J. R. Clynes | |
|---|---|
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| Home Secretary | |
| In office 8 June 1929 – 26 August 1931 | |
| Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald |
| Preceded by | Sir William Joynson-Hicks |
| Succeeded by | Sir Herbert Samuel |
| Lord Privy Seal | |
| In office 22 January 1924 – 6 November 1924 | |
| Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald |
| Preceded by | Robert Cecil |
| Succeeded by | James Gascoyne-Cecil |
| Deputy Leader of the Labour Party | |
| In office 21 November 1922 – 25 October 1932 | |
| Leader |
|
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Clement Attlee |
| Leader of the Labour Party | |
| In office 14 February 1921 – 21 November 1922 | |
| Chief Whip | Arthur Henderson |
| Preceded by | William Adamson |
| Succeeded by | Ramsay MacDonald |
| Minister of Food Control | |
| In office 18 July 1918 – 10 January 1919 | |
| Prime Minister | David Lloyd George |
| Preceded by | David Alfred Thomas |
| Succeeded by | George Henry Roberts |
| Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Food Control | |
| In office 2 July 1917 – 18 July 1918 | |
| Prime Minister | David Lloyd George |
| Preceded by | Charles Bathurst |
| Succeeded by | Waldorf Astor |
| Member of Parliament forManchester Platting Manchester North East (1906–1918) | |
| In office 14 November 1935 – 5 July 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Alan Chorlton |
| Succeeded by | Hugh Delargy |
| In office 8 February 1906 – 27 October 1931 | |
| Preceded by | James Fergusson |
| Succeeded by | Alan Chorlton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 27 March 1869 Oldham, Lancashire, England |
| Died | 23 October 1949(1949-10-23) (aged 80) London, England |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Signature |  |
John Robert Clynes (27 March 1869 – 23 October 1949)[1] was a British trade unionist andLabour Party politician. He was aMember of Parliament (MP) for 35 years, and asLeader of the Labour Party (1921–1922), led the party in its breakthrough at the1922 general election.
He was the firstEnglish-born politician to serve as Leader of the Labour Party.
The son of an Irish labourer named Patrick Clynes, he was born inOldham,Lancashire, and began working in a localcotton mill when he was ten years old.[2] Aged sixteen, he wrote a series of articles aboutchild labour in thetextile industry, and the following year he helped form the Piercers' Union. He was mainly self-educated, although he went to night school after his day's work in the mill. His first book was adictionary and then, by careful saving ofcoppers, he bought aBible,William Shakespeare's plays, andFrancis Bacon's essays.[2] Later in life, he would amaze colleagues in meetings and in parliamentary debates by quoting verbatim from the Bible, Shakespeare,John Milton andJohn Ruskin.[3] He married Mary Elizabeth Harper, a mill worker, in 1893.
In 1892, Clynes became an organiser for the Lancashire Gasworkers' Union and came in contact with theFabian Society. Having joined theIndependent Labour Party, he attended the 1900 conference where theLabour Representation Committee was formed; this committee soon afterwards became theLabour Party.
Clynes stood for the new party in the1906 general election and was elected toParliament forManchester North East,[1][4] becoming one of Labour's bright stars. In 1910, he became the party's deputy chairman.
During theFirst World War, Clynes was a supporter of British military involvement (in which he differed fromRamsay MacDonald), and, in 1917, becameParliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Food Control in theLloyd George coalition government. The next year, he was appointedMinister of Food Control and, at the1918 general election, he was returned to Parliament for theManchester Platting constituency.[5]
In August 1917, three months before theBalfour Declaration, the Labour Party issued a statement in support of aJewish state in Palestine. Clynes spoke in favor of a Jewish state.[6]
Clynes became leader of the party in 1921 and led it through its major breakthrough in the1922 general election. Before that election, Labour only had fifty-two seats in Parliament but, as a result of the election, Labour's total number of seats rose to 142. He was held in considerable respect and affection in the Labour Party and, although lacking the charisma of MacDonald, was a wily operator who believed all resources available should be used to advance the material of the working classes.[7]
MacDonald had resigned as Labour leader in 1914, due to his wartimepacifism,[8] and at the1918 general election, he lost his seat. He did not return to theHouse of Commons for another four years. By that stage, MacDonald's pacifism had been forgiven. When the occupant of the Labour leadership had to be decided on through a vote of Labour parliamentarians, MacDonald narrowly defeated Clynes. Clynes was a critic of government policy towards the Irish population in the years after 1918, and attacked 'a recurring system of coercion' which had left Ireland "more angry and embittered . . . than ever'[9]
When MacDonald becamePrime Minister he made Clynes the party's leader in the Commons until the government was defeated in 1924. During the second MacDonald government of 1929–1931, Clynes served asHome Secretary.[2] In that role, Clynes gained literary prominence when he explained in the Commons his refusal to grant a visa[10]to the Russian revolutionaryLeon Trotsky, then living in exile inTurkey, who had been invited by theIndependent Labour Party to give a lecture in Britain. Clynes had then been immortalised by the scathing criticism of his concept of the right to asylum, voiced by Trotsky in the last chapter of his autobiographyMy Life, entitled "The planet without visa".[11]
In 1931, Clynes sided withArthur Henderson andGeorge Lansbury, against MacDonald's support for austerity measures to deal with theGreat Depression. Clynes split with MacDonald when the latter left Labour to form aNational Government. In the1931 election, Clynes was one of the casualties, losing hisManchester Platting seat.[5] Nevertheless, he regained this constituency in1935,[5] and then remained in theHouse of Commons until his retirement ten years later, at the1945 general election.[5]
After retiring, Clynes was living in very straitened circumstances, with no other income than trade union pension of £6 per week. This pension debarred him from the Commons Ex-Members Fund. Doctors' and nursing fees in respect of his invalid wife had hit him heavily.[12]MPs opened a fund to help and raised about £1,000.[13] Thus, after a lifetime spent in advancing the material conditions of the people, he died in relative poverty in October 1949.[7] His wife died a month later.[12]
In regard to what is called "the right of asylum," this country has the right to grant asylum to any person whom it thinks fit to admit as a political refugee. On the other hand, no alien has the right to claim admission to this country if it would be contrary to the interests of this country to receive him.
The pious Mr. Clynes ought at least to have known that democracy, in a sense, inherited the right of asylum from the Christian church, which, in turn, inherited it, with much besides, from paganism. It was enough for a pursued criminal to make his way into a temple, sometimes enough even to touch only the ring of the door, to be safe from persecution. Thus the church understood the right of asylum as the right of the persecuted to an asylum, and not as an arbitrary exercise of will on the part of pagan or Christian priests.
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Media related toJohn Robert Clynes at Wikimedia Commons| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forManchester North East 1906–1918 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forManchester Platting 1918–1931 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forManchester Platting 1935–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Minister of Food Control 1918–1919 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Lord Privy Seal 1924 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Home Secretary 1929–1931 | Succeeded by |
| Trade union offices | ||
| Preceded by New position | Lancashire District Secretary of theNational Union of General Workers 1896–1917 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Trades Union Congress representative to theAmerican Federation of Labour 1909 With:Alfred Henry Gill | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of theNational Union of General Workers 1912–1924 | Succeeded by Position abolished |
| Preceded by New position | President of theNational Union of General and Municipal Workers 1924–1937 | Succeeded by Fred Marshall as Chair of the Executive |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Trades councils representative on theNational Executive Committee of the Labour Party 1904–1909 | Succeeded by William Barfoot |
| Preceded by | Chair of the Labour Party 1921–1922 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
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