Richard Bell (politician)

Richard Bell ( born November 27, 1859 in Merthyr Tydfil, † May 1, 1930 in London) was a British trade unionist and politician. Together with Keir Hardie, he was one of the first two lower house deputies for the Labour Representation Committee, the forerunner of the British Labour Party.

Trade unionist

Bell was born the son of a quarry worker and a housewife in Wales. At age 13, he had to leave school in order to contribute as an office boy for the livelihood of the family. In 1876 he began working for the Great Western Railway Company. Bell was a member of the American Railway Union Railway Servants Union, was soon working as a full organizer and eventually became its Secretary General in 1897. A year later he moved to London to continue to work for the railway workers' union. After his election to the House, he was from 1903 to 1904 Chairman of the Trades Union Congress, the Confederation of British unions.

Politician

In the so-called Khaki Election, the general election of 1900, Bell appeared as a candidate of the Labour Representation Committee at Derby in the constituency. Bell pulled together with a liberal as delegates of the constituency in the House a. Together with Keir Hardie, he was one of the first House of Representatives from the labor movement, which no longer moved in as liberals, but by the LRC in the parliament. Bells election campaign was dominated by the theming of the social question. While the race heavily on patriotic and nationalist sentiments - at that time one used the slogan of jingoism - was due to the simultaneous Boer War marked, Bell was by focusing on trade union and social reform issues and the explicit rejection of war in South Africa, the proletarian dominated constituency. win

Richard Bell was an arrant trade unionist. Together with the socialist Keir Hardie, he represented the typical ideological poles in the newly formed coalition of workers' representatives. On many issues, he was the Liberals closer than the socialists in the LRC. In 1904 he joined accordingly, after clashes with the LRC Group, which had grown after a few elections to five members, the Liberals. At the general election in 1906 he was re-elected. The Derby Trades Council, the umbrella organization of trade unions in Derby, increasingly distanced Bell and nominated for the elections in 1910 another candidate. Bell finished his trade union activities in 1920, continued his political activity but in local representative bodies continued. In 1930 he died in London at the age of 70 years.

Footnotes

  • Member of the House of Commons (United Kingdom)
  • Person of the labor movement (United Kingdom)
  • Unionists ( United Kingdom)
  • Welshman
  • Briton
  • Born in 1859
  • Died in 1930
  • Man
  • Politicians ( 20th century)
  • Politicians (Wales )
Liberal Party (UK) Labour movement Nationalism
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