Wilfred Fienburgh
Encyclopedia
MBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
(4 November 1919, Ilford
Ilford
Ilford is a large cosmopolitan town in East London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It forms a significant commercial and retail...
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
– 3 February 1958, Mill Hill
Mill Hill
Mill Hill is a place in the London Borough of Barnet. It is a suburb situated 9 miles north west of Charing Cross. Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex until it was absorbed by London...
, London) was a British Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
politician.
Early life
He worked as a manual labourer during the late 1930s, and because of his role in the Second World War he was made an MBEMBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
in 1945.
Political career
At the 1945 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...
he stood unsuccessfully in the Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Pembrokeshire was a parliamentary constituency based on the county of Pembrokeshire in Wales. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.- History :...
constituency in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, losing by only 168 votes to the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
candidate Gwilym Lloyd George
Gwilym Lloyd George, 1st Viscount Tenby
Major Gwilym Lloyd George, 1st Viscount Tenby PC TD was a British politician and cabinet minister. A younger son of Prime Minister David Lloyd George, he served as Home Secretary from 1954 to 1957....
. In 1947 he joined the Labour Party Research Department, and was for four years the secretary of the party's policy committee, and was involved in drafting various articles of party policy during this period.
At the 1951 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1951
The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held eighteen months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats...
Fienburgh was elected as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for the Labour seat of Islington North
Islington North (UK Parliament constituency)
Islington North is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election...
, in North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
, although at the time of his death he was actually living in Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead is a town in Hertfordshire in the East of England, to the north west of London and part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2001 Census was 81,143 ....
. Percy Lucas
Percy Lucas
Percy Belgrave "Laddie" Lucas, CBE, DSO and Bar, DFC, , was a Royal Air Force Officer, left-handed golfer, author and Member of Parliament .-Early and family life:...
, a fellow MP and also friend, mentioned in his memoir Five Up that Fienburgh also had a burgeoning media career with both Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
and the Sunday Express.
Modern commentators have varying viewpoints on Fienburgh's character. He was described by Anthony Howard
Anthony Howard (journalist)
Anthony Michell Howard, CBE was a prominent British journalist, broadcaster and writer. He was the editor of the New Statesman, The Listener and the deputy editor of The Observer...
in The Times of November 7, 2000 as being "rather louche", and Denis Healey
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey CH, MBE, PC is a British Labour politician, who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979.-Early life:...
in his autobiography The Time of My Life (1989) asserts that Fienburgh's "good looks and big brown eyes often led him astray". Edward Pearce
Edward Pearce (journalist)
-Life:Edward Pearce was brought up in Darlington, where he attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. He then studied at Oxford.Embarking on a career in journalism, in 1977 he became a leader writer for the Daily Express. In 1979 he moved to The Daily Telegraph, where he wrote leaders and sketches on...
, writing in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
described him as a "delightful and amusing Labour politician". Peter Hitchens
Peter Hitchens
Peter Jonathan Hitchens is an award-winning British columnist and author, noted for his traditionalist conservative stance. He has published five books, including The Abolition of Britain, A Brief History of Crime, The Broken Compass and most recently The Rage Against God. Hitchens writes for...
in his book The Abolition of Britain
The Abolition of Britain
A chapter in The Abolition of Britain on the contrast between the public health policies on lung cancer and the public health policies on AIDS was left out of the first edition of the book, after Hitchens was advised that airing thoughts critical of homosexual acts would bring such criticism on it...
described him as "one of the most talented men on the party's Left". Fienburgh was allegedly involved in an altercation with Jennie Lee during the 1952 Labour Party conference, according to Lee's biographer Patricia Hollis
Patricia Hollis, Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Patricia Lesley Hollis, Baroness Hollis of Heigham PC, DL is a Labour member of the House of Lords.She was educated at Plympton Grammar School, at Cambridge University, the University of California and Columbia University, New York , and at Nuffield College, Oxford .She was a lecturer in modern...
. Fienburgh wrote several books including non-fiction works such as Steel Is Power - The Case for Nationalisation and 25 Momentous Years: A 25th Anniversary in the History of the Daily Herald.
His best remembered book is a novel, No Love For Johnnie
No Love for Johnnie (book)
No Love for Johnnie by Wilfred Fienburgh, was first published in 1959 by Hutchinson. Essentially a political novel it deals with the life of Johnny Byrne, a cynical and burnt-out politician whose career has ostensibly stalled due to his leftist leanings in a "conservative" Labour government...
, a cynical portrayal of British politics in the late 1950s which was later adapted into a film
No Love for Johnnie
No Love for Johnnie is a 1961 British drama film directed by Ralph Thomas. It was based on the book of the same title by the Member of Parliament Wilfred Fienburgh and stars Peter Finch....
starring Peter Finch
Peter Finch
Peter Finch was a British-born Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as "crazed" television anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a...
as the title character. The novel seems to give vent to Fienburgh's deep-seated concerns about corruption in politics - he had previously claimed in 1955 that "the Labour party is the only party in Britain in which you can buy a seat", according to author Michael Rush in The Selection of Parliamentary Candidates (1969). One near contemporary critic writing in the New Left Review
New Left Review
New Left Review is a 160-page journal, published every two months from London, devoted to world politics, economy and culture. Often compared to the French-language Les Temps modernes, it is associated with Verso Books , and regularly features the essays of authorities on contemporary social...
of 1961 considered it a "bad novel" and that "Fienburgh seems to have had no conception of what idealism means". Author Derek Jewell called it "a bitter study of political life" in 1967. Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Geoffrey Albert Wheatcroft is a British journalist and writer.- Education :He was educated at University College School, London, and at New College Oxford, where he read Modern History.- Publishing and journalism :...
in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
in 2001 saw No Love for Johnnie as the archetype novel of a genre that he names "the Labour Party novel of disillusionment". Paul Routledge in the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
in 2000 described the novel as being highly prescient of the New Labour movement.
Wilfred Fienburgh represented his constituency until his death in a car crash in 1958, aged 38. The car he was driving collided with a lampost at Mill Hill, London. His funeral took place on 7 February at Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000, and was opened in 1902 by Sir Henry Thompson....
. He left £6,177 in his will, according to The Times report of 8 May 1958. According to The Library Association Record (1961, p. 205) Fienburgh's widow Joan was invited to open a new Islington public library in July 1960 as an official mark of respect for her late husband. MP Robert Mellish collected a sum of £400 from fellow MPs to give to Joan Fienburgh.
At the resulting by-election
Islington North by-election, 1958
The Islington North by-election, 1958 was a parliamentary by-election held on 15 May 1958 for the British House of Commons constituency of Islington North in Islington, North London....
, the seat was held for Labour by Gerry Reynolds
Gerry Reynolds (UK politician)
Gerald William Reynolds , known as Gerry Reynolds was a British Labour Party politician.Reynolds was elected as Member of Parliament for Islington North in a 1958 by-election following the death of the sitting MP Wilfred Fienburgh...
, who himself died in office in 1969.
There is a block of flats on Carleton Road near Tufnell Park named after him.