The British Labour Movement and Land Nationalisation

THE BRITISH LABOUR MOVEMENT AND LAND NATIONALISATION

By Betty Grant

Discussion about nationalisation has a long history in the British Labour movement. The word itself seems to have been used first by "Bronterre" James O'Brien (Left) in the Chartist period, and he used it in connection with the land.

But even before that, the idea of public, as distinct from private, ownership of land had been put forward by the Radical, Thomas Spence, who proposed in 1775 that parishes (the units of local government) should simply declare all land within their boundaries to be parish land, the rents to be paid to parish officers and used for all kinds of public purposes.

It was natural that the land should be the first "means of production" to attract the attention of Radical reformers in the early days of industrial capitalism.

For on the one hand the population of Britain still depended mainly on home produced food; while on the other hand, no industry had yet developed to a point where "nationalisation" would have seemed a practical proposition.

Until Marxism could find a foothold in Britain—which did not seriously happen until the 1880's—it was not to be expected that any specific schemes for nationalisation of an industry would be put forward by the working class.

All through the 19th century, opposition to landlordism and t

o aristocratic power based on landownership was one of the main planks of Radical reformers.

Dating from a time when the landed aristocracy really was the ruling power in Britain, this attitude was fortified by a deeply-felt conviction that the very institution of private landownership was a robbery of the common people.

Sometimes this was expressed in "historical" terms: the Anglo-Saxons, it was thought, had farmed the land communally—or alternatively, had all been freeholders—until the Normans had imposed their "yoke" of landlordism.

Often the Bible was quoted: "The Earth is the Lord's, and the fullness there of"; and "The Earth He hath given to the children of men." Memories of injustices caused by enclosure of common lands added to the indignation with which the typical Radical regarded the landed aristocracy.(Spence token William Pitt hanging).

Bronterre O'Brien

Yet, apart from Thomas Spence and his immediate followers, the Radicals had not developed any theory of public landownership until Bronterre O'Brien began to advocate the nationalisation of the land. By 1841 he was advocating the "gradual resumption by the state" of all the land in the country, by purchase as and when a landowner died. In his speeches about land nationalisation, O'Brien never failed to remind his audience that first of all political power must be won for the working classes via the Charter.

The highest peak was reached at the Chartist Convention of 1851, when a social programme which included land nationalisation was adopted. But by 1851 the economic ba sic for a mass movement was dwindling away, and the demand for nationalisation of land, like the other demands in the social programme, failed to take root in the working class.

The main practical importance of O'Brien's clear-cut theory on land nationalisation was perhaps that it served as a bridge between Radicals and Marxists. O'Brien's little organisation of devoted followers, the National Reform League, persisted (under different names) for many years after his own death in 1864 and continued to propagate the idea of land nationalisation.

So, when the International Working Men's Association (the First International) at its Congress in 1864 adopted as part of its policy "the abolition of private property in land", it was possible to set up in London a Land and Labour League in which O'Brienites and supporters of the International combined on a nine-point programme in which land nationalisation stood first.

Communist Manifesto

Although historically the demand for land nationalisation had developed in Britain from non-socialist Radical sources, it was also in line with the idea of socialism put forward by Marxists.

Indeed, Marx and Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, had put the land first in the list of reforms which the working class would deal with after acquiring power: "Abolition of property in land, and application of all rents of land to public purposes."

Both the International and the Land and Labour League ceased to function after a few years. But in the 1880's during, the Great Depression, which created mass unemployment for the first time since Chartist days, with a corresponding awakening of interest in fundamental economic questions, the "land question" again came to the fore. In the same period the struggles of the Irish Land League, under Michael Davitt's guidance, increased the interest of British Radicals in the land question in general.

T.U.C. policy

This time the idea of land nationalisation began to take root. It was brought into the T.U.C. by Radical trade unionists and, after a temporary victory in 1882, became official T.U.C. policy in 1886. In a different sphere, a Land 'Nationalisation Society was established in 1881 by a little group of Radical intellectuals led by Dr. A. Russel Wallace.

Two years later, some of its members broke away to form the Land Restoration League, which propaated the land nationalisation theory of the American Henry George, namely, that landlordism could be destroyed by a single heavy tax upon land which would make landowning so unprofitable that owners would eventually be willing to transfer their rights to the state.

Michael Davitt, too, being convinced that state ownership rather that peasant proprietorship was the true solution to the Irish land problem, became a popular propagandist in Britain in the early 1880's for the general idea of land nationalisation.

Meanwhile, a federation of London Radical clubs under Hyndman's leadership included land nationalisation in its programme, and this demand was maintained when the organisation took on a definitely socialist character and became the Social-Democratic Federation.

