(Born in 1858)
English Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament for the Holland with Boston constituency from 1918 until 1924.
He was born in Spalding, Lincolnshire, and was educated at the Willesby School and at Pretty’s Commercial School, Spalding. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a joiner, but served only two years of his apprenticeship before running away to London, where he worked on the construction of the General Post Office building in St Martin’s-le-Grand. Three months later, he learned that the Government of Cape Town was offering free passage to South Africa for men to build the railways in that country. He accepted a three-year contract, at the end of which he had saved enough money to set up in business on his own account.
