Reginald Sorensen, Baron Sorensen

Reginald William Sorensen, Baron Sorensen (19 June 1891 – 8 October 1971) was a Unitarian minister and Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was a Member of Parliament for over thirty years between 1929 and 1964.

At the 1923 general election, he was an unsuccessful candidate in Southampton, coming fourth in the two-seat constituency. He stood again in the 1934 Lowestoft by-election, losing by 1,920 votes to the Conservative candidate, Pierse Loftus.

Sorensen was elected as MP for Leyton West at the 1929 general election, defeating the sitting Conservative MP James Cassels by a majority of 2,153. When Labour split at the 1931 general election, Sir Wilfrid Sugden retook the seat for the Conservatives with a majority of nearly 10,000.

Sorensen narrowly regained the seat at the 1935 election, and represented the constituency until it was abolished in 1950. At the 1950 general election, he was returned to Parliament for the new Leyton constituency.

At the 1964 general election, he was re-elected for a seventh term in the House of Commons. Shortly afterwards, in December 1964, he was made a life peer, as Baron Sorensen, of Leyton in the County of Essex. He then served until 1968 as a Lord-in-Waiting in the House of Lords.

He had been offered the peerage to make a vacancy for the Foreign Secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker [ [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=42771 British History Online: Parliamentary Representation in Leyton ] ] , who had been defeated in his Smethwick constituency. However, the by-election in January 1965 was won by the Conservative Ronald Buxton.

Notes

References

*
*Rayment