Joseph Burgess (1853–1934) was a British journalist, writer and

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 ...

politician. He was born on 3 July 1853 in

Failsworth Failsworth is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester city centre and south-west of Oldham. The orbital M60 motorway skirts it to the east. The population at the 2011 census was ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

, the third of six children of

handloom A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but t ...

weavers, and was educated at a print works school in Failsworth. He started work in a card-cutting room at the age of six and worked as a cotton operative until he was 28. He married three times, having six children. He died in January 1934.

Career

He was active in the creation 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 ...

(ILP) and the Labour Party. He was elected to the first

National Administrative Council The National Administrative Council (NAC) was the executive council of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), a British socialist party which was active from 1893 until 1975. Creation The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was founded at a conference in ...

of the ILP, and served on it again from 1899 until 1901. He unsuccessfully ran as an ILP parliamentary candidate for Leicester in 1894 and 1895 before taking a role of organising secretary for the ILP between 1897 and 1902. He was a member of the Glasgow City Council between 1902-5 and unsuccessfully ran as an ILP candidate for Glasgow Camlachie in 1906, and Montrose in 1908 and 1910. He resigned from the ILP in 1915. Throughout his career he was involved in newspapers: * 1881: correspondent for a local newspaper * 1884: started his own short-lived paper, the ''Oldham Operative'' * 1885–89: sub-editor of the '' Cotton Factory Times'' * 1889–91: manager of the ''

Yorkshire Factory Times The ''Yorkshire Factory Times'' was a British newspaper, founded in 1889. It was published weekly between 3 January 1890 and 29 December 1899. The newspaper was initially edited by Joseph Burgess and published from Huddersfield. The ''Yorkshire ...

'' * 1891–93: editor of '' Workman's Times'' * 1914: editor of the '' Bradford Pioneer'' * 1919: editorial staff for the ''

London Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' and the ''

Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed in ...

Publications

* ''John Burns: the rise and progress of a right honourable'' (1911) * ''Homeland or Empire'' (1915) * ''British agriculture versus foreign tributes'' (1925) * ''Will Lloyd George replace Ramsay MacDonald'' (1926)

Career

Publications

References

Further reading