My Life's Battles
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V P., MPN L> I; tl MIV i. (LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN CM EGO MY LIFE'S BATTLES A RECENT PHOTOGRAPH OF MR. WILL THORNE, M.P. MY LIFE'S BATTLES BY I WILLJTHORNE, M.P. WITH A FOREWORD BY THE RT. HON. J. R. CLYNES, M.P. LONDON GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE WHITEPRIARS PRESS, LTD., LONDON AND TONBRIDCK. CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD 9 WORK AND PLAY ... ... 13 STRIKES, RIOTS AND WORK 24 OLD LONDON DAYS . -49 THE BIRTH OF MY UNION 61 THE BIG DOCK STRIKE 78 UNION BUILDING AND THE "SOUTH MET." . 98 FRIENDSHIP AND FIGHTS 117 MY FIRST CONGRESS 133 ACROSS THE ATLANTIC . 161 ODD EXPERIENCES 170 I Go TO RUSSIA 189 PARLIAMENT AND THE PRINCE .... 206 THE FUTURE 214 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A RECENT PHOTOGRAPH OF MR. WILL THORNE, M.P. Frontispiece Facing page THE AUTHOR AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-FIVE, WHEN WORKING AT THE BECKTON GASWORKS . 16 THE COUNTESS OF WARWICK AND MR. WILL THORNE DURING THE 1906 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION . 33 AN IMPRESSION OF THE BATTLE OF WORTLEY BRIDGE DURING THE BlG LEEDS GAS STRIKE . 48 MR. THORNE WITH SIR JAMES O'GRADY IN RUSSIA IN 1917. THE SOLDIER IN THE CENTRE FIRED THE FIRST SHOT IN THE REVOLUTION ... 80 MR. WILL THORNE, HIS LATE WIFE, AND HIS DAUGH- TER EVA AT THE SOUTHPORT TRADE UNION CONGRESS 97 SPECIALLY DESIGNED BY WALTER CRANE FOR THE GASWORKERS AND GENERAL LABOURERS' UNION FOR THEIR ANNUAL DEMONSTRATION ON CHIL- DREN'S SUNDAY ...... 129 EARLY ARRIVALS MR. THORNE MEETS JACK JONES, M.P., OUTSIDE THE CONFERENCE HALL AT SOUTHPORT 144 8 FOREWORD BY THE RT. HON. J. R. CLYNES, M.P. FIGURES which tell us of the circulation of books show that works of Fiction are always at the top of the list. Libraries are crammed with them, yet there are many volumes which deal plainly with the daily lives of ordinary people not less enthralling than an exciting novel. The life incidents described in this book show that truth is as as fiction when truth covers the quite strange " uninterrupted activities of a robust and fearless agi- tator," impelled to his task by the highest and most unselfish motives. A sketch of Will Thome is a picture of adventure, hardships, romance and grim determination to leave the world a little better than he found it. These pages exhibit the spirit of the Rebel, and reveal a little of the great honesty, caution and practical wisdom which Thome's intimate friends have known him always to possess in a very high degree. This is a book of ceaseless movement and, in many places, of exciting action. Poets seldom weave their verses out of the material of the workers' daily lives. Sailors and soldiers deserve their praise, and the colour and glory of their service have called them into many a song and story. Yet in the regular work of the ordinary toiler there is much fitting but unused material upon which the poet or dramatist could easily draw. There is enough dramatic incident in the first half- dozen pages of this little volume to make a moving and exciting play. But it might not be pleasant for every one to witness. The world could not move nor last without work, but the worker's fate has made his io FOREWORD service unpopular, and perhaps it is natural even for those who toil to look in literature for some subject from themselves. away" The first work that as a I was to do/' " boy given says Mr. Thorne, was pulling metal strips from the great rollers to the annealing furnaces, and filling a deep crucible with scrap metal that was melted and made into " ingots. The roar and rattle, the steam and the heat of that inferno remains vivid in my memory, and many times I have dreamt of the place, waking up in a cold sweat of fear. I have other reminders of this brutalising work, for my hands still show the scars I received when I was engaged on another job in this works : this was taking the annealed bars to the pickling tubs, where a strong vitriol solution was used for cleaning and pickling the ingots. This biting acid would splash my hands, and eat the flesh to the very bone, and only by washing my hands in milk was the excruciating pain eased and the effect of the vitriol killed." In scores of these pages a mirror of the workers' life will be found. Bitter as that life usually is, this story is often unfolded as a record of the progress made since