|
I |
|
|
|
(Communist Party)
Jack Illiffe was a CP activist during
the 1930s who spoke regularly in the Market Place. When he appeared in
court, following a blackshirt meeting he described himself as a
propagandist. He was active in the NUWM and in 1935 was campaigning to get
trade union rates of pay paid the unemployed who worked on work schemes.
At that time a corporation worker got 50/- for a 48 hour week, whilst
unemployed on the same work got 7/- in cash and a 7/- food ticket for 36
hours.
Sources: Leicester Mercury 14th
October 1935
|
 |
Born: Leicestershire 1852, died: 1899 (Liberal)
William Inskip was a laster in the
boot and shoe trade, becoming treasurer of NUBSO in 1880. He lacked any
formal education, but nevertheless read widely. He was elected general
secretary in 1886 and dominated the union for many years. He was a trade
unionist of the old school whose social and political attitudes could be
described as ‘Lib-Lab.’ He was contemptuous of egalitarianism and was
convinced that social progress required the generous rewarding of
individuality, thrift and energy. He linked those virtues of self help
with skilled artisans and trade unions, whilst he saw the sins of
idleness, unscrupulous and improvidence linked to the unskilled. Whilst he
could be hostile to co-operative schemes, he was a personal investor in
Equity shoes. During the 1890s, he became increasingly isolated in the
union as socialists like T.F. Richards and Martin Curley gained support,
breaking the close relationship between the NUBSO executive and the
Leicester Liberal Association. He was elected to the Town Council, as a
Trades Council nominee to the Liberal Association in 1891 and was
treasurer of the TUC parliamentary committee. He died of T.B. aged 47 in
1899 and many Leicester firms closed for a few hours to allow workers to
attend his funeral.
Sources: Fox, Alan, A History of the
National Union of Boot and Shoe Workers. 1958, Bill Lancaster,
Radicalism Co-operation and Socialism
|
|
|
Born: Leicester 1877 (I.L.P. & Labour Party)
Catherine Irwin was educated at High
Cross School and Wyggeston High School for Girls. She was elected as a
member of the Board of Guardians in 1909 and remained on the board for 15
years until it was disbanded in 1928. In 1919, stood in the Council
elections and was also appointed as a JP. Along with other Labour
guardians she opposed relief being paid half in kind (bread) and half in
money. She believed that relief should be given in money.
|
|
J |
|
| |
Born: Southampton, 23rd July 1900 (Labour Party)
 Fred
Jackson came to live in South Wigston in 1914 and commenced work in a
biscuit factory for 5/- per week. In 1916 he joined the I.L.P. and he
served in the Leicestershire Regiment during the later stages of the
1914/18 war with the Rhine Army of Occupation. Afterwards he spent ten
years as a railway cleaner and locomotive fireman, and member of the N.U.R.
He subsequently worked in the Engineering Department of the Leicester
Co-Operative Society and later still as General Secretary of the National
Growers Association, and then as a Welfare Officer to a local firm of
Building Contractors
In 1926, he became Honorary Secretary
to the League of the Blind and was a delegate from the League to the
Trades Council. He became president of the Trades Council in 1931 and
assisted the blind marchers in 1936 when they came through Leicester on
their way to protest in London.
He was elected to City Council in
1928 for Castle, but lost his seat in 1948. He was then elected for
Humberstone in 1950. He became Lord Mayor in 1957 and an alderman in 1960.
He was leader of the City Council Labour group in 1964.
Sources: Leicester City Council,
Roll of Lord Mayors 1928-2000
|
| |
Born: King's Lynn, Norfolk, 17th February 1896
(Labour Party)
During the 1939- 45 war, she was
appointed by the then Minister of Labour as Employment Officer with the
Ministry of Labour and National Service-a post she held until October 1945
when she resigned on being nominated as a candidate for the Municipal
Elections. She was elected to the City Council in 1945 and as wife of Fred
Jackson became Lady Mayoress in 1957. She was chair of the Council’s
Welfare committee in the late fifties and early sixties. She became Lord
Mayor in 1963.
|
| |
Born circa1779 (Framework Knitter)
Described as the most vigorous and
enterprising of the Leicester framework-knitters’ leaders, William Jackson
was leader of what was probably the first really permanent union in
Leicester. It lasted from 1817 to 1823 and at its peak, it had 8,000
members paying 6d per week. The union declined as economic conditions
improved.
