{{Short description|British trade unionist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''William Frank Purdy''' (1872 – 1929)<ref name="webb">Norman Mackenzie, ''The Letters of Sidney and Beatrice Webb: Volume 3'', p.91</ref> was a British trade unionist.
Based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Purdy was active in the Shipconstructors' and Shipwrights' Association,<ref name="webb" /> and became its Assistant General Secretary by 1920. He succeeded Alexander Wilkie as the union's Acting General Secretary shortly before Wilkie's death in 1928, but Purdy himself died the following year before he could stand for election to the permanent post.<ref>Alan Haworth and Dianne Haytor, ''Men Who Made Labour''</ref><ref>David Dougan, ''The shipwrights: the history of the Shipconstructors' and Shipwrights' Association, 1882-1963'', p.225</ref>
Purdy was also a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. He moved that George Wardle preside over the 1917 party conference as acting chair, and Purdy was then elected as chairman for 1917/18.<ref>''Report of the Annual Conference of the Labour Party, 1918''</ref>
==References== <references />
{{start box}} {{s-ppo}} {{succession box|title=Chairman of the Labour Party|years=1917/18|before=George Wardle|after=John McGurk}} {{s-npo|union}} {{succession box|title=Acting General Secretary of the Ship Constructive and Shipwrights' Association|before=Alexander Wilkie|after=William Westwood|years=1928–1929}} {{end box}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Purdy, William Frank}} Category:1872 births Category:1929 deaths Category:Chairs of the Labour Party (UK) Category:British trade union leaders Category:Trade unionists from Newcastle upon Tyne
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