Sir Leslie Arthur Plummer, known to friends as Dick (2 June 1901 – 15 April 1963) was a British farmer, newspaper executive and politician. He was in charge of the Overseas Food Corporation during the disastrous Tanganyika groundnut scheme in the late 1940s; later he became a Labour Party Member of Parliament where he pioneered attempts to outlaw racial discrimination.
Plummer was born in Demerara, British Guiana, where his father was working. He...
more
Sir Leslie Arthur Plummer, known to friends as Dick (2 June 1901 – 15 April 1963) was a British farmer, newspaper executive and politician. He was in charge of the Overseas Food Corporation during the disastrous Tanganyika groundnut scheme in the late 1940s; later he became a Labour Party Member of Parliament where he pioneered attempts to outlaw racial discrimination.
Plummer was born in Demerara, British Guiana, where his father was working. He was educated at Tottenham Grammar School in North London, and first worked on the managerial staff of the Daily Herald from 1919. In 1922 he became General Manager for the New Leader, a paper edited by H. N. Brailsford as the party journal of the Independent Labour Party. Plummer shared the left-wing sentiments of the ILP. In 1923 Plummer married Beatrice Lapsker; there were no children of the marriage.
Plummer was selected as Labour Party candidate for Birmingham Edgbaston in the mid-1920s but gave up the candidacy in May 1927. He left the...
less
