Name Ronald Atkins Role Politician | Education University of London Party Labour Party | |
Ronald Henry Atkins (born 13 June 1916) is a British former politician who served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament.
Biography
Born at Barry, Glamorganshire, son of a smallholder, Atkins was educated at Barry Grammar School and the University of London. He suffered heavily from psoriasis and tried to improve his health in order to enter the armed forces in World War II by a diet of only carrots for more than a month. Eventually he volunteered for industrial war work in a chemical company at Barry as a chief greaser. While there he organised a trade union branch for the first time at the company.
He became a teacher at a college of further education and a tutor and lecturer for the National Council of Labour Colleges. He was a councillor on Braintree Rural District Council 1952–61 and served on the Mid-Essex education committee of Essex County Council. At 93, he was the oldest member of Preston City Council when he stepped down in 2010 and he married, for the second time, to his present wife, Elizabeth, shortly after she was elected to the same council in 2012.
Atkins contested Lowestoft in 1964. He was twice Member of Parliament for the marginal Preston North constituency, from 1966 to 1970 - when he lost to Conservative Mary Holt, and, having defeated Holt by 255 votes, from February 1974 to 1979 - when he lost to the very-similarly named and unrelated Conservative, Robert Atkins. The margin of defeat was just 29 votes (0.1%).
Following the death of John Freeman on 20 December 2014, he became the oldest surviving former MP. Atkins celebrated his 100th birthday in June 2016. He attributed his long life to "good genes, an active lifestyle, and wild Atlantic salmon" in his diet. He was an active ballroom dancer to late in life. His daughter Charlotte Atkins was the Labour MP for Staffordshire Moorlands from 1997 until 2010.