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Reginald Sorensen
‐
Labour politician and supporter of anti-colonialist movements
Other names
Reginald William Sorensen
Place of birth
Place of death
Leytonstone
About
Reginald Sorensen was a politician and Unitarian clergyman. Sorensen became a member of the Liberal Christian League and was influenced by Rev. Reginald John Campbell. Sorensen joined the Finsbury branch of the Independent Labour Party in 1908. In the 1920s he stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate for Southampton. He was elected to Parliament for Leyton West in 1929. His brother-in-law, Fenner Brockway, served at the same time as him as an MP for Leyton East. Both lost their seats in the 1931 general election but Sorensen regained his seat in 1935.
Sorensen was a supporter of anti-colonial liberation movements. He was part of the Fabian Colonial Bureau. In the 1930s Sorensen became a supporter of the India League. Although he had many disagreements with Krishna Menon, they had similar views about Indian self-determination. By 1937 he became the Parliamentary Secretary of the India League, a position he shared with Tom Williams. Sorensen co-organized the National Independence Day demonstration that took place on 26 January 1938 in Trafalgar Square, which attracted around 1,000 people in an expression of solidarity with the Republicans fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and with the struggles in China and Abyssinia. He also co-organized the India League’s Independence Day event in 1939. Sorensen regularly chaired India League meetings or spoke at events. He also challenged the British Government’s position on India in Parliament.
In 1946 he was part of the government deputation to India led by Robert Richards. While a staunch supporter of Indian independence, he was not in favour of the partition of the subcontinent. In 1964 he was given a life peerage. He died in 1971.
Aftab Ali, Surat Alley, Mulk Raj Anand, P. C. Bhandari, Ben Bradley, H. N. Brailsford, Reginald Bridgeman, Fenner Brockway, Stafford Cripps, Rajani Palme Dutt, Michael Foot, M. K. Gandhi, Agatha Harrison, J. F. Horrabin, C. L. R. James, C. L. Katial, Jomo Kenyatta, Diwan Chaman Lal, George Lansbury, Harold Laski, Krishna Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajni Patel, Harry Pollitt, B. Shiva Rao, Bertrand Russell, Sehri Saklatvala, Krishnarao Shelvankar, Sasadhar Sinha, Mul Raj Soni, Edward J. Thompson, S. A. Wickremasinghe, Ellen Wilkinson.
God and Bread (Walthamstow: Guild Shop, 192?)
Men or Sheep? (Ripley: J. S. Reynolds, 192?)
The New Generation (Leicester: Blackfriars Press, 192?)
The 'Red Flag' and Patriotism (Southampton: Hobbs & Son, 192?)
Tolpuddle or 'Who's afeared': A Democratic Episode in Three Acts (London: T. C. Foley, 1929)
'These things shall be' – But What Thinks the Bookmaker? (Walthamstow: R. Sorensen, 1940)
India and the Atlantic Charter (London: India League, 1942)
For Sanity and Humanity (London: R. W. Sorensen, 1943)
Famine, Politics – and Mr Amery (London: India League, 1944)
My Impression of India (London: Meridian, 1946)
Aden: The Protectorate and the Yemen (London: Fabian International & Commonwealth Bureaux, 1961)
The Liberty of the Subject (London: United Kingdom Temperance Alliance, 1964)
I Believe in Man (London: Lindsey Press, 1970)
Howe, Stephen, Anticolonialism in British Politics: The Left and the End of Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)
Owen, Nicholas, The British Left and India: Metropolitan Anti-imperialism, 1885–1947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
Philpot, Terry, ‘Sorensen, Reginald William, Baron Sorensen (1891–1971)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/75406]
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
L/PJ/12/448-56, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester
Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford
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© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
