Frank Hodges (trade unionist)
Encyclopedia
Frank Hodges was an English
trade union
leader, who became General Secretary of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. A Member of Parliament
(MP) for one year, he was Civil Lord of the Admiralty in the first Labour Government.
, Gloucestershire
in 1887, but moved to Wales
at a young age. At the age of 14 he was working at the Powell Tillery Pit in Abertillery
, and due to his desire to read, he came to the attention of one of the mining-officials, who sponsored him to attend night-school. At the age of sixteen, inspired by the preacher Evan Roberts
he became a Methodist and was soon preaching in the evenings. Like many unionists before him, he found his religious beliefs tied into the plight of the coal-miners, and joined the Trade Union movement. At the same time his political views saw him become a member of the Independent Labour Party
.
At the age of eighteen, Hodges heard Philip Snowden
addressing a crowd, he found Snowden inspirational, and from that moment he saw the politician as his 'ideal'. Hodges was also shaped by the views of Welsh syndicalist
Noah Ablett
, whose Plebs' League
he would later join. Through his Trade Union links, Hodges secured a scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford and spent two years there from 1909. Although many of the students from Ruskin were not treated with the same equality as those at other Oxford Universities, Hodges found the life away from the coal mines to be to his liking, describing it as the great time of his life. In 1911, after the end of his studies, Hodges spent a brief time in Paris, where he stayed with Marxist
Paul Lafargue
and his wife Laura
, only a few months before their joint suicide.
. Now twenty four, Hodges was in a career where he felt he could change the lives of others for the better, and started reforming his district's organisation. His work as a union agent was rewarded when in 1919 he became the permanent Secretary of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain. In this role he would negotiate terms and conditions for the mining industry with the Government which included meetings with Lloyd George
.
In 1921, The South Wales Miners' Federation called for strike action after the coalowners demanded a reduction in wages from the miners. The miners rejected the terms and were locked out. The Miners' Federation called upon the aid of the Triple Alliance
and a strike was called for the 12 April. While preparations were taking place for the strike, the leaders of the Triple Alliance pushed the strike back to 15 April; in which time Hodges approached MPs independently in the hope of securing a temporary solution. When asked by the MPs if the miners would accept a wage that would not fall below the cost of living, Hodges stated that "any such offer...would receive very serious consideration". This action was seen as an act of betrayal by the miners' executive and Hodges lost the support of his own union. The alliance fell apart and many unions withdrew their support, leaving the workers in an impossible situation as solidarity broke down; the event became known as 'Black Friday
'.
In 1923 Hodges ran for political office, as Member of Parliament for Lichfield
as a Labour
candidate. He won the seat becoming part of the first Labour Government, under the leadership of
Ramsay MacDonald
and was given the office of First Lord of the Admiralty. It was during his period as a Member of Parliament that Hodges was invited to the Rhondda
to play at Ton Pentre
golf
club in a game with the then Duke of York
before he became George VI
.
Now a government minister, and seen as an increasing moderate the Miners' Federation took the opportunity to replace Hodges as Secretary. Hodges understood his position was no longer secure and resigned before he was pushed out. His replacement was the far more radical Arthur Cook
from the Rhondda district. The next year Hodges left his political post and was appointed a member of the Central Electricity Board
in 1926.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
leader, who became General Secretary of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. A Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for one year, he was Civil Lord of the Admiralty in the first Labour Government.
Early life
Hodges was born in WoolastonWoolaston
Woolaston is a village and civil parish in the Forest of Dean district of Gloucestershire in South West England. It lies on the north side of the Severn Estuary approximately 5 miles from the Welsh border at Chepstow and is surrounded by woodland and agricultural land.-The Village and its...
, Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
in 1887, but moved to Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
at a young age. At the age of 14 he was working at the Powell Tillery Pit in Abertillery
Abertillery
Abertillery is a town in the county borough of Blaenau Gwent in South Wales, north-west of Newport, originally on the Great Western Railway. Its population rose steeply during the period of mining development in South Wales, being 10,846 in the 1891 census and 21,945 ten years later...
, and due to his desire to read, he came to the attention of one of the mining-officials, who sponsored him to attend night-school. At the age of sixteen, inspired by the preacher Evan Roberts
Evan Roberts (minister)
Evan John Roberts , was a leading figure of the 1904-1905 Welsh Revival who suffered many setbacks in his later life.His obituary in The Western Mail summed up his career thus:- Early life :...
he became a Methodist and was soon preaching in the evenings. Like many unionists before him, he found his religious beliefs tied into the plight of the coal-miners, and joined the Trade Union movement. At the same time his political views saw him become a member of the Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
.
At the age of eighteen, Hodges heard Philip Snowden
Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden
Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden PC was a British politician and the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position he held in 1924 and again between 1929 and 1931.-Early life: 1864–1906:...
addressing a crowd, he found Snowden inspirational, and from that moment he saw the politician as his 'ideal'. Hodges was also shaped by the views of Welsh syndicalist
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
Noah Ablett
Noah Ablett
Noah Ablett was a trade unionist and political theorist who is most noted for writing 'The Miners' Next Step' a Syndicalist treaty which Ablett described as 'scientific trade unionism....
