Bert Pearce

Herbert Pearce (6 January 1919 – 21 August 2002), commonly known as Bert Pearce, was a Welsh communist activist and political candidate.

Born in Pembroke Dock, Pearce was educated at the Pembroke Dock County School. In 1936 he followed his parents' example by becoming a member of the Labour Party; he was working at the time as a clerk in the local labour exchange. By 1938 he had moved to Handsworth, Birmingham and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Starting in 1941, he was a full-time Party official. Following the 1968 Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, he began to be critical of the Soviet Union.

Pearce stood in multiple elections as a Communist MP candidate, including the 1955 and 1959 general elections in Birmingham Perry Barr, the 1963 Swansea East by-election, and the 1970 general election for the Neath constituency. He also stood in the 1968 South Cardiff ward election, and four times in municipal elections in Birmingham.

The CPGB dissolved in 1991, and Pearce backed its successor, Democratic Left. He devoted much of the 1990s to caring for his ailing wife Margaret. In 1998 when Nelson Mandela gave a speech in Cardiff, he thanked Pearce for his support during the anti-apartheid movement.

On 21 August 2002, Bert Pearce died in Cardiff. He was 83.