Charles Dukes, 1st Baron Dukeston

{{Short description|British trade unionist and Labour Party politician}} {{For|the American astronaut|Charles Duke}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2016}} {{Use British English|date=December 2016}} '''Charles Dukes, 1st Baron Dukeston''' CBE (28 October 1881 – 14 May 1948)<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Ccommons2.htm | title = Historical list of MPs: House of Commons constituencies beginning with "W" (part 1) | work = Leigh Rayment's House of Commons pages | access-date = 21 November 2009 | url-status = usurped | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180613184220/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Ccommons2.htm | archive-date = 13 June 2018 }}</ref> was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician.<ref name=obit>{{cite news|title=Obituary: Lord Dukeston. A Former President Of The T.U.C.|newspaper=The Times|date=15 May 1948|page=6}}</ref><ref name=whowho>{{cite web|title=DUKESTON, 1st Baron|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U224882|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=26 December 2013}}</ref>

Born in Stourbridge, Dukes left school at the age of eleven, taking up work as an errand boy.<ref name=obit /> When his family moved to Warrington, he joined working in a forge.<ref name=obit /> He subsequently had a number of casual jobs throughout north west England, including working on the Manchester Ship Canal.<ref name=obit />

In 1909 his career as a trade union official began when he was elected secretary of the Warrington branch of the National Union of Gasworkers. He was a founding member of the British Socialist Party, and was elected to the party's national executive in 1914.<ref name=obit /> During the First World War he was a conscientious objector, serving some time in prison.<ref name=obit /> He became a district secretary in what had become the National Union of General Workers. From 1934 to 1946, Dukes was General Secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers. From 1946 to 1947 he was President of the Trades Union Congress.<ref name=obit /><ref name=whowho /> In 1947 he was appointed a director of the Bank of England.<ref name=whowho />

Although Charles Dukes had no biological children, he mentored two of his sister Annie's children, Jack and Reginald Cooper, and raised them in what is now known as the GMB Union.

Jack Cooper later followed in his Uncle's footsteps and became a Labour MP and also a General Secretary of the GMB Union (Jack Cooper, Baron Cooper of Stockton Heath)

==Parliamentary career== At the 1923 general election, Dukes was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Warrington in Lancashire, narrowly defeating the sitting Conservative MP Alec Cunningham-Reid.<ref name="craig1918-1949">{{cite book |last=Craig |first=F. W. S. |author-link= F. W. S. Craig |title=British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 |orig-year=1969 |edition=3rd |year=1983 |publisher= Parliamentary Research Services |location=Chichester |isbn= 0-900178-06-X |page=267 }}</ref> When the First Labour Government fell in 1924, Dukes lost his seat in the resulting 1924 general election, unseated by his predecessor Cunningham-Reid.<ref name="craig1918-1949" />

However, at the 1929 general election, when Cunningham-Reid abandoned Warrington and stood unsuccessfully in Southampton,<ref>Craig, op. cit, page 243</ref> Dukes was returned again to the House of Commons. When Labour split in 1931 over the handling of budgetary response to the Great Depression, Dukes was defeated in the subsequent general election, and did not stand for election to the House of Commons again.<ref name="craig1918-1949" />

In 1942 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 1946 was appointed an adviser to the Paris Peace Conference.<ref name=obit />

Dukes was the first British representative on the new United Nations Commission on Human Rights, advised by his alternate member, Geoffrey Masterman Wilson. In 1947, they worked together on the British input into the drafting of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.<ref>Alfred William Brian Simpson, ''Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention'' (Oxford University Press, 2004), [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wITHtDxnUI8C&pg=PA349 pp. 349–352]</ref>

Dukes was ennobled in 1947 as '''Baron Dukeston''', of Warrington in the County Palatine of Lancaster, giving him a seat in the House of Lords.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=37921 |date=1 April 1947 |page=1497 }}</ref> He proved to be an active Labour Party peer.<ref name=obit /> He died the following year in a London hospital, aged 66, without an heir, and the peerage became extinct.<ref name=obit /> He was buried in Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire, close to his home in Amersham.<ref name=whowho /><ref>{{cite news|title=Court Circular|newspaper=The Times|date=20 May 1948|page=6}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

== External links == * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-charles-dukes | Charles Dukes }}

{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Warrington | years = 1923 – 1924 | before = Alec Cunningham-Reid | after = Alec Cunningham-Reid }} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Warrington | years = 1929 – 1931 | before = Alec Cunningham-Reid | after = Noel Goldie }} {{s-npo|union}} {{succession box|title=Leeds District Secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers|years=1924–1925|before=Walter Wood|after=J. D. S. Highman}} {{succession box|title=Lancashire District Secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers|years=1925–1934|before=Fleming Eccles|after=Arthur Seabury}} {{succession box|title=Trades Union Congress representative to the American Federation of Labour|years=1932|with=Bill Holmes|before=John Beard and Frank Wolstencroft|after=Joe Hall and Jimmy Rowan}} {{succession box|title=President of the International Federation of Employees in Public Services|years=1932&ndash;1937|before=Peter Tevenan|after=Mark Hewitson}} {{succession box | title = General Secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers | years = 1934–1946 | before = Will Thorne | after = Tom Williamson }} {{succession box|title=Chairman of the Trades Councils' Joint Consultative Committee|years=1937 – 1938|before=George Hicks|after=John Marchbank}} {{succession box | title = President of the Trades Union Congress | years = 1946–1947 | before = Ebby Edwards | after = George Walker Thomson }} {{s-reg|uk}} {{s-new | creation}} {{s-ttl | title = Baron Dukeston | years = 1947–1948 }} {{s-non | reason = Extinct }} {{s-end}}

{{GMB (trade union)}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dukes, Charles}} Category:1881 births Category:1948 deaths Category:British conscientious objectors Category:GMB (trade union)-sponsored MPs Category:Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:UK MPs 1923–1924 Category:UK MPs 1929–1931 Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:General secretaries of the GMB (trade union) Category:Presidents of the Trades Union Congress Category:People from Stourbridge Category:Labour Party (UK) hereditary peers Category:Barons created by George VI