The First Labour Party 1869 TUC/Labour Representation League

The Labour Representation League

(Left Alexander MacDonald (Stafford) - Right Thomas Burt (Morpeth)

It can be argued that The Labour Representation League is Britain’s first working class party. 

The LRL was essentially a product or off shoot of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and its main proponent was John Stuart Mill.

The Labour Representation League was established in 1869 and at the 1874 secured the election of Britain's first two Labour Members of Parliament (both miners union representatives) Alexander MacDonald (Stafford) and Thomas Burt (Morpeth)

 They were later joined by Henry Broadhurst MP for Stoke in 1880, at its peak the LRL could claim fifteen MP’s.

The LRL lacked direction and a coherent programme beyond that of securing the election of working class and trade union MP’s and was crippled by the trade union leader’s historic reluctance to break with the Liberal Party.

In 1893 the Labour Representation League ceased to exist as a separate organisation, many of its MP’s by this time having being integrated into the Liberal Party.

In August 1871 The Labour Representation League officers were

President: R. Marsden Latham

Treasurer: William Allen

Secretary: Lloyd Jones

The Labour Representation League headquarters were based at 21 Cockspur Street, London

100 years ago, in an inspiring and relevant even to day, call to arms, the Labour Representation League issued the following statement in August 1872

“We call on you to again engage in your old fight with men in power.

Gather yourselves together in every constituency. Disregard meaningless party cries and as a first necessary step for vindication of your claims, punish by exclusion from Parliament the men who by their political treachery, cowardice and vulgar worship of wealth have decreed that you shall not cause to have branded on you the degrading stigma of political inferiority”

NOTES 

On Britain's first Labour MP's elected in 1874

Alexander MacDonald  - Stafford (27 June 1821 – 31 October 1881) son of an agricultural worker from New Monkland, Lanarkshire, Scotland

Thomas Burt - Morpeth  (12th November 1837 - 12th  April 1922)  son of a miner from Murton Row in Northumberland

LRC and The Chinese Labour Question

The Chinese Labour Question

This issue of the use of Chinese Labour in South Africa was a major issue for progressives in the early 1900's.

Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of the Cape Colony, South Africa, who along with Cecil Rhodes was one of the main architects in provoking the land grab in Southern Africa which led to the Boer war.




Milner's plan for encouraging British migration to South Africa (to counter the Boer influence) necessitated huge amounts of subsidise to companies and potential migrants. To fund this Milner needed to exploit the numerous gold mines of South Africa.

Given a shortage of cheap native African workers to work in the gold mines, Milner persuaded the British government to sign a treaty with China for the importation of 60,000 indentured Chinese labourers on three year, so called "licences", between 1903 and 1907 .

These indentured Chinese labourers were kept in almost slave conditions and treated brutally, with corporal punishment being handed out at will.

Ironically, Milner started out on the left, in 1885 even standing as the Liberal parliamentary candidate for Harrow. He ended up as Chairman of Rio Tinto Zinic Mining Company and calling himself a "British Race Patriot".

It was around the issue of the Chinese labour question that the early Labour Representation Committee in Ealing mobilised. On 7th May 1904 the Ealing & District Labour Representation Committee Sunday afternoon demonstration against indentured Chinese labour on Ealing Common . William Piggott - Secretary.


NOTES


West Ham and Poplar were the first Councils to fall to Labour in London at the turn of the century and in 1907-1908 at Camberwell and Bethnal Green

The Fulham and Hammersmith Labour Part developed from the South West London Labour Representation Committee, The Secretary and candidate was George Belt a member of the Social Democratic Federation. (circa 1903)

Hammersmith Social Democratic Federation was affiliated to Hammersmith Labour Party (Circa 1903)

By 1914 The British Socialist Party had 55 branches in London with 2,500 members and was the largest socialist organisation in London