Philip John Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker (born Philip John Baker; 1 November 1889 – 8 October 1982) was a British politician, diplomat, academic, athlete, and renowned campaigner for disarmament. He carried the British team flag and won a silver medal for the 1500m run at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959.

Noel-Baker is the only person to have won an Olympic medal and received a Nobel Prize. He was a Labour Member of Parliament (UK) for 36 years, serving from 1929 to 1931 and again from 1936 to 1970, serving in several ministerial offices and the cabinet. He was created a life peer in 1977.

Early life and education

Baker was born 1 November 1889 in Brondesbury Park, London, England, He reached the final of the 1500 metres, won by his fellow countryman Arnold Jackson. At the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Baker was captain of the British track team and carried the team's flag. He won his first-round race in the 800 metres, but then concentrated on the 1500 metres, taking the silver medal behind his teammate Albert Hill. He was captain again at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, but did not compete. Noel-Baker did much of the League's early work on the mandates system. and a lecturer at Yale University from 1933 to 1934. His political career with the Labour Party began in 1924 when he stood, unsuccessfully, for Parliament in the Conservative safe seat of Birmingham Handsworth. He was elected as the member for Coventry in 1929, and served as parliamentary private secretary to the Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson.

Noel-Baker lost his seat in 1931, but remained Henderson's assistant while Henderson was president of the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1932 to 1933. He stood for Parliament again in Coventry in 1935, unsuccessfully, but won the Derby by-election in July 1936 after the sitting Derby Member of Parliament J. H. Thomas resigned. When that constituency was split in 1950, he transferred to Derby South.

Noel-Baker became a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee in 1937. On 21 June 1938, Noel-Baker, as MP for Derby, in the run up to the Second World War, spoke at the House of Commons against aerial bombing of German cities based on moral grounds. "The only way to prevent atrocities from the air is to abolish air warfare and national air forces altogether."

In the coalition government during the Second World War he was a parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of War Transport from February 1942, and served as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs after Labour gained power following the 1945 general election, but had a poor relationship with the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin. Noel-Baker moved to become Secretary of State for Air in October 1946, and then became Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in 1947 and joined the cabinet.

Noel-Baker was the minister responsible for organising the 1948 Olympic Games in London. He moved to the Ministry of Fuel and Power in 1950. In the mid-1940s, Noel-Baker served on the British delegation to what became the United Nations, helping to draft its charter and other rules for operation as a British delegate. He served as Chairman of the Labour Party in 1946–47, but lost his place on the National Executive Committee in 1948, his place being taken by Michael Foot. An opponent of left-wing Bevanite policies in the 1950s, and an advocate of multilateral nuclear disarmament, rather than a policy of unilateral disarmament, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959. In 1979, with Fenner Brockway, he co-founded the World Disarmament Campaign, serving as co-Chair until he died, and was an active supporter of disarmament into the 1980s.

Noel-Baker stood down as the MP for Derby South at the 1970 general election, at which he was succeeded by Walter Johnson. His life peerage was announced in the 1977 Silver Jubilee and Birthday Honours and, aged 87, he was raised to the peerage 22 July 1977, as Baron Noel-Baker, of the City of Derby, having declined an appointment as a Companion of Honour in the 1965 New Year Honours. He was president of the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education from 1960 to 1976. Noel-Baker discusses the League of Nations Union and the Peace Ballot of 1934–35, as well as his work with the United Nations Association and the work of Kathleen Courtney.

Personal life

In June 1915, Philip John Baker married Irene Noel, a field hospital nurse in East Grinstead, subsequently adopting the hyphenated name Noel-Baker in 1921 by deed poll. His wife was a friend of Virginia Woolf. Their only son, Francis, also became a Labour MP and served together with his father in the Commons. Their marriage, however was not a success and Noel-Baker's mistress from 1936 was Megan Lloyd George, daughter of the former Liberal Party leader David Lloyd George, herself a Liberal and later Labour MP. The relationship ended when Irene died in 1956.

Works

Writings

  • (Reprint 1970, New York: Kennicat Press)
  • (Reprint 1972, New York: Dover Publications)

By Philip Noel-Baker with other authors

See also

  • Fridtjof Nansen
  • List of peace activists

References

Bibliography

Primary and secondary sources

  • Lloyd, Lorna: Philip Noel-Baker and the Peace Through Law in

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  • (timeline of Noel-Baker's life, and index to his papers held at Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge)