National Union of Railwaymen
The National Union of Railwaymen was a trade union of railway workers in the United Kingdom. The largest railway workers' union in the country, it was influential in the national trade union movement.[1]
Merged into | National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers |
---|---|
Founded | 29 March 1913[1] |
Dissolved | 1990 |
Headquarters | Unity House, Euston Road, London |
Location | |
Members | 408,900 (1945) |
Publication | Transport Review[1] |
Affiliations | TUC, Labour |
History
The NUR was an industrial union founded in 1913 by the merger of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (founded 1872), the United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society (founded 1880) and the General Railway Workers' Union (founded 1889).[2]
The NUR represented the majority of railway workers, but not white-collar workers, who were members of the Railway Clerks' Association (founded 1897, later the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association). NUR membership was open to drivers and firemen but most chose instead to be members of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (founded 1880).
In 1914 the NUR joined forces with the National Transport Workers' Federation and Mining Federation of Great Britain to form the Triple Alliance – perhaps an unfortunate name, as the same year the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia and the Triple Alliance of Germany, and Austria-Hungary (albeit without Italy) went to war.
In 1919 the NUR and ASLEF jointly organised the 1919 United Kingdom railway strike, which prevented a proposed wage reduction and won an eight-hour maximum working day.[3] The NUR formed Federation agreements with ASLEF in 1903[4] and 1982 but both were short-lived.
The NUR had 408,900 members in 1945, making it the fifth largest union in Britain. Its membership fell to 369,400 in 1956 and 227,800 in 1966.[5]
Following the formation of British Rail, the majority of NUR members worked for the nationalised organisation. However, other members worked for London Transport, the National Freight Corporation and various smaller companies. It also recruited British Rail workers in associated industries, such as its hotels, docks and harbours, and on the Sealink ferries.[1]
In 1990 the NUR merged with the National Union of Seamen to form the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and ceased to exist as a separate union.
Election results
The union sponsored numerous Labour Party Parliamentary candidates, many of whom won election.
Leadership
General Secretaries
- 1913: James Edwin Williams[34]
- 1916: James Henry Thomas[34]
- 1931: Charlie Cramp[34]
- 1933: John Marchbank[34]
- 1943: John Benstead[34]
- 1948: Jim Figgins[34]
- 1953: Jim Campbell[34]
- 1957: Sidney Greene[34]
- 1975: Sidney Weighell[34]
- 1983: Jimmy Knapp[34]
Presidents
- 1913: Albert Bellamy[35]
- 1918: Charlie Cramp[35]
- 1920: William James Abraham[35]
- 1922: John Marchbank[35]
- 1925: William Dobbie[35]
- 1928: J. Gore[35]
- 1931: William Dobbie[35]
- 1934: Joseph Henderson[35]
- 1937: Walter T. Griffiths[35]
- 1939: J. H. Potts[35]
- 1942: Frederick Burrows[35]
- 1945: Eddie Binks[35]
- 1948: William Tindall Potter[35]
- 1951: Harry Franklin[35]
- 1954: Jim Stafford[35]
- 1957: Tom Hollywood[35]
- 1958: Charles W. Evans[35]
- 1961: Bill Rathbone[35]
- 1964: Frank Donlon
- 1967: Frank Lane
- 1970: George Chambers
- 1972: Harold McRitchie
- 1975: Dave Bowman
- 1978: Alun Rees.
- 1982: Tom Ham
- 1984: George Wakenshaw
- 1987: Alan Foster
- 1990: John Cogger
References
- Eaton, Jack; Gill, Colin (1981). The Trade Union Directory. London: Pluto Press. pp. 38–42. ISBN 0861043502.
- Raynes, 1921, p. 165.
- Raynes, 1921, p. 269.
- Raynes, 1921, p. 124.
- Marsh, Arthur (1979). Trade Union Handbook: A Guide and Directory to the Structure, Membership, Policy and Personnel of the British Trade Unions. Westmead, Hants.: Gower Press. p. 14. ISBN 0-566-02091-2. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
- Labour Party, Report of the Executive Committee (1918), p. 115.
- Tanner, Duncan (1990). Political change and the Labour Party 1900-1918. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 330–331. ISBN 0521329817.
- McHugh, Declan (2006). Labour in the City: The Development of the Labour Party in Manchester 1918-31. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 58. ISBN 0719072581.
- Howell, David (2017). Respectable Radicals: Studies in the Politics of Railway Trade Unionism. Routledge. ISBN 978-1351903769.
- Labour Party, Report of the Twenty-second Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 255–272. Note that this list is of the sanctioned candidates as of June 1922, and there were some changes between this date and the general election.
- "Only five railway union candidates". Manchester Guardian. 19 November 1923.
- "Labour's candidates". Manchester Guardian. 11 October 1924.
- Report of the Annual Labour Party Conference: 15–19. 1929.
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(help) - "List of Labour Candidates and Election Results, May 30th, 1929". Report of the Annual Conference of the Labour Party: 24–44. 1929.
- "Parliamentary by-elections". Report of the Annual Labour Party Conference: 16–28. 1931.
- "List of Endorsed Labour candidates and election results, October 27, 1931". Report of the Annual Labour Party Conference: 11–27. 1931.
- "Parliamentary by-elections". Report of the Annual Labour Party Conference: 38–41. 1933.
- "Parliamentary by-elections". Report of the Annual Labour Party Conference: 30–34. 1935.
- "List of Endorsed Labour Candidates and Election Results, November 14, 1935". Report of the Annual Conference of the Labour Party: 8–23. 1935.
- Labour Party, Report of the Annual Labour Party Conference (1945). Affiliations are those as of mid-1945; it is possible that some MPs may have had different sponsors at the time of their election.
- Labour Party, Report of the Forty-Fifth Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 232–248.
- "List of Parliamentary Labour candidates and election results, February 23rd, 1950". Report of the Forty-Ninth Annual Conference of the Labour Party: 179–198. 1950.
- "List of Parliamentary Labour candidates and election results, 25th October, 1951". Report of the Fiftieth Annual Conference of the Labour Party: 184–203. 1951.
- Labour Party, Report of the Fifty-Fourth Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 255–275.
- Labour Party, Report of the Fifty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 179–201.
- Labour Party, Report of the Sixty-Third Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 158–180.
- Labour Party, Report of the Sixty-Fifth Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 308–330.
- Labour Party, Report of the Sixty-Ninth Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 289–312.
- Labour Party, Report of the Seventy-Third Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 371–390.
- Labour Party, Report of the Seventy-Third Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 391–411.
- Labour Party, Report of the Seventy-Eighth Annual Conference of the Labour Party, pp. 406–431.
- General Election Guide. BBC Data Publications. 1983. ISBN 094635815X.
- "Election 87 Results". The Times. 13 June 1987.
- "General Secretaries of the National Union of Railwaymen, 1913-1990", Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.
- Philip Sydney Bagwell, The National Union of Railwaymen, 1913-1963: A Half-century of Industrial Trade Unionism, p. 2.
Sources and further reading
- Bagwell, Philip S. (1963). The Railwaymen. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- Bagwell, Philip S. (1982). The Railwaymen – Volume 2: the Beeching Era and After. London: George Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-04-331084-2.
- Bagwell, Philip. "Transport" in Chris Wrigley, ed. A History of British industrial relations, 1875-1914 (Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1982), pp. 230–52.
- Griffiths, Robert (2005). Driven by Ideals. London: Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen.
- McKillop, Norman (1950). The Lighted Flame; a History of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. London & Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.
- John R. Raynes (1921), Engines and Men, Goodall & Suddick, Wikidata Q115680227