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Born: Baroda, Gujarat,
India, died: 20th November 2004 aged 53 (Labour)
Ramnik Kavia was born in Baroda,
India and was educated at the Technical High School and at Kenya
Polytechnic, Nairobi. He joined his family's engineering and fabrication
business there. As a result of the Africanisation policies of the Kenyan
government, he had to leave the country and arrived in Leicester in
December 1974 where worked with a number of local firms. He was elected to
the Leicester City Council in 1986, representing Latimer ward and then
Belgrave from 1996. He served on numerous committees and his main interest
was planning and regeneration. He was Lord Mayor of Leicester for the year
2003-2004. He also served as governor at Catherine Infants and Junior
Schools.
He died following heart bypass
surgery, when a drug intended to be taken orally was injected straight
into his bloodstream. His brother Amrit was elected to the Council in the
bye-election that followed. Tragically, he died three months after being
elected.
Sources: Leicester City Council,
Roll of Lord Mayors 1928-2000, author’s personal knowledge
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Born: Indian
Ocean, 20th Feb 1868, died: 1953 (I.L.P. & Labour Party)
 Charles
Edward Keene was born to regular soldier on a sailing ship en route to
India on the Indian Ocean. His father was in the Indian Army and he was
educated at an Indian army school. He returned to Britain in his late
teens. Following the death of his father, his mother remarried, but his
stepfather’s excessive drinking brought ruin to the family. Charles was
forced to sell newspapers on the streets of Bradford to supplement the
family income. As a result he was a lifelong supporter of the Temperance
Movement.
He came to Leicester from Bradford
with 6/- in his pocket in 1899 and successfully established several
different businesses in the city, which included the Mutual Clothing and
Supply Company, as well as box manufacture and die stamping. He was an
ardent speaker on behalf of the Leicester Temperance Society and was
associated with the Belgrave Hall Wesleyan Church. Thomas Redfern recalled
that Keene was a good speaker, in the ‘Methodist style’, who generally
spoke in a conciliatory manner. He was involved in leading the unemployed
in 1921. He had been an unsuccessful labour candidate six times in
elections for the City Council before getting elected for Aylestone in
1924. He held various positions in the Independent Labour Party and
succeeded George Banton as president of the I.L.P. in 1924. He retired
from the Council in 1938.
Sources: Leicester Pioneer, 8th
February 1924, Howes, C. (ed), Leicester: Its Civic, Industrial,
Institutional and Social Life, Leicester
1927
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Born:
Bradford 21st Sept 1891 died: 19? (I.L.P. & Labour Party)
 Charles
Robert Keene was one of a family of 12 and attended Harrison Road School.
After working with in his father’s business, he began to study for the
Wesleyan ministry. However, he enlisted in the RAMC in 1915 and within a
few months was promoted to the rank of sergeant. He spent 4½ years with
the forces, chiefly in the Hospital Ship services in the Mediterranean.
On returning to civilian life,
Charles Keene resumed his activities at the Clarendon Park Wesleyan
Church, where he occupied various offices including Circuit Temperance
secretary and society class leader. He also returned to his business
career, becoming managing director of his father’s business the Mutual
Clothing and Supply Company and Kingstone Ltd during the late 1920s.
He became a City Councillor for
Charnwood in 1926 and was secretary of the Labour Group for nine years
during the 1930s. He became its leader in 1940 and was also chairman for
three years. He became chairman of the Planning Committee in 1946 and led
the City’s slum clearance and redevelopment programme during the 1950s and
60s. He was Lord Mayor in 1953 and was dominant in the field of education
until 1960. (He had to retire from chairing the Education Committee
because he had reached the age of 70)
He was an opponent of comprehensive
education and ensured the retention of the 11 plus exam in Leicester. He
was awarded the freedom of the City in 1962 and until 1999 was
commemorated by Charles Keene College-now Leicester College. In later life
he lived in Gaulby.
Sources: Howes, C. (ed),
Leicester: Its Civic, Industrial, Institutional and
Social Life, Leicester 1927, Leicester City
Council, Roll of Lord Mayors 1928-2000
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Born: circa
1831, Nottinghamshire died: July-Sept 1908
Edward Kell was a shoe rivetter and a
Liberal-Radical of the old school. He became the first president
(part-time) of the National Union of Operative Boot and Shoe Rivetters and
Finishers in 1883. He was elected to the School Board and to the Town
Council. Along with George Sedgewick, he used his position on the School
Board to campaign against children working at home. He resigned from the
presidency in July 1890, shortly after attacking the militant movement in
the union which was then led by T. F. Richards and others.
Sources: Fox, Alan, A History of the
National Union of Boot and Shoe Workers. 1958 Census returns
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Born: 5th
October 1865 (I.L.P.& Labour Party)
 J.K.
Kelly left the Clyde Street Wesleyan school at the age of 13 and after
working as an errand boy, he then trained as a minister and entered the
Methodist Ministry in the early 1890s. In 1893. he was drawn to socialism after
reading Robert Blatchford’s ‘Merrie
England.’ He left the ministry in 1900 and
became a dentist, opening a practice in the Thomas Cook building close to
the Clock Tower. He was well known as a public speaker and apparently
he won many 'converts' by his powerful oratory. Following the refusal of
the Labour Party nationally to support the candidature of Geo Banton for
parliamentary by-election in 1913, he gave his support to the British
Socialist Party’s candidate Hartley. Although he was never a jingo, he
supported the First World War, though he also allied himself to the Union of
Democratic Control in its efforts to ‘secure a peace of reason and not of
vengeance.’
James Kelly was elected to the Board of
Guardians for 1907-10 for Abbey ward and was a Town Councillor from
1909-23. He was president of the I.L.P. and chairman of the Labour Party
(1921) at various times. In 1921, he moved a resolution, which condemned the
action of the police in dealing with a demonstration by the unemployed in
Rupert Street, saying:
“when the wounds were in the main
part on the back of the head, it was natural that feelings of anger would
be provoked and deeds of resentment would be committed.”
He was a a friend and admirer of Tom
Barclay and edited Barclay’s
memoirs published in 1934. In 1937, along with Will Owen, he supported the
Unity campaign to bring about a united front between the I.L.P. Communist
Party and Labour party. He was also a member of the Left Book Club in the
late 1930s.
Sources: Leicester Pioneer, 21st
March 1924
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Born Quorn
(Liberal & Co-operator)
Samuel Kemp was the eldest of nine
children and started work at the age of 10½ in a shoe factory. He
eventually ended up working at the Leicester Co-operative Hosiery
Society’s factory in Cranbourne Street and remained there for12½ years
until it was bought by C.W.S. He represented the union on the Trades
Council and served on the executive of the union. He was elected to the
board of L.C.S. in 1897.He was elected president Wigston Hosiers in 1909
and continued in those positions well into the 1920s. He was also on the
committee of the Leicester Co-operative Press. He was vice president of
the East Leicester Liberal Association in 1926.
Sources: Leicester Co-operative
Society, (1898) Co-operation in Leicester,
Leicester: A Souvenir
of the 47th Co-operative Congress, Manchester 1915
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Born: 1868 (I.L.P.&
Labour Party)
Albert Kenney left Elbow Lane School
at the age of 9 to work at Burrows brickyards for 1/- or 2/-per week. Then
went into the hosiery trimming trade and became an active trade unionist,
acting as negotiator in various trades disputes on behalf of the Trimmers
Society. He was president of the Leicester trimmers Union for many years.
He spent over 30 years on the Trades Council and was president in 1905 &
1924. He had a reputation as the ’John Blunt’ of the Labour movement,
always frank and outspoken and willing to call a spade a spade. He was
elected to the Town Council in 1905 for Aylestone and was reported to have
appealed to the voters because “he was in favour of finding work for
the workless, decent housing and the feeding of starving children.” He
was chair of the Unemployed Committee and active in the Right To Work
Agitation in the 1900s. He remained a councillor until the 1920s. He was
treasurer of the Labour Party 1903-1910? and was member of the Leicester
Labour Party Executive and president of the Leicester Auxiliary Workers
Association.
Sources: Leicester Pioneer 10th
October 1908, 1st February 1924
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Born 1851,
died: 1924 (Women’s Liberal Association)
Agnes Kilgour came to Leicester from
Cheltenham to become headmistress of the Belmont House School on New Walk.
