With over 47 years in office, he was the longest-serving Labour MP in the party's history until 15 December 2017, when his record was overtaken by Dennis Skinner.

[4] He contested the seat of Holland with Boston in Lincolnshire in the 1931 general election, but the sitting National Liberal MP James Blindell was reelected.

[5] (His Labour colleague Thomas Macpherson was elected in Romford in 1945, but lost the seat to the Conservative John Lockwood in 1950).

[4] His private member's bill introduced in 1952 to repeal the Sunday Observance Act 1780 was rejected; however, another private member's bill of his became the Legitimacy Act 1959, dealing with the legitimacy of children from void marriages and that of children whose parents married after their birth.

[1] He wrote several books, including 42 Days in the Soviet Union (1946) and Labour Marches On (1947), and his memoirs, Father of the House (1982).