W. E. Harvey - Misplaced Pages

British MP For the United States army officer and attorney, see William Edwin Harvey (general).

W.E. Harvey
Painting of William Edwin Harvey by Trevor Haddo
Born	William Edwin Harvey (1852-09-05)5 September 1852 Hasland, Derbyshire, England
Died	28 April 1914(1914-04-28) (aged 61)
Political party	Liberal (before 1910; 1914)
Other political affiliations	Labour (1910–14) Liberal-Labour

William Edwin Harvey (5 September 1852 – 28 April 1914), known as W. E. Harvey, was a British Lib-Lab Member of Parliament.

Born in Hasland, Derbyshire, Harvey worked in a coal mine from the age of ten. He joined the South Yorkshire Miners' Association (SYMA) in 1869, and was the union's local delegate by 1872. For his trade union activity, he was dismissed from the local pit, but managed to find work at Sheepbridge, then later at Morton. He also converted to Primitive Methodism and in his spare time was a lay preacher.

In 1880, the Derbyshire-based members of the SYMA split away to form the Derbyshire Miners' Association (DMA), and Harvey became the new union's first treasurer. He resigned in 1882, because union meetings clashed with cricket matches for his employer's team. However, the following year, he was elected as the union's assistant secretary. In 1891, he was elected to the national executive of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), serving on it in most subsequent years, and in 1894 he was the President of Chesterfield Trades Council.

Politically a classical liberal, strongly opposed to socialism and syndicalism, Harvey became the vice-president of the Labour Electoral Association in 1894. This organisation aimed to secure the election of workers under the auspices of the Liberal Party, and Harvey was elected to Chesterfield Borough Council in 1897, serving until his death.

In 1906, Harvey became financial and corresponding secretary of the DMA, and his high-profile secured him the Liberal Party candidacy in the 1907 North East Derbyshire by-election. He was successful, and reluctantly joined the Labour Party in 1910, on the instructions of his union. Despite his seat in Parliament, he remained an active trade unionist, serving as Vice-President of the MFGB from 1912, and as General and Financial Secretary of the DMA from 1913.

Harvey became increasingly unhappy with how the Labour Party was behaving towards the issue of Miners' representation. In particular he was unhappy with the way Barnet Kenyon was treated during and after the 1913 Chesterfield by-election. He therefore decided to resign the Labour whip and re-took the Liberal whip on 30 March 1914. He died, aged 61, almost a month later.

References

^ Dictionary of Labour Biography, vol.1, pp. 152–153
"Politics and the Miner." The Times 13 May 1914: 5. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 2 March 2014.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded byThomas Bolton	Member of Parliament for North East Derbyshire 1907 – 1914	Succeeded byGeorge Robert Harland Bowden
Trade union offices
Preceded byAlfred Smalley and S. H. Whitehouse	Auditor of the Trades Union Congress 1909 With: Alfred Smalley	Succeeded byJohn Cairns and Julia Varley
Preceded byJohn Cairns and Julia Varley	Auditor of the Trades Union Congress 1911 With: James E. Tattersall	Succeeded byEdward Judson and David Watts Morgan
Preceded byRobert Smillie	Vice-President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain 1912–1914	Succeeded byWilliam House
Preceded byJames Haslam	Secretary of the Derbyshire Miners' Association 1913–1914	Succeeded byFrank Hall

v t e Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)
Presidents	1889 Pickard 1904 En. Edwards 1912 Smillie 1922 Smith 1929 Richards 1931 Eb. Edwards 1932 Lee 1934 J. Jones 1939 Lawther 1954 E. Jones 1960 Machen 1960 Ford 1971 Gormley 1982 Scargill 2002 Lavery 2012 Wilson
Vice-Presidents	1889 Woods 1909 Smillie 1912 Harvey 1914 House 1917 Smith 1922 Walsh 1924 Richards 1929 Eb. Edwards 1931 Lee 1932 J. Jones 1933 Davies 1934 Lawther 1939 Bowman 1950 E. Jones 1954 T. Jones 1961 Collindridge 1963 Bullough 1969 Schofield 1973 McGahey 1987 Thompson 1989 Vacant 1992 Cave 2002 Stanley 2010 Wilson 2012 Thomas
General Secretaries	1889 Ashton 1919 Hodges 1924 Cook 1932 Eb. Edwards 1946 Horner 1959 Paynter 1968 Daly 1984 Heathfield 1992 Scargill 1992 Vacant? 2002 Kemp 2007 Kitchen
Treasurers	1889 En. Edwards 1904 Abraham 1918 Robson 1921 Richardson
Affiliates and areas	Bristol Cleveland Cokemen Colliery Officials and Staffs Cumberland Derbyshire Durham Forest of Dean Kent Lancashire and Cheshire Leicestershire Midland Counties (Cannock Chase North Staffordshire Old Hill Pelsall Shropshire Warwickshire West Bromwich) Northumberland North Wales Nottinghamshire Scotland (Ayrshire Fife and Kinross Lanarkshire Mid and East Lothian Mid and West Lothian Stirling) Somerset South Derbyshire South Wales Yorkshire
Strikes	1893 1912 1926 1969 1972 1974 1984–1985

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