Thomas Henry Sloan (1870–1941) was an Irish and British politician and founder of the
Independent Orange Order
The Independent Loyal Orange Institution is an offshoot of the Orange Institution, a Protestant fraternal organisation based in Northern Ireland. Initially pro-labour and supportive of tenant rights and land reform, over time it moved to a more ...
. He represented the
Belfast South constituency as an Independent Unionist at the
Westminster parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, supreme Legislature, legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of We ...
from 1902 to 1910.
Career
Sloan was a sub-contractor for the cementing of ship's floors at the shipyard of
Harland and Wolff
Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...
in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
.
He first came to attention as a supporter of the working class evangelical Protestant preacher
Arthur Trew
{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022
The Belfast Protestant Association was a populist evangelical political movement in the early 20th-century.
The Association was founded in the last years of the 19th century by Arthur Trew, a former shipyard worker ...
, and soon became a leading member of his
Belfast Protestant Association
{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022
The Belfast Protestant Association was a populist evangelical political movement in the early 20th-century.
The Association was founded in the last years of the 19th century by Arthur Trew, a former shipyard worker ...
. In 1901, Trew was sentenced to twelve months' hard labour after he incited an anti-Catholic riot, and Sloan took over his Sunday afternoon speeches on the steps of Belfast Customs House. Trew's imprisonment had increased interest, and Sloan was a superior speaker and organiser.
In 1902 general election, the Belfast Protestant Association challenged the
Conservative Unionist
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the Two-party system, two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. ...
nominee for
South Belfast, presenting Sloan as the democratic candidate.
[John F. Harbinson, ''The Ulster Unionist Party, 1882-1973'', p.223] His successful campaign was marked by what his opponents considered a classic piece of bigotry. Sloan protested the exemption of Catholic convents from inspection by the Hygiene Commission (the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
should not be "a state within a state"). But it was also as a trade unionist that Sloan criticised wealthy employers (the "fur-coat brigade") in the leadership of unionism.
In 1903, with
Robert Lindsay Crawford
Robert Lindsay Crawford (Lindsay Crawford) (1868–1945) was an Irish Protestant politician and journalist who shifted in his loyalties from Unionism in Ireland, Unionism and the Orange Order to the Irish Free State. He was a co-founder of the Ind ...
, Sloan founded the
Independent Orange Order
The Independent Loyal Orange Institution is an offshoot of the Orange Institution, a Protestant fraternal organisation based in Northern Ireland. Initially pro-labour and supportive of tenant rights and land reform, over time it moved to a more ...
. As Grand Master from 1905, Crawford sought to promote the Independent order as "strongly Protestant, strongly democratic" ''and'' "strongly Irish". In the Order's 1904 Magheramorne Manifesto, he invited Irish Protestants to "reconsider their position as Irish citizens and their attitude towards their Roman Catholic countrymen". While Sloan had signed the manifesto he, and the bulk of the membership, broke with Crawford as he moved progressively toward an embrace of Irish
Home Rule
Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wit ...
. Crawford was expelled in 1908.
With the Independent Order, Sloan supported dock and linen-mill workers, led by the
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 through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of pr ...
James Larkin
James Larkin (28 January 1874 – 30 January 1947), sometimes known as Jim Larkin or Big Jim, was an Irish republican, socialist and trade union leader. He was one of the founders of the Irish Labour Party along with James Connolly and Willia ...
, in the great
Belfast Lockout of 1907. In 1903 Sloan had been the only Unionist MP to vote for the Miners' Eight Hour bill.
[Collins, Peter (1998). "Larkin, James", S.J. Connolly, The Oxford Companion to Irish History. Oxford University Press. p. 302]
Sloan was re-elected in the
1906 general election
The following elections occurred in the year 1906.
Asia
* 1906 Persian legislative election
Europe
* 1906 Belgian general election
* 1906 Croatian parliamentary election
* Denmark
** 1906 Danish Folketing election
** 1906 Danish Landsting ele ...
, but twice lost to the official
Irish Unionist
Unionism is a political tradition on the island of Ireland that favours political union with Great Britain and professes loyalty to the British Crown and constitution. As the overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority, following ...
candidate in the
January 1910 and
December 1910
The following events occurred in December 1910:
December 1, 1910 (Thursday)
* Porfirio Diaz was inaugurated for his eighth term as President of Mexico."Record of Current Events", ''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'' (January 1911), pp ...
elections.
References
External links
*
1870 births
1941 deaths
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Belfast constituencies (1801–1922)
UK MPs 1900–1906
UK MPs 1906–1910
Independent members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
{{Ireland-UK-MP-stub