Sub-fonds GBR/210/ - Leo Abse Papers

Leo Abse, politician, was born in 1917 in Cardiff, Glamorgan, the son of a Jewish family. He was educated at Howard Gardens High School and (after the Second World War) the London School of Economics. His younger brother is the poet and author Dannie Abse. Leo Abse left school to work as a factory worker, becoming involved in political activity, and displaying strong sympathies with the Communist Party, visiting Spain clandestinely in 1939 during the Civil War. He served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, subsequently attended the London School of Economics, and then returned to Cardiff to study law. He joined a Cardiff law firm (of which he eventually became senior partner); he served as a member of Cardiff City Council between 1953 and 1958, and fought for the Labour Party Cardiff North in the general election of 1955. He was the first solicitor to be granted audience in the High Court in 1986. He was Labour MP for Pontypool from 1958 until 1983, and for Torfaen from 1983 until his retirement in 1987. He served as chairman of the Welsh Parliamentary Party, 1976-1987, and acted as leader of the Labour anti-devolution campaign in Wales in the 1979 Referendum. At Westminster, Abse proved an effective backbencher, acting as sponsor or co-sponsor for Private Member's Bills relating to divorce, homosexuality, family planning, legitimacy, widows' damages, industrial injuries, congenital disabilities and relief from forfeiture. He also initiated the first Commons debates on genetic engineering, Windscale, and in vitro pregnancies. He has written several books among them, Private Member (1973); Margaret, Daughter of Beatrice (1989); Wotan, My Enemy (1994), The Man Behind the Smile (1996) and Fellatio, Masochism, Politics and Love (2000).