, whose Plebs' League
Plebs' League
The Plebs' League was a British educational and political organisation which originated around Marxist ideals.Central to the formation of the League was Noah Ablett, a miner from the Rhondda who was at the core of a group at Ruskin College, Oxford who opposed the lecturers' opposition to Marxism...
he would later join. Through his Trade Union links, Hodges secured a scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford and spent two years there from 1909. Although many of the students from Ruskin were not treated with the same equality as those at other Oxford Universities, Hodges found the life away from the coal mines to be to his liking, describing it as the great time of his life. In 1911, after the end of his studies, Hodges spent a brief time in Paris, where he stayed with Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
Paul Lafargue
Paul Lafargue
Paul Lafargue was a French revolutionary Marxist socialist journalist, literary critic, political writer and activist; he was Karl Marx's son-in-law, having married his second daughter Laura. His best known work is The Right to Be Lazy...
and his wife Laura
Laura Marx
Jenny Laura Marx was the second daughter of Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen. In 1868 she married Paul Lafargue. As an elderly couple, the two committed suicide together in 1911....
, only a few months before their joint suicide.
Political and union career
After leaving Oxford, Hodges returned to work in the mines. After his time at Oxford he found the manual work as a hewer unbearable and attempted to find more intellectual work. He answered an advertisement for a job as a trade union agent, and was accepted as the Garw district representative of the South Wales Miners' FederationSouth Wales Miners' Federation
The South Wales Miners' Federation , nicknamed "The Fed", was a trade union for miners in South Wales.The union was founded on 24 October 1898, following the defeat of the South Wales miners' strike of 1898...
. Now twenty four, Hodges was in a career where he felt he could change the lives of others for the better, and started reforming his district's organisation. His work as a union agent was rewarded when in 1919 he became the permanent Secretary of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain. In this role he would negotiate terms and conditions for the mining industry with the Government which included meetings with Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
.
In 1921, The South Wales Miners' Federation called for strike action after the coalowners demanded a reduction in wages from the miners. The miners rejected the terms and were locked out. The Miners' Federation called upon the aid of the Triple Alliance
Triple Alliance (1914)
The Triple Alliance was an alliance of British Trade Unions comprising the Miners Federation of Great Britain, the National Union of Railwaymen and the National Transport Workers' Federation .-Formation and Pre-War Activity:After a period of intense industrial unrest beginning in July 1910, the...
and a strike was called for the 12 April. While preparations were taking place for the strike, the leaders of the Triple Alliance pushed the strike back to 15 April; in which time Hodges approached MPs independently in the hope of securing a temporary solution. When asked by the MPs if the miners would accept a wage that would not fall below the cost of living, Hodges stated that "any such offer...would receive very serious consideration". This action was seen as an act of betrayal by the miners' executive and Hodges lost the support of his own union. The alliance fell apart and many unions withdrew their support, leaving the workers in an impossible situation as solidarity broke down; the event became known as 'Black Friday
Black Friday (1921)
Black Friday, in British labour history, refers to 15 April 1921, when the leaders of transport and rail unions announced a decision not to call for strike action in support of the miners...
'.
In 1923 Hodges ran for political office, as Member of Parliament for Lichfield
Lichfield (UK Parliament constituency)
Lichfield is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.- Boundaries :...
as a Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
candidate. He won the seat becoming part of the first Labour Government, under the leadership of
Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
and was given the office of First Lord of the Admiralty. It was during his period as a Member of Parliament that Hodges was invited to the Rhondda
Rhondda
Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley , is a former coal mining valley in Wales, formerly a local government district, consisting of 16 communities built around the River Rhondda. The valley is made up of two valleys, the larger Rhondda Fawr valley and the smaller Rhondda Fach valley...
to play at Ton Pentre
Ton Pentre
Ton Pentre is a village in the Rhondda Valley in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. Ton Pentre, a former industrial coal mining village, is a district of the community of Pentre. The old district of Ystradyfodwg was named after the church at Ton Pentre...
golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
club in a game with the then Duke of York
Duke of York
The Duke of York is a title of nobility in the British peerage. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of the British monarch. The title has been created a remarkable eleven times, eight as "Duke of York" and three as the double-barreled "Duke of York and...
before he became George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
.
Now a government minister, and seen as an increasing moderate the Miners' Federation took the opportunity to replace Hodges as Secretary. Hodges understood his position was no longer secure and resigned before he was pushed out. His replacement was the far more radical Arthur Cook
A. J. Cook (trade unionist)
Arthur James Cook , known as A. J. Cook, was a British coal miner and trade union leader. He is remembered as one of the United Kingdom's best known miners’ leaders and a key component of the National Minority Movement around the General Strike of 1926.-Early years:A.J...
from the Rhondda district. The next year Hodges left his political post and was appointed a member of the Central Electricity Board
Central Electricity Board
The United Kingdom Central Electricity Board was set up under The Electricity Act 1926 to standardise the nation's electricity supply. At that time, the industry consisted of more than 600 electricity supply companies and local authority undertakings, and different areas operated at different...
in 1926.
Written works
- Nationalisation of the mines (1920) pub. Leonard Parsons, London (available online at openlibarary.org)
- My adventures as a labour leader (1924) pub. G Newnes