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Died: September 1996 aged 55 (Labour Party)
 Dave
Taylor was first elected for North Braunstone ward in 1971 and became a
County Councillor for the same ward in 1974. He was an active in the field
of Social Services. In 1978, a charge of indecency was brought against
him, though he was found not guilty. His political career survived and he
became Lord Mayor 1989.
Because of his links to the world of
entertainment, he was known as the showbiz mayor, as he had worked as a
cabaret singer and dancer. Eventually, his drinking took a toll on his
health.
Sources: Leicester City Council,
Roll of Lord Mayors 1928-2000, author’s personal knowledge
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Born: Leicester, c1864, died 1957 (I.L.P.& Labour
Party)
 J.T.
Taylor started his
working life with the C.W.S. By 1892, he was
working at Equity Shoes and a member of its management committee. He
suggested the formation of a co-operative to produce children’s footwear.
This lead to the formation of the Anchor Boot Society,
whose early members were drawn, like Taylor himself,
from the Church of Christ sect. Taylor was originally president of the
society, but from January 1896 he was the manager of the factory which had
expanded into a new premises in New Evington.
Taylor was treasurer of the I.L.P.
and was briefly elected as a councillor for Wyggeston ward. He played a
prominent role on the formation of the Anchor Tenants Ltd., the
co-operative which was responsible for the development and building of the
Humberstone Garden suburb where he lived at 99 Keyham Lane. After its
opening in 1910, he took over the leadership of the Christian meeting
house at Humberstone, before it had a minister.
Sources: Leicester Co-operative
Society, (1898) Co-operation in
Leicester, Bill Lancaster, Radicalism
Co-operation and Socialism
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Born: 1819, died: 1891 (Radical Liberal)
Peter Alfred Taylor, the son of Peter
Taylor and Catherine Courtauld, was born in 1819. His father had invested
money in George Courtauld & Co, when his cousin, George Courtauld, was
short of capital in 1817. The following year, George left for America and
Samuel Courtauld joined Taylor in expanding the business. Over the next
few years Courtauld & Taylor purchased steam-engines and power-looms for
its mills in Braintree, Halstead and Bocking. Taylor, like his father, was
a Unitarian, who favoured social reform.
As a young man he lectured on behalf
of the Anti-Corn Law League and in 1847 he joined Giuseppi Mazzini to
establish the People's International League, an organisation that
campaigned for universal suffrage, though he stood aloof from Chartism. In
1849 Peter Alfred Taylor joined the Courtauld & Taylor company as a
partner. The following year, when his father, Peter Taylor, died, he took
a more prominent role in running the business.
P.A. Taylor was elected unopposed as
a Radical Liberal MP for Leicester in 1862, to replace John Biggs, and
represented Leicester until his retirement in 1884. Taylor’s election
sealed a political alliance in Leicester between the working and middle
classes in the town which lasted until the election of Ramsey MacDonald in
1906. He was an advocate of universal suffrage and a republican, opposing
public money being spent on the royalty. In the House of Commons Taylor
worked closely with John Stuart Mill and Henry Fawcett in supporting
women's suffrage. He had good relations with local organisations
representing working class interests like the Democratic Association. His
supporters claimed he was known as: ‘Grievance-Monger’ because “he is
ever ready to espouse the cause of the suffering poor,” John Morrison
Davidson said that during the time he was in parliament he
“has neither led nor followed,
-neither been misled by the leaders of his party, nor been found
following the multitude to do evil. If he has led at any time, it has
been as the captain of forlorn hopes, the champion of forgotten rights,
and the redresser of unheeded wrongs. he is the Incorruptible of the
House.”
However, his commitment to ‘liberty’
meant that he was initially very reluctant to do anything to rid Leicester
of the iniquities of frame rents and charges. He did not support the first
attempt at legislation brought by the South Leicestershire Tory MP Albert
Pell, which was supported and campaigned for by the Daniel Merrick and the
unions, since he believed that workmen could refuse to work on such terms.
“You might as well ask Parliament to determine what rent a landlord
should put on a house.” He eventually became quiescent over the issue
when Pell’s bill was brought before the house again.
Taylor had a huge interest in foreign
affairs and was chairman of the Society of Friends of Italy and a friend
of Mazzini. (a leading figure in Italian liberal nationalism)
During the American civil war, he supported the Northern cause and the
emancipation of Negroes. His wife, Clementia Taylor, was also active in
the movement and for many years was treasurer of the London National
Society for Women's Suffrage. After his retirement from Parliament in
1884, Peter Alfred Taylor moved to Hove where he died in 1891. Throughout
his life Taylor gave generously to humanitarian causes and this is
reflected in the small amount of money that he left to his family in his
will.
