This oldest MP thing is becoming an obsession. The other day Bert Hazell died aged 101, but Michael Crick reveals that one former MP made it to 102.
And he was a Liberal.
Theodore Cooke Taylor was born on 3 August 1850, was MP for Radcliffe cum Farnworth in Lancashire from 1900 to 1918, and died on 19 October 1952. So his exact age at death was 102 years and 67 days.
According to Wikipedia, when he turned 100 Taylor was still the managing director and chairman of J.T. & T. Taylor's. The company's employees enjoyed a day trip to Blackpool to celebrate his centenary. Commanet has a photograph of Taylor and his second wife taken in 1950.
I hope I look that good when I am 100.
Taylor continued to travel from his home at Grassington in Wharfedale to the mills in Batley until three weeks before his death at the age of 102.
And he was a good Liberal. It seems that in 1905 he published a book entitled Profit-sharing and Labour Co-partnership in the Woollen Trade.
Which probably makes him more radical than any current Liberal Democrat MP.
Surely Lord Bonkers is older?
ReplyDeleteHe entered the Commons in 1906, and would have been at least 21 by that time.
His Lordship was therefore born no later than 1885, making him at least 123 today.
And he is certainly more radical than any current Liberal Democrat MP.
I feel that dear old Mannie Shinwell ought to mentioned in dispatches here, if only because he was such an entertaining charcater. But, of course, he was a mere spring chicken of 101 1/2 when he died.
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