Daily Lansbury

Today, let's learn about Angela Lansbury's grandfather, the politician George Lansbury. He was a member of the Labor party, and also a pacifist. There is a lot of info about him here, at his Biography from Answers.com page. Here is some of my favorite trivia about him:

After numerous unsuccessful candidatures Lansbury was eventually elected for Bow and Bromley in 1910. But he resigned his seat in 1912, in protest at the imprisonment of suffragettes. In 1913 he was imprisoned after a speech at a suffrage meeting. Out of parliament (until 1922) he was active in local government in Poplar (London) and was again imprisoned, for "Poplarism" — refusing to collect local rates from the unemployed.

A lifelong pacifist, he had defended conscientious objectors during World War I, and in 1935 he resigned as party leader over the issue of League of Nations sanctions against Italy, a move he thought would lead to war. He advocated unilateral disarmament by Great Britain during the 1930s, and in 1937 visited Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in an attempt to avoid war.

There is lots more there. He was clearly a principled and intelligent man, but of course we expected that, since he is part of the gene pool that spawned Lansbury!