Hyndman himself, in his books of this period, combined his interpretation of Marx's analysis of capitalism with a factual approach to the land question in Britain in which the Radical solution of nationalisation was enlarged into a socialist critique of the capitalist exploitation of agriculture itself.

In this way land nationalisation became linked with the general aim of socialism, as it had been in the Communist Manifesto.

It was assumed by all who became converted to socialism—including the founders of the Independent Labour Party—that the land, like all other "means of production", should become the public or collective property of the whole people. The I.L.P. programme of 1895, for example, states the Object of the Party to be: "An Industrial. Commonwealth founded upon the socialisation of land and capital."

A productive industry

This programme also elaborates a policy for agriculture, including the establishment of a "state land department for agriculture", with agricultural colleges and model farms, and state organised marketing of farm produce.

Whereas Radicals had seen only the problems of landlordism. Socialists were beginning to see agriculture as a productive industry which could be regulated by the state on the basis of the public ownership of the land.

On the other hand, the very fact that public ownership of the land was now part and parcel of the general aim of socialism, coupled with the fact that the Fabians were advocating piecemeal municipal ownership, rather than total state ownership of the land, might have resulted in the aim of nationalisation being lost, had it not been for the two specific societies formed in the 1880's.

Red vans and Yellow vans

In the 1890's both these organisations, with the help of speakers from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) and Independent Labour Party (ILP) blossomed out with propaganda campaigns in the countryside.

The yellow vans of the Land Nationalisation Society and the red vans of the English Land Restoration League were now seen on village greens, and at hundreds of meetings farm-labourers were urged to support land nationalisation.

It is a notable fact that up till then the demand had come only from town-dwellers, who had not imagined that farm-labourers might be interested too.

More important was the deliberate turn towards the Labour movement made by the Land Nationalisation Society in the years before the First World War.

Affiliations were received from many Co-operative societies and from trade union branches—particularly the railwaymen's and miners' unions. which were both by this time demanding nationalisation of their own industries,

Parliamentary Bill

At the end of the war, in the general upsurge of militancy, the demand for land nationalisation was included in the Labour Party's programme. Labour and the New Social Order, at the same time as the Labour Party adopted a definitely socialist aim. And in 1921 a Bill for nationalisation of the land was presented in Parliament by Labour M.P's

At this point, with the aim of land nationalisation securely in the hands of the Labour movement, without which it could never be achieved, we can leave the story for the moment, taking up in the next article other, movements for nationalisation of railways and coal mines which had also developed before 1918.

Betty Grant

World News 14^th June 1958

END

Thomas Spence

(21 June 1750 - 8 September 1814)

Thomas Spence was born Newcastle in 1750, but of Scottish orrigin (His father was from Aberdeen).

Thomas Spence was born in Newcastle in 1750, one of nineteen children Spence became a schoolmaster. However a dispute between Newcastle Freemen and the Corporation over rents on the town moor, radicalised Spence in the 1770s began to argue that all land should be nationalised and that the land was as necessary to human existence as light, air and water; to deprive a man of the land was to deprive him of his life.

Spence's Plan

1. the end of aristocracy and landlords;

2. all land should be publicly owned by 'democratic parishes', which should be largely self-governing;

3. rents of land in parishes to be shared equally amongst parishioners;

4. universal suffrage (including female suffrage) at both parish level and through a system of deputies elected by parishes to a national senate; *

5. a 'social guarantee' extended to provide income for those unable to work;

6. the 'rights of infants' to be free from abuse and poverty.

Spence became strongly influenced by the teachings of Tom Paine and began to sell his pamphlets in Newcastle, as well as his own works.

By December 1792 Spence had been forced to move to London and attempted to make a living my selling Tom Paine's Rights of Man on street corners. He was arrested but soon after he was released from prison he opened a shop in Chancery Lane where he sold radical books and pamphlets.

In 1793 he started a periodical, Pig Meat

“Awake! Arise! Arm yourselves with truth, justice, reason. Lay siege to corruption. Claim as your inalienable right, universal suffrage and annual parliaments. And whenever you have the gratification to choose a representative, let him be from among the lower orders of men, and he will know how to sympathize with you”

Pig Meat was equally disliked by the establishment and in May 1794 he was arrested and imprisoned. After his release from prison Thomas Spence moved to a shop he called the 'Hive of Liberty', in Little Turnstile, Holburnn At the night the men walked the streets and chalked on the walls slogans such as "Spence's Plan and Full Bellies" and "The Land is the People's Farm".

In 1797 he published a constitution for his Spencean Commonwealth, which consists of two parts, the first being a reprint of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the second a codification of his agrarian proposals contained in his Newcastle lectures, adding the new provision of female suffrage.

Spence’s other "plan", for the reform of English spelling, was equally important in his eyes. Spence’s Grand Repository of the English Language (1775) was written, not for gentlemen, but for "the laborious part of the people", in order to make reading, and therefore enlightenment, accessible to them.

