Arthur Champion, Baron Champion Explained

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.

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