Sources: Midlands Free Press 26th
August 1871 & 25th February 1888, Bill Lancaster, Radicalism
Co-operation and Socialism, John Morrison Davidson Eminent English
liberals in and out of Parliament 1880
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Born: Hinckley, 21st
November 1884 (I.L.P.& Labour Party)
 Syd
Taylor’s was the son of a stockinger and he was apprenticed as a joiner.
At the age of 20, he went to work in the motor trade for Humber in
Coventry where he worked for nine years making car bodies. He came to
Leicester in 1912 where he found work as a shop fitter and became
secretary of the Workers’ Union branch that year. He became district
organiser of the Workers’ Union in 1915. During the war he led a
successful nine-month strike at Hathern Brick and Terra Cotta Works. He
was elected for Newton ward in 1921 and became district organiser of the
Workers’ Union. In 1922, he was elected to the board of the L.C.S. having
been previously a member of the L.C.S. Education Committee. He was a noted
public speaker and both within the Council and Co-op had responsibility
for the oversight of new building. He was also a member of the Distress
Committee having responsibility for organising relief schemes for the
unemployed. He became Lord Mayor in 1942.
Sources: Leicester Pioneer 4th
July 1924, election address 1924
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Born 3rd Oct 1948, died:
July 1996 (Labour Party)
Dave Thomas was one of several
teachers who were former students at Scraptoft College of Education to
become a City Councillor. Once known as the ‘Scraptoft mafia,’ this group
included Sir Peter Soulsby, Graham Bett and Tony Yates and rose to
prominence in the late 1970’s and early 1980s. Dave Thomas taught at
Uplands primary school in Highfields and became a City Councillor for
Coleman ward in 1987. He was a Castle branch activist and was president of
the Trades Council in 199? He died whilst waiting for a heart transplant.
His wife, Ruth Thomas, (born 13th Jun 1952,) was also an active Labour
Party member and became head teacher at Evington Valley School. She died
of cancer in May 2000
Sources: author’s personal knowledge
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Born 26th April
1907, died: October 1993 (Communist Party)
Harry Thompson was a miner and active
in the General Strike in the North East. Unemployment forced him to move
finding work in Birmingham and Coventry before moving to Leicester, where
he worked in several different factories, eventually becoming shop steward
for the Transport and General Workers Union.
He became leader of the Mowmacre
Tenants Association and when a 27% rent increase was proposed by the Tory
controlled council in 1961, his stentorian interruptions brought the City
Council meeting to a halt. He was also involved in protests about the
removal of rent collectors. He was a delegate to the Trades Council and a
member of its executive in the early 1970s and still active in the
tenants’ movement up until his death in 1993.
Sources: author’s personal knowledge
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Died 20th May 1877 aged 60
James was born five years after his
father bought the Leicester Chronicle and his main education was entrusted
to the minister of Great Meeting, the chapel in which the very soul of
Leicester piety and radicalism. He is best known for his history of
Leicester and as a Liberal newspaper editor. However, in the late 1830’s,
he was an Owenite and used to debate religious and social questions at the
Owenite Social Institution in the Market Place. He then went to live and
work on the unofficial Owenite utopian community at Manea Fen,
Cambridgeshire which was founded in 1839 by William Hodson. On this 200
acre fenland estate, the community built cottages, a school, pavilion and
their own windmill. It had a ‘uniform’ of Lincoln green suits which gave
the men the appearance of being part of Robin Hood’s merry men. It was the
most radical and notorious of the Owenite communities and issued its own
paper The Working Bee which Thompson edited. The paper had,
according to Holyoake, “animation, literary merit, and the advantage of
appealing, to all who were impatient of delay, and not well instructed in
the dangers of prematurity.”
After joining his father as a
Chronicle reporter, he became joint proprietor in 1841 and sole owner in
1864. Thompson’s radicalism was short lived, as editor of the Chronicle.
He gave his support to the 'economists' on the Town Council and in 1852
was among those who broke with the radical section of their party and
formed a new Liberal committee 'to secure the independence of the
Borough from dictation'. They saw the radical wing of the party as a
'Chartist clique.' Nevertheless, he was a man highly regarded in
Leicester, having helped to found the Mechanics Institute and the
Leicester Historical and Archaeological Society and was honorary curator
of the town's museum.
Sources: Steve England,
Magnificent Mercury History of a Regional Newspaper, 1999, George
Jacob Holyoake, The History of Co-operation, 1875, VCH Vol 4
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Died:
October 1982 aged 47 (Labour Party)
Bob Trewick was the son of a miner.
