THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Benn, Anthony ___ 1925-n/a ___ British
___ politician
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
The son and grandson of MPs, Benn
studied at Westminster School and New College, Oxford before marrying an
American, Caroline Middleton DeCamp, in 1949 (with whom he was to have four
children, one of whom is now an MP), and entering the House of Commons in
1950. In 1960, his father died, and Benn automatically inherited a peerage.
Consequently, according to the law of the day, he was disbarred from sitting
in the Commons, and subsequently - after a legal action - lost his seat.
He then campaigned for a change in the law which resulted in the 1963 Peerage
Act, and he became the first peer to renounce his title. He returned to
Parliament after winning a by-election the same year. He was an elected
member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee from 1959 to 1994,
and was Chairman of the Party in 1971-1972. Between 1964 and 1979, he served
in the Wilson and Callaghan cabinets with various portfolios (technology,
energy and industry). He was also closely associated with the trade union
movement, and was a strong supporter of the miners strike in 1984-1985.
In 1988, he stood for leadership of the party but was defeated. After 50
years in Parliament, Benn retired from the House of Commons in May 2001,
so as to - he famously said - 'devote more time to politics'. He is also
famous for his detailed and opinionated diaries, of which there are eight
consecutive volumes covering the period 1942 to 2001.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1963-2001 ___ political social
historyeye people family
WEB TEXT LINKS
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
The
Benn Archive
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Out of the Wilderness; Diaries
1963-67
Office Without Power; Diaries 1968-72
Against the Tide; Diaries 1973-76
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |