Scanlon of Davyhulme, Hugh Parr Scanlon, Baron

▪ 2005

      British trade-union leader (b. Oct. 26, 1913, Melbourne, Australia—d. Jan. 27, 2004, Broadstairs, Kent, Eng.), tenaciously and unswervingly upheld trade-union principles and workers' rights and influenced public policy in Great Britain during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Scanlon joined the Amalgamated Engineering Union while still a teenager and became a shop steward in 1935, rising to the presidency of the union in 1968. A convinced socialist, he changed the political orientation of the union and browbeat employers and the government to adhere to union demands. He accepted a life peerage in 1979 but continued to support the trade-union movement from Parliament's House of Lords.

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