She was Anna Beale’s partner and successor. In 1887, she became the first
joint secretary of the Leicester and Leicestershire Women’s Suffrage
Association. Agnes Evans, as she was after 1895, was a co-opted member of
the Council’s education committee. She was also a member of the School
Board and persuaded its chairman Joseph Woods to start kindergartens in
elementary schools.
She worked with Catherine Gittins to
establish the Leicester branch of the National Union of Women Workers
(later National Council of Women) In 1906, she became the first president
of the Health Society which had been established that year with the aim of
a reducing infant mortality in the town, through educating mothers. She
was also a committee member of the Women’s Liberal Association.
Sources: Isabel Ellis, Records Of
Nineteenth Century Leicester
, Shirley Aucott, Mothercraft and Maternity,1997
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Born
Leicester c1871 (I.L.P)
W.A. Larrad was a factory foreman,
prominent spiritualist and was elected assistant secretary of the I.L.P.
at its AGM in 1895. In 1908 he wrote: “A Romance of A Board of
Guardians” which was published in weekly instalments in the Leicester
Pioneer. It tells of the just deserts handed out to the local guardians by
a reforming government for the crime of driving the unemployed to suicide.
He later supplied photos to the Leicester Pioneer. By 1927, he was
secretary to the Distress Committee which at that time operated a scheme
to provide work for the unemployed in conjunction with the Guardians and
City Council.
Sources: Leicester Pioneer July 11th,
29th August, 19th September 1908, census returns
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Born
Leicestershire c1843 (Leicester Rivetters’ and Finishers’ Section)
In the early 1870s, Martin Leader was
the secretary of the Leicester Rivetters’ and Finishers’ Section of the
old Amalgamated Cordwainers’ Association. In 1873, he was the chief
architect of a secession from the parent union which led to the formation
of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Workers. The mechanisation of the
industry probably made this split inevitable, though Leader added a degree
of acrimony to the whole affair. He was also involved in an attempt to set
up co-operative shoe manufacturing society with William Inskip and Thomas
Smith. By the 1880s, he had become a struggling small-scale employer in
Mansfield? employing 56 men and boys and a strike lasting six months drove
him into insolvency in 1888, becoming a bankrupt in 1894.
Sources: Bill Lancaster,
Radicalism Co-operation and Socialism, Alan Fox, A History of the
National Union of Boot and Shoe Workers, 1958, census returns
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Born:
Hucknall, Notts 1879 (I.L.P.&
Labour Party)
Maria Leafe was the daughter of an
unemployed miner and wanted to become a teacher. Although she did well at school,
her family circumstances meant that it was impossible for her her to continue with her
education. Consequently, she left school at the age
of 13 to help her father in a general store he had taken on.
In 1902, she married a railway clerk
and came to Leicester. She became the first secretary of the
Leicester Railway Women’s Guild and became minute secretary of the Women’s
Labour League. In 1910 she has joined the I.L.P. and later became
president of the Women’s Section of the Labour Party.
During the 1919 railway strike, she
played a prominent role as a speaker in support of the railwaymen’s cause.
She was much in demand as a speaker in the Market Place and elsewhere. She
was elected to the Board of Guardians in 1924 and stood for the council
for Aylestone in 1925.
Sources: Leicester Pioneer, 29th
February 1924
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Born April
15 1934, died June 1981 (Indian Workers’ Association G.B.)
K.S. Lehal was an activist in the
Indian Workers Association (GB) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
He was a founder member of IRSC in 1969 and active in the anti racist
campaigns of the 1970s.
Source: author’s personal knowledge
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Nicholas Lee-Overy
Born
9th February 1962, died 17th December 1999 (Socialist Workers Party)
From 1995, Nick Lee-Overy was a youth
worker at Highfields Community Centre and died suddenly at the age of 37.
He was a political activist throughout his adult life, joining the Labour
Party and CND whilst in his teens. He became a Socialist Workers Party
member in 1993, following an Anti Nazi League demonstration. He became
branch secretary of Leicester East S.W.P. and was international officer
for Leicester City UNISON. He played a central role in anti-deportation
campaigns and moves to integrate asylum seekers into the local community.
Source: Socialist Worker
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Born: c1896
Charles Ley was elected as Chairman
of the Unemployed Executive in 1921. He was arrested by the police
shortly after a demonstration outside the Poor Law offices in Rupert Street.
Following his arrest, a 3,000 strong crowd converged on the police station
in the Town Hall where he was being held to demand his release. The police
were trapped inside extinguishing their lights, leaving the Town Hall in
complete darkness.
