{{Short description|British politician (1858–1921)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Alfred Onions | image = Alfred Onions.png | image_size = | caption = Onions in 1914 | office = Member of Parliament for Caerphilly | term_start = 1918 | term_end = 1921 | predecessor = ''(new constituency)'' | successor = Morgan Jones | office1 = Treasurer of the South Wales Miners' Federation | term_start1 = 1898 | term_end1 = 1921 | predecessor1 = ''New position'' | successor1 = Oliver Harris | office2 = Agent for the Tredegar Valley District of the South Wales Miners' Federation | term_start2 = 1898 | term_end2 = 1919 | predecessor2 = ''New position'' | successor2 = George Davies | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1858|10|30|df=y}} | birth_place = St George's, Shropshire, England | death_date = {{death date and age|1921|07|05|1858|10|30|df=y}} | death_place = Tredegar, Wales | party = Labour }} '''Alfred Onions''' (30 October 1858 – 5 July 1921) was a Welsh trade unionist, a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party, a Wesleyan Methodist and a very longstanding local preacher.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wearmouth |first1=Robert F. |title=Methodism and the Trade Unions |date=1959 |publisher=Epworth Press |location=London |page=47}}</ref> He was born in St George's, Shropshire, the son of a collier. He died in Tredegar following a sudden and unexpected serious breakdown in health.
==Early life== Onions began work at the age of ten-and-a-half, when he followed his father into coal mining. At the age of 20, he attended the local North Staffordshire Adult Education Society.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lowe |first1=R.A. |title=Some Forerunners of R.H. Tawney's Longton Tutorial Class |journal=Journal of the History of Education Society |date=1972 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=43–57 |doi=10.1080/0046760720010104 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0046760720010104|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Soon afterwards, in 1883, he left Shropshire to obtain work in the Black Vein Colliery,<ref>[https://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/Gwent/BlackVein.htm Black Vein Colliery]</ref> in Risca, Monmouthshire.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Phillips |first=James |date=2020 |title=From Culture to Tradition: The Political Landscape of Monmouthshire, 1918-1929 |url=https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/135698/ |degree=Doctor of Philosophy |page=29 |publisher=Cardiff University |docket= |oclc= |access-date=5 October 2024}}</ref>
==Trade unionism and politics== Two years after Onions started work in the Black Vein Colliery, it closed down for a while. Consequently, he obtained work in the collieries in the Rhondda and then Abercarn.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wearmouth |first1=Robert F. |title=The social and political influence of Methodism in the Twentieth Century |date=1957 |publisher=The Epworth Press |location=London |page=169 |url=https://archive.org/details/socialpoliticali0000wear/page/n1/mode/2up |access-date=7 October 2024}}</ref> Subsequently, he rose through the ranks of the local trade union movement. Initially in Abercarn colliery, he was selected as checkweighman.<ref>Phillips, ibid.</ref> Then, in 1888 he was selected as the secretary of the Monmouth District of the Monmouthshire and South Wales District Miners' Association, which was based in Crumlin, in which capacity he served for ten years. While he was the secretary, in 1891 his peers selected him to represent the miners of South Wales at the Paris Congress of the Miners' International Federation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wirtz |first1=W. Willard |title=The Miners International Federation An international Labor Study |date=1962 |publisher=U.S. Department of Labor |location=Washington, DC |page=38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M-Ikn2IdAL4C&dq=Paris+%22International+Miners%27+Conference%22&pg=PR3 |access-date=6 October 2024}}</ref>
From 1893 to 1898 Onions served as the Miners' Agent for the Rhymney Valley. In 1898 the Monmouthshire and South Wales District Miners' Association became part of the South Wales Miners' Federation ('The Fed'), for which he was one of its founding members and became its first treasurer.<ref>Wearmouth, 1959: 46.</ref> From 1898 to 1918 he served as the Miners' Agent for the Tredegar Valley (now known as the Sirhowy Valley). Also he represented South Wales several times on the committee of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. In 1910 he travelled with Robert Smillie, his Scottish counterpart, to the German coalfields in the Ruhr 'to investigate the conditions of the working-classes ... under the tariff system.'<ref>Wearmouth, 1957: 169.</ref><ref>The rationale for choosing Germany was that its coalfields shared similar characteristics about identities and ethnicities with South Wales, see {{cite journal |last1=Fishman |first1=Nina |title=A comment on 'working-class culture and the Labour Movement in the South Wales and the Ruhr coalfields, 1850-2000: A comparison - by Stephan Berger |journal=Llafur |date=2002 |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=107–116 |url=https://journals.library.wales/view/1326508/1329694/108#?xywh=-1329%2C-125%2C4753%2C2235 |access-date=5 October 2024}}</ref> Their report was subsequently published later that year.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Smillie |first1=Robert |last2=Onions |first2=A |title=Report on the social and industrial conditions of the German working classes in 1910 |date=1910 |publisher=Miners' Federation of Great Britain |location=London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nmYtAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Report%20on%20the%20social%20and%20industrial%20conditions%22}}</ref>
Onions was active in the Liberal-Labour movement, serving on local school boards, then on Monmouthshire County Council,<ref>[https://www.monmouthshire.gov.uk/ Monmouthshire County Council]</ref> on which he became its chair. He was also the first chair of Risca Urban District Council.
He was elected as member of parliament for Caerphilly at the 1918 general election and retired in 1921. He was succeeded by Morgan Jones.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== *{{cite book |last1=Arnot |first1=Robert Page |title=South Wales miners : Glowyr De Cymru : a history of the South Wales Miners Federation, 1898-1914 |date=2023 |orig-date=originally 1967 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=9781000963915}} *{{cite book |last1=Edwards |first1=Ness |title=History of the South Wales Miners' Federation |date=1938 |publisher=Lawrence & Wishart |location=London}} *{{cite book |last1=Francis |first1=Hywel |last2=Smith |first2=David |title=The Fed A history of the South Wales miners in the twentieth century |date=1980 |publisher=Lawrence and Wishart |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/fedhistoryofsout0000fran/page/n5/mode/2up |access-date=5 October 2024}}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Caerphilly | years = 1918–1921 | before = ''(new constituency)'' | after = Morgan Jones }} {{s-npo|union}} {{succession box|title=Agent for the Tredegar Valley District of the South Wales Miners' Federation|years=1898–1919|before=''New position''|after=George Davies}} {{succession box|title=Treasurer of the South Wales Miners' Federation|years=1898–1921|before=''New position''|after=Oliver Harris}} {{s-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Onions, Alfred}} Category:1858 births Category:1921 deaths Category:Welsh Labour MPs Category:Members of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress Category:Miners' Federation of Great Britain-sponsored MPs Category:UK MPs 1918–1922