Shortly before his death he was working on a new periodical The Giant Killer or Anti Landlord

When Thomas Spence was buried, "forty disciples" pledged that they would keep his ideas alive. They did this by forming the Society of Spencean Philanthropists. The men met in small groups all over London.

In 1815 Society of Spencean Philanthropists was founded and one of its groups ended infamously in the “Cato Street Conspiracy” in 1820 with an alleged attempt to kill the Prime Minister lord Liverpool and the rest of the British Cabinet John Brunt, William Davidson, James Ings, Arthur Thistlewood and Richard Tidd were hanged at Newgate Prison May 1, 1820; the death sentences of Charles Cooper, Richard Bradburn, John Harrison, James Wilson and John Strange were commuted to transportation for life.

Thomas Spence pamphlet, The Real Rights of Man, which was first sold in Newcastle under the original title “Property in Land - Every One’s Right" based on his lecture of 8th November December 1775, appeared in London in 1793. It was reissued by Henry Hyndman under the title of The Nationalisation of the Land in 1795 and 1882.

A blue plaque for Thomas Spence has now been agreed by Newcastle City Council. Broad Garth on the Quayside is the likely site. The hope is that the plaque will be unveiled on Monday June 21st 2010, the 260th anniversary of Thomas Spence's birth.

For more information visit the Thomas Spence Society:
http://thomas-spence-society.co.uk/

Robbie Burns - Revolutionary Socialist ?

It is impossible to be neutral about Burns

On the 200^th Anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns

24^th January 1959

By J.R.Campbell

World News

For the occasion of the bi-centenary of Robert Burns we are better able to understand the man and the poet than ever before and to see what contribution he made to literature and to life. It is impossible to be neutral about Burns and it has always been difficult to make a balanced estimation, but in this age of revolutionary change, those who are striving to promote that change are in an excellent position to understand Burns’ position in similar circumstances at the end of the eighteenth century.

Unfortunately for Burns’ reputation, the period after his death when the first biographies were being written was one of political reaction, when it was difficult to take a firm stand for the radical democracy which was Burns’ ideal.

The French Revolution had first attracted and then repelled the intelligentsia and sympathy for radical change was on the wane. So Burns’ politics were on the whole played down.

“His politics smelt . . .”

The remark “his politics smelt of the smiddy” [smithy] took the place of a serious analysis of his opinions. It was also an age of religious reaction. The British ruling class had been thoroughly shaken by the French Revolution, which they attributed in part to the irreligious teachings of the Encyclopedists.

If a similar misfortune were not to befall Britain, then everything possible must be done to ensure that the people were indoctrinated with religion. In the Scots Churches there was a swing back, from the liberal interpretations of Christian doctrine which Burns had backed in his own lifetime, to the stern discipline of Calvinism.

The rapidly forming proletariat had to be kept in “decency and order”. Those aspects of Burns’ poetry which did not fit in with this new social climate were consistently underplayed.

Burns’ first biographer. Dr. Currie, was more than pained at the poet’s addiction to, and praise of, strong drink and was only too eager, in the manner of later temperance advocates, to cite the poet as an example to be avoided. In addition he was prepared to water down anything in Burns’ past life that might not fit in with the current political reaction.

Burns’ good friends in Dumfries were only too anxious to ensure that Dr. Currie’s forthcoming volumes had the widest possible sale and that in their opinion was most likely if they offended nobody. The more extensive the sale of this work, the more there would be to support Burns’ widow, Jean Armour Burns, and to educate his children.

So Dr. Currie got in first with the legend of Burns as a chronic alcoholic and little attention was paid to those who sought to paint another picture.

Stained glass picture

If the radical poet could be presented as a harum-scarum reprobate, who by some queer accident wrote very good poetry, it might prevent anyone from being greatly interested in his politics.

When the rebellion against this false picture came, it went to the other extreme. A stained-glass picture of the poet became common. He was represented as a sentimentalist almost too good for this wicked world.

The famous portrait by Nasmyth, which certainly did not represent Burns “warts and all”, was constantly reproduced and each successive reproduction made Burns more and more of a cissy.

For this ethereal poet an ethereal lover was invented and we have, alongside the poet’s earthly lady loves, that creature of stardust, “Highland Mary”.

It is not necessary to follow recent biographers in denigrating Mary. The sober fact is that hardly any-thing is known about her one way or another. So to the exceedingly ethereal picture of Burns, legend had to add the equally ethereal picture of his Highland goddess Bible in hand.

The emerging bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century annexed Burns. Their annual Burns dinners became ritualised. It was an occasion for listening to Bums’ songs and poems the more sentimental preferably and for testing the qualities of strong drink.

