Thomas G. Mottershead (1826 – 5 December 1884) was a British trade unionist and socialist activist. Born in

Macclesfield Macclesfield is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Bollin in the east of the county, on the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east ...

, Mottershead became a weaver in the silk industry.

o title O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...

Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 6 December 1884 He was a well-known Chartist, and during the 1850s was very interested in the proposals of

William James Linton William James Linton (December 7, 1812December 29, 1897) was an English-born American wood-engraver, landscape painter, political reformer and author of memoirs, novels, poetry and non-fiction. Birth and early years Born in Mile End, east Lon ...

. By the 1860s, he was prominent in the

Reform League The Reform League was established in 1865 to press for manhood suffrage and the ballot in Great Britain. It collaborated with the more moderate and middle class Reform Union and gave strong support to the abortive Reform Bill 1866 and the success ...

, and alongside Randal Cremer and George Howell agreed to use the league to gather information for the Liberal Party. In 1869, he was a leading founder of the

Labour Representation League The Labour Representation League (LRL), organised in November 1869, was a forerunner of the British Labour Party. Its original purpose was to register the working class to vote, and get workers into Parliament. It had limited power, described ...

, and later spent time as its secretary.Kevin B. Nolan, ''Karl Marx: The Materialist Messiah'', p.28 In 1869, Mottershead was elected to the General Council of the International Workingmen's Association, on which he was long known as an ally of Karl Marx, and acted as its corresponding secretary for Denmark. However, he fell out with Marx, in particular due to his refusal to consider Irish independence, and lost influence in the association after attending the 1872 Hague Congress while drunk. Mottershead was also a prominent trade unionist, and served on the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress in 1874/5, representing

Preston Preston is a place name, surname and given name that may refer to: Places England *Preston, Lancashire, an urban settlement **The City of Preston, Lancashire, a borough and non-metropolitan district which contains the settlement **County Boro ...

Trades Council A labour council, trades council or industrial council is an association of labour unions or union branches in a given area. Most commonly, they represent unions in a given geographical area, whether at the district, city, region, or provincial or ...

. He lost his seat the following year after coming behind

Thomas Birtwistle Thomas Birtwistle (16 October 1833 – 22 March 1912) was an English trade unionist and factory inspector. Born in Great Harwood, Lancashire, he worked in a cotton mill from the age of six, becoming a power-loom weaver at the age of fourteen. In s ...

in the voting. At the

1874 UK general election The 1874 United Kingdom general election saw the incumbent Liberals, led by William Gladstone, lose decisively, even though it won a majority of the votes cast. Benjamin Disraeli's Conservatives won the majority of seats in the House of Common ...

, Mottershead stood as a Liberal-Labour candidate in

. A meeting of 5,000 workers at Preston Corn Exchange, chaired by Alfred Bailey, resolved to support his candidature. At that meeting, Mottershead stated that he was "determined to create a third party" representing labour. He ran against two Conservatives; they were both elected, taking 6,512 and 5,211 votes, while Mottershead came last with 3,756."The forthcoming election at Preston", ''

'', 20 April 1874 When a by-election arose later in the year, Mottershead was again proposed as a candidate, although ultimately the election was unopposed. In the late 1870s, Mottershead was a member of the executive of the

, using this position to campaign against war with Russia. He also sat on the executive of the London Trades Council. In 1883, he attended a conference in support of the

Tichborne Claimant The Tichborne case was a legal ''cause célèbre'' that captivated Victorian England in the 1860s and 1870s. It concerned the claims by a man sometimes referred to as Thomas Castro or as Arthur Orton, but usually termed "the Claimant", to be t ...

. He stated that, although he did not support the claimant's case, he felt that they had suffered enough.Rohan McWilliam, ''The Tichborne Claimant'', p.179 Mottershead died in 1884, after suffering a fit while crossing Westminster Bridge. Although taken to hospital, he never regained consciousness.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mottershead, Thomas 1825 births 1884 deaths English trade unionists Liberal-Labour (UK) politicians Members of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress Members of the International Workingmen's Association People from Macclesfield