Leaders: George Barnes 1910-1911

George Barnes (1859-1940)
A leader of both the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) - now part of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union) - George Nicoll Barnes also served as a member of Lloyd George's coalition Government.

Born at Lochee, Dundee on 2 January 1859, Barnes was the second of five sons of James Barnes, a Yorkshire-born journeyman machine-maker, and Catherine Adam Langlands, from Kirriemuir, Angus. He was educated at a church school until the age of 11, when he became a clerk in a jute mill for seven shillings a week. His apprenticeship as an engineer started at the age of 13 led him from Lambeth to Dundee and back to London, where he worked for 8 years with a firm in Fulham and a short period at Woolwich Arsenal.

When he joined the ASE Barnes became allied with John Burns and Tom Mann, both of whom considered it their duty to shake up the 'respectable and deadly dull' engineers by promoting socialist political action. When Tom Mann challenged the Liberal John Anderson for the General Secretaryship in 1891 and only narrowly lost, Barnes was working as the Secretary of the organising committee in London, where Mann had his greatest strength. In 1889 Barnes was elected to the executive of the ASE and in 1892 became assistant secretary. He was one of four ASE men to stand as Independent Labour Party candidates in the 1895 election, standing at Rochdale, but was unsuccessful.

In 1896 Barnes was elected general secretary of the ASE on a platform pushing for the 8-hour week, with a majority over Anderson of over 8000. Sidney and Beatrice Webb recommended him because of his 'vigorous energy... great official experience, proved integrity and the strictest regularity of habits.' He remained in office until 1908.In his first year of office he faced the challenge of the great engineering lockout of 1897-98. Barnes's stubborn determination contributed to the symbolic importance of the conflict, and his election as general secretary was widely seen as a major step in the growth of socialism within the trade union movement.

After forming part of the ASE delegation to the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) founding conference in 1900, Barnes went on to be elected as the LRC candidate for Glasgow Blackfriars in 1906, defeating Bonar Law, later a Tory Prime Minister. He held the seat until 1918 when it was redefined as Glasgow Gorbals, which he represented until his retirement in 1922.

After serving as Party Vice-Chairman in the Commons, from 1908 to 1910 Barnes rose briefly to succeed Arthur Henderson as chairman (essentially leader) of the 29 members of the parliamentary Labour party from 1910-11, an important period covering two general elections.

Barnes was active in promoting social and employment issues in Parliament such as pensions, unemployment maintenance and labour exchanges. His previous experience as chair of the national committee of organised labour for pensions earlier in the century paid off when he became the first ever Minister of Pensions in Lloyd George's coalition government in December 1916, joining the War Cabinet in May 1917. In August 1917 Barnes again succeeded Henderson on his resignation from the War Cabinet, as Minister without Portfolio. When Labour Party support for the coalition government was withdrawn prior to the 1918 general election Barnes decided to remain in the cabinet. He became the effective leader of the National Democratic Party (NDP) of pro-coalition Labour MPs and was re-elected on this basis at the 1918 general election, along with fellow minister John Hodge and thirteen other NDP candidates. He remained a member of the Lloyd-George Coalition Cabinet until January 1920, retiring from Parliament at the 1922 election at which only one NDP candidate secured election. The NDP dissolved in 1923.

As an attendee of the Peace Conference in Paris he played a central part the establishment of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as a central part of the League of Nations, and represented Great Britain at the first ILO conference in 1919.

After a period of pursuing his interests in travel and peace in retirement George Barnes died on 21 April 1940. As a key trade union leader he had seen the ASE through an intense transitional period of political and technological change. In his study of the unions and the ILP David Howell writes, 'How much was Barnes the aggressive socialist militant, as his opponents loved to portray him ?' His transition from militant trade unionist to patriotic coalitionist indicates the complexity of political choices for working class politicians in the early part of the century.

His autobiography, From Workshop to War Cabinet was published in 1924. Barnes also published The History of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (1901), Industrial Conflict: The Way Out (1924), The History of the International Labour Office (1926) and numerous pamphlets. Useful information on his career is contained in: David Howell, British Workers and the Independent Labour Party 1888-1906 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983) ; Paul Adelman, The Rise of the Labour Party 1880 to 1945 (London: Longman, 1996); D James, T. Jowitt and K. Laybourn, eds. The Centennial History of the Independent Labour Party, (Halifax: Ryburn Academic Publishers, 1992); Henry Pelling, The Origins of the Labour Party 1880-1900 (1954).

Sarah Welfare