A curious feature of some of these ceremonies which still survives, is that they give scope for toasts not only on “The Immortal Memory” or “the Lassies” but also on “the Town and Trade” in which some local employer or magistrate gives his views on the economic situation.

In the middle of enjoying Burns, it was necessary not to forget business. Those gatherings are well summed up by Hugh MacDiarmid when he describes them as voicing:

Burns’ sentiments o’ universal love,

In pidgin English or in wild-fowl Scots,

And toasting ane wha’s nocht to them

but an

Excuse for faitherin’ genius wi’ their

thochts.

It is therefore significant to note what was put in. Burns was hoping for support born the local gentry for the first edition of his poems, yet the landlord and their ladies are not spared in the Twa Dogs.

But gentlemen an’ ladies warst

Wi’ ev’n down want o’ wark are crust,

They loiter lounging, lank an’ lazy,

Tho’ deil-haet ails them, yet uneasy:

Their days insipid, dull and tasteless,

Their nichts unquiet, lang an’ restless,

The men cast out in party-matches

Then sowther a’ in deep debauches

Ae nicht they’re mad wi’ drink and

whoring .

Niest day their life is past enduring.

If that was Burns when he was trying to be cautious, you can guess what hewas like when he was reckless (as he frequently was). Or take his address to George the Third in A Dream:

Far be’t from me that I aspire,

To blame your legislation

Or say ye wisdom want, or fire

To rule this mighty nation.

But faith I muckle doubt, my Sire,

Ye’ve trusted ministration

To chaps, wha in a barn or byre

Wad better fill their station

Than courts yon day.

Mr. Daiches complains that “at intervals a note of vulgar familiarity emerges, which would have been offensive even if the poem had been addressed to a fellow farmer,” But surely Burns meant to be more offensive to George the Third than he would ever dream of being to a fellow farmer.

To the Duke of Clarence, who was running around with a well known actress. Burns indicates that he ought to marry the girl. The Duke, like many royal dukes since, was pretending to be a sailor:

Young royal Tarry Breeks,. I learn

Ye’ve lately come athwart her,

A glorious galley, stem and stern,

Well rigged for Venus barter,

But first hang out that she’ll discern,

Your Hymeneal charter,

Then heave aboard your grapple airn

And large, upo her quarter,

Come full that day.

Burns was living in what was frankly and openly an oligarchy. Most modern poets congratulate themselves on living in a democracy where speech is free.

Yet they are with few exceptions much more scared of the Establishment than Burns was. Imagine them venturing on the theme of the Abdication of Edward VIII with all its opportunities for sentimentality or satire.

Burns was in a measure expressing the republican sentiments of his native Ayrshire, which had stood on the very left of the Covenanting movement and so he was intellectually prepared to support the Great French Revolution when

it materialised. But by this time he had ceased to be an independent, if precariously situated, young farmer.

He was now an Exciseman and infinitely victimisable. So he had to manoeuvre, but each retreat was followed by a daring counter-blow. No one could keep Burns quiet for long. His two heaviest counter-blows “Scots wha hae and “Is there for honest Poverty” were published at the time when the supporters of political reform were being harried in Scotland.

Still the sense of being hemmed in was with Bums in his last years and growing ill-health added to his difficulties. But there he was, in fair days and foul, labouring away at Scots songs.

Those who alleged that his intellectual powers were declining should read the remarkable series of letters, which he sent along to George Thomson in Edinburgh. For their understanding of Scots song they remain unequalled even today. Years before he had written:

Even then a wish (I mind its power)

A wish that to my latest hour -

Shall strongly heave my breast,

That I, for poor auld Scotland’s sake,

Some useful plan or book could make

Or sing a sang at least.

That wish was at least fulfilled but he would have accomplished more if he had not been frustrated by political repression and by the constant menace of victimisation. This reflection will not prevent the present Establishment in Scotland and England (in their own right no mean exponents of victimisation) from delivering their orations and toasting the Immortal Memory.

Communist Party
World News 1959

EXTRA NOTES

Robbie Burns was a supporter and identified with the French Revolution, in his poem " Why Should we idly waste our Prime?" he states:-

"Proud Priests and Bishops we'll translate
And canonise as Martyrs;
The guillotine on Peers shall wait;
And Knights shall hang in garters.
Those Despots long have trod us down,
And judges are their engines;
Such wretched minions of a Crown
Demand the People's vengeance!
Today tis theirs. Tomorrow we
Shall don the Cap of Libertie!"

Burns also wrote a short poem in 1792, entitled The Slave's Lament, describing the homesickness of a man snatched from Senegal and put to work on a Virginia plantation.

