Social Reform & Politics in Manchester

Manchester
Politicians, Law & Social Reformers (5 of 13)

Books by Cyril Smith

Sir Cyril Smith MP MBE
Mayor of Rochdale

(Born 1928)
Cyril Smith was born in Rochdale on 28th June 1928. He first came to the public's notice as the newly elected Member of Parliament for Rochdale in the 1972 General Election, though he had already been a major player in Rochdale politics for many years. He had been just 22 years of age when he was first elected to the Rochdale Council.

A lifelong member of the Liberal Party, in 1966 he was appointed Mayor of Rochdale and was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. In 1988 he was knighted Sir Cyril Smith and was appointed as Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester in 1991. By now his political career was drawing to an end and in that same year he announced his retirement as MP for Rochdale.
Sir Cyril always was a larger than life character, both in terms of his ebullient outspoken personality and his enormous size - he was affectionately known around the town as "Big Cyril", (though he has by now shed much of that mighty frame).

Upon retirement he was offered a peerage, but declined a seat in the House of Lords, regarding the honour of a knighthood as sufficient recognition of his services to politics and his local community. As a lifelong bachelor, he shared his home with his mother Eva until her death in 1994.

Respected for his tireless work in the constituency and for his support of the underdog - very much a peoples' champion. Sir Cyril now enjoys an active life on the lecture and public speaking circuits, which include the QE2.

Books by
John Fielden

John Fielden

(1784-1849)
Born in Todmorden on the Lancashire border with Yorkshire into a family of Quakers, John Fielden was a leading light in the reform of conditions of child labour in the mid-19th century. As a child he had worked a 10 hour day in one of his own father's cotton mills, and served his apprenticeship as a young man before taking over the business.

With the help of his brothers, he turned it into one of the biggest textile companies in Britain. From the outset, it was clear that Fielden had a great social conscience, and he insisted on experiencing shopfloor working conditions for himself, was an advocate of workers' unions and set a decent minimum wage for his workers (for that time).

He founded the Todmorden Unitarian Society, which was devoted to social reforms - he also financed the building of the Unitarian Chapel, the building of the Unitarian School and the setup of the Society for the Protection of Children Employed in Cotton Factories.

In 1831 he became Member of Parliament for Oldham and was proactive in the promotion of children's working rights and in the Reform Movement. He campaigned for shorter working days for children, and succeeded in getting it limited to 10 hours a day by the passing of the Ten Hours Act passed by Parliament in 1847.

He died within 2 years and is buried in Todmorden cemetery.

Books by
Gerald Kaufman

Gerald Kaufman MP

(Born 1931)
Now a Labour Party backbench Member of Parliament, renowned for his outspoken and frequently passionate manner, Gerald Kaufman is a well known MP for the Gorton Constituency in east Manchester.

He is currently chairman of the culture media and sports select committee, a post he has occupied since 1997, but would have been foreign secretary to a Labour Government under Neil Kinnock's premiership, but it was not to be, and when Kinnock's fortunes waned so did those of Kaufman.

He had been shadow foreign secretary between 1987-1992.

Before becoming an MP in 1983, he worked as a journalist on left-wing papers, as well as a comedy scriptwriter. He has also written several books.

Kaufman is a regular topic of media interest, a notoriously snappy dresser, renowned for his shirts and ties.

He has, in his time, held many lofty and high profile posts in government and opposition including the following:

1974-75: Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment
1975: Parliamentary Under-secretary, Department of Industry
1975-79: Minister of State, Department of Industry
1980-83: Shadow Environment Secretary
1983-87: Shadow Home Secretary 1987-92 Shadow Foreign Secretary

Books by & about Oswald Mosley

Sir Oswald Mosley
Leader of the British Fascist Party

(1896-1980)
Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Fascist Party in the 1930s, was born on November 16th 1896 and was educated at Winchester College.

His family was an old established Manchester family, and Mosley himself was the Sixth Baronet. Mosley Street in Manchester bears his family name.

The young Oswald entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and in 1914 joined the 16th (the Queens) Lancers before going on to the Royal Flying Corps as an Observer. He was later discharged due to leg injuries sustained in a plane crash and by the end of the War was working in the Foreign Office.

He became a Conservative MP for the Harrow' constituency in 1918, the youngest MP in the House of Commons. In 1924 disenchanted with government policies, he joined the Labour and was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1928.

His political career seemed guaranteed, and had it not been for his extreme right wing political ideologies, he would no doubt have risen to higher and more distinguished office.

In this time of depression and widespread unemployment, he became gradually interested in the economic policies of the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, and in 1932 published his first book, "The Greater Britain", in which he set out his grand plan for the economic, social and political reconstruction of Britain.

He actually paid visits to both Mussolini and the German dictator, Adolph Hitler. Hitler in fact was Mosley's best man at his second marriage in Goebbel's house in Berlin.

