Isaac Foot

Isaac Foot (23 February 1880 - 13 December 1960) was a British politician and solicitor.

Early life

Isaac Foot was born in Plymouth, the son of a carpenter and undertaker, and educated at Plymouth Public School and the Hoe Grammar School, which he left at the age of 14. cite book
last=Foot|first=John|editor=Duncan Brack|others=Malcolm Baines, Katie Hall, Graham Lippiatt, Tony Little, Mark Pack, Geoffrey Sell, Jen Tankard|title=Dictionary of Liberal Biography|origyear=1998|edition=1st ed.|publisher=Politico's Publishing|location=Artillery Row, London|isbn=1902301099|pages=pp. 109-112|chapter=Isaac Foot|] He then worked at the Admiralty in London, but returned to Plymouth to train as a solicitor. Foot qualified in 1902, and in 1903, with his friend Edgar Bowden, he set up the law firm Foot and Bowden, which as Foot-Anstey still exists. [ [http://www.foot-ansteys.co.uk/index.cfm/solicitors/About.History History of Foot-Anstey] ]

He became a member of the Liberal Party, and in 1907 was elected to Plymouth City Council, which he remained a member of for twenty years, serving as Deputy Mayor in 1920. As Deputy Mayor he represented Plymouth in the United States for the celebrations of the "Mayflower's" tercentenary.

Parliamentary career

Foot first stood for parliament in Totnes in January of 1910, losing to the sitting Liberal Unionist, F. B. Mildmay He then stood twice for Bodmin, but was unsuccessful. At Plymouth Sutton in the bye-election of November 1919 he was beaten by Nancy Astor, who became the first woman MP in Britain and a lifelong friend of Foot's.

Foot was elected as Member of Parliament for Bodmin in February 1922, retaining his seat in the general elections of 1922 and 1923. He lost his seat in October 1924 but regained it in the 1929 General Election, when the Liberals took all five Cornish seats. He held the seat until he lost again in November 1935.

Foot served on the Round Table Conference on India in 1930-31, and on Burma in 1931, and was also on the Joint Select Committee on India. His championing of the poor of the subcontinent earnt him the sobriquet of "the member for the Depressed Classes". Stanley Goodman, ‘Foot, Isaac (1880–1960)’, rev. Mark Pottle, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33189 accessed 13 April 2008] ]

In 1931 he became Minister of Mines in the National Government, but resigned in protest at the protectionist Ottawa Agreements.

He fought two more elections, at St Ives in 1937, and Tavistock in 1945, losing both.

After Parliament

He became a Privy Counsellor in 1937.

Foot served as Vice President of the Methodist Conference (1937-38) and as President of the Liberal Party (1947).

In 1945 he was chosen unanimously as Lord Mayor of Plymouth, despite not being a member of the council. Foot also served as Deputy-Chairman of the Cornwall Quarter Sessions in 1945, and was Chairman from 1953 to 1955, a distinction rarely granted to a solicitor.

Exeter University awarded him the honorary degree of DLitt in 1959.

Foot also built up a library of over 70,000 books at his home near Callington and would wake at five in the morning in order to read them. In old age he taught himself Greek, so as to read the New Testament in the original.

Personal life

Foot was married to Eva Mackintosh, daughter of Angus Mackintosh.

Four of the Foots' sons followed their father into public life.
*Dingle became a Liberal, later Labour, Member of Parliament and solicitor-general.
*Hugh was a senior diplomat and member of the House of Lords.
*John stood as a Liberal on several occasions for Parliament and became Baron Foot.
*Michael became a major socialist intellectual, principal architect of the 1945 Labour Party manifesto, Member of Parliament and leader of the Labour Party in the 1980s.

The Foots also had two daughters, Margaret and Jennifer, and one other son, Christopher, who went into the family law practice. Hugh's son, Paul, was a prominent campaigning journalist and political activist, being a solid member of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

References