John Cartwright, who was Woolwich’s MP for nearly 18 years, has died at the age of 90.
Cartwright was a former leader of Greenwich Council who was elected Labour MP for Woolwich East in October 1974, three months after the previous MP, Christopher Mayhew, had defected to the Liberals.
In 1981, Cartwright made a similar journey – dumping Labour for the newly-formed Social Democratic Party in protest at his old party’s move to the left.
He held Woolwich for the SDP for another two elections, by which time the party was part of the SDP/Liberal Alliance, and helped Rosie Barnes usurp Labour in a by-election in Greenwich in 1987.
After the Alliance became the Liberal Democrats in 1988 both Cartwright and Barnes stayed loyal to their old party leader, David Owen, and stuck with the “continuing” SDP for another two years until that party folded in 1990.
Like Barnes, he fought the 1992 election as an independent Social Democrat, but they both narrowly lost their seats to Labour. Cartwright then became deputy chairman of the Police Complaints Authority before retiring.
The Woolwich seat was merged into Greenwich & Woolwich in 1997.
Cartwright forged his political career in the 1950s as the agent for Woolwich Labour Party, then the largest in the country. In the 1960s he became the political secretary to the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society – whose shops were then a common sight across southeast London – and in 1971 became Greenwich Council leader after Labour won the town hall back from the Tories.
He was also on Labour’s national executive committee at the time, embroiled in fights with the party’s left wing, while he had also unsuccessfully stood against Conservative leader Edward Heath in Bexley.
Away from politics, although born a Lincoln City supporter, Cartwright was the matchday announcer at Charlton Athletic – including on the day in 1969 when an elephant and camel were brought in from Chessington Zoo to parade around the ground before a match against Portsmouth.
The Daily Telegraph’s obituary said: “The crowd reacted scornfully, and when Charlton missed a penalty a lone voice exclaimed: ‘Bring on the f***ing camel!’ The experiment was not repeated.”
Cartwright died on November 18 after a series of falls, The Times reported.
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