Accidentally the crowd pushed the
front row of their comrades into the station where they were promptly
arrested. It was then that the missiles began to fly. A glass bottle
shattered on the floor inside the entrance and a volley of stones, bricks
and granite sets followed, hitting two policemen. The police then emerged
from the station, many with batons drawn, whilst reinforcements in the
shape of mounted police arrived at the rear. The demonstration promptly
scattered.
At his trial, Ley was accused of
kicking a police inspector. Ley's late employer gave evidence to his good
character and industriousness. A number of witnesses also testified, that
prior to his arrest he had not been injured. He was sent to prison for one
month.
Source: Leicester Pioneer Sept 1921
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Born:
Belgrave circa 1883 (W.S.P.U.)
Eva Lines was a Board School teacher
at Ellis Avenue School and an active Suffragette prior to World War One.
Sources: Sources: Richard Whitmore,
Alice Hawkins and the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian
Leicester,
Papers of Annie Lines
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Born
Sheffield 1875 (Women’s Liberal Association, WSPU)
Isobel Logan was a wealthy woman of
some local standing. She was a committed Liberal and a member of the Women’s
Liberal Association. Her father was John William Logan or "Paddy" Logan, (1845-1925)
who was Liberal MP for Market Harborough from 1891-1904. He
moved to Leicestershire in 1876 to supervise a railway contract and the
family lived at East Langton Grange, where he gave the village a cricket
ground and a hall. He also maintained a cottage home for the children of
men killed on his works.
Isobel became dissatisfied by the
lack of action by the Women’s Liberal Association on the question of
women’s rights. She resigned, saying it that ‘the question of women's
suffrage is so important and its continued denial so great an injustice to
women, that it is impossible for me to belong
to an association that does not put the question before others.’ She
cut quite a dash when she attended suffrage meetings in a motor car and soon after joining the WSPU in 1909, she took employment as a
bookbinder. In June 1909, she was among 27 women who were arrested
following a deputation to Parliament when windows were smashed in
Whitehall and Downing Street. Rather than pay a fine, she opted to go
prison. Dorothy Pethwick and Dorothy Bowker were imprisoned with her and
later came to Leicester to recuperate after being on hunger strike.
Sources: Census, Richard Whitmore,
Alice Hawkins and the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian
Leicester New York Times,
July 2nd 1908
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Born:
Leicester c1856 died 1921 (NUBSO & I.L.P.)
William Lowe was the son of a framework knitter and he became a clicker in
the shoe trade. He was active in the union and became secretary of the
Leicester No 2 branch of NUBSO shortly after it was formed in 1890. In
1891, he was elected as treasurer of the National Union and a member of
the National executive. He was also treasurer of the Trades Council,
where, in 1902, he opposed a proposition from the I.L.P. to give women the
vote. In 1908, he was one of the Labour candidate for Westcotes, by which
time his wife Amy Jane Lowe (born Bedford c1856-1940) had become an active
suffragette. He was one of Leicester’s five ’working men
magistrates,’ featured in local Labour publicity in 1911.
Sources: Alan Fox, A History of
the National Union of Boot and Shoe
Workers, 1958, Census, Richard Whitmore,
Alice Hawkins and the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian
Leicester, The Labour Party Conference 1911, Official
Souvenir, Leicester 1911
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Born: 9th
Apr 1943, died December 1994 (Communist Party)
Pete Lowman was an official of the
National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers Union during from the 1970s
until his death at the age of 51. He was a member of the Communist Party
and a director of the Leicestershire Co-op. Although he had a pragmatic
approach to politics in Britain, he he did not share the British Communist Party’s
condemnation of the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and
Afghanistan.
Source: author’s personal knowledge
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Born: Market Bosworth,
circa 1836 died: May 1908
Amos Lythall was president of the
L.C.S. from 1893-1908. He was a well known temperance advocate and
Liberal, described as “A man of strong conviction, when he had
made his up his mind….he would stand by it even if he stood alone.”
He was a boot factor or dealer.
Sources: Leicester Co-operative Record June 1908,
Leicester: A Souvenir
of the 47th Co-operative Congress, Manchester 1915
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© Ned Newitt Last revised:
April 30, 2012. |
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Index
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