Joseph Jones (trade unionist)

Joseph Jones (1891 – 1 April 1948) was a British trade unionist.

Born in St Helens, Jones studied at a technical college before becoming a coal miner.^[1] He moved to work at Thurcroft, and was elected branch secretary of the Yorkshire Miners' Association (YMA) in 1914. He was an active methodist, and strongly promoted the cause of temperance,^[2] later becoming Chairman of the Workers' Temperance League. He was elected as a Labour Party member of West Riding County Council in 1919, serving until 1933.^[1] In 1923, Jones was elected as Treasurer of the YMA and, the following year, he became its General Secretary. He was elected to Barnsley Town Council in 1926, serving as Mayor of Barnsley in 1931.^[3]

In 1924, Jones contested the General Secretaryship of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) as the candidate of the union's right-wing, but he was narrowly defeated by the communist A. J. Cook.^[4] From 1926 until 1931, Jones was on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, and from 1930 to 1938 he was the government's Coal Mine Reorganisation Commissioner.^[1]

Jones was elected as Vice President of the MFGB in 1932, then in 1934 became the union's President. He resigned in 1938 to join the Coal Commission, and in 1947 was appointed as advisor on social insurance to the National Coal Board.^[1]

References

1 2 3 4 Robin Page Arnot, The Miners in Crisis and War, p.129
↑ Peter Gibbon and David Steyne, Thurcroft: a village and the miners' strike - an oral history, p.15
↑ Colliery Guardian, vol.141, p.979
↑ David Howell, MacDonald's Party, p.119

Trade union offices
Preceded by Samuel Roebuck	General Secretary of the Yorkshire Miners' Association 1924–1938	Succeeded by Ernest Jones
Preceded by Peter Lee	Vice-President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain 1932–1933	Succeeded by S. O. Davies
Preceded by Peter Lee	President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain 1934–1938	Succeeded by Will Lawther
Preceded by John C. Little and William R. Townley	Trades Union Congress representative to the American Federation of Labour 1938 With: John W. Stephenson	Succeeded by Herbert Henry Elvin

Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)
Presidents	1889 Pickard 1904 Enoch Edwards 1912 Smillie 1922 Smith 1929 Richards 1931 Ebby Edwards 1932 Lee 1934 J. Jones 1939 Lawther 1954 Ernest Jones 1960 Machen 1960 Ford 1971 Gormley 1982 Scargill 2002 Lavery 2012 Wilson
Vice-Presidents	1889 Woods 1909 Smillie 1912 Harvey 1914 House 1917 Smith 1922 Walsh 1924 Richards 1929 Ebby Edwards 1931 Lee 1932 J. Jones 1933 Davies 1934 Lawther 1939 Bowman 1950 Ernest Jones 1954 Edward Jones 1960 Collindridge 1963 Bullough 1969 Schofield 1973 McGahey 1987 Thompson 1989 Vacant 1992 Cave 2002 Stanley 2010 Wilson 2012 Thomas
General Secretaries	1889 Ashton 1919 Hodges 1924 Cook 1932 Ebby Edwards 1946 Horner 1959 Paynter 1968 Daly 1984 Heathfield 1992 Scargill 1992 Vacant? 2002 Kemp 2007 Kitchen
Treasurers	1889 Enoch Edwards 1904 Abraham 1918 Robson 1921 Richardson
MFGB affiliates	Bristol Cleveland Cokemen Cumberland Derbyshire Durham Forest of Dean Kent Lancashire and Cheshire Leicestershire Midland Counties Northumberland North Wales Nottinghamshire Scotland (Ayrshire Fife and Kinross Lanarkshire Mid and East Lothian Mid and West Lothian Stirling) Somerset South Derbyshire South Wales Yorkshire
Strikes	1893 1912 1926 1969 1972 1974 1984–1985

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