Jocelyn Cadbury

Jocelyn Cadbury was born in Birmingham in 1946,[1] the son of Laurence Cadbury and Joyce née Mathews,[2] and the younger brother of Sir Adrian Cadbury and Sir Dominic Cadbury. He was educated in the great house run by Nigel Wykes at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in Economics and Anthropology. Alongside his academic studies, he was a keen rower.[3]

In 1970, he began working at Lucas Industries in Birmingham, as an industrial relations officer. From 1974, he worked for Cadbury.[3]

At the 1979 general election, on his second attempt, Cadbury was elected Member of Parliament for Birmingham Northfield, defeating Labour incumbent Raymond Carter. It was one of the Conservatives' best and most surprising results in that election, as a Labour majority of 10,597 was overturned into a Conservative one of 204 on a 10.2% swing.

Cadbury argued for an alternative economic strategy to help manufacturing industry. Together with other Conservative MPs, he supported a September 1981 pamphlet called "Changing Gear", which criticised the government's economic approach.[3]

In November 1981, Cadbury was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Industry, Norman Lamont.[3]

On 31 July 1982, Cadbury committed suicide, shooting himself in the garden of his parents' home in Birmingham. He was 36.[4]

• Times Guide to the House of Commons, 1979
• The Almanac of British Politics (1999)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Jocelyn Cadbury