William Henry Oldfield (1881 in

Sowerby Bridge Sowerby Bridge ( ) is a market town in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. The Calderdale Council ward population at the 2011 census was 11,703. History The town was originally a fording point over the once muc ...

– 1961) was a British

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 ...

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) and a

trade unionist A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...

. A cotton operative himself, Oldfield served as Secretary of the Cotton Trades and Labour Council and President of the Cotton Spinners' Association. He was a

Manchester City Council Manchester City Council is the local authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester is the sixth largest city in England by population. Its city council is composed of 96 councillors, three ...

lor 1928-1945 and Alderman 1945–61. The Labour Agent for

Gorton Gorton is an area of Manchester in North West England, southeast of the city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 36,055. Neighbouring areas include Levenshulme and Openshaw. A major landmark is Gorton Monastery, a 19th-century Hi ...

, he was selected to fight the

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

constituency in a wartime by-election in 1942, following the elevation of

William Wedgwood Benn William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate, (10 May 1877 – 17 November 1960) was a British Liberal politician who later joined the Labour Party. A decorated Royal Air Force officer, he was Secretary of State for India between 1929 and 19 ...

to the peerage. He was elected unopposed and held the seat until 1955.

Notes

References

* 1881 births 1961 deaths Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies English trade unionists Councillors in Manchester Transport and General Workers' Union-sponsored MPs UK MPs 1935–1945 UK MPs 1945–1950 UK MPs 1950–1951 UK MPs 1951–1955 {{UK-trade-unionist-bio-stub