BEN TILLETT, BRADFORD AND THE INDEPENDENT LABOUR MOVEMENT

Abstract

Expressions of community feeling appear in a variety of ways from transient events such as celebrations, elections, petitions or riots to more permanent manifestations ranging from clubs and societies to religious congregations and political parties. We often know a lot about the leaders of such events or groupings, but our knowledge is scanty in the extreme about the rank-and-file participants. Occasional windows appear, however, and one such is a petition got up in support of the parliamentary candidature, in the independent labour interest, of Ben Tillett, for the Bradford Western Division seat at the election of 1892. Tillett had demanded that at least 1000 electors should sign such a petition before he would stand. He got more than this, although an analysis of the signatories indicates that some 20% were not, in fact, electors. The availability of the enumerators’ books for the 1891 census has made it possible to say something about the signatories, by linking the addresses in the books with those in the petition e.g. age, occupation, social class, household structure, family size and general wellbeing, as indicated by size of house and income. A sample of non-signatories has been used to measure how typical the petitioners were. The petition allows us to take a new look at an old theory — that early support for the independent labour movement came from the upper reaches of the working class. The main finding is that Tillett drew support from lower social groups than has hitherto been thought.