Vernon Hartshorn

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Vernon Hartshorn

Vernon Hartshorn OBE (* 16th March 1872 in Cross Keys , Pontywaun , Monmouthshire , Wales , † 13. March 1931 in Hillcrest, Maesteg , Glamorgan ) was a British trade union functionary and politicians of the Independent Labor Party (ILP) and Labor Party , who represented the constituency of Ogmore as a member of the House of Commons for 13 years until his death , was Minister of Post from 1924 and from 1930 until his death in 1931 Lord Seal Keeper .

Life

Union official and unsuccessful House of Commons candidates

Hartshorn was the eldest son of the miner Theophilus Hartshorn and his wife Helen Gregory and after attending the local elementary school he also worked as a miner in Risca before he became an employee in the office of a mining company in the port of Cardiff . He later returned to the mine after being elected by the miners there to control the mine owner's scales. It was a matter of trust, since the miners' wages were determined by the weight of the coal extracted. Hartshorn, a member of the Primitive Methodists , joined the Independent Labor Party (ILP) as a member and was elected shop steward for the Maesteg miners in 1905 , becoming a union official of the South Wales Miners' Federation .

In a by -election , Hartshorn ran for the ILP in the Mid Glamorgan constituency for the first time for a mandate in the House of Commons, but was defeated by 6,210 votes to the Liberal Party candidate , Frederick William Gibbins , who received 8,920 votes. Also in the subsequent general election of December 19, 1910 , he applied to succeed Gibbins in this constituency, but lost this time again to the opponent of the Liberal Party, John Hugh Edwards , who got 7,624 votes while he got 6,102 votes.

Union leader and World War I

In 1911 Hartshorn became both a member of the Executive Council of the ILP and a member of the National Executive Council of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), the umbrella union of British miners. He was one of a number of younger radical union officials who replaced a number of older workers officials after the strikes in the Cambrian Colliery in the Clydach Valley . In 1912 he played a leading role in the strike over minimum wages for miners.

During World War I , Hartshorn supported the war effort and was a member of the Organizing Committee on Coal Trade, the Advisory Council on Coal Controllers, and the Committee on Labor Unrest of South Wales. In 1918 he was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for this loyal support of the mining industry, which was important for the war effort . However, this temporarily led to mistrust of the union members against him.

In 1920 he resigned temporarily as a member of the National Executive Council of the Miners 'Federation of Great Britain after disagreements over strike tactics , but rejoined that body in 1922 after being elected President of the South Wales Miners' Federation .

Member of the House of Commons, Minister of Post and the Zinoviev Letter

Hartshorn was elected as a candidate for the Labor Party in the elections of December 14, 1918 in the newly created constituency of Ogmore for the first time as a member of the House of Commons and belonged to this until his death.

In the general election of December 6, 1923 , the Labor Party won 191. Although the Conservative Party won 258 seats, former Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Herbert Henry Asquith announced that he would not support the Conservative Tory government of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin becomes. In Asquith's view, the attempt at a Labor government could thus be undertaken under the most secure conditions possible.

The leader of the Labor Party, Ramsay MacDonald , agreed to the formation of a minority government and on 23 January 1924 became the first member of the Labor Party to become British Prime Minister. Even when forming a government, however, he was faced with the problem that most of the Labor Party MPs had little or no administrative experience. Hartshorn himself was appointed by Prime Minister MacDonald as Postmaster General in his cabinet and was a member of this until the end of MacDonald's tenure on November 4, 1924.

In October 1924, the MI5 ( Security Service ) intercepted a letter written by the chairman of the Communist International , Grigory Yevsejewitsch Zinoviev , to the Communist Party of Great Britain , in which he urged the British Communists to promote a revolution through acts of sedition. The director general of MI5, Vernon Kell , and the head of its special department, Basil Thomson , told Prime Minister MacDonald that the letter was genuine from their point of view. It was agreed that the letter should be kept secret, but the Times and Daily Mail learned of the letter through an unknown person . The two newspapers then published the letter four days before the general election of October 29, 1924 , thus contributing to the defeat of MacDonald's Labor Party. The Conservative Party won 412 seats and was able to provide Prime Minister with Stanley Baldwin , while the Labor Party lost forty seats and only had 151 lower house seats. MacDonald then became opposition leader in the House of Commons.

Simon Commission and Lord Seal Keeper

In 1927 Hartshorn was appointed a member of the so-called seven-member Simon Commission (Indian Statutory Commission) , which, under the chairmanship of John Allsebrook Simon , was supposed to work out the recommendations for an Indian constitution for British India .

In the general election of May 30, 1929 , the Labor Party won 287 seats, making it the largest parliamentary group in the House of Commons. MacDonald was then again Prime Minister on June 8, 1929, but was again dependent on the support of the Liberal Party. The Prime Minister announced that Hartshorn would be given a cabinet post after the Simon Commission had finished its work.

In June 1930 Hartshorn took over in MacDonals second government as the successor to James Henry Thomas the office of Lord Privy Seal (Lord Privy Seal) , which he held until his death on March 13, 1931. His successor was then on March 24, 1931, the previous Undersecretary in the Scotland Ministry , Thomas Johnston . As Lord Chancellor, Hartshorn was responsible in MacDonald's government in particular for employment policy at the beginning of the Great Depression.

He died on March 13, 1931 at his home in Hill Crest, Maesteg, Glamorgan. His marriage to the miner's daughter Mary Matilda Winsor in 1899 resulted in two sons and a daughter.

Web links

Background literature

  • Peter Stead: Vernon Hartshorn: Miners' Agent and Cabinet Minister , in: Glamorgan Historian , No. 6, 1969, pp. 83-94

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Duncan Tanner: Political Change and the Labor Party 1900-1918 , 2003, ISBN 0-52153-053-9 , p. 218
  2. ↑ Torquil Cowan: Labor of Love , 2013, ISBN 1-90647-662-4
personal data
SURNAME Hartshorn, Vernon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Labor Party politician and member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Cross Keys , Pontywaun , Monmouthshire , Wales
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1931
Place of death Hill Crest, Maesteg , Glamorgan , Wales