Benjamin Riley (1866 – 6 January 1946) was a

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Labour Party politician. Born in Halifax, Riley was the son of a stonemason. He started work aged 9, and was

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to the

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trade. He served as a

journeyman A journeyman, journeywoman, or journeyperson is a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification. Journeymen are considered competent and authorized to work in that fie ...

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and London, eventually starting his own business in

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...

in 1896. At the same time he was employed as a lecturer by the Land Restoration League, visiting agricultural labourers in various counties. He married Lucy Rushworth of Halifax, and they had one son. Riley was a founding member of the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

, and was elected to Huddersfield School Board in 1896 and to Huddersfield Town Council in 1904. At the 1918 general election Riley stood as the Labour Party's candidate in the Dewsbury constituency, but failed to be elected. At the next election in 1922 Riley won the seat, but lost it the following year. In

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China hol ...

he regained the seat. He was

Parliamentary Private Secretary A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom who acts as an unpaid assistant to a minister or shadow minister. They are selected from backbench MPs as the 'eyes and ears' of the minister in the H ...

Noel Buxton Noel Edward Noel-Buxton, 1st Baron Noel-Buxton, PC (9 January 1869 – 12 September 1948) was a British Liberal and later Labour politician. He served as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and between 1929 and ...

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a United Kingdom cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889. ...

in the Labour Government of 1929-1931. At the 1931 general election he lost his seat, along with many other Labour Party MPs. Riley returned to the

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at the 1935 general election. He held the seat until the 1945 general election, when he retired. He died at his home in Huddersfield in January 1946, aged 80.

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* 1866 births 1946 deaths UK MPs 1922–1923 Independent Labour Party National Administrative Committee members Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1924–1929 UK MPs 1929–1931 UK MPs 1935–1945 Politicians from Halifax, West Yorkshire People from Huddersfield {{England-Labour-UK-MP-stub