Lord Taverne (1928-2025)
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Henry W
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Richard R
Obit in the Times of 27 Oct 2025:
E X T R A C T
Lord Taverne obituary: early SDP advocate who quit as Labour MP
Barrister turned politician, who won a by-election after quitting Labour over his pro-Europe views and became a founding member of the Lib Dems, dies aged 97
Dick Taverne was, for a brief and intense period, one of the most newsworthy politicians in the land. The occasion was his victory in one of the most dramatic by-elections in the postwar age. When his Lincoln constituency party deselected him as its Labour candidate, he resigned his seat in October 1972 and forced a by-election. The contest was held in March 1973 and, standing as “Democratic Labour” against the official Labour candidate, he won by a landslide. Not since 1929 had an MP voluntarily resigned their seat and won it again at a by-election.
… Handsome and media-friendly, with dark brown hair that turned grey early and a mellifluous voice, he seemed assured of a bright future in politics. In 1967 a Sunday Times Magazine feature asked commentators to “Spot the prime minister” of 25 years’ time. Taverne, aged 38 and already a minister in Harold Wilson’s government, was the second favourite at odds of 10-1. It was not to be; seven years later he was no longer an MP and his main achievements were to lie outside the field of party politics. At odds of 1,000-1 was Margaret Thatcher.
… Taverne was born in a house on stilts in Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), in 1928, to Louise (née Koch) and Nicolaas, who worked for Dutch Shell as a geologist, in which subject he had a doctorate. The family migrated to England from Holland in 1939 just before the war began. The move was made to maintain the Anglo-Dutch connection because the company rightly assumed that the Netherlands would be invaded and occupied by Germans.
The family returned to Holland in 1946 but Taverne remained in England and was naturalised in 1949. He passed up National Service because it was voluntary for the naturalised and was educated at … Balliol College, Oxford where he … was chairman of the Labour Club. A brilliant debater, with William Rees-Mogg he was a member of the Union debating team that toured the United States in 1951. Nor did he neglect his studies, emerging with a first in philosophy and ancient history. At the time friends sometimes wrote about him as “Dik”, acknowledging his Dutch origins.
At the university he … met his future wife, Janice Hennessey, a fellow student, when they were canvassing for Labour in the 1950 election. They married in 1955 and she survives him with their two daughters, Suzanna, the chair of Open Democracy, and Caroline, who worked in publishing.
In 1965 Taverne became the youngest QC at the time but he gave up his practice in 1966 when he became a Home Office minister and never returned to the Bar…
… For the next 40 years [after leaving the Commons] he led a full life in industry, consultancy, politics and writing on science…
… In 1996 he entered the House of Lords [and] was a passionate advocate, in print and on the podium, for promoting greater public understanding of science… He was a member of the House of Lords science and technology committee and founded a charity, Sense About Science. His interest was stimulated in part by his wife, who was an immunologist.
… In the Lords in 2002, he was reprimanded when he called for Prince Charles to be barred from the throne if he continued to make criticisms of genetically modified crops. The controversy his book provoked helped him win an award as parliamentary science communicator of the year in 2005. In 2020 he introduced a bill to abolish the automatic right of Church of England bishops to sit in the Lords.
For many years Taverne and his wife were described by some as the most handsome couple in Westminster. He retained his striking good looks, enthusiasm and energy until very late in life. He loved chess, completed four marathons, the last at 63 and, over 80, still kept a boat and sailed long distances with his wife. In his nineties he continued to cycle to the Lords, claiming that it was easier than walking with his stick. One Monday morning he replied to a fellow peer, Lord McNally, who asked if he had had a good weekend: “Yes, Janice and I went sailing.” “Where did you sail?” “Oh, we went to Norway and back!”
Lord Taverne, politician and peer, was born on October 18, 1928. He died on October 25, 2025, aged 97
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/lord-taverne-obituary-early-sdp-advocate-who-quit-as-labour-mp-0p3lqnmk7