Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke
Encyclopedia
Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, CH
PC (born 6 December 1922), is a Labour
member of the United Kingdom
House of Lords
. He was Member of Parliament
for Stoke-on-Trent South for 26 years, from 1966 to 1992.
Ashley was born in Widnes
and educated at local elementary school. He left school at 14 to work in the chemical process industry. He became a crane driver and was a shop steward in the Chemical Workers' Union
, a union of which he was the youngest executive member aged 22. He served in the Army in the Second World War, and then won a scholarship to study at Ruskin College, where he received a Diploma in Economics and Political Science in 1948. He continued his studies at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society
in 1951. He worked as a research worker for the National Union of General and Municipal Workers and then worked as a radio producer for the North American Service
and BBC Home Service
. In 1956 he joined the BBC television service and worked as a producer on Panorama
and Monitor.
He served on Widnes
Borough Council as a councillor from 1946. At the 1951 general election
, Ashley contested Finchley
without success. He was elected as Labour Member of Parliament
(MP) for Stoke on Trent South at the 1966 general election
. In December 1967, at the age of 45, he became profoundly deaf as a result of complications of a routine ear operation to correct a mild hearing loss caused by a perforated eardrum early in his working career. He was the United Kingdom's first totally deaf MP.
He became a tireless campaigner for the disabled, especially the deaf and blind
, and won broad cross-party sympathy, support and respect in parliament for his approach. In 1972, he sponsored the pivotal motion in the House of Commons making a distinction between legal and moral obligation. The success of this enabled The Sunday Times
to continue its moral campaign for improved compensation for children disabled by thalidomide
even while technically the parents' legal case was still in the courts. His Labour colleague, Alf Morris
(now Lord Morris of Manchester) was also a supporter. The editor of The Sunday Times, Harold Evans
, later wrote in Good Times, Bad Times how Ashley selflessly gave up writing his autobiography so as to concentrate on the thalidomide campaign. He has also campaigned for compensation for vaccine damage and for damage caused by the arthritis
drug Opren. He became a Companion of Honour in 1975, and joined the Privy Council in 1979.
He also received a Doctor of Humane Letters from the Gallaudet University
, the world's only university for the deaf, in 1975 for his efforts on behalf of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons.
The live captioning on the television to benefit the deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers would not have been achieved without Jack Ashley. While sitting in the House of Commons, not able to hear the debates, he relied on his wife who repeated all the words spoken in the plenum to be lipread. Later as the computer technology has advanced enough, he came upon the idea of using the stenotyping ability of court reporters to type into a computer, equipped with a dictionary database and an appropriate program to convert the phonetic input to written English with proper capitalization and punctuation and sent to a small cathode ray monitor in front of him. This method was tried out for the first time on the TV 1981 as BBC broadcast the wedding of someone of the royal family.
In 1986, Ashley and his wife founded the charity Defeating Deafness
, now known as Deafness Research UK. He retired from the House of Commons
at the 1992 general election
and was made a Life peer
Baron Ashley of Stoke, of Widnes in the County of Cheshire
the same year. He received a cochlear implant
in 1994 which restored much of his hearing.
Ashley married Pauline Kay Crispin (1932-2003) in 1951; she died aged 70 in Surrey
. He has three daughters, including journalist Jackie Ashley
.
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry or religion....
PC (born 6 December 1922), is a Labour
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...
member of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. He was 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,...
for Stoke-on-Trent South for 26 years, from 1966 to 1992.
Ashley was born in Widnes
Widnes
Widnes is an industrial town within the borough of Halton, in Cheshire, England, with an urban area population of 57,663 in 2004. It is located on the northern bank of the River Mersey where the estuary narrows to form the Runcorn Gap. Directly to the south across the Mersey is the town of Runcorn...
and educated at local elementary school. He left school at 14 to work in the chemical process industry. He became a crane driver and was a shop steward in the Chemical Workers' Union
Chemical Workers' Union (UK)
The Chemical Workers' Union was a trade union in the United Kingdom. It merged with the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1971.Its General Secretary from 1947 until 1971 was Robert Edwards.-See also:* List of trade unions...
, a union of which he was the youngest executive member aged 22. He served in the Army in the Second World War, and then won a scholarship to study at Ruskin College, where he received a Diploma in Economics and Political Science in 1948. He continued his studies at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college is often referred to simply as "Caius" , after its second founder, John Keys, who fashionably latinised the spelling of his name after studying in Italy.- Outline :Gonville and...
, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society
Cambridge Union Society
The Cambridge Union Society, commonly referred to as simply "the Cambridge Union" or "the Union," is a debating society in Cambridge, England and is the largest society at the University of Cambridge. Since its founding in 1815, the Union has developed a worldwide reputation as a noted symbol of...
in 1951. He worked as a research worker for the National Union of General and Municipal Workers and then worked as a radio producer for the North American Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
and BBC Home Service
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...
. In 1956 he joined the BBC television service and worked as a producer on Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
and Monitor.
He served on Widnes
Widnes
Widnes is an industrial town within the borough of Halton, in Cheshire, England, with an urban area population of 57,663 in 2004. It is located on the northern bank of the River Mersey where the estuary narrows to form the Runcorn Gap. Directly to the south across the Mersey is the town of Runcorn...
Borough Council as a councillor from 1946. 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...
, Ashley contested Finchley
Finchley (UK Parliament constituency)
Finchley was a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election; its best-known MP was Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990...
without success. He was elected as Labour 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 Stoke on Trent South at the 1966 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1966
The 1966 United Kingdom general election on 31 March 1966 was called by sitting Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Wilson's decision to call an election turned on the fact that his government, elected a mere 17 months previously in 1964 had an unworkably small majority of only 4 MPs...
. In December 1967, at the age of 45, he became profoundly deaf as a result of complications of a routine ear operation to correct a mild hearing loss caused by a perforated eardrum early in his working career. He was the United Kingdom's first totally deaf MP.
He became a tireless campaigner for the disabled, especially the deaf and blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
, and won broad cross-party sympathy, support and respect in parliament for his approach. In 1972, he sponsored the pivotal motion in the House of Commons making a distinction between legal and moral obligation. The success of this enabled The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
to continue its moral campaign for improved compensation for children disabled by thalidomide
Thalidomide
Thalidomide was introduced as a sedative drug in the late 1950s that was typically used to cure morning sickness. In 1961, it was withdrawn due to teratogenicity and neuropathy. There is now a growing clinical interest in thalidomide, and it is introduced as an immunomodulatory agent used...
even while technically the parents' legal case was still in the courts. His Labour colleague, Alf Morris
Alf Morris
Alfred Morris, Baron Morris of Manchester, AO, QSO, PC is a British Labour Co-operative politician and disability campaigner.-Political career:Morris served as Member of Parliament for Manchester Wythenshawe from 1964 until 1997...
(now Lord Morris of Manchester) was also a supporter. The editor of The Sunday Times, Harold Evans
Harold Evans
Sir Harold Matthew Evans is a British-born journalist and writer who was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981. He has written various books on history and journalism...
, later wrote in Good Times, Bad Times how Ashley selflessly gave up writing his autobiography so as to concentrate on the thalidomide campaign. He has also campaigned for compensation for vaccine damage and for damage caused by the arthritis
Arthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
drug Opren. He became a Companion of Honour in 1975, and joined the Privy Council in 1979.
He also received a Doctor of Humane Letters from the Gallaudet University
Gallaudet University
Gallaudet University is a federally-chartered university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing, located in the District of Columbia, U.S...
, the world's only university for the deaf, in 1975 for his efforts on behalf of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons.
The live captioning on the television to benefit the deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers would not have been achieved without Jack Ashley. While sitting in the House of Commons, not able to hear the debates, he relied on his wife who repeated all the words spoken in the plenum to be lipread. Later as the computer technology has advanced enough, he came upon the idea of using the stenotyping ability of court reporters to type into a computer, equipped with a dictionary database and an appropriate program to convert the phonetic input to written English with proper capitalization and punctuation and sent to a small cathode ray monitor in front of him. This method was tried out for the first time on the TV 1981 as BBC broadcast the wedding of someone of the royal family.
In 1986, Ashley and his wife founded the charity Defeating Deafness
Defeating Deafness
Deafness Research UK is the leading national British medical research charity working in the field of deafness. Its main activities are medical research and education....
, now known as Deafness Research UK. He retired from the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
at the 1992 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...
and was made a Life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
Baron Ashley of Stoke, of Widnes in the County of Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
the same year. He received a cochlear implant
Cochlear implant
A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing...
in 1994 which restored much of his hearing.
Ashley married Pauline Kay Crispin (1932-2003) in 1951; she died aged 70 in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
. He has three daughters, including journalist Jackie Ashley
Jackie Ashley
Jacqueline Ashley is a British journalist and broadcaster.Ashley is the daughter of Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, the life peer and former Labour MP. Her mother was Pauline Kay Ashley née Crispin...
.
External links
- Biography from Deafness Research UK
- thepeerage.com
- Short biography from Gallaudet UniversityGallaudet UniversityGallaudet University is a federally-chartered university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing, located in the District of Columbia, U.S...