James Edwin Williams grave Southgate Cemetery 01

James Edwin Williams (1856 – 3 July 1917) was a British trade unionist.

Life and career

Born in Gloucester, Williams began working for the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

in 1874, based in

Pontypool Pontypool ( cy, Pont-y-pŵl ) is a town and the administrative centre of the county borough of Torfaen, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in South Wales. It has a population of 28,970. Location It is situated on the Afon Lwyd ri ...

, also joining the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS). Three years later, he suffered a serious accident while at work, forcing him to leave the industry, but he remained active in the ASRS, and also in local politics, being elected to the local Board of Guardians in 1893."Obituary: Mr J. E. Williams, JP", ''Annual Report of the 1917 Trades Union Congress'', p.205 In 1897, Williams was appointed as secretary of the Pontypool branch of the ASRS, then three years later as the union's assistant general secretary and financial secretary. In 1910, he was elected as the union's general secretary, leading the union through the major strike of 1911, then organising a merger with the

General Railway Workers' Union The General Railway Workers' Union was a trade union representing low-paid workers on railways of the United Kingdom. Following the London Dock strike of 1889, a group of low-paid railway workers were inspired to join a trade union. They hoped ...

and the

United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society {{short description, Former trade union of the United Kingdom The United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society was a union representing railway workers in the United Kingdom. The union was founded in 1880 in Bolton, when it was known as the Pointsmen' ...

. Completed in 1913, this merger formed the National Union of Railwaymen, and Williams was selected as its first general secretary, until his retirement in 1916. Williams also served on the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, from 1910, and was a

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

. He is buried in

Southgate Cemetery Southgate Cemetery, sometimes known as Edmonton and Southgate Cemetery or Old Southgate Cemetery, is a cemetery in Waterfall Road, Southgate, London, run by the London Borough of Enfield. The cemetery was established by the Southgate Burial B ...

along with his wife Sarah Jane (died 22 June 1932). Williams' son,

Arthur James Williams Lt. Col. Arthur "Art" James Williams, USAAF, AAM, OBE was a pioneering pilot who helped develop aviation in Guyana, then British Guiana. Art Williams arrived in British Guiana in August 1934 piloting an Ireland N-2C Neptune amphibian biplane, (r ...

, also became a leading figure in the NUR, and served as

Lord Mayor of Cardiff This is a list of mayors of Cardiff, Wales. The first mayor recorded for Cardiff was in 1126 though the title was generally given to the Constable or military governor of Cardiff Castle.

.Williams, Arthur James
, '' Who Was Who''

References

External links

1856 births 1917 deaths General Secretaries of the National Union of Railwaymen Members of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress English justices of the peace People from Gloucester 19th-century British businesspeople {{UK-trade-unionist-bio-stub