Ernest George Hicks (13 May 1879 – 19 July 1954) was a British trades unionist and Labour Party politician. Hicks was born in 1879 in Vernhams Dean,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

. Along with fellow

bricklayer A bricklayer, which is related to but different from a mason, is a craftsman and tradesman who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The terms also refer to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of masonry. ...

Jack Fitzgerald Jack Fitzgerald ( 1873 – 16 April 1929) was a founder member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Fitzgerald was an Irishman who had settled in London, and had joined the socialist movement after becoming a secularist, embracing socialism ...

and F. K. Cadman, he was one of the founding members of the

Socialist Party of Great Britain The Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) is a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1904 as a split from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), it advocates using the ballot box for revolutionary purposes and oppos ...

in June 1904. Hicks resigned on 20 August 1904, rejoining on 14 December 1908 and finally leaving around 1910. He does not seem to have played an active part in the life of the Party, but after leaving it went on to be a prominent trade union leader in the bricklayers' union. Hicks first came to prominence during the great labour unrest just before the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, particularly in the London building trades lockout of 1914. He was a well-known syndicalist agitator at this time, being linked with

Tom Mann Thomas Mann (15 April 1856 – 13 March 1941), was an English trade unionist and is widely recognised as a leading, pioneering figure for the early labour movement in Britain. Largely self-educated, Mann became a successful organiser and a ...

’s

Industrial Syndicalist Education League The Industrial Syndicalist Education League (ISEL) was a British syndicalist Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands t ...

and its effective successor the Industrial Democracy League. In 1912, he became National Organiser of the Operative Bricklayers' Society, serving as its General Secretary from 1919 to 1921. Subsequently he was General Secretary of Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers (the successor to the OBS) from 1921 to 1941. Hicks was a member of General Council of the TUC from 1921 to 1941, during the early to mid-1920s gaining a reputation as a Left (e.g., writing for the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

-controlled ''

Sunday Worker Sunday is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. In most Western countries, Sunday is a day of rest and a part of the weekend. It is often considered the first day of the week. For most observant adherents of Christianity, Sunday ...

'', and helping organise the 1926 General Strike). This had been largely lost by the time he served as the TUC President in 1927–28. Around this time he was also a member of the General Council of the

International Federation of Trade Unions The International Federation of Trade Unions (also known as the Amsterdam International) was an international organization of trade unions, existing between 1919 and 1945. IFTU had its roots in the pre-war IFTU. IFTU had close links to the Labo ...

. Hicks wrote the foreword for the 1927 edition of ''

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists ''The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists'' (1914) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Irish house painter and sign writer Robert Noonan, who wrote the book in his spare time under the pen name Robert Tressell. Published after Tressell's death f ...

''. He was present at the 1931 Jubilee meeting of the

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

-affiliated SDF at

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

where he made the main speech (later published as a pamphlet ''

Poverty from Plenty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

''). In a 1931 by-election, Hicks was elected Labour

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for Woolwich East, representing that constituency until 1950. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Works in the wartime coalition government from 1941 to 1945; a fellow ex-member of the SPGB, Valentine McEntee, was his parliamentary private secretary. He died in 1954, aged 75.

References

External links

* *

1904–1913 membership register {{DEFAULTSORT:Hicks, George 1879 births 1954 deaths Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers-sponsored MPs British bricklayers General secretaries of British trade unions Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Members of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress Ministers in the Churchill wartime government, 1940–1945 People from Test Valley Presidents of the Trades Union Congress Socialist Party of Great Britain members UK MPs 1929–1931 UK MPs 1931–1935 UK MPs 1935–1945 UK MPs 1945–1950