Stephen Walsh (politician)

Stephen Walsh (26 August 1859 – 16 March 1929) was a British miner, trade unionist and Labour Party politician.[1]

Stephen Walsh
Secretary of State for War
In office
22 January 1924 – 3 November 1924
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald
Preceded byThe Earl of Derby
Succeeded bySir Laming Worthington-Evans, Bt
Member of Parliament
for Ince, Lancashire
In office
12 January 1906 – 16 March 1929
Preceded byHenry Blundell-Hollinshead-Blundell
Succeeded byGordon Macdonald
Personal details
Born26 August 1859 (1859-08-26)
Died16 March 1929 (1929-03-17) (aged 69)
NationalityBritish
Political partyLabour

Background

edit

Born in Liverpool, Walsh became an orphan at a very young age. He was educated at an industrial school in the Kirkdale area of the city, leaving school aged 13 to work in a coalmine in Ashton in Makerfield.[1]

Political career

edit

Walsh was an official of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation before he was elected to parliament for Ince in the 1906 general election. Later that year he attacked the idea that an MP needed an Oxbridge education further adding that: "To use an arithmetical metaphor, the Labour party had reduced the points of difference among the working classes to the lowest common denominator, and had promoted and developed the greatest common measure of united action".[2]

Walsh was a member of David Lloyd George's Coalition Government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service in 1917 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board from 1917 to 1919.

Walsh stood in the 1918 election as a Coalition Labour candidate opposed by the official Labour Party. He was vice-president of National Union of Mineworkers from 1922 to 1924 until he was appointed Secretary of State for War by Ramsay MacDonald in January 1924, a post he held until the government fell in November of the same year. He was sworn of the Privy Council in January 1924.

Family

edit

One of Walsh's sons died in World War I. Walsh himself died in March 1929, aged 69.

References

edit
  1. ^ a b "Obituary: Mr. Stephen Walsh. Labour War Minister". The Times. 18 March 1929. p. 19.
  2. ^ The Manchester Guardian, "The Fear Of The Socialist", 17 October 1906
edit
Trade union offices
Preceded by Vice-President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain
1922–1924
Succeeded by
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Ince
19061929
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by
New office
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service
1917
Succeeded by
Preceded by Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board
1917–1919
Succeeded by
Preceded by Secretary of State for War
1924
Succeeded by