Daily Telegraph
The 3rd Lord Rea, who has died aged 91, was a North London GP who used his hereditary membership of the House of Lords to promote his concerns about public health – and especially smoking – and was briefly a Labour front-bench spokesman.
John Nicolas Rea was born on June 6 1928 to James Rea, second son of the 1st Baron, and the former Betty Bevan. He was educated at Dartington Hall; Belmont Hill school, Massachusetts, in wartime; Dauntsey’s; and Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he took his MD. He trained at University College Hospital in Public Health and Obstetrics.
Rea took his seat in the Lords – and the Labour whip – in 1982, the year after succeeding his uncle, a merchant banker and Liberal leader in the upper house. Keeping up his practice, he found that being a peer enabled him to highlight medical issues, notably the need to prevent heart disease. For relaxation, he played the bassoon.
In 1992, as Rea was winding down his practice, John Smith brought him on to the front bench as spokesman on health, development and co-operation. His age impeded him from joining Tony Blair’s government, but when the upper house was reformed in 1999, he was one of the Labour hereditaries elected by colleagues to continue.
He was chairman of the Parliamentary Food and Health Forum, and of Healthlink Worldwide, formerly the Appropriate Health Resources and Technology Action Group.
Rea married Elizabeth Robinson in 1951; they had four sons and two daughters. The marriage was dissolved in 1991, in which year he married Judith Powell. He is succeeded as 4th Baron by his eldest son Matthew Rea.
The 3rd Lord Rea, born June 6 1928, died June 1 2020
Post by Michael Rhodes_. Lord Rea, the 3rd Baron, who has died aged 91, was one of the few hereditary peers to sit on the Labour benches in the Lords, elected in 1999.
https://peeragenews.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-3rd-baron-rea-1928-2020.html
-=-