Ashley, Jack (1922– )

British Labour politician. Profoundly deaf since 1967, Ashley campaigned inside and outside Parliament for the deaf and other disability groups. He sat as member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent from 1966–92, when he was raised to the peerage.

Ashley's autobiography Journey into Silence (1973) describes his long struggle to come to terms with his disability and resume his political career after an operation and viral infection had permanently deprived him of all hearing. In 1992 he published another volume of biography, Acts of Defiance.