| Description | DOB: 1900
DOD: UNKNOWN
Grew up in St. Helens, Lancashire.
Fascinated by reading and self-education from early age, regularly visited public library.
Family-owned books.
Coal scavenging during the 1912 miners' strike.
Attended school in St. Helens until age 15, left school in May 1915.
Developed intellectual interests independently, especially political and economic ideas.
Became engaged in socialist classes via Liverpool Labour College.
Worked at Pilkington's glassworks engineering department.
Later worked as a tram conductor and minder at Alexandra Colliery and Grove's Colliery.
Active union roles across work places: auditor, branch committee member, delegate.
Political study groups, singing revolutionary songs, collecting Marxist literature.
Build a communal study hut with comrades.
Engaged in amateur harmonium playing and organising social evenings.
WWI era political awakening.
Witnessed Black Friday 1921 betrayal of Triple Alliance.
Involved in engineer's lockout, national unemployed workers' movement strike, and later organised local council of action during general strike 1926.
Heled form St. Helens Socialist Society, later integrated into Communist Party.
Observed electoral organization including area/factory branches and hut for study and activism.
Type-written
St. Helens, Pilkington Bros, trade unionism, Labour Party, Communist Party, Robert Blatchford, Labour College, black friday, general strike, unemployed movement, miners' union, socialist, study group, engineering, tram conductor, pit work, class consciousness. |