Sir William Thomas Williams, QC (22 September 1915 – 28 February 1986) was a British Labour Co-operative politician.
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a Queen's Counsel during the reign of a queen, or King's Counsel during the reign of a king, is a lawyer who is appointed by the monarch of the country to be one of "Her [His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law". The position originated in England. Some Commonwealth countries have either abolished the position, or re-named it to eliminate monarchical connotations, such as "Senior Counsel" or "Senior Advocate".
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign country located off the northwestern coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea separates Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom's 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi) were home to an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
Williams was educated at University College, Cardiff and St Catherine's College, Oxford. He was President of the South Wales University Students' Union in 1939. He was a Baptist minister and a chaplain with the Royal Air Force for returned prisoners of war. He became a barrister, called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn, and a Queen's Counsel, and was bursar and a tutor at Manchester College, Oxford.
Cardiff University is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. Founded in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, it became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893, and in 1997 received its own degree-awarding powers, although it held them in abeyance. It merged with the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST) in 1988. The college adopted the public name of Cardiff University in 1999; in 2005 this became its legal name, as an independent university awarding its own degrees. The third oldest university institution in Wales, it contains three colleges: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Biomedical and Life Sciences; and Physical Sciences and Engineering.
St Catherine's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England and is the youngest college to teach both undergraduate and graduate students. Tracing its roots back to 1868, it has 502 undergraduate and 442 graduate students as of December 2017, making it the largest undergraduate college by membership in the University of Oxford.
A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric, or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, school, labor union, business, police department, fire department, university, or private chapel.
Williams was Member of Parliament (MP) for Hammersmith South from a 1949 by-election to 1955, Baron's Court from 1955 to 1959, and Warrington from a 1961 by-election. Williams served as parliamentary private secretary to the Attorney-General from 1964. In 1969, Williams was appointed by the then-East Pakistan based Awami League, one of Bangladesh's main political factions since independence in 1971, to represent Pakistani and later-Bangladeshi politician Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the Agartala Conspiracy Case. The military junta of Gen. Ayub Khan did not allow Williams to represent Rahman, citing domestic security and interference in sovereign matters.
Hammersmith South was a borough constituency in the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith in west London. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first-past-the-post system.
A by-election for the constituency of Hammersmith South in the United Kingdom House of Commons was held on 24 February 1949, caused by the death of the incumbent Labour MP William Thomas Adams. The result was a hold for the Labour Party, with their candidate Thomas Williams.
Barons Court was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1955 to 1974. It was represented by one Member of Parliament (MP), elected by the first-past-the-post system of election.
In 1981 Williams, who had continued working as a barrister throughout his time in Parliament, was appointed a circuit Judge. [1] [2] This appointment obliged him to vacate his seat and led to a by-election at which Roy Jenkins became the first Parliamentary candidate for the Social Democratic Party, although Labour narrowly retained the seat. Williams remains the last Member to vacate their seat for actual paid office. [3]
The Warrington by-election, 1981 was held on 16 July 1981.
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead,, was a Welsh Labour Party, SDP and Liberal Democrat politician, and biographer of British political leaders.
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was a centrist political party in the United Kingdom. The party supported a mixed economy, electoral reform, European integration and a decentralized state while rejecting the possibility of trade unions being overly influential within the industrial sphere.
He was knighted in the 1976 New Year Honours.
