| Honorific prefix | The Right Honourable |
|---|---|
| Office | Secretary of State for War |
| Term start | 22 January 1924 |
| Term end | 3 November 1924 |
| Prime minister | Ramsay MacDonald |
| Predecessor | The Earl of Derby |
| Successor | Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Bt |
| Office 1 | Deputy Leader of the Labour Party |
| Term start 1 | 14 February 1921 |
| Term end 1 | 21 November 1922 |
| Leader 1 | J. R. Clynes |
| Predecessor 1 | J. R. Clynes |
| Successor 1 | J. R. Clynes |
| Office 3 | Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board |
| Term start 3 | 28 June 1917 |
| Term end 3 | 27 January 1919 |
| Prime minister 3 | David Lloyd George |
| Predecessor 3 | Hayes Fisher |
| Successor 3 | Waldorf Astor |
| Office 4 | Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service |
| Term start 4 | 17 March 1917 |
| Term end 4 | 28 June 1917 |
| Prime minister 4 | David Lloyd George |
| Predecessor 4 | Office Established |
| Successor 4 | Cecil Beck |
| Office 5 | Member of Parliament for Ince |
| Term start 5 | 12 January 1906 |
| Term end 5 | 16 March 1929 |
| Predecessor 5 | Henry Blundell-Hollinshead-Blundell |
| Successor 5 | Gordon Macdonald |
| Birth date | 26 August 1859 |
| Birth place | Liverpool, Merseyside, UK |
| Death date | 26 August 1859 16 March 1929 |
| Party | Labour |
| Other party | Coalition Labour |
| Occupation | Miner |
Stephen Walsh (26 August 1859 – 16 March 1929) was a British miner, trade unionist and Labour Party politician.[1]
Background
Born in Liverpool, Walsh became an orphan at a very young age. He was educated at an industrial school in the Kirkdale area of the city, leaving school aged 13 to work in a coalmine in Ashton in Makerfield.[1]
Political career
Walsh was an official of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation before he was elected to parliament for Ince in the 1906 general election. Later that year he attacked the idea that an MP needed an Oxbridge education further adding that: "To use an arithmetical metaphor, the Labour party had reduced the points of difference among the working classes to the lowest common denominator, and had promoted and developed the greatest common measure of united action".[2]
Walsh was a member of David Lloyd George's Coalition Government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service in 1917 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board from 1917 to 1919.
Walsh stood in the 1918 election as a Coalition Labour candidate opposed by the official Labour Party. He was vice-president of National Union of Mineworkers from 1922 to 1924 until he was appointed Secretary of State for War by Ramsay MacDonald in January 1924, a post he held until the government fell in November of the same year. He was sworn of the Privy Council in January 1924.
Family
One of Walsh's sons died in World War I. Walsh himself died in March 1929, aged 69.
References
- ^ "Obituary: Mr. Stephen Walsh. Labour War Minister". The Times. 18 March 1929. p. 19.
- ^ The Manchester Guardian, "The Fear Of The Socialist", 17 October 1906
External links
- Stephen Walsh at Spartacus Educational
- Stephen Walsh at Hansard