Will Lawther
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Sir William Lawther (20 May 1889 – 1 February 1976) was a politician and trade union leader in the United Kingdom.
Born in Choppington, in Northumberland, Lawther was educated at Choppington Colliery School, then became a coal miner. He became active in the Northumberland Miners' Association, which funded him to study at the Central Labour College.
Lawther was active in the Labour Party, standing unsuccessfully for the party in South Shields at the 1922, 1923 and 1924 United Kingdom general elections. From 1925 to 1929, he served on Durham County Council. At the 1929 general election, he switched to contest Barnard Castle, winning the seat, though he was defeated in 1931.
Out of Parliament, Lawther returned to trade unionism. He was elected to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 1935, and as President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) in 1939. The MFGB became the National Union of Mineworkers, with Lawther remaining president. In 1949, he was President of the TUC, and later that year, he was knighted.
Lawther retired from his trade union posts in 1954, and died in 1976 aged 86. Since his death, declassified archives have shown that Will Lawther had covertly been working with a secret Cold War propaganda department attached to the British Foreign Office called the Information Research Department, and was paid by the British government to promote anti-communist material.
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005:
- at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- – nationalarchives.gov.uk
- in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded byCuthbert Headlam | Member of Parliament for Barnard Castle 1929–1931 | Succeeded byCuthbert Headlam |
| Trade union offices | ||
| Preceded byS. O. Davies | Vice-President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) 1934–1939 | Succeeded byJim Bowman |
| Preceded byJoseph Jones | President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) 1939–1945 | Succeeded byPosition abolished |
| Preceded byNew position | President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) 1945–1954 | Succeeded byErnest Jones |
| Preceded byEbby Edwards | Secretary of the Miners' International Federation 1947–1957 | Succeeded byErnest Jones |
| Preceded byFlorence Hancock | President of the Trades Union Congress 1949 | Succeeded byHerbert Bullock |
| Preceded byLincoln Evans and Tom Williamson | Trades Union Congress representative to the American Federation of Labour 1950 With: Florence Hancock | Succeeded byJim Kelly and Tom Yates |