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The Right
Honourable The Lord Merlyn-Rees PC |
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In office 10 September 1976 – 4 May 1979 |
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| Prime Minister | James Callaghan |
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| Preceded by | Roy Jenkins |
| Succeeded by | William Whitelaw |
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In office 5 March 1974 – 10 September 1976 |
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| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | Francis Pym |
| Succeeded by | Roy Mason |
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| Born | 18 December 1920 Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales, UK |
| Died | 5 January 2006 (aged 85) London, UK |
| Political party | Labour |
Merlyn Rees, later Merlyn Merlyn-Rees, Baron Merlyn-Rees, PC (18 December 1920 – 5 January 2006) was a British Labour party Member of Parliament from 1963 until 1992, having served as Home Secretary.
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Born in Cilfynydd, near Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales, and educated at Harrow Weald Grammar School, Harrow, England and Goldsmiths College, London where he was president of the Students' union from 1939 to 1941. He served in the RAF the University of Nottingham Air Squadron during World War II, becoming a squadron leader at 25. He attended the London School of Economics where he received BSc(Econ) and MSc(Econ). He was appointed schoolmaster at his old school in Harrow in 1949, teaching economics and history. He taught for eleven years, during which time he was three times an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Harrow East. He was a member of the Institute of Education at the University of London from 1959 to 1962.
At a by-election in 1963, he stood successfully as the Labour candidate for Leeds South, succeeding Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, who had died in office. He held the seat until he stepped down from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election. The constituency was renamed as Morley and Leeds South in 1983. He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from March 1974 until September 1976, when he was appointed Home Secretary. For two years before the Labour government came to power in 1974 he had been Labour Party spokesman on Northern Ireland. Rees wrote of his views on Northern Ireland in: Northern Ireland: a Personal Perspective (Methuen, London, 1985 ISBN 0-413-52590-2).
When he retired from the House of Commons in 1992, he was created a life peer as Baron Merlyn-Rees, of Morley and South Leeds in the County of West Yorkshire and of Cilfynydd in the County of Mid Glamorgan and entered the House of Lords (having changed his name by deed poll to Merlyn Merlyn-Rees to allow his title to be Merlyn-Rees rather than Rees) (see [1]).
He was president of the Video Standards Council from 1990 and the first Chancellor of the University of Glamorgan from 1994 to 2002.
He suffered injuries in a number of falls, and failing to recover from these, fell into a coma, dying at the age of 85. He was survived by his wife Colleen and three sons.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by Hugh Gaitskell |
Member of
Parliament for Leeds
South 1963–1983 |
Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of
Parliament for Morley
and Leeds South 1983–1992 |
Succeeded by John Gunnell |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Francis Pym |
Secretary of State
for Northern Ireland 1974–1976 |
Succeeded by Roy Mason |
| Preceded by Roy Jenkins |
Home
Secretary 1976–1979 |
Succeeded by William Whitelaw |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by ' |
Chancellor of the University of
Glamorgan 1994-2002 |
Succeeded by The Lord Morris of Aberavon |
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  | Catalogue of the Merlyn-Rees papers - London School of Economics and Political Science Archives catalogue |
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