5th Baron Monkswell
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Henry W
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Richard R
Telegraph obit 22 July 2020:
EXTRACT
Lord Monkswell, the first peer to reclaim an hereditary title
Having done jobs that included van driver and tractor engineer, he took his seat in the Lords and became a thorn in the Labour Party's side
The 5th Lord Monkswell, who has died aged 73, was one of the more colourful members of the unreformed Upper House; by trade a former lathe operator, van driver, tractor engineer and fruit juice factory operative, in 1984 he became the first person in history to reclaim a hereditary title after it had been renounced by his father, and took his place on the Labour benches.
…once inside the House, he became something of an embarrassment to his party.
His refusal to abide by House conventions manifested itself from day one, when he committed the solecism not only of making his maiden speech on the same day that he took the oath…but delivering it on the first day television cameras arrived in the House, thereby depriving some of his more seasoned colleagues of prime time on News at Ten.
In 1988 it was Monkswell who (inadvertently, as he claimed) admitted to the public gallery four lesbians who abseiled into the chamber on to Black Rod’s box in protest against Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill, outlawing the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
…In 1994 he was jailed for 14 weeks for attacking a Mr Robin Cook, a psychotherapist, at a stress clinic in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. Monkswell, who used an adjustable spanner to carry out the assault, claimed that the victim had been brainwashing a woman with whom he had been having an affair.
By this time the element of surprise in Monkswell’s behaviour had diminished. Nonetheless, eyebrows were raised when, within a week of his release from Kirkham open prison, “Lord Porridge”, as he was now affectionately known, was back on his feet protesting about coal privatisation.
Monkswell admitted that jail had been “difficult at times”, but felt that on the whole it compared favourably with the House of Lords. “In prison I had three square meals a day, a warm bed to sleep in and I had a job that provided just enough money to buy tobacco,” he recalled.
Despite his eccentricities…Monkswell took his responsibilities extremely seriously. He spoke in scores of debates and, in 1997, took the Dignity at Work Bill, a Private Member’s Bill to prevent workplace bullying, through the Lords. It fell when the election was called and made no progress in the Commons.
In many ways, Monkswell was a peer in the finest independent-minded traditions of the old unreformed upper house. “I attend because it is my duty,” he explained in the finest tradition of noblesse oblige. “I am summoned here by the Queen to advise her on arduous and important affairs of state and I take my responsibilities seriously.”
Lord Monkswell was born Gerard Collier on January 28 1947, the son of William Collier and Helen (née Dunbar). His father’s uncle was grandson of the first Baron Monkswell, Sir Robert Porrett Collier, the former MP for Plymouth and Attorney General in the Liberal government of William Gladstone. The second Lord Monkswell acted as a Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria; the third was a Foreign Office mandarin.
But Gerard’s father, the fourth Lord Monkswell, became a Communist as a young man, fought in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, then became a GP in Essex and a Labour politician in local government. He renounced the title when he inherited it on the death of his uncle in 1964. He had divorced his first wife when his son was one year old.
…In 1974 he married Ann Valerie Collins, a television researcher, with whom he would have three children….
On the death of his father in 1984 he reclaimed the title which his father had disclaimed and took his place on the Labour benches of the House of Lords…
…Monkswell lost his seat in the Lords under the purge of hereditary peers in 1999. As a good Labour man, he was all in favour of abolishing the voting rights of hereditaries like himself, though he admitted he would miss the place. In 2003, he put himself forward as a candidate in a by-election when the remaining three hereditary Labour peers had to choose a successor on the death of a fourth Labour hereditary peer, Lord Milner.
He lost, as he did in subsequent by-elections in 2005 and 2011. Lord Monkswell’s family motto was “Perseverance”. “I suppose that’s why I have great difficulty recognising when something has finally come to an end,” he said.
Lord Monkswell is survived by his wife Ann Valerie and by their daughter and two sons, of whom the elder, James Adrian Collier, born in 1977, succeeds to the peerage.
Lord Monkswell, born January 28 1947, died July 12 2020
