Sir Dingle Mackintosh Foot was born in 1905, the eldest son of the Right Honourable Isaac Foot. In 1933 he married Mary Dorothy Elliston, the eldest daughter of William Rowley Elliston. He was educated on the Isle of Wight and at Balliol College, Oxford.
Foot was a Liberal and Labour MP.
He contested the Tiverton Division of Devon in 1929, Dundee in 1945, North Cornwall in 1950 and in 1951. Foot was Liberal MP for Dundee 1931-1945, he was Parliamentary Secretary Minister of Economic Warfare 1940-1945; he then joined the Labour Party in July 1956. He was MP (Labour) for Ipswich, October 1957-1970. He was Solicitor-General 1964-1967. He led the British Economic Warfare Delegation to Switzerland in 1945. Foot was called to Bar, Gray's Inn in 1930. He was admitted to the Gold Coast Roll of Legal Practitioners in 1948, to the Ceylon Roll of Advocates in 1951, to the Nigerian Bar in 1955, to the Northern Rhodesian Bar in 1956, to the Sierra Leone Bar in 1959, to the Supreme Court of India (as a Senior Advocate) in 1960 to the Bahrain Roll of Legal Practitioners in 1962, to the Malaya (later Malaysia) Roll of Legal Practitioners in 1964, to the South Rhodesia Roll of Legal Practitioners in 1964, and to the Northern Ireland Bar in 1970. He also appeared in the courts of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Pakistan, Hong Kong, and before the Commission of Human Rights at Strasbourg. Foot was chairman of the Society of Labour Lawyers, 1960-1964.
Sir Dingle Foot died in 1978.
The material held at Churchill Archives Centre deals with Sir Dingle's career as a Liberal and then a Labour Member of Parliament, as well as with his distinguished position in the legal profession, particularly with regard to Commonwealth countries and with his literary skills.
The Lady Foot, Sir Dingle Foot's widow, deposited her late husband's papers in Churchill Archives Centre in 1979 and 1980. DGFT II was deposited in 2000 by Mrs B Mitchels.
The papers have been arranged into 14 series, each series covering a different area of Foot's career, life or interests, and those of his wife. Each series is then arranged chronologically.
The collection is owned by Churchill College, Cambridge.
The collection is open (except for a few files which are closed under data protection) for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge. Churchill Archives Centre is open from Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm. A prior appointment and two forms of identification are required.
Researchers wishing to publish excerpts from the papers must obtain prior permission from the copyright holders and should seek advice from Archives Centre staff.
Please cite as Churchill Archives Centre, The Papers of Sir Dingle Foot, DGFT