Joseph Westwood


Joseph Westwood was a Scottish Labour politician.
Educated at Buckhaven Higher Grade School, he worked as a draper's apprentice, messenger boy and miner. Westwood was an Industrial Organiser for Fife miners from 1916–18 and a political organiser for Scottish Miners from 1918 to 1929.

Biography

Westwood was elected as the Member of Parliament for Peebles and Southern Midlothian at the 1922 general election, and represented the constituency until he lost the seat in 1931. He was a candidate for East Fife at a by-election in February 1933 and was elected at Stirling and Falkirk in 1935, for which he represented until his death thirteen years later.
Westwood was Parliamentary Private Secretary to William Adamson as Secretary of State for Scotland from June 1929, and served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from March to August 1931 and again from May 1940 until May 1945. He served as Secretary of State for Scotland from July 1945 until October 1947.
He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1943.
His tenure as Secretary of State for Scotland has been considered as lacklustre. In the view of William George Pottinger, Westwood was a chronically indecisive politician and concludes that "it is best to regard Westwood's time as an intermission." In addition to his personal indecision, Westwood was disadvantaged by the fact that the Attlee ministry of which he was a Cabinet member was highly centralised in pursuing its objectives, and appeals that were specifically Scottish were distrusted and generally disregarded by the Government. Consequently, Westwood struggled to secure Cabinet backing for specifically Scottish measures in a way that his recent predecessors, most notably Tom Johnston, did not.
Westwood died in a car accident in 1948, and is buried in Dysart Cemetery, by Kirkcaldy in Fife, together with his wife.