Peter Soulsby
British politician (born 1948)
Sir Peter Alfred Soulsby (born 27 December 1948) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Mayor of Leicester since 2011. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicester South from 2005 until he resigned his seat in April 2011, in order to contest the new post of mayor. He served as Leader of Leicester City Council from 1981 to 1994 and from 1996 to 1999.
Early life and education
Soulsby was born on 27 December 1948 in Bishop Auckland and attended the Minchenden School, a grammar school in Southgate, London. He studied at the City of Leicester College of Education Scraptoft. He gained a BEd from the University of Leicester in English and Drama. He worked as a teacher at Crown Hills Secondary Modern School and then as a special needs teacher.
Early political career
He was first elected to Leicester City Council in June 1973 and served as the Leader of the Council twice, firstly from 1981 to 1994 and secondly from 1996 to 1999. He remained a Labour councillor until he was defeated in the Spinney Hill ward in May 2003.
He unsuccessfully contested the Harborough parliamentary constituency at the 1979 general election.
“Peter Soulsby” enters the record as british politician (born 1948). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Peter, Soulsby and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7177032. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 2011, 2005 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peter Soulsby” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.