My friend Barry Winter, who has died aged 80, was a sociology and politics lecturer. He had half a century’s involvement with the Independent Labour party as its political and general secretary.

The party, which began in 1893, had a separate but supportive relationship with the Labour party for many years until, in 1975, during Barry’s tenure, it renamed itself Independent Labour Publications and turned into a pressure group inside Labour.

A member of the editorial board of the ILP paper Labour Leader, on occasions Barry also stood in as its de facto editor. His chronicle of the party, ILP: A Brief History, was published in 1982.

Barry was born in Stoke-on-Trent, to Esther (nee Michaels) and Clifford Winter, who were market traders. After attending a local grammar school, he went to Leeds University to study politics and sociology, and in 1967 became a lecturer in sociology at Margaret Macmillan College of Education in Bradford, where I was in his tutorial group. He supported the students in their political campaigns and in running alternative lecture programmes during their strikes.

In 1971 Barry switched to working full-time for the ILP, first as political secretary up to 1975, then as general secretary from 1975 to 1980, before returning to the post of political secretary for the next 14 years.

From 1994 he returned to academia, working as a politics lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University (now known as Leeds Beckett), initially part-time and then full-time, until retirement in 2011.

In his spare time he was an active campaigner for many causes across the years, organising students to attend demonstrations in London against the Vietnam war, marching with CND and on anti-apartheid protests, collecting money for striking miners and mobilising against the poll tax.

Most of all, however, he will be remembered for his kindness. At his home in Leeds, which he shared with his dog, Anna, he regularly took in people who needed help and shelter, particularly young people from the Armley area of the city. A lover of the Yorkshire countryside, he would arrange trips for some of them, along with his friends, to the Dales or to Bolton Abbey.

Barry was never interested in performative political gestures and stood out as someone who lived out his politics in everyday life.

He is survived by 13 cousins.