Samuel Vyvyan Trerice Adams (22 April 1900 – 13 August 1951), known as Vyvyan Adams, was a British Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds West from 1931[1] to 1945, when he was defeated by the swing to Labour. He stood unsuccessfully in the Fulham East constituency in 1950. He had been adopted for the safe Conservative seat of Darwen early in 1951, but died later that year.

Vyvyan Adams
Member of Parliament
for Leeds West
In office
27 October 1931 – 15 June 1945
Preceded byTom Stamford
Succeeded byTom Stamford
Personal details
Born(1900-04-22)22 April 1900
Died13 August 1951(1951-08-13) (aged 51)
Political partyConservative

His Times obituary was headed Intellectual Honesty and Independence. He was opposed to appeasement of Mussolini (in Abyssinia) and Hitler, and was one of the few Conservative MPs (with Leo Amery, Duff Cooper, Anthony Eden, Harold Nicolson and Winston Churchill) to oppose the Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938. He was opposed to the death penalty.

Personal life

edit

He was educated at King's College School, Cambridge, Haileybury, and King's College, Cambridge (MA). He married in 1925 Mary Campin, who was later a television producer and programme director. He was a barrister, and was a Major in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry of the British Army in World War II.

In 1951 he drowned while swimming at Gunwalloe Church Cove near Helston, Cornwall, a place noted for strong currents. Their daughter Sally, then 14, helped her mother but was unable to save her father.

Publications

edit

He wrote several books, the first three under the pseudonym Watchman:

  • Right Honourable Gentlemen (1939)
  • What of the Night? (1940)
  • Churchill: Architect of Victory (1940)
  • A Letter to a Young Politician (1946)
  • The British Co-operative Movement (1948)

References and sources

edit
References
  1. ^ The International Who's Who 1943-44. 8th edition. George Allen & Unwin, London, 1943, p. 5.
Sources
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Leeds West
19311945
Succeeded by