Harry Snell, 1st Baron Snell

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For the Swedish Olympic cyclist, see Harry Snell (cyclist).

Hereditary Peerage
Preceded byPeerage created
Succeeded byPeerage extinct
Member of Parliament
for Woolwich East
In office
15 November 1922 – 22 March 1931
Preceded byRobert Gee
Succeeded byGeorge Hicks
Personal details
Born(1865-04-01)1 April 1865
Sutton-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, England
Died21 April 1944(1944-04-21) (aged 79)
London, England

Henry Snell, 1st Baron Snell

PC (1 April 1865 – 21 April 1944), was a British socialist politician and campaigner. He served in government under Ramsay MacDonald and Winston Churchill, and as the Labour Party's leader in the House of Lords
in the late 1930s.

Background

Born in Sutton-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, the son of agricultural workers, Harry Snell was educated at his local village school before beginning work as a farm hand at the age of eight. He worked full-time from the age of ten and became an indoor servant at the farm aged twelve. Dissatisfied with this work, Snell left and travelled around the county, taking a variety of jobs including work as a groom and at Hazelford Ferry on the River Trent and as a French polisher in Nottingham. During long periods of unemployment he occupied himself with extensive reading, and was particularly influenced by the writing of Henry George. Inspired by Charles Bradlaugh and the cause of secularism in Nottingham 1881, he joined the National Secular Society. He rejected the austere and literalist Anglicanism of his up-bringing, but retained some religious faith and decided to join the Unitarian Church, impressed by its scientific approach to Christian doctrine and its progressive and tolerant values.[citation needed]

A Unitarian teacher, John Kentish-White, introduced Snell to the works of

London dock strike of 1889.[citation needed
]

Member of Parliament

In 1890, Snell began social work for the Woolwich Charity Organisation Society, and later became secretary to the director of the

South Place Ethical Society (eventually becoming President) and its American counterpart. Snell stood unsuccessfully in Huddersfield as a candidate for the Labour Party in January and December 1910[1] and 1918. He was elected to the London County Council in 1919, serving until 1925,[2] and became Member of Parliament for Woolwich East, the seat formerly held by Will Crooks, at the 1922 General Election, being re-elected in 1929.[3]

Harry Snell 1929

In late 1929, Snell was appointed to the

Jewish immigration and land purchase be curtailed. Snell also dissented from the Commission's claims that Palestine was overcrowded, agreeing with reports published two years earlier that had found the area to be under-populated and greatly under-cultivated. He described the impact of Jewish immigration as having raised the standard of living for Arab workers, and asserted that the Commission was wrongly and dangerously encouraging the view that immigration was a menace to Arabs and threatened their economic future. Following this, Snell became a strong supporter of Zionism.[4]

From 1931 to 1932, he served as President of the British Ethical Union (now known as Humanists UK), an organisation promoting humanism as a non-religious basis for morality.[5]

Snell was appointed a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1930 Birthday Honours.[6]

House of Lords

Snell resigned his seat in the Commons in 1931, to make way for

Privy Counsellor in 1937.[9]

As leader in the Lords, Snell took a strong line against the growing threat of fascism, and attacked the Government's appeasement of

Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1943.[10]
Whilst still in the role of Deputy Leader, Snell fell ill at the end of March 1944, and died less than a month later, his peerage becoming extinct at that time.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 1465502483
    .
  2. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/36177. Retrieved 25 February 2013. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ^ "House of Commons: Witney to Wythenshawe and Sale East". Leighrayment.com. Archived from the original on 31 December 2010. Retrieved 7 January 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. ISBN 0253208734
    .
  5. ^ "Annual Reports of the Union of Ethical Societies" (1913-1946). British Humanist Association, Series: Congress Minutes and Papers, 1913–1991, File: Minute Book. London: Bishopsgate Institute Special Collections and Archives.
  6. ^ "No. 33611". The London Gazette (Supplement). 3 June 1930. p. 3481.
  7. ^ "No. 33701". The London Gazette. 24 March 1931. p. 1987.
  8. ^ Snell, Henry (1936). Men, movements, and myself. J.M. Dent and Sons. pp. 284.
  9. ^ "No. 34407". The London Gazette. 11 June 1937. p. 3731.
  10. ^ "No. 36033". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 May 1943. p. 2438.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Harry Snell, 1st Baron Snell.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Woolwich East
1922–1931 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Under-Secretary of State for India
1929–1931 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Ernest Dence
 Chairman of the London County Council
1934–1938 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
The Earl of Lucan
Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms

1940–1944 		Vacant
Title next held by
The Earl Fortescue
Party political offices
Preceded by London Division representative on the Independent Labour Party National Administrative Council
1910–1911 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords
1935–1940 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation
Baron Snell

1931–1944 		Extinct
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