire (1945-1950) |
Term Start13: | 5 July 1945 |
Term End13: | 18 September 1959 |
Predecessor13: | Paul Emrys-Evans |
Successor13: | John Jackson |
Birth Date: | 26 July 1897 |
Death Date: | 2 March 1985 |
Party: | Labour |
Arthur Joseph Champion, Baron Champion PC (26 July 1897 – 2 March 1985), known as Joe Champion, was a British Labour Party politician.
He was born in Glastonbury as the youngest of six children and went on to work on the railways after serving in the First World War. He married Mary Emma (née Williams) in October 1930 and the couple had one daughter, born in December 1931.
He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for South Derbyshire at the 1945 general election, defeating the sitting Conservative MP Paul Emrys-Evans to win a majority of nearly 23,000 votes. After boundary changes for the 1950 general election, he was re-elected for the new South East Derbyshire constituency, and held that seat until his defeat at the 1959 general election by only 12 votes.
He was made a life peer on 11 May 1962, as Baron Champion, of Pontypridd in the County of Glamorgan. In January 1967 he was appointed as a Privy Counsellor.
In the last year of Clement Attlee's Labour Government, he served from April to October 1951 as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. After taking his seat in the House of Lords, he was a Minister without Portfolio from 1964 to 1967 in Harold Wilson's government. He died in Pontypridd aged 87.