Thomas Richardson (6 June 1868 – 22 October 1928) was a Labour Party politician in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

who served as

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

Whitehaven Whitehaven is a town and port on the English north west coast and near to the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies by road south-west of Carlisle and to the north of Barrow-in-Furness. It is th ...

, in

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

, from 1910 to 1918. Thomas Richardson was the first born of Robert Richardson and his wife Margaret and was named for his grandfather who died shortly before he was born. His father worked as a coal miner and the family had lived at Usworth Colliery. Thomas began working as a coal miner as well. In 1885 his father died in an explosion in the Usworth pit which had claimed forty one other men. At the age of 20 Thomas Richardson married his wife Mary Ellinor Purvis. They had ten children. He interest in politics was motivated by his desire to improve conditions for coal miners. Richardson was an active 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 its leading member in Whitehaven. His brother

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

was also active in the party, and later became Treasurer of the

Miners' Federation of Great Britain The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales in 1888. The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' unions in Engla ...

.David Howell, ''British workers and the Independent Labour Party'', p.47 He was elected as Whitehaven's first Labour MP at the

December 1910 general election The December 1910 United Kingdom general election was held from 3 to 19 December. It was the last general election to be held over several days and the last to be held before the History of the United Kingdom during the First World War, First Wo ...

. A Labour candidate had stood unsuccessfully in January 1910 general election, but Richardson was assisted by the absence of a

Liberal party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

candidate. At the 1918 election, he did not stand again in Whitehaven, but stood in Bosworth in Leicestershire, where he was not elected, winning only 33% of the vote in a two-way contest.

References

External links

* 1868 births 1928 deaths Independent Labour Party National Administrative Committee members Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Miners' Federation of Great Britain-sponsored MPs UK MPs 1910–1918 People from Whitehaven {{England-Labour-UK-MP-stub