From Crow-Scaring to Westminster: An Autobiography

The Union had decided, after taking a ballot of the members according to the Act of 1913, to take political action and to be affiliated to the Labour Party. I at once decided to...

The votes were counted at the Shirehouse, Norwich, on Monday August 9th. My niece and I were early astir and we decorated ourselves with the party colour. My neighbour presented...

On April 25th I got the committee together again. This time they met in the Cozens' Temperance Hotel, King's Lynn. There attended the following: Mr. George Nicholls, M.P., Presi...

The committee at their quarterly meeting held at Cozens' Temperance Hotel, at King's Lynn, on Saturday, July 30th, decided, on the motion of Mr. Winfrey, to move the office of t...

At the end of the year the Provisional Committee was so satisfied with the success of my efforts that they decided to call a general meeting of the branches formed and to invite...

The year 1872 will throughout history be considered the most interesting period from the standpoint of the agricultural labourers of England. There had been some improvement in...

In 1892 I fought my first political battle, and for the first time my faith in the Liberal Party received a shock. In this year took place the second General County Council Elec...

of Parliament that enabled the Guardians to hire fifty acres of land on which to set the unemployed to work and to pay the men labourers' wages. This, of course, was defeated, b...

The General Council being over and the new Executive being elected, they were called upon to bring to a close the strike according to the decision of the old Executive, which, t...

On February 20, 1909, the third General Council Meeting of the Union was held in St. James's Hall, King's Lynn, and by the resolutions that were sent in from the various branche...

On August 4, 1914, the Great War commenced and, as stated, I came to the conclusion, like most of the other Labour leaders, that according to the information I had at my disposa...

No sooner was the General Election over (which brought about the greatest Tory defeat that that Party had ever experienced) than victimization became rife. Scores of men were vi...

It was in the year 1855 when I had my first experience of real distress. On my father's return home from work one night he was stopped by a policeman who searched his bag and to...

In the first week of December 1895, at the request of the Cromer District Liberal Association, I invited Mr. Arch to come to Cromer and address a meeting there. This invitation...

In the middle of the nineteenth century there lived in the parish of Marsham, Norfolk, (a little village about ten miles from Norwich and one and a half miles from Aylsham), a c...

In the autumn of 1889 the men in Norfolk began to want to form a Union again. This time they appealed to me to lead them in the district in which I lived. For some weeks I refus...

The continuance of bad seasons since 1890, with low prices, had brought about a great depression in agriculture. Thousands of labourers were discharged, and the greatest distres...

In the spring of 1870 I went to work in a brickfield at Alby. Here I met a woman who was to play a wonderful part in my future life. Her name was Charlotte Corke, daughter of th...

As the time drew near for the General Council to meet there was every evidence that the meeting would be a stormy one. Resolutions for agenda condemning the Executive for closin...