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Harry Thompson (radical Lawyer)
William Henry Thompson (1885–1947) was an English radical lawyer closely involved with trade unions, who founded Thompsons Solicitors. From the 1920s he was associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He was married to Joan Beauchamp, a prominent suffragette. Early life He was the son of William Henry Thompson (c.1830–1904), a warehouse owner who ran a wholesale grocery business in Preston, Lancashire and Methodist, and his wife Martha née Thompson (died 1920); he was the younger son in a family of five girls and four boys. His maternal grandfather John Thompson was a Cumbrian, who prospered in Preston and was also a radical. His sister Constance Sumner Thompson was a schoolmistress and mother of A. J. P. Taylor. According to Taylor, Harry was the brightest child in a family of six, but a "clever-clogs". Margaret Cole described him as "a tall handsome athletic fellow, excelling in all games". Harry Thompson was educated at Preston Grammar School. He was then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thompsons Solicitors
Thompsons Solicitors, formerly Robin Thompson & Partners, is a large firm of solicitors founded in 1921 with longstanding links to the trade union movement. It is 45th on the list of largest United Kingdom-based law firms. It specialises in personal injury claims and employment law, and only acts for claimants. It moved its Birmingham offices to Embassy House in Church Street in April 2017. The Black Solicitors Network’s Diversity League Table in 2009 found the firm had the largest proportion of women and lawyers from an ethnic minority background of the top 100 firms in the UK. Numerous Labour Party politicians have worked for the firm, including Mick Antoniw, Jo Stevens, Vicky Phillips, Vaughan Gething, Rob Marris and Andy McDonald. Lord John Monks is a non executive director of the firm. It has been involved in many leading cases, especially in relation to UK labour law, including Williams v Compair Maxam Ltd and personal injuries. In the case of Ian Paterson it secur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wakefield Gaol
His Majesty's Prison Wakefield is a Category A men's prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been nicknamed the "Monster Mansion" due to the large number of high-profile, high-risk sex offenders and murderers held there. History Wakefield Prison was originally built as a house of correction in 1594. Most of the current prison buildings date from the Victorian era. The current prison was designated a Dispersal prison in 1967, holding 144 inmates and is the oldest of the Dispersal prisons still operating across England and Wales. The English Dialect Dictionary indicates references to ''Wakefield'' were often short for referring to the long-standing prison (e.g. "being sent to Wakefield" meant being sent to prison). "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush" The exercise yard at Wakefield had a mulberry tree, around which inmates that were mothers used to exercise. This has been linked to the nursery rhyme "Here We Go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socialist Labour Party (UK, 1903)
The Socialist Labour Party was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1903 as a splinter from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) by James Connolly, Neil Maclean and SDF members impressed with the politics of the American socialist Daniel De Leon, a Marxist theoretician and leading figure of the Socialist Labor Party of America. After decades of existence as a tiny organisation, the group was finally disbanded in 1980. Organisational history Formation The British Socialist Labour Party began as a faction of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) headed nationally by Henry Hyndman. A group of Scottish members of the organisation, led by an engineering worker named George Yates, strongly criticised the party leadership of the SDF for supporting the entry of conservative socialist Alexandre Millerand into the bourgeois French cabinet at the 1900 Congress of the Second International. The group attacked the party leadership as reformist and be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Eric Geddes
Sir Eric Campbell Geddes (26 September 1875 – 22 June 1937) was a British businessman and Conservative politician. With a background in railways, he served as head of Military Transportation on the Western Front, with the rank of major-general. He then served as First Lord of the Admiralty (with the rank of vice-admiral, despite its being a political position) between 1917 and 1919. He then served as the first Minister of Transport between 1919 and 1921, in which position he was responsible for the deep public spending cuts known as the "Geddes Axe". Background and education Born in British India, Geddes was a son of Auckland Campbell Geddes, of Edinburgh, Scotland. Among his siblings were Dr. Mona Chalmers Watson and Auckland Geddes, 1st Baron Geddes. He was educated at Oxford Military College and Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, until asked to leave. Geddes, Baron, The forging of a family. London: Faber & Faber, 1952 p. 124, pp.201-205, pp.221-250. Business career ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Winstone
James Winstone (9 February 1863 – 27 July 1921) was a British trade unionist Born in Risca, Winstone worked from the age of eight, first at a local brickworks, then at Risca United Colliery. He was elected checkweighman, and worked with William Brace to campaign against the sliding pay scale. As a result, he was a prominent founder member of the South Wales Miners' Federation (SWMF) in 1898. Winstone was also active in the Independent Labour Party, and was a Baptist lay preacher. He was elected for the Labour Party to Risca Urban District Council, then to Abersychan council, which he chaired in 1911. In 1907, he was elected to Monmouthshire County Council. He stood at Monmouth Boroughs at the 1906 general election, but received no backing from his union, and was not elected. In 1912, he was elected as Vice President of the SWMF, the first socialist to such a position. He was selected as the Labour candidate for the 1915 Merthyr Tydfil by-election, the seat having pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conveyancing