Although, Jackson started in the
stockingers’ trade at the age of 11, he managed to acquire some education
and could express himself well, both on paper and on the platform. In
1817, Jackson appealed directly to Lord Sidmouth (the Home secretary)
against the combination laws which he considered to be one of principle
causes of low wages and pleaded with the government to fix a minimum wage
and a single poor relief fund for the whole of the country. That year he
successfully persuaded the overseers of the Leicester parishes not to
grant relief to those who were working in the hosiery trade ‘at an
underprice,’ but to give relief to those who might be thrown out of work.
He was active in the general strike
which called took place in the East Midlands from September 1817. The
strike seems to have lasted until the beginning of 1818, when the
stockingers’ funds became exhausted and they were obliged to return to
work defeated. There was considerable sympathy for the stockingers and this
is reflected in that local magistrates failed to enforce the Combination
Laws and outlaw the union of which he was secretary. This took place at a
time when the ‘respectable classes’ fear of a Luddite insurrection was at
its height.
In 1819, Jackson became chairman of
the Framework-Knitters Friendly & Relief Society of the Town and County of
Leicester which was in reality a trade union disguised as a friendly
society in order to avoid persecution under the Combination Laws. (This
was aided by Rev Robert Hall) The core of the organisation was the
framework knitters of Leicester whose organisation was divided into
thirteen districts each with treasurers and stewards. That year he gave
evidence to the Commons Committee on the Framework-Knitters Petition in
which described the difficulties and hardships that confronted his family.
In 1820, one hosier attempted to summon Jackson and other officials on a
charge of combination, but it was quashed on a technicality.
Jackson’s political sympathies were
not always with the reformers as many were also employers espousing
laissez faire economic principles. In 1822 he argued that political
reform by itself was inadequate and even useless. So long as ‘the
principle of gain’ alone ruled commerce, demand would fluctuate, men would
be tempted to work at an underprice and wages would drop.
In 1822, the Framework Knitters
launched out into an experiment in Co-operative production. With a
warehouse in Cank Street, the society bought worsted yarn and manufactured
hosiery. In return for a salary, Jackson acted as storekeeper, accountant
and organised the manufacture. This lasted until the spring of 1823, when
the enterprise was overtaken by debt. This probably discredited Jackson,
because he seems to have subsequently lost his position and influence, as
the union was re-established.
However by 1830, he was once again
leading framework knitters in a strike for better conditions. He
criticised the Reform Bill of 1831 for not going far enough and was
attacked, by John Seal for attempting to sow division between middle and
working class reformers and for his support for the Tory candidate in the
1826 elections.
Following the Liberal rise to
municipal power in 1835, Jackson was appointed as Keeper of the Town Hall
and in this post he passed the last years of his life writing letters to
the press chiefly advocating free trade. In March 1840, he became
secretary of the Leicester Working Men’s Anti-Corn Law Association which
claimed 750 members and the antipathy of the Shakespearean Chartists.
Sources: A. Temple Patterson,
Radical Leicester,
Leicester 1954
|
|
|
 Born:
1892, died: 1982 (Liberal and Labour Party)
Barnett Janner won scholarships to
the Barry County School and to the University of Wales. After he qualified
as a solicitor, he served with the artillery in the First World War in
France and Belgium and was gassed. From 1931-35, he was the Liberal MP for
Whitechapel and was selected for West Leicester in 1938. At that time, he
was opposed the policy of non-intervention in the Spanish civil war and
very aware of the menace of fascism.
He was not elected until 1945, but
remained a City MP until 1970, when he stood down in favour of his son
Greville. He was a member of the British Board of Deputies. He was an
expert on the intricate Rent Acts and worked out the Labour Party’s policy
on legal aid to the poor. He was awarded freedom of the City in 1971.
|
|
|
Born: c1879
Before coming to Leicester, Jennett
had previously chairman of the Islington unemployed committee and had been
involved with the occupation of the local public library. He subsequently
led a raiding party which intended to seize Islington Town Hall. The
attempt came to grief when they were met by the police, who had been
tipped off, and were waiting in the Town Hall. Jennett was ordered to
prison for three months or to give two sureties of £25 each, although the
magistrate refused sureties from the chairman of the board of guardians
and a fellow guardian.
