Description

Admin History:

David Julian Winnick was born in 1933, the son of Eugene and Rose Winnick. He completed a Diploma in Social Administration at the London School of Economics before performing army service between 1951 and 1953. He became the branch secretary of the Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union in 1952 and was on the executive council from 1978, eventually serving as Vice-President from 1983 to 1988.

In the late 1950s and 1960s Winnick became a member of the Willesden Borough Council and then the London Borough of Brent County Council until 1964 when he contested the general election as Labour candidate for Harwich, but was unsuccessful. In 1966 he secured a seat as Labour MP for Croydon South and held this until 1970. In November 1976 he became MP for Walsall North and has sat on the Select Committee on the Environment 1979-1983, the Home Affairs Committee 1983-1987 and the Select Committee on Procedure from 1989. A member of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body from its establishment in 1990, Winnick was Vice-Chairman from 1993 and from 1997 to 2005 held the position of Co-Chair.

In the general election of 1997 he was re-elected to Parliament and continues to stand as MP for Walsall North. Winnick supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in 2005 Winnick's amendment to a government bill on detention of terrorist suspects without trial, was passed in the Commons. This was the first defeat for Tony Blair's government. Winnick also played a significant role in securing the resignation of the Speaker of the Commons, Michael Martin, in May 2009, following the expenses scandal. He retained his seat as Walsall North MP in the 2015 general election, but lost it in 2017.

Description:

The papers largely comprise constituency notes and correspondence and subject files, with a few diaries and speeches. They particularly cover affairs in Croydon, Walsall and the West Midlands.

The collection in detail is as follows. The first deposit relates to Winnick's work as MP for Croydon South, 1966-1970 and comprises constituency notes (1966-1970); correspondence arranged alphabetically (1968-1970) and subject files covering the range of his political activity and these include files on abortion (1966-1967); teachers' salaries (1966-1970); Vietnam (1966-1969); Rhodesia (1966-1970); racial discrimination and immigration (1966-1970); housing (1966-1970); capital punishment; overseas students (1966-1967); Greece (1967-1970); South Africa (1967-1970); Nigeria and Biafra (1969) and miscellaneous organisations especially in Croydon. There are also notes for speeches, press cuttings, two diaries (1965-1966) and miscellaneous notes on subjects like transport, decimalisation and Russian political prisoners.

The rest of the collection relates to Winnick's work as MP for Walsall North, since 1979. The second deposit consists of papers relating to the enquiry carried out by the select committee on the environment into the sale of council dwellings (1979-1981). The third deposit consists of correspondence arranged alphabetically; constituency correspondence (1976-1979) and miscellaneous papers including papers relating to the enquiries by the select committee on the environment into housing and local government. The fourth deposit comprises constituency notes (1980-1982); constituency correspondence (1980-1982) and select committee material on prisoners and crime. The fifth deposit also consists of constituency notes and correspondence (1983-1984) along with a large number of files on organisations such as the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff; Newman College and St Margaret's Hospital, both in Birmingham, lobby groups such as Scientists Against Nuclear Arms and subjects such as employment, community programmes, social security reforms, unemployed workers' centres as well as subject files for Walsall, especially relating to housing. The sixth deposit comprises constitutuency notes and correspondence (1985) and subject files on organisations such as the Church Mission for the Deaf and various Walsall organisations as well as a file on Ethiopia, one on immigration, one on the Pakistani Muslim Welfare Association and miscellaneous other subject files. The seventh deposit comprises closed correspondence arranged alphabetically, files on European legislation, a file on immigration and the Chinese community (1983-1985), a file on the housing bill, files on Police Special Branch, files on the prison service (1985-1987), a file on race relations (1985), files on television licences for pensioners and miscellaneous other files.