In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title of real property from one person to another, or the granting of an encumbrance such as a mortgage or a lien. A typical conveyancing transaction has two major phases: the exchange of contracts (when equitable interests are created) and completion (also called settlement, when legal title passes and equitable rights merge with the legal title). The sale of land is governed by the laws and practices of the jurisdiction in which the land is located. It is a legal requirement in all jurisdictions that contracts for the sale of land be in writing. An exchange of contracts involves two copies of a contract of sale being signed, one copy of which is retained by each party. When the parties are together, both would usually sign both copies, one copy of which being retained by each party, sometimes with a formal handing over of a copy from one party to the other. However, it is usually sufficient that only the copy retained by each part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-Conscription Fellowship
The No-Conscription Fellowship was a British pacifist organization which was founded in London by Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen on 27 November 1914, after the First World War had failed to reach an early conclusion. Other prominent supporters included John Clifford, Bruce Glasier, Hope Squire, Bertrand Russell, Robert Smillie and Philip Snowden. Background A focus of the campaign was the Military Service Act which introduced conscription in 1916. Branches were established across the country, leaflets were produced and deputations sent to lobby Parliament. They were successful in getting provision for conscientious objectors in the bill, but opposed the establishment of the army's Non-Combatant Corps. History The founders and other members were jailed for their opposition to conscription. Bertrand Russell took over from Clifford Allen as the chairman of the organisation while Catherine Marshall took over from Fenner Brockway as secretary. Marshall was in love with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Meynell
Sir Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell (12 May 1891 – 10 July 1975) was a British poet and printer at The Nonesuch Press. Early career He was the son of the journalist and publisher Wilfrid Meynell and the poet Alice Meynell, a suffragist and prominent Roman Catholic convert. After leaving Trinity College, Dublin, he joined his father at the publisher Burns & Oates. In 1913 he was brought in by George Lansbury to be business manager of the '' ''Daily Herald''''. In 1912 he came to the notice of wealthy American, Mary Melissa Hoadley Dodge, who was domiciled in England. She knew Meynell's parents and had seen him speak in defence of activists of the suffragette movement in Queen's Hall. With her companion, Countess Muriel De La Warr, she provided support and funding for him in 1916 to start the ''Pelican Press'' and also helped with funding for the ''Daily Herald''. In 1921 Meynell was editor of the weekly paper ''The Communist'' and became involved with a libel action that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friends' Ambulance Unit
The Friends' Ambulance Unit (FAU) was a volunteer ambulance service, founded by individual members of the British Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), in line with their Peace Testimony. The FAU operated from 1914–1919, 1939–1946 and 1946–1959 in 25 different countries around the world. It was independent of the Quakers' organisation and chiefly staffed by registered conscientious objectors. History First World War The Unit was founded as The First Anglo-Belgian Ambulance Unit at the start of World War I in 1914 and later renamed the Friends' Ambulance Unit. Members were trained at Jordans, a hamlet in Buckinghamshire, that was a centre for Quakerism. Altogether it sent over a thousand men to France, Belgium and Italy, where they worked on ambulance convoys and ambulance trains with the French and British armies. The FAU came under the jurisdiction of the British Red Cross Society. It was dissolved in 1919. Second World War and aftermath It was refounded by a commi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Jordans
Jordans is a village in Chalfont St Giles parish, Buckinghamshire, England, and the civil parish of Hedgerley. It is a centre for Quakerism, holds the burial place of William Penn, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, and so is a popular place with American visitors. It also contains the Mayflower Barn, made from ship timbers sometimes claimed to be from the ''Mayflower''. Some 245 households and 700 residents are served by a nursery, primary school, youth hostel, village hall and community shop. Forty of the houses and cottages and 21 flats are owned by a non-profit society that manages the village and its amenities. Heritage Two of several suggested origins of the name Jordans appear in a book on the history of the village: "Little is known of Jordans Farm before the seventeenth century.... It has been suggested that the name comes from some connection with a manorial family of Jourdemain... but a more probable origin is in an early owner or occupant called Jordan." Jord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawkshead
Hawkshead is a village and civil parish in Cumbria, England, which attracts tourists to the South Lakeland area. The parish includes the hamlets of Hawkshead Hill, to the north west, and Outgate, a similar distance north. Hawkshead contains one primary school but no secondary school and four public houses. Geography Hawkshead is just north of Esthwaite Water, in a valley to the west of Windermere and east of Coniston Water. It is part of Furness, making it a part of the ancient county of Lancashire. History The township of Hawkshead was originally owned by the monks of Furness Abbey; nearby Colthouse derives its name from the stables owned by the Abbey. Hawkshead grew to be an important wool market in medieval times and later as a market town after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1532. It was granted its first market charter by King James I in 1608. In 1585, Hawkshead Grammar School was established by Archbishop Edwin Sandys of York after he successfully petitioned Qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Sara
Henry Thomas William Sara (24 August 1886 – 19 November 1953) was an English industrial unionist active as an anarchist, communist and Trotskyist. Sara was born into a working-class family: his father, John Sara, was a draper's assistant. Henry's first jobs included being a glass blower, a process block maker and a brewery engineer. He was an omnivorous reader, and had a particular interest in Darwinism and the novels of Eugene Sue. Although he was a secularist, he developed an interest in telepathy, spiritualism and theosophy. He developed and presented lantern slide shows on such themes as "Russia Today", "war and struggle in Germany", "The Paris Commune", "Epochs of Social Change", "The French Revolution", "Ireland", "The Life and Work of Lenin" and "The Fraud of Spiritualism". More than 1,500 of the slides he used in his lectures are archived in the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick. Texts by Sara"Our policy stated"''The Herald of Revolt'', vol.III, no.4 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
