Ben Spoor

Benjamin Charles Spoor (2 June 1878 – 22 December 1928) was a British Labour Party politician. He took a particular interest in India and in the Movement for Colonial Freedom.

Born in Witton Park, County Durham, he went to Elmfield College, York, and came from a family of Primitive Methodists. An engineer by training, he later went into business as a builder's merchant. Before entering politics he was a lay preacher in the Methodist Church.

At the 1918 general election, he was elected as Member of Parliament for the Bishop Auckland constituency, and held the seat until his death at the age of 50. He was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and Chief Whip in 1924, when he was made a Privy Councillor.

He had suffered from poor health since contracting malaria at Salonika during the Great War. On a visit to London in December 1928 he was found dead in bed at the Regent Palace Hotel. At the inquest, his son said that his father had taken to drinking heavily. His death, it was decided, was due to syncope from disease of the heart and liver, due to chronic alcoholism.

References:"The Times", 24 December 1928 (obituary), 27 December 1928 (inquest report)