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 ...

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

. 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