Description

Admin History:

Harry Pursey was born in Sidmouth in 1891 and educated at the Royal Hospital School and the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. He joined the Royal Navy as a boy seaman in 1907 on HMS Impregnable and served with the Dover Patrol during the First World War; he took part in the Battle of Jutland on board Revenge. He rose through the ranks, serving as gunner in the Aegean, and helped in the successful evacuation of a Naval Air Service station on Lesbos island for which he received a mention in dispatches.

After the war he was posted to the Black Sea and around Turkey, and saw action in Somaliland and Mesopotamia. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1920, and to Lieutenant-Commander in February 1928.

He retired from the Navy in 1936 and ventured into journalism, reporting on the Spanish Civil War. He was elected as Labour MP for Hull East in 1945 and held the seat until 1970, when he retired and was succeeded by John Prescott.

He had a personal interest in "below-decks" naval history and also the 1931 Invergordon Mutiny. He died on 13 December 1980, and in his obituary 'The Times' described him as "the first naval officer promoted from the lower deck to enter Parliament".

Description:

The collection of over 1900 files includes personal and constituency correspondence and local Labour Party correspondence material. The vast majority, over 1300 files, are subject files, with 40 files of newspaper cuttings.