Tom Mann

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the English singer and member of the band Stereo Kicks, see
Tom Mann (singer)
.

Tom Mann
Born
Thomas Mann

(1856-04-15)15 April 1856
Longford, Coventry, England
Died13 March 1941(1941-03-13) (aged 84)
Grassington, England
Political partyCommunist Party of Great Britain (1920-1941)
British Socialist Party (1917-1920)
Industrial Syndicalist Education League (1910-1913)
Victorian Socialist Party (1906-1909)
Social Democratic Federation (1884-1906)

Thomas Mann (15 April 1856 – 13 March 1941), was an English

public speaker in the British labour movement.[1]

Early years

Mann was born on 15 April 1856, on Grange Road,

mining shafts.[1][2][3]

In 1870, the colliery was forced to close and the family moved to Birmingham. Mann soon found work as an engineering apprentice. He attended public meetings addressed by Annie Besant and John Bright, and this began his political awareness. He completed his apprenticeship in 1877 and moved to London, however he was unable to find work as an engineer and took a series of unskilled jobs.[citation needed]

In 1879, Mann found work in an engineering shop. Here he was introduced to

working day to be limited to eight hours. Mann formed an organisation, the Eight Hour League, which successfully pressured the Trades Union Congress to adopt the eight-hour day
as a key goal.

Activist and leader

After reading

Bryant and May match factory strike.[4] With Burns and Champion, he began producing a journal, the Labour Elector
, in 1888.

Along with Burns and

Royal Commission on Labour from 1891 to 1893. In 1894, he was a founding member of the Independent Labour Party and became the party Secretary in 1894. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the party in the 1895 general election. In 1896 he was beaten in the election for Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. He helped create the International Transport Workers' Federation, and was its first President. He was deported from a number of European countries for organising trade unions.[citation needed
]

Mann's religious belief was as strong as his politics. He was an

Philip Snowden
, a member of the ILP, liked Mann but was critical of his inability to stay with any one party or organisation for more than a few years.

Australia and Liverpool

Leaflet reproducing Mann's 'Open Letter to British Soldiers' (transcription)

In 1902, Mann emigrated to Australia, to see if that country's broader electoral franchise would allow more "drastic modification of capitalism". Settling in Melbourne, he was active in Australian trade unions and became an organiser for the Australian Labor Party. However, he grew disillusioned with the party, believing it was being corrupted by the nature of government and concerned only with winning elections. He felt that the federal Labor MPs were unable and unwilling to change society, and their prominence within the movement was stifling and over-shadowing organised labour. He resigned from the ALP and founded the Victorian Socialist Party.

Returning to Britain in 1910, Mann wrote The Way to Win, a pamphlet that argued that socialism could be achieved only through trade unionism and co-operation, and that parliamentary democracy was inherently corrupt. He founded the

1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike. In 1912 he was convicted under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 of publishing an article in The Syndicalist
, as an "Open Letter to British Soldiers", urging them to refuse to shoot at strikers (later reprinted as a leaflet, Don't Shoot); his prison sentence was quashed after public pressure. He was opposed to Britain's involvement in World War I on socialist and religious grounds and addressed pacifist rallies.

On 10 June 1913 he spoke at Wednesbury Market Place in support of strikers in the Great Black Country Trades Dispute, which lasted for two months and threatened government preparations for World War I[citation needed]. Mann returned to the area again on 3 July.

In 1917, he joined the successor to the

Labour Party the previous year.[citation needed
]

Veteran campaigner

In 1919, he again ran for election as Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, this time successfully. He held the post until 1921, when he retired at the age of sixty-five. He welcomed the Russian

Red International of Labor Unions and its successor, the National Minority Movement, from their formation in 1921 until 1929.[5]

Tom Mann continued to actively champion socialism, communism, and co-operation, until his death in 1941. He published further pamphlets and regularly addressed public meetings, in Britain and abroad. He was arrested for sedition, on several occasions. He continued to be a popular figure in the labour movement, attracting large audiences to rallies and benefits. Mann advocated animal rights and was supportive of the Humanitarian League.[6][7]

Spanish Civil War

On the outbreak of the

Centuria
, was named in his honour.

Death and legacy

Plaque dedicated to Mann at Golders Green Crematorium

Tom Mann died at age 84, on 13 March 1941 in

Centuria in his honour. The Tom Mann Theatre in Sydney, Australia, was named after him. His great-grandson was Nicholas Bennett,[9] Conservative MP for Pembroke from 1987 to 1992 and a Welsh Office
minister from 1990 to 1992.

References

  1. ^
    OCLC 17776138
    .
  2. ^ "Thomas Mann family tree". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  3. ^ "History of Longford, in Coventry and Warwickshire | Map and description". www.visionofbritain.org.uk. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  4. ^ a b South London record No. 4. London: South London History Workshop. 1989. pp. 31–35.
  5. ^ Klugmann, James (1968). History of the Communist Party of Great Britain: Volume 1: Formation and Early Years, 1919–1924. London: Lawrence and Wishart. pp. 108–116.
  6. ISBN 1-86189-014-1
  7. ISBN 0-7190-6710-3
    .
  8. ^ Simkin, John (January 2020). "Tom Mann". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  9. ^ "Bennett's benefit". The Times. 5 December 1990. p. 12.

Further reading

External links
Party political offices
New office Secretary of the London Reform Union
1892–1898 		Succeeded by
F. W. Galton
Preceded by
Shaw Maxwell
 General Secretary of the Independent Labour Party
1894–1898 		Succeeded by
Trade union offices
Preceded by President of the Dock, Wharf,
Riverside and General Labourers' Union
1889–1901 		Succeeded by
Thomas Merrells
New office President of the International Transport Workers' Federation
1893–1896 		Succeeded by
Preceded by General Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union
1919–1921 		Succeeded by
A. H. Smethurst
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tom_Mann&oldid=1179021721"