A Brief History of Bedford Labour Party

BEDFORD LABOUR PARTY

A picture allegedly of Bedford Labour Hall

“The forward march will be no easier than that which has gone before. No Service is too great for such a cause for it is the cause of humanity. No enemy can defeat it in the end for it has its allies in the hearts of men and women everywhere. Hold fast to what has been altered, and march to higherachievements in the future”

James Seamark founding Secretary Bedford Labour Party 1951

The origins of Bedford Labour Party can be traced to the work of the town's railwaymen and their unions. Bedford had a considerable number of railway work

ers and they were increasingly concerned about their wages and particularly their working conditions as this local poem printed in theBedfordshire Mercury in 1902 reveals:

The Railway Worker

Twixt labour and capital lately

A great deal of strife there has been;

I always feel happy indeed, when

A victory by Labour I’ve seen;

Some men amass wonderful fortunes,

By the sweat from the labourer’s brow,

Others toil all their life time,

And scarcely get food anyhow.

But the public are getting enlightened

And I do hope that some day

We shall see all the working people

Get much better paid, but

I wonder how long it will be.

Of Railway accidents lately,

There has been a great number I read;

To find out a plan to prevent them,

We seem very backward indeed;

What care our wealthy Directors ?

Nothing, or else I am sure,

Their servants they’d pay much better

And likewise employ a few more.

Through overworked underpaid servants,

These accidents occur, you’ll agree

But one day Directors

Will look at such things, but

I wonder how long it will be.

This piece of McGonaglesque doggerel sharply pointed up the issue involved in the Taff Vale dispute - the long working hours (up to 90 a week) which had the effect of causing accidents and endangering the lives of workmen and the public.

The strike in Taff Vale resulted in the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants being taken to court and sued for damages for loss of trade resulting from the strike. This decision reverberated round the trade union world, because in effect this meant that any union going on strike could be liable for damages.

The unions now realised that it was essential for them to have representation in Parliament in order to gain legal protection if they were to take industrial action.

A huge meeting was held at the Bedford Corn Exchange in August 1902 addressed by the General Secretary of the railwaymen’s union, Richard Bell (picture right) , who was also a Labour M.P. for Derby. Until 1906, there were only two Labour M.P.s, the other being Keir Hardie.

This meeting must have caused concern because Guy Pym,

Bedford’s Tory M.P, also asked if he could sit on the platform and expressed sympathy for the railwaymen’s case. The upshot was that trade union membership increased rapidly among local railway workers, and from a very small figure in 1900 membership rose to 250 in 1903.

This rise in union consciousness led to an increase in unionism generally, and by 1905 a Trades Council had been formed composed of railway workers, engineers, carpenters and joiners, iron founders, wood machinists, tailors and shop assistants.

The Trades Council and the Bedford Co-operative Society, which had been established in 1902 and had a shop in Mill Street, created close links with individuals from these organisations, and along with some middle class intellectuals, they established a branch of the Independent Labour Party in 1905. TheBedford I.L.P. Branch’s first chairperson was John Fletcher-Dodd, and secretary Henry Kees. It held weekly talks at the Y.M.C.A. hall, and the first one concerned the subject of ‘Municipal Socialism’.

John Fletcher-Dodd, a grocer and founder member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and active in the Clarion Cycling movement, he is famous for founding the first holiday camp at Caister Socialist Holiday Camp in 1906. (photo John Fletcher-Dodd left)

In 1905 these three groups decided to put up a candidate in the local elections. The choice was James William Seamark (picture right), a 4l year old tailor who lived in Hartington Street. Seamark had been a trade union member since 1888 and help establish the Bedford trades council in 1892.

One would have thought that a railway worker would have been a more likely candidate, but at that time most workers were hamstrung by the fact that Town Council meetings were in the mornings and this would have meant time off work and consequent loss of earnings.

Seamark stood in the West Ward which contained Queen’s Park, where lived a large number of railway workers and employees of Allen’s Works. The main election disaster for Seamark was his stance on the need for a new water supply for Bedford, Seamark backed the pumping system his opponent Mr Wells of the wealthy Brewing family, who at his own (companies) expense sunk a artisan well to supply the town. Seamark came bottom of the poll but did not diisgrace himself.

Seamark stood again in 1906 on a four point programme:

1. Evening council meetings.

2. Six wards for the town.

3. A fair wage clause in all corporation contracts.

4. Opposition to any capital expenditure being taken out of the rates.

This time he was successful (Seamark remained a councillor until 1922), and in 1907 another Labour candidate, John Smith, (a railway signalman) was elected, which gave Labour two representatives on the Town Council - a position which did not change until the 1920s. In 1918 James William Seamark was elected the first Secretary of Bedford Labour Party

The Labour movement continued agitation through the unions and in May 1909 the I.L.P. and Trades Council invited Keir Hardie to speak at the Corn Exchange. Entrance was by ticket only as there were rumours of anticipated disruptions. This proved to be true.