In 1921, Jennett had apparently come,
with others, from the N.U.W.M. in London to give help to Leicester's
unemployed. Jennett maintained however that he had come to Leicester to
set up as a Market Trader and his children were living in the district. In
September 1921, Jennett led a 1,000 strong crowd which marched on Rupert
Street offices of the Guardians to demand that a scheme of outdoor relief
be put into operation. The unemployed were met with police truncheons,
many were left bleeding in the roadway and Jennett was arrested for
assaulting a police officer. In the subsequent protests over the treatment
of the unemployed, shop windows were broken and the police station
surrounded by those demanding his release. He was subsequently sent to
prison for a month. A joint work scheme for the unemployed was promptly
instituted by the Council and Guardians as a result of the disturbances.
Sources: Leicester Pioneer 30th
September 1921, Leicester Evening Mail, 1st, 6th
October 1921, Leicester Mercury, 6th October 1921, PRO CAB 24/128 Special
Report No. 23 Peter Kingsford, The Hunger Marchers in
Britain 1920-1940,
|
|
|
Born: Cosby, died: January 1855 aged 47 (Chartist & poet)
Sons of poverty assemble,
Ye whose hearts with woe are riven.
Let the guilty tyrants tremble,
Who your hearts such pain have given.
We will never from the shrine of truth be driven.
From Spread The Charter far
and Wide, 1842
William Jones was an active Chartist,
prolific poet and musician. He was a Primitive Methodist and worked as a
framework knitter first making socks and then making gloves. The latter
being generally better-paid work. In 1845, he gave evidence to the
Commission of Enquiry into the Conditions of the Framework Knitters. In
his evidence he describes his working conditions and the workers’
grievances over frame-rents and middle-men.
The 1851 census describes him as a
‘framework knitter and poet.’ His wife was a ‘Day School Teacher’ who took
in stockingers’ children as soon as they could walk. However, once they
were about five they were taken out of her school and put to work. He did
not want his son to be a stockinger and the census describes him as a
21-year-old bricklayer.
He contributed to the
Shakespearean Chartist Hymn Book in 1842 and assisted Thomas Cooper at
his Adult Sunday School. He contributed poems to Cooper’s publications, to
Jonathan Barstow’s ‘Chartist Pilot,’ the English Chartist
Circular and to the Northern Star. In 1843, he was active in
support of the Leicester Democratic Hall of Science. His criticism of
O’Connor’s ill fated land scheme in 1847, lost him some friends, but he
was ultimately vindicated when the scheme collapsed. In 1848, he edited a
new version of the Chartist Hymn book. He also contributed poems to the
national Chartist press and also to the local Liberal papers. In 1850, he
wrote an article on The Factory System vs. Frame Charges in The
Leicestershire Movement arguing against the iniquities of frame charges.
By 1851, with some other local Chartists leaders, he had reached an
accommodation with William Biggs and other middle class radicals who
wanted an extension of the franchise. He was now a respected local poet,
with stable employment with a sympathetic master. He published two books
of poetry: The Spirit; Or A Dream in The Woodland (1850) and
another in 1853.
Sources: Draft of a letter to the
Leicestershire Mercury, Leicestershire Records Office, DE 2964/32/1,
Report of he Commission on the Condition of the Framework Knitters, 1845
p22, Leicestershire Mercury, 11th October 1851, 3rd
& 10th February 1855, Thomas Cooper, The Life of Thomas
Cooper, 1872
|
|
|
(Chartist lecturer)
William Jones (not to be confused with the local poet)
was from Liverpool and was sent to Leicester in 1842 in Thomas Cooper’s
absence. Following the general strike in July/August 1842, he was arrested
for using seditious language. He was put on trial in April 1843.
Sources: Northern Star 1st April 1843
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Back to Top |
| |
© Ned Newitt Last revised:
June 28, 2011. |
| |
Index
Bl-Bz
|
