David Calvert should not be confused with David Calvert-Smith.
| David Calvert | |
| Office: | Member of Craigavon Borough Council |
| Constituency: | Craigavon |
| Term Start: | 15 May 1985 |
| Term End: | 17 May 1989 |
| Predecessor: | District created |
| Successor: | Ruth Allen |
| Constituency1: | Craigavon Area D |
| Term Start1: | 30 May 1973 |
| Term End1: | 15 May 1985 |
| Predecessor1: | District created |
| Successor1: | District abolished |
| Office2: | Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Armagh |
| Term Start2: | 20 October 1982 |
| Term End2: | 1986 |
| Birth Date: | 1946 |
| Birth Place: | County Armagh, Northern Ireland |
| Party: | Traditional Unionist Voice (since 2007) Democratic Unionist (1971 - 1993) |
| Otherparty: | Independent Unionist (2001 - 2007) |
David Calvert (born 1946) is a Northern Irish unionist politician. He worked as a director of a family shirt manufacturing company. He was a founder member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in County Armagh.[1]
He was elected to Craigavon Borough Council in 1973,[2] and held his seat until he stood down in 1989.[3]
He stood for the party in Fermanagh and South Tyrone at the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention election in 1975, but was not elected.[4]
He then moved to Armagh, which he contested at the 1979 UK general election, but took only 8.6% of the vote.[5]
In the early 1980s, Calvert was Deputy Chairman of the DUP,[6] and in the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election, he won a seat.[5] In 1987, he was seriously injured in an assassination attempt on his life by the Irish National Liberation Army, but recovered fully.[7] The INLA had also tried to kill him in 1981.[8] He fell out with the DUP in 1993, in a dispute over candidate selection, and was expelled from the party.[9]
Calvert stood as an independent candidate in Craigavon at the 2001 local elections, and narrowly missed taking a seat. He stood again in 2005, without success.[10] In 2006, he attended a meeting of critics of the Belfast Agreement, addressed by Robert McCartney of the UK Unionist Party,[9] but at the 2007 Assembly election he stood as an independent again, this time in Upper Bann, taking 3.1% of the vote.[11]
Following the elections, Calvert joined Traditional Unionist Voice, and stood for the party in a by-election to Craigavon Borough Council in January 2010, taking a distant second place.[12]