According to the Bedfordshire Mercury when Hardie rose to speak there were “cheers, hoots, groans, whistles and booing.” Then there were shouts of “We want Dreadnoughts (battles

hips for the navy) and “Rule Britannia” from young men. When at one point Hardie

urged votes for women more disruptions followed.

When the meeting was over a group of young hooligans waited outside for Mr. Hardie but he had left by the rear exit. These hooligans next went to Midland Road station smashing windows on the way; but Hardie had not left Bedford but was being put up in the home of an I.L.P. sympathiser.

The Bedfordshire Mercury commented “The mob having failed to find him returned to their homes from which it would have been better for their reputation had the; not emerged that night.” Is this the tranquil Edwardian England to which many look back today with nostalgia ?

Expanded notes based on "Bedford Politics 1900-1924"

BEDFORD PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCY

April 1921 By election Frederick Felix Reily (First Labour Parliamentary candidate)

1922 A.Sells

1924 George Dixon

1929

1931

1935

1945 Thomas Skeffington-Lodge - Labour Member of Parliament

1950 Thomas Skeffingston- Lodge

1950 Pater Parker

1951

1955 Harold Aldridge

1959 Maurice Foley

1964 Brian Parkyn

1966 Brian Parkyn Labour Member of Parliament

1970 Brian Parkyn

1974

1979

1983

1987

1993 Patrick Hall

1997 Patrick Hall Labour Member of Parliament

2001 Patrick Hall Labour Member of Parliament

2005 Patrick Hall Labour Member of Parliament

Frederick Fox Riley 1921
The Frederick Fox Riley was the first Labour candidate to stand in Bedford, This during the April 1921 By-Election. Reily was the assistant secretary of the Postal Workers Union. He secured an excellent result, securing 40% of the vote. Riley later stood for Parliament a number of times for Labour and was finally elected MP for Stockton-on-Tees from 1929-31.

Thomas Skeffington-Lodge 1945
Born Pudsey, West Yorkshire 15 January 1905. Skeffington-Lodge's mother, Winifred Skeffington, had been a suffragette. Thomas Skeffington-Lodge was educated at Giggleswick and Westminister school. He joined Labour Party in the reason he gave being that he was appalled at the condition of the miners in south Yorkshire. He was greatly moved by the disease and the pit accidents which he saw in the area all around Pudsey. 'The price of coal is the price of pneumoconiosis and too often the price of life itself,' he said.

Skeffington-Lodge initial entered into a career in advertising and publicity, 1934-1939 public relations for Coal trade for Coal Utilisation Council (Northern Region), 1939-1941 Mines Department, During the second World War 1941-1945 officer in the RNVR and saw distinguished service on the big Navy carriers HMS Courageous and HMS Furious and the battleship King George V. His service was interspersed by duties on destroyers guarding the Arctic convoys.

Skeffington-Lodge had also inherited a farm in the Yorkshire Dales,. He became Chairman of Pudsey & Otley Labour party. He was also a member of the Shop Workers Union, Fabian Society, Council for the Preservation of Rural England He won the seat in the great labour landslide of 1945, winning by 288 votes, securing 19,849 votes.

After his election as MP for Bedford he took a lead in forming a group of the Socialist Christian League in the House of Commons, he took a special interest Agriculture, Coal, Country life while locally taking a keen interest in railway issues and the plight of the local Italian community.

He managed to get across Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary, by pressing the cause of better treatment for Italian 'aliens'. Skeffington-Lodge had been deeply involved in the Italian community in Bedford, then by far the largest in the United Kingdom. This may have been one of the reasons why he was a ringleader of the 'Nenni- Goats' Labour MPs who in April 1948 sent a telegram of congratulations on the Socialist Pietro Nenni's electoral pact with the Communists which secured great hostility from Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin.

After his defeat in 1950 by 2,108, Skeffington-Lodge stood in York, Mid-Bedfordshire and Grantham as late as 1969 he was standing in Brighton Pavilion.

Skeffington-Lodge was an ecologist long before it became fashionable, he remained active in the Fabian Society, in which he was exceedingly active until his late eighties in Sussex.
He died Brighton 23 February 1994.

Peter Parker 1950
Born August 1924, educated Bedford school and Oxford Universities. He was chairman of Oxford University Labour Club. Major in the Intelligence Corps during WW2. A Personnel mananger.

Harold Aldridge 1955
Born 1916, educated Huddersfield and Luton technical colleges, a chartered Mechanical engineeer, Councillor on Bedfordshire County Council from 1946. Chairman of the La

bour group. Vice Chairman Bedfordshire Federation of Labour Parties and Vice chairman South Buckinghamshire Preservation Society,

Maurice Foley 1959
Born October 1925, educated Middlesborough St Mary's and Constantine Colleges, Merton & Morden (Surrey) Labour councillor, employed as an Administrive Secretary, member of the European Movement and UNESCO.



