Herschel Lewis Austin

Herschel Lewis Austin (22 March 1911 – 8 April 1974) was a British politician who served as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1945-1950. Austin was born in Plymouth, England on 14 April 1911. The son of Polish immigrants, the family anglicised their surname from the Polish/German "Ornstein".

Lewis, as he was known grew up in poverty in London's East End, leaving school at the age of 11, then going on to educate himself as much as he could by attending night classes and visiting libraries when he wasn't working as an apprentice cabinet maker. As the years passed by, he went into business with his four brothers, producing affordable furniture with what became Austinsuite furnishings, a pre-curser to the flatpack furniture later adopted by M.F.I. in the U.K. and IKEA in Sweden.

In 1942 he joined the Merchant Navy, rising to the rank of Sub Lieutenant (Sub.-Lt). He was also prominent in trade union action, and was effectively headhunted for a direction shift into politics, after been told by a colleague, "You are too good for this, you're needed in the Labour Party".

In 1945 he campaigned as a Labour Party candidate for Stretford and Urmston, in Manchester, England, UK He held his seat until 1950 when he was beaten by Samuel Storey the Conservative candidate, challenging the seat which he won from another Conservative, Ralph Humphrey Etherton, in the Labour landslide general election of 1945.

After his brief stint in politics, he moved with his wife and young family to Jamaica for a number of years, living in Montego Bay. It was here he worked as a diplomatic envoy.