WE are taking a look at the long career of Barrow MP Walter Monslow to mark the 50th anniversary of his death.

He was later Lord Monslow of Barrow and was the town’s MP for 21 years.

The former Labour MP died at his home in Rothesay, Bute, Scotland, on Wednesday, October 12, in 1966.

An article in the Evening Mail that day noted: “He was made a life peer early this year after completing an unbroken record of service to the Barrow and Dalton constituency.

“Lord Monslow, who was 71, had been in failing health for some time.”

He was the son of an iron moulder and became an errand boy at the age of 14 before starting as a railway worker, aged 15.

His successor as Barrow MP was Albert Booth, who said: “He was a most sincere and courageous representative of this constituency in a very difficult parliamentary period of the late forties and early fifties.”

He had been born in Wrexham and was first elected as Barrow MP in 1945 – defeating the Conservative Jonah Walker-Smith.

Barrow Cllr Albert Power said: “Walter Monslow represented a government which brought into being and laid the foundations of the Welfare State.

“He was a keen enthusiast for the Morecambe Bay barrage scheme.”