Brian Parkyn 1966

Born 28th April 1923 at Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, Parkyn was the son of a nurseryman in rural Essex who were non-conformist Labour supporters, indeed his grandfather went to prison more than once on account of his opposition to church schools.

When Parkyn's parents split up he went to stay with an uncle in Chelmsford and was educated King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford & Technical Colleges. In 1940 he joined Labour Party.

When war broke out he decided in 1941 to become a conscientious objector, a decision he later regretted accepted that he had not been fully aware of dangers and nature of fascism. after the war he became a Director of a chemical manufcturers company. One of the first chemists to develop polyester resins for reinforced plastics. Hobbies included mountaineering.

In 1964 Brian Parkyn contested the Bedford seat in 1964 and in 1966 his victory in Bedford by securing 22,257 a stunning majority 378 was one of the most spectacular high-profile result of the general election in 1966, when the Wilson government confirmed its authority with a majority of 100.

Mary Soames widow of the Tory MP he defeated stated of Parkyn "he had roots in the constituency - Brian Parkyn was local and we weren't and by 1964 an MP having roots in the constituency had begun to matter "I know at first hand from friends in the numerous and concentrated Italian community in Bedford what an excellent MP Parkyn proved to be in raising local issues and getting results."

In April 1966, he signed a Left-wing motion censuring the Wilson administration for failing to refer in the Queen's speech to "the dangerous intensification of the war in Vietnam". After losing the seat at the subsequent election he stood again in 1974 but lost again Brian Parkyn died 22 March 2006

Patrick Hall 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005
Born October 1951, educated at Bedford Modern School and Birmingham university. Local government planning officer for Bedford and Bedfordshire County Councillor 1989-1997. Labour Member of Parliament 1997 todate.

“The forward march will be no easier than that which has gone before. No Service is too great for such a cause for it is the cause of humanity. No enemy can defeat it in the end for it has its allies in the hearts of men and women everywhere. Hold fast to

what has been altered, and march to higher achievents in the future”

James Seamark 1951

James William Seamark

1865-1951

Bedfordshire Times

A founder member of Bedford Labour Party and its first secretary, Mr James William Seamark, formerly of Hartington Street, Bedford, died at Clapham Hospital on Sunday evening. He was 86. Mr Seamark was born at Stagsden 19th November 1865 to a poor agricultural labourers family (by 1871 the family was in Bedford Workhouse). He moved to Bedford in 1882 when he began business as a tailor. In 1886 he married at Howard Congregational Church a Miss Appleby. He had a long connection with Howard Church at various times holding the office of Secretary of the Band of Hope, Sunday School Teacher, Deacon, Secretary of the Church and Lay Preacher.

A Champion of the Labour cause, he joined the Trades Union Movement in 1888 and in 1892 assisted in the formation of the first Trades Council in Bedford. A tireless campaigner in national and municipal politics, he took a large part in organizing local meetings for Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald.

In 1906 he was elected to Bedford Town Council and so began an association with that body which was to last for 16 years. Upon the formation of the Bedford Labour Party in 1918 he became secretary and in the same year he was appointed a Justice of the Peace.

In 1923 he became Borough Housing Collector and also collector of tolls on the Market. He retired in 1933

The funeral service will take place at Howard Church tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11:30 am

source Seamark family site

BEDFORD ITALIAN COMMUNITY

The links between the Italain community and the Labour Party in Bedford run very deep, Labour MP Skeffington-Lodge did much for ex Italian POWS and Italian immigrants employed in the local brick industry.

The post war building boom had created a shortage of labour in the Bedford brickworks industry. Post war conditions were extremely difficult in Italy and unemployment was high making the offer of work in England very attractive.

They were employed by the London Brick Company who launched bulk recruitment schemes to entice Southern Italian workers to come to Bedford.

When they first arrived the Italian workers were placed in hostels, some of which were former POW camps. When they could afford it they moved into shared accommodation instead and Midland Road (a popular area) became known as 'Little Italy'.

There is one reason why Bedford is so Italian. After the war, the town's Marston Valley Brick Company found itself short of labour for the reconstruction boom. So, between 1951 and the early 1960s, it recruited more than 7,500 men from the villages of southern Italy. Many others came to the Peterborough brickworks at around the same time.

STATUE OF TREVOR HUDDLESTON
in 2000 a statute of the Anti Aparthied leader Trevor Huddleston (1913-1998) was erected in Silver Street.

