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Philip Noel-Baker pictured at the Noel-Baker School, Bracknell Drive, Alvaston in October 1980

Philip Noel-Baker was born plain Philip Baker on November 1, 1889, and represented Derby as an MP for more than 30 years.

He ran for Great Britain at the Stockholm Olympic Games, and was team manager as well as a competitor for the British track team for the 1920 and 1924 Olympics. In 1920 at Antwerp he won a silver medal in the 1500 metres. The exploits of the British team at the 1924 Games were later made famous in the 1982 film Chariots of Fire, though Noel-Baker was not portrayed in that film.

During World War I, Noel-Baker organised and commanded the Friends' Ambulance Unit attached to the fighting front in France (1914-1915), and was then adjutant of the First British Ambulance Unit for Italy (1915-1918), for which he received medals from France and Italy as well as his own country.

After the war, Noel-Baker was heavily involved in the formation of the League of Nations. He also spent time as an academic early in his career. He was a professor of international law at the University of London from 1924 to 1929 and a lecturer at Yale University from 1933 to 1934.

His political career with the Labour Party began in 1924 when he ran unsuccessfully for Parliament.

He was elected as the member for Coventry in 1929, but lost his seat in 1931.

In 1936 Noel-Baker won a by-election in Derby after J.H. Thomas resigned. When that seat was divided in 1950, he transferred to Derby South and continued until 1970. In 1977, he was made a life peer as Baron Noel-Baker, of the City of Derby.

As well as a parliamentary secretary role during World War II under Winston Churchill, he served in a succession of junior ministries in the Attlee Labour Government. He was also prominent within Labour, serving as Chairman of the Labour Party in 1946. In the mid-1940s, Noel-Baker served on the British delegation to what became the United Nations, helping to draft its charter and other rules for operation as a British delegate.

He acquired his hyphenated surname after marrying field hospital nurse Irene Noel in 1915 and the couple alongside his father in the Commons.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959.

A secondary school in Derby still bears his name.

He died on October 8, 1982.

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