Labour's Lost Leader: The Life and Politics of Will Crooks

by Paul Tyler

Overview

The life story of Will Crooks has a Dickensian resonance. As a working-class child, born into abject poverty, he experienced the rigours of Popular Workhouse and Poor Law school. Nearly fourty years later Crooks became Chairman of the Popular Board of Guardians, the very board that had given him shelter during his challenging early years. Crooks was a member of the Cooper's Union and Labour movement for over thirty. This significant and sometimes controversial figure has been overlooked by modern historians. Here, Paul Tyler presents a pioneering political biography of a significant Labour figure at both a local and national level and an important reinterpretation of the early trade union and labour movement from the 1880s to the 1920s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780760469
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/30/2013
Series:	International Library of Political Studies
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Paul F. Tyler is Associate Research Fellow at the Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Local Activist and Labour Pioneer 1852-1907
• Will Crooks of Poplar
• Guardian of the Poor Law
• Woolwich and Independent Labour representation
• Labour Pioneer and Member of Parliament 1903-1921
• Member of Woolwich
• Role in Parliament and the General Elections of 1910
• Returns to the Parliamentary Fray
• War and Peace
• References and Notes
• Bibliography
• Index