Vernon Bartlett

Charles Vernon Oldfeld Bartlett, CBE (30 April 1894 – 18 January 1983) was an English journalist, politician and author. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1938 to 1950: first as an Independent Progressive advocating a Popular Front, then for the Common Wealth Party, and then again as an Independent Progressive.

Life Born at Westbury, Wiltshire, the son of T. O. Bartlett, the young Bartlett was educated at Blundell's School, then joined the British Army during the First World War, from which he was invalided out. He became a journalist, working for the Daily Mail, and later was a foreign correspondent for The Times. In 1922, he was appointed director of the London office of the League of Nations, after which he worked as a news reporter for BBC radio. He did not have his BBC contract renewed after his coverage of Hitler's decision to leave the League of Nations in 1933 was deemed too sympathetic ("not beastly enough"). In 1933, he joined the News Chronicle and was its diplomatic correspondent for twenty years, including a period in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

Bartlett was elected to the House of Commons for the Somerset seat of Bridgwater as a Popular Front candidate opposed to appeasement in a by-election held on 18 November 1938. He held the seat for twelve years.

In 1942, Bartlett, Richard Acland, J. B. Priestley, and others established the socialist Common Wealth Party. At the 1945 election, Bartlett held his Bridgwater seat, standing as an Independent. In 1950, he joined the Labour Party and retired from parliament.

In 1954, Bartlett also retired from his work with the News Chronicle and moved to Singapore, where he was both political commentator for The Straits Times and also South East Asia correspondent for The Manchester Guardian. Personal life Bartlett married firstly Marguerite van den Bemden, and they had two sons. After her death in 1966, he married secondly in 1969 Eleanor Needham Ritchie. Publications Calf Love, 1929 Journey's End: a novel (with R. C. Sherriff), 1930 Nazi Germany Explained, 1933 If I Were Dictator, 1935 (contributor to Methuen & Co. LTD series) This is My Life, 1937 Tomorrow Always Comes, 1943 East of the Iron Curtain, 1950 Struggle for Africa, 1953 You and your surfboard, 1953 And Now, Tomorrow, 1960 Tuscan Retreat, 1964 A Book about Elba, 1965 Introduction to Italy, 1967 The Past of Pastimes, 1969 The Colour of their Skin, 1969 Tuscan Harvest, 1971 Central Italy, 1972 Northern Italy, 1973 I Know What I Liked, 1974