Alliance Party
Which party was Brian Wilson (Northern Ireland politician) a member of in Mar 1981?
Brian Wilson ( Northern Ireland politician ) Brian Wilson MLA ( born 15 May , 1943 ) is a Northern Irish politician who was a member of North Down Borough Council for 34 years ( 1981–2015 ) . He retired when local government was reformed . During this time he served as an Alliance member , Green Party and Independent . He was the first Green Party Councillor to be elected in Northern Ireland in 2005 and in 2007 he became the first member of the Green Party to be elected as a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly . He agreed to serve as MLA for a single term and stood down to be replaced by his research assistant Steven Agnew . Early life . Wilson was born in 1943 in Bangor , County Down . He attended Trinity Primary School and Bangor Grammar School . A former civil servant in the Department of Education , he studied part-time at the Open University and in 1973 left the civil service to do a full-time masters degree in Politics at the University of Strathclyde . Career . Academic career . On his return to Northern Ireland he lectured at Omagh Technical College in 1979 from where he transferred to the College of Business Studies as a lecturer in government and economics . He was a senior lecturer at BIFHE for 24- years , until he retired in 2003 . Political career . In the 1970s he became a member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party and then joined the Alliance Party in 1975 . He was elected to North Down Borough Council at the 1981 local elections and was elected mayor in 1993/1994 . During this period , he unsuccessfully contested North Down in the 1982 Assembly Election . In 1996 he was an unsuccessful candidate in the Northern Ireland Forum election in North Down . In 1997 Wilson left the Alliance Party and was elected as an independent councillor for Bangor West in 2001 topping the poll for the fourth successive election with 1871 votes ( 1.6 quotas ) . In 2003 he again stood as an independent candidate for the Assembly increasing his share of the poll by 10% and finishing tenth out of 19 candidates on the first count . In 2004 he joined the Green Party . The following year he became the first Green Party representative to be elected to public office in Northern Ireland when he again topped the poll in Bangor West . Then in 2007 he won the first Green Partys seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly , winning a seat in the North Down constituency on the 10th count , after increasing the Green vote from 730 to 2,839 first preferences . He served on the Environment Committee , DRD Committee and Privileges Committee in the Northern Ireland Assembly . In 2011 he stood down from the Northern Ireland Assembly , in favour of his research assistant Steven Agnew who retained the seat for the Greens . He stood instead for Bangor West seat on North Down Council , as an independent , standing against both his wife ( Anne Wilson , Alliance Party ) and the Green Party candidate . Both Wilson and his wife were reelected as councillors . He again topped the poll with his highest ever percentage of first preference votes ( 1458 ) . Personal life . In 1979 he married Anne whom he met when studying in Scotland . They have two children Scott ( born 1980 ) and Allan ( born 1982 ) and two step children Roy and Caroline . He was a member of the Board of Governors of Rathmore Primary School from 1981 to 2011 . He is presently a member of the BoG of St . Columbanus College , former member of South Eastern Education and Library Board , former member of North Down District Policing Partnership , former member of the Eastern Health Board & Health Council and former governor of the North Down & Ards Institute . Brian is also a member of Greenpeace , RSPB and Friends of the Earth . External links . - Personal site - Councillor details on North Down Council site - Greens make assembly breakthrough , BBC