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.[1] He was born in St George's, Shropshire, the son of a collier. He died at an early age in Tredegar following a sudden and unexpected serious breakdown in health.
Early life
editOnions 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.[2] Soon afterwards, in 1883, he left Shropshire to obtain work in the Black Vein Colliery,[3] in Risca, Monmouthshire.[4]
Trade unionism and politics
editTwo 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.[5] Subsequently, he rose through the ranks of the local trade union movement. Initially in Abercarn colliery, he was selected as checkweighman.[6] 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.[7]
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.[8] 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.'[9][10] Their report was subsequently published later that year.[11]
Onions was active in the Liberal-Labour movement, serving on local school boards, then on Monmouthshire County Council,[12] 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
edit- ^ Wearmouth, Robert F. (1959). Methodism and the Trade Unions. London: Epworth Press. p. 47.
- ^ Lowe, R.A. (1972). "Some Forerunners of R.H. Tawney's Longton Tutorial Class". Journal of the History of Education Society. 1 (1): 43-57. doi:10.1080/0046760720010104.
- ^ Black Vein Colliery
- ^ Phillips, James (2020). From Culture to Tradition: The Political Landscape of Monmouthshire, 1918-1929 (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). Cardiff University. p. 29. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
- ^ Wearmouth, Robert F. (1957). The social and political influence of Methodism in the Twentieth Century. London: The Epworth Press. p. 169. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
- ^ Phillips, ibid.
- ^ Wirtz, W. Willard (1962). The Miners International Federation An international Labor Study. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor. p. 38. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
- ^ Wearmouth, 1959: 46.
- ^ Wearmouth, 1957: 169.
- ^ The rationale for choosing Germany was that its coalfields shared similar characteristics about identities and ethnicities with South Wales, see Fishman, Nina (2002). "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". Llafur. 8 (3): 107-116. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
- ^ Smillie, Robert; Onions, A (1910). Report on the social and industrial conditions of the German working classes in 1910. London: Miners' Federation of Great Britain.
- ^ Monmouthshire County Council
Further reading
edit- Arnot, Robert Page (2023) [originally 1967]. South Wales miners : Glowyr De Cymru : a history of the South Wales Miners Federation, 1898-1914. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781000963915.
- Edwards, Ness (1938). History of the South Wales Miners' Federation. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
- Francis, Hywel; Smith, David (1980). The Fed A history of the South Wales miners in the twentieth century. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Retrieved 5 October 2024.