Dickson Mabon

The Right Honourable Dickson Mabon
Minister for Energy
In office 1976–1979
Prime Minister	James Callaghan
Preceded by	Lord Balogh
Succeeded by	Hamish Gray
Minister of State for Scotland
In office 7 January 1967 – 19 June 1970 Serving with Lord Hughes
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	George Willis
Succeeded by	Baroness Tweedsmuir
Member of Parliament for Greenock and Port Glasgow Greenock (1955–74)
In office 1955–1983
Preceded by	Hector McNeil
Succeeded by	Norman Godman
Personal details
Born	1st November 1925 Glasgow
Died	10th April 2008 (aged 82)
Political party	Labour Co-operative (Social Democratic Party 1981-91)
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth
Children	One son
Alma mater	Glasgow
Profession	Physician

Dr. Jesse Dickson "Dick" Mabon PC FRSA (1 November 1925 – 10 April 2008) was a Scottish politician, physician and company director. He was the founder of The Manifesto Group of Labour MPs, an alliance of moderate MPs against the perceived leftward drift of the Labour Party in the 1970s. He was a Labour Co-operative MP until October 1981, when he joined the Social Democratic Party. He left Parliament in 1983, and rejoined the Labour Party in 1991.

Early life

Mabon was born in Glasgow, the son of Jesse Dickson Mabon, a butcher, and his wife, Isabel Simpson (née Montgomery). He was educated at Possilpark primary school, Cumbrae primary school and North Kelvinside Academy. He worked as a Bevin Boy in the coal mining industry in Lanarkshire during the Second World War, before Army service (1944–48).

He studied medicine at Glasgow University after he was demobilised. He was chairman of the Labour Club (1948–50), then chairman of the National Association of Labour Students in 1949-1950, and finally president of Glasgow University Union in 1951–52, and of the Scottish Union of Students, 1954–55.

In 1955, he won The Observer Mace, speaking with A. A. Kennedy and representing Glasgow University. In 1995, the competition was renamed the John Smith Memorial Mace and is now run by the English-Speaking Union.

He was political columnist for the Scottish Daily Record from 1955 to 1964, and studied under Dr Kissinger at Harvard University in 1963. He was also a visiting physician at Manor House Hospital, London, 1958–64.

Parliamentary career

Mabon was the unsuccessful Labour candidate for Bute and North Ayrshire in 1951, and Labour Co-operative candidate for Renfrewshire West in 1955. He was elected as Labour Co-operative member of parliament for Greenock at a by-election in December 1955, replacing Tony Benn as Labour's youngest MP. He held that seat (from 1974 Greenock and Port Glasgow) until 1983. He became a frontbench spokesman on health in 1962.

He was a junior minister as joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (1964–67) and as promoted to Minister of State for Scotland, 1967–70. After Labour lost the 1970 general election, he became Deputy Opposition Spokesman on Scotland, but resigned in April 1972 over Labour's attitude to the Common Market. Although he supported Roy Jenkins in the election for a new leader of the Labour party in 1976, Jim Callaghan appointed him as Minister of State in the Department of Energy (1976–79), where he took charge of North Sea oil. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1977.

He was also a Member of the Council of Europe and of the Assembly of the Western European Union, 1970–72 and 1974–76, and of the North Atlantic Assembly, 1980–82. He was Chairman of the European Movement, 1975–76 (and deputy Chairman, 1979–83), and Founder Chairman of the Manifesto Group in the Parliamentary Labour Party (1974–76), set up to counter the left-wing Tribune group.

He became a member of the Social Democratic Party in October 1981. The party was founded by the Gang of Four in March 1981, but Mabon later called himself a founder member of the party. He unsuccessfully contested Renfrew West and Inverclyde for the SDP in 1983 after the local Liberals refused to stand their candidate down for him in his previous seat, and fought Renfrew West again for the SDP/Alliance in 1987, and also the Lothians seat in the 1984 election for the European Parliament.

Later life

He was chairman of SOS Children's Villages UK until 1993 and tried to get an SOS Children's Village built in Scotland first near Glasgow and then at Stirling; he was foiled by local councils who did not want the stigma of charitable help.^{[citation needed]}

He rejoined the Labour Party in 1991, and subsequently became a member of the executive committee of Eastbourne Labour Party until 2004.

Mabon, whose first directorship had been at Radio Clyde in the 1970s, added a non-executive directorship with East Midlands Electricity to his place at Cairn; in 1992 he urged John Major's government to privatise British Coal in two halves with one going to an East Midland-led consortium including himself. He kept up his interest in medicine, in 1990 becoming president of the Faculty of the History of Medicine. Mabon was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a Freeman of the City of London.

Family

He married Elizabeth Zinn, an actress, in 1970. They had one son.

Death

Mabon died, aged 82, at his home in Eastbourne^[1] He was survived by his wife and their son.

References

1. ^ "'Mr Oil', the minister who helped launch North Sea oil industry, dies aged 82", Daily Record (Daily Record), 11 April 2008, http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/news-feed/2008/04/11/minister-dubbed-mr-oil-is-dead-86908-20378974 

External links

• Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 14 April 2008
• Obituary, The Independent, 14 April 2008
• Obituary, The Times, 15 April 2008
• Obituary, The Guardian, 15 April 2008

Government offices
Preceded by Lord Balogh	Minister for Energy 1976–1979	Succeeded by Hamish Gray
Preceded by George Willis	Minister of State for Scotland 1967–1970	Succeeded by Baroness Tweedsmuir
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Hector McNeil	Member of Parliament for Greenock 1955–Feb 1974	Succeeded by (constituency abolished)
Preceded by (new constituency)	Member of Parliament for Greenock and Port Glasgow Feb 1974–1983	Succeeded by Norman Godman

Persondata
Name	Mabon, Dickson
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1 November 1925
Place of birth	Glasgow
Date of death	10 April 2008
Place of death