On Saturday October 1st 1932 he founded the British Union of Fascists to implement his policies. His early meetings were held at Hyndman Hall in Liverpool Street, Salford. During the 1930s his policies were increasingly controversial - his outspoken oratory and his militaristic street parades and rallies of black-shirted neo-Nazis, reminiscent of those taking place in Nuremberg in Germany, were frequently accompanied by unrest and violence.

Several rallies were held at Queen's Park in Harpurhey. In 1933 one of his meeting at the Free Trade Hall was the scene of rioting, and police had to be called to separate various factions. Apart from a faithful minority following he failed to grab the imagination or sympathies of the people.

In 1938 he published "Tomorrow We Live" as well as a large number of leaflets, booklets and two regular weekly newspapers "The Blackshirt" and "Action". His views were vehemently pro-British, intensely xenophobic and overt in their racism.

The Second World War and the ensuing collapse of fascism in Europe effectively brought an end to Mosley's career as a politician, and an effective end to the party's popularity in the western world.

He died at home in bed in 1980 aged 84.

Books by Jack Straw

Jack Straw MP

(born 1946)
Jack Straw was born in 1946 and educated at Brentwood School in Essex. Later, at Leeds University, he was President of the University Students' Union from 1967-1968 and of the National Union of Students from 1969-1971.

A leading player in UK politics, from 1971 to 1974 he was a member of the Inner London Education Authority as well as being Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1973 to 1974.

He had been called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1972, and worked as a barrister from 1972-1974; he was special adviser to Barbara Castle from 1974-1975 and to Peter Shore from 1976-1977. He also worked for Granada Television's "World in Action" programme from 1977-1979.

Jack Straw was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on the 8th June 2001, having been the Member of Parliament for Blackburn since 1979.
He had already been Home Secretary in Tony Blair's new Labour Government from 1997-2001, having previously been Shadow Home Secretary while in opposition from 1995 to 1997.

He had by then already held a variety of high offices in opposition and was a leading member of the Blair's "New Labour" Party, including Shadow Environment Secretary from 1992-1994, Shadow Education Secretary between 1987 and 1992, Opposition Spokesman on Local Government from 1983-1987, and from 1980-1983 on Treasury matters. He was a member of the Labour Party National Executive Committee from 1994-1995.

He is a visiting Fellow of Nuffield College Oxford and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He is married with a son and a daughter. He is an active supporter of Blackburn Rovers Football Club.

Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown's premiership in 2007, Jack Straw became Minister for Justice.

Books by and about Barbara Castle

Barbara Castle MP

(1911-2001)
Born Barbara Anne Betts in Bradford, Yorkshire on 6th October 1910, Barbara Castle was described by ex-Labour Party Leader Michael Foot as 'the best Socialist minister we've ever had' and was probably best known as the outspoken campaigning Member of Parliament for Blackburn in Lancashire for 35 years. As a young woman she is reputed to have lived for a time in Hyde, (then in Cheshire, now part of Tameside in Greater Manchester).

Her mother had been a local Labour Councillor and her father was a tax inspector and political activist. A bright girl, she attended Bradford Girls' Grammar School, and later took a degree at Oxford.

Later, she determined to be a journalist and a politician, but the Depression forced her temporarily to seek work selling fruit in a Manchester store. At Oxford she had also met Michael Foot with whom she spent many hours discussing social politics at his flat in Bloomsbury - they denied allegations and rumours of an affair.

However, in 1937, they helped launch the "Tribune", which set out to reform the Labour Party as a truly socialist party and in 1944 she won election to the Blackburn constituency which she represented until her retirement in 1979.

A clever and single-minded author of some of the best political diaries of her time, she had begun her campaigning against Fascism in pre-World War Two days and rose to be a minister in Harold Wilson's government in the 1960s and 70s.

Wilson appointed her to his first cabinet at the Department of Overseas Development, in which she was to become possibly the most effective Cabinet Minister of her generation, despite having no previous ministerial experience. Wilson promoted her to the Department of Transport and in two and a half years she transformed the department and oversaw the introduction of the breathalyser and the seatbelt.

Later he promoted her again to First Secretary in the new Department of Employment and Productivity in an attempt to bring order to the poor state of industrial relations. "In Place of Strife" was the white paper which she produced in an attempt to bridge the chasm which existed between employers and workers, but this proved disastrous and was roundly rejected.

Despite its many worthy proposals she was forced to accept a shortened bill which was only to enforce the more penal clauses and industrial discord was even more deepened. The episode also accelerated alienation between party activists and the leadership, and although well liked and respected by parliamentary backbenchers, she was nevertheless a controversial figure and was fired by Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan.

Ultimately she left many worthy monuments to her governmental efforts, not least of which was Equal Pay for Women. After retirement from Westminster in 1979, she became the leader of the Labour group in the European parliament for ten years.

Later, party leader Neil Kinnock recommended her to the House of Lords and she was created a Baroness. She and her husband Ted, (who had died in 1979), had no children. Barbara Castle, by then Baroness Castle of Blackburn, died on the 3rd of May 2001.