Before coming to Leicester, he was a full-time agent for the Labour Party
in Keighley, Yorkshire and had been a school governor at the age of 20. He
found a job in Leicester as a production clerk at the Leicester Co-op
Dairy. He was elected to City Council 1963 for Abbey ward and at the time
was the youngest ever councillor. He was chairman of the old North West
Constituency Labour party, Chair of Housing 1973-6, member of U.S.D.A.W.
and Co-op Party. He lost his City Council seat in 1976 and was elected to
the County Council in 1981. He was described in the press as being a
‘confirmed bachelor’ who although being in some ways a loner was respected
for his ‘political honesty.’ He is commemorated by Bob Trewick House.
Sources: Leicester Mercury, 23rd
October 1982
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(Labour Party)
Cliff Tucker lost his council seat in
1968, but was subsequently re-elected for Charnwood ward. He was
deselected by Charnwood ward in 1973 and he then announced that he was “going
to do a Dick Taverne because the Charnwood branch had selected a coloured
man.”(Kris Shah) He stood as ‘Independent Labour’ and lost.
Sources: Leicester Mercury, May 1973
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Born: Leicester 1886
(Independent Labour Party, No More War Movement)
Horace Twilley was the youngest
brother of the suffragist and poet Gertrude Richardson who was later
active in the Canadian peace movement. He was born to working class
radical parents and worked as a commercial traveller for a woollen firm.
About 1910 he became a Socialist and was the secretary of the Leicester
Branch of the No-Conscription fellowship during World War One. He served
three terms of imprisonment of hard labour as a conscientious objector. He
joined the I.L.P. after the war, and in 1930, was its president. Although
he supported the disaffiliation of the I.L.P from the Labour Party, he
resigned as chairman of the I.L.P. in 1932 because it was not pacifist
enough. This was probably due to the growing influence of the
revolutionary left. At that time, he was prominent in the ‘No-More-War’
Movement.
Sources: Leicester Free Man, August
1917, Leicester Mercury 15th November 1932
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Born: 1904 died:? (Labour
Party)
 Lynn
Ungoed-Thomas was born into the home of Welsh clergyman. He won a
scholarship from his local board school to his grammar school and thence
to Oxford. He played rugby for Oxford, was a reserve Welsh international
and spent a season with Leicester Tigers. He was called to the bar in
1929. After serving through the war as a major, he won Llandaff and Barry
from the Tories in 1945. He was made a Kings Counsel in 1947. The seat
disappeared under boundary changes and he won Leicester North East in a
bye-election in 1950. In 1953, he attempted with Sidney Silverman and
other M.P.s to persuade the Home Secretary to change his decision refusing
a reprieve for Derek Bentley for his part in the murder of a policeman at
Croydon. He held the seat until 1962 when he stepped down to become a high
court judge.
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Born: October 10, 1760,
Leicester
George Harley Vaughan was a master at
the grammar school and a member of Richard Phillips’ Adelphi Club. Despite
his aristocratic connections, in 1793 he was given three months
imprisonment for distributing seditious literature in the form of a
pamphlet denouncing the war with France. He lost his post at the school,
which the Corporation feared was tainted with ‘left’ opinions. Shortly
after his release he committed suicide and was regarded as the ‘martyr of
Leicester liberalism.’ New rules were adopted by the grammar school which
provided for the removal of the master if he holds ‘any principle which
may be subversive of Religion or the established Government of the
Country.’
Sources: R.W. Graves, The
Corporation of Leicester 1689-1836
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Born: Goa, 1930, died:15th
October 2003 (Labour Party)
 Mrs
Vaz and her late husband, Xavier, were born in Goa, India. They came to
Britain in August 1965 and moved into East Twickenham. They later lived in
Richmond and East Sheen. After the death of her husband, Mrs Vaz moved to
Leicester in 1985. She taught at Whitehall Primary School before standing
as Labour candidate in Evington. In 1989 she was elected as a Councillor
for the Charnwood ward and became the first Asian woman to serve on
Leicester City Council. She retired from office in May 2003.
Merlyn Vaz was also a director of
Maplesbury Communications,a company registered at the home address of her
son Keith. The company received a donation from the billionaire Hinduja
brothers, whose British passport application led to the resignation of
Peter Mandelson from the cabinet of the Labour government.
Sources: author’s personal knowledge
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(Labour Party)
Albert Vesty was first elected to the
City Council in 1948 for Latimer and subsequently became chairman of the
Town Planning Committee.
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© Ned Newitt Last revised:
June 28, 2011. |
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