COMMUNIST PARTY

George Lloyd Matthews

Born January 24th 1917, he came from a well to do farming family in Sandy, Bedfordshire. His father, who owned a 500 acre farm and market garden, was a staunch Methodist and Liberal, hence the homage to Lloyd George as a middle name. After public school, he began working on the farm from the age of 14. Matthews went to Reading University in 1937 to study agriculture.

Immersed in student politics, he became Vice President of Reading University Labour Federation and Vice President of the NUS and this contributed to his failing to complete his degree. He joined the Communist Party in 1938 but kept his membership secret for a short while being adopted the following year as prospective candidate for the Labour Party for the Mid-Bedfordshire constituency. Trying to join up in 1939, he found himself in a rejected for being in the reserved occupation of farmer.

He was involved in the Communist's Parties rural journal "Country Standard" established in 1935. later he became a Communist party full time worker but was moved to the Daily Worker, as deputy editor in 1956.

died March 20th 2005, aged 88.

Betty Matthews
She was born in Zimbabwe to an Australian farmer father and Scottish teacher mother and came to England in 1936, She studied at the London School of Economics with Eric Hobsbawm Betty Matthews was presented at the Royal Coronation Court of 1936 and gave up society life to become a communist, joining the Communist Party in 1936, she participation in the 1936 Battle of Cable Street against Mosley's fascists.

She met her husband George at this time, when he was preparing to become a Bedfordshire farmer. George Matthews former Labour candidate for Mid Bedfordshire. After the second world war, both Betty and George became full-time party workers. She was initially district secretary for the South-East Midlands Communist Party area, then London district organiser. Betty regularly holidayed in Italy and was a keen supporter of ideas of Antonio Gramsci she died car crash 2002

Young Communist League in Bedfordshire

One task the Young Communist League undertook was the mobilisation of thousands of Yorkshire miners (By Percy Reily of Leeds later Communist Councillor) to spend a week’s holiday in harvest camps in Bedfordshire. YCLers also took part and made a fortune for their organisation this way. On one occasion, the miners were paid for pea picking and, whilst they enjoined the change of scene and regarded the experience as a holiday, they stubbornly and promptly went on strike when they discovered that the Bedfordshire agricultural rate was not equivalent to the Yorkshire rate! Percy was thrown out of the camp at four in the morning, for encouraging the miners in this.

Source: Graham Stevenson communist Biographies

Michael Walker

Modern Conservatives - Just Nasty Toffs

* Click to enlarge

Chris-Riddell
Observer 03.01.2010

Morning Star 1930-2010

Long live the Morning Star - 80 years old today!‏

The Morning Star
Eighty years ago last night the first edition of the Daily Worker, now known as the Morning Star was produced. Originally an organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain, its leader Harry Pollitt said “The paper is born and must never be allowed to die.” In 1945 though, in recognition of the changing political landscape in Britain and the need to fund the post war expansion of the paper, the Party decided to hand it over to the entire labour movement through the creation of the Peoples Press Printing Society.

This Co-operative made up and controlled by readers and supporters has ensured that the miracle of Fleet Street (as George Lansbury famously called it ) survives today. The movement has sustained the paper now for eighty years – a unique and historic achievement in the English speaking world.

The paper is rooted in the British labour movement and throughout its history has always stood for the interests of the working class, promoting and supporting campaigns to forge the greatest possible unity around an alternative economic and political strategy. Its roots are deep and firm as it has withstood many challenges over the years – staff being jailed, a ban on distribution by the wholesalers, war time bans, constant rabid anti communism and the monopolisation of the press . Receiving no government or corporate advertising the Morning Star will never be awash with money like capitalist media mouthpieces but it ensures the paper stays in close touch with those fighting for peace, equal rights, social justice, sustainable development and socialism.

The Labour movement faces sharp challenges in the next decade and there will be no better source for information and inspiration than the Morning Star. In the last paper of 2009 UNISON’s Million Voices campaign was prominent on page two of a 32 page edition packed with union branch congratulations. However we need to do more than advertise nationally.

We need more branch adverts, we need to nationally advertise jobs in it, but most of all we need to buy it – for the branch, as individuals for our homes.

Harry Pollitt at a meeting of supporters in Shoreditch in 1945 praised those who “..desire to see an independent daily newspaper that can in every respect, equal anything that capitalist combines can produce from a technical point of view, and on the other hand give the political lead which will succeed in strengthening every phase of working class activity in the very critical phase in which we are moving”

As true then as now and why it is even more urgent today to ensure the Morning Star is still with us in another eighty years time. Long live the Morning Star.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php

Ghost of Christmas Past !

Ghost of
Christmas Past !

Government
of the rich
By the rich
for the rich

Purcell-Irving-Quelch-Hyndman - Clarion Handforth 1910

Clarion Club House
Handforth, Cheshire Albert Arthur Purcell - Dan Irving - Harry Quelch - Henry Mayers Hyndman