James Melville (politician)

Sir James Benjamin Melville KC (20 April 1885 - 1 May 1931)

James Melville was born at Le Havre, France, worked as a successful barrister and Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom.

He was elected at the 1929 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Gateshead, a Labour Party safe seat where he won over 50% of the votes. However, he died in office in 1931, aged 46. At the resulting Gateshead by-election on 8 June, Herbert Evans held the seat for Labour, but died in office on 7 October, the day when Parliament was dissolved for the 1931 general election.

As barrister in 1911 he had successfully defended the anarchists Yourka Dubof and Jacob Peters who were involved in the Houndsditch murder case and Sidney Street siege who so embarrassed Winston Churchill. According to Donald Rumbelow's "The Siege of Sidney Street" Peters was guilty but the prosecution's case was a shambles. Peters later returned to Russia to play a leading part in the Bolshevik revolution; he became deputy director of the Cheka and worked with Lenin and Dzerzhinsky.

All this was somewhat curious considering the number of anarchists that his father, William Melville, had apprehended, and his father's key emergent role in counter-intelligence.

Sir James also, albeit unsuccessfully, acted in appeal against the obscenity decision re: Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. When he took silk he was the youngest KC in England, a record he held for many years.

He fought in World War I as an officer in the Army Service Corps, including in Gallipoli and Macedonia from the first day to the last, was mentioned in despatches, and ended the war as a Major at GHQ Staff. Shortly after the Armistice he was gazetted out of the Army at 50% disibility.

His ill health in the last years and his early death were the belated toll exacted by his service in during the war in which he fought with the same placid courage which distinguished him in peace.'

The Law Journal, May 9, 1931

Married to Sara Tugander, Andrew Bonar Law's former private secretary. They were said to be the 'real founders' of the Labour Party in the 'difficult area' of South Kensington, despite his having first started as a Liberal.

In Ramsay MacDonald's Second Labour Government, he was Solicitor General for England and Wales from 1929 to 1930.

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*Rayment