the days when Thorne found himself at the head of a few pioneers bent upon making a success of tasks which everybody foredoomed to failure. Time has given victory to courage and to perseverance, and the class served by Mr. Thorne has profited greatly by his unremitting labours. In the days of his youth the velocipede was thought to be the last word in speed on the road. We could not restrain our laughter if we saw one now. The velocity of the later motor-bicycle is, in comparison, merely a measure of the advance undreamt of by the men of a generation ago. Mr. Thome's life story is an insepar- able part of the history of the Labour and Socialist movement. But as that history repeats itself, the coming generation will be the better for his past service. FOREWORD ii Without effort but with unqualified effect, Thorne has won the friendship alike of the educated and of the labouring classes. His first attempts at organising had their roots in the realities of grievances borne with submission, but often bitter and hard to bear. Men laboured like slaves and were paid as such. Strikes for betterment were frequently fights in the real sense of that term, but though Thorne had in a large degree the spirit of the rebel, he had those guiding emotions which we call a sense of responsibility, and a generation of contact with experience trained him to face with success any task to which his labours called him. J. R. CLYNES. MY LIFE'S BATTLES CHAPTER I WORK AND PLAY THE great East End of London, with its smoky skies, its slums, poverty, and all that is mean and ugly, has been my home for over forty years. Here I still live among my people dockers, labourers, casual workers in many queer and unpleasant trades. Our world is over-populated, our houses are small and poor, often a tightening of our belt strap takes the place of a meal. Towering factory chimneys are our sentinels, and the ships tall ships, bright ships of many flags from far-off lands our only inspiration. I have often been asked why I am a Socialist, and why I persist in carrying on the fight to change this dull drab East End into a brighter place, and to make the people in it enjoy a freer and fuller life. My friends in the House of Commons, and others I meet, many" say, with good intention perhaps, We will always have slums and poverty." Perhaps as I tell you my story, which, with variations, is the story of hundreds of thousands of my East End neighbours and of millions of my brothers all over the country, you will begin to understand. In a little four-roomed house, in the working-class district of Hockley, a suburb of Birmingham, I was born on an October morning in 1857. For some con- trary reason the street was called Farm Street, but I have no memories of the free air of a farm during those 13 14 MY LIFE'S BATTLES far-off the houses and early days ; just ugly cobbly, neglected streets that were my only playground for a few short, very short, years. Our house had no parlour, perhaps it would have been superfluous, for as both my father and mother worked in and around the brickfields there was little time for using parlours. Twelve hours' work was a short day then. Their parents had been brickmakers before them. mother was father's second wife she married My my ; when very young, perhaps in the hope of escaping just such a home life as we had. A vain hope. My father was a very good worker, and was fond of drink. The week ends would nearly always find him enjoying himself in this way, and he would add to his enjoyment by getting into a fight. Hardly a week would go by without a battle, and he earned the reputa- tion of being somewhat of a terror. It was a common thing for him and his eldest son by his first wife to get into a four-cornered fight on these week-end sprees. They were his only diversion from work and sleep. My father was a red-clay brickmaker, and every summer would travel to the brick works in different parts of Middlesex. When this summer work was over he would come back and sometimes work at the Saltley Gas Works as a stoker for the rest of the winter. This work was made precarious by the fact that the last man taken on in the winter should be the first dismissed " " " " retorts when the were shut down ; priority work it was called officially. I was only seven years old when my father died in rather tragic circumstances in 1864. His death came about by a horse dealer hitting him a nasty blow in Lawley Street, Birmingham, one Sunday morning.