Arthur Colegate

Sir (William) Arthur Colegate (1883 – 10 September 1956) was a British Conservative Party politician who served in the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1941 to 1945 and from 1950 to 1955.

Colegate was son of Robert Colegate and educated privately before he entered University College London, where he joined the Fabian Society and acted as a research assistant to Beatrice and Sydney Webb. He then became a civil servant when he entered the Board of Trade in 1910, before moving into business. He was a director of Brunner Mond and Company until 1927 (following their amalgamation into ICI) and British Overseas Stores and was chairman of W.G. Allen & Sons (Tipton) Ltd and of the Wright Saddle Company. From 1925 to 1929, he served as President of the Industrial Property Committee of International Chamber of Commerce, was a Governor of Harper Adams Agricultural College from 1941 to 1947, and President of the Rural District Councils Association.

Abandoning his youthful ideology, Colegate joined the Conservative Party and unsuccessfully contested the Sowerby constituency at the 1929 general election, but he was elected for The Wrekin at a by-election in September 1941, following the death at sea of James Baldwin-Webb. He lost the seat at the 1945 general election, but was successful in Burton, (where he had been adopted as candidate in 1947), at the 1950 general election, holding his seat in 1951, and standing down at the 1955 general election, the same year that he was knighted.