Background
REES, Merlyn was born on December 18, 1920 in Cilfynydd. Son of late L. D. Rees and of E. M. Rees.
REES, Merlyn was born on December 18, 1920 in Cilfynydd. Son of late L. D. Rees and of E. M. Rees.
He attended the London School of Economics where he received Bachelor of Science(Economy) and Master of Science (Economy).
Born in Cilfynydd, near Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales, and educated at Harrow Weald Grammar School, Harrow, England and Goldsmiths College, London where he was president of the students" union from 1939 to 1941. He served in the Royal Air Force the University of Nottingham Air Squadron during World World War II, becoming a squadron leader at 25. He was appointed schoolmaster at his old school in Harrow in 1949, teaching economics and history.
He taught for eleven years, during which time he was three times an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Harrow East, in 1955, 1959, and in a 1959 by-election.
At a by-election in 1963, he stood successfully as the Labour candidate for Leeds South, succeeding Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, who had died in office. He held the seat until he stepped down from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election.
The constituency was renamed as Morley and Leeds South in 1983. He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from March 1974 until September 1976, when he was appointed Home Secretary.
Foreign two years before the Labour government came to power in 1974 he had been Labour Party spokesman on Northern Ireland.
Rees wrote of his views on Northern Ireland in: Northern Ireland: a Personal Perspective. One month after his appointment as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Rees lifted the proscription against the illegal loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in an attempt to bring them into the democratic process, however, the organisation was implicated in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings on 17 May 1974 and the group was once more banned by the British Government on 3 October 1975. Retirement
When he retired from the House of Commons in 1992, he was created a life peer as Baron Merlyn-Rees, of Morley and South Leeds in the County of West Yorkshire and of Cilfynydd in the County of Mid Glamorgan and entered the House of Lords, having changed his name, on 23 June 1992, by deed poll to Merlyn Merlyn-Rees to allow his title to be Merlyn-Rees rather than Rees.
He was president of the Video Standards Council from 1990 and was the first Chancellor of the University of Glamorgan, a position he held from 1994 to 2002.
He suffered injuries in a number of falls, and failing to recover from these, fell into a coma, dying at the age of 85. Legacy
Merlyn Rees Avenue in Morley, West Yorkshire is named after Rees.
Merlyn Rees Community High School in Belle Isle, Leeds was named after Rees until its merger with Mathew Murray Comprehensive School in 2006 when it was renamed South Leeds High School. Merlyn Rees, "Northern Ireland: a personal perspective", Methuen, London, 1985.
42nd United Kingdom Parliament. 43rd United Kingdom Parliament. 44th United Kingdom Parliament.
45th United Kingdom Parliament.
46th United Kingdom Parliament. 47th United Kingdom Parliament.
48th United Kingdom Parliament. 49th United Kingdom Parliament.
50th United Kingdom Parliament]
He was a member of the Institute of Education at the University of London from 1959 to 1962.
Married Colleen Faith Cleveley in 1949.