T. P. O'Connor

T. P. O'Connor in 1917
O'Connor in 1909

Thomas Power O'Connor (5 October 1848 – 18 November 1929), known as T. P. O'Connor and occasionally as Tay Pay (mimicking his own pronunciation of the initials T. P.), was a journalist, an Irish nationalist political figure, and a member of parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for nearly fifty years.

Early life and education

O'Connor was born in Athlone,[1] County Westmeath, on 5 October 1848. He was the eldest son of Thomas O'Connor, an Athlone shopkeeper, and his wife Teresa Power, the daughter of a non-commissioned officer in the Connaught Rangers. He was educated at the College of the Immaculate Conception in Athlone, and Queen's College Galway, where he won scholarships in history and modern languages and built up a reputation as an orator, serving as auditor of the college's Literary and Debating Society.

Career

O'Connor entered journalism as a junior reporter on Saunders' Newsletter, a Dublin journal, in 1867. In 1870, he moved to London, and was appointed a sub-editor on The Daily Telegraph, principally on account of the utility of his mastery of French and German in reportage of the Franco-Prussian War.[1] He later became London correspondent for The New York Herald.

O'Connor was elected Member of Parliament for Galway Borough in the 1880 general election, as a representative of the Home Rule League (which was under the leadership of William Shaw, though virtually led by Charles Stewart Parnell, who would win the party's leadership a short time later). At the next general election in 1885, he was returned both for Galway and for the Liverpool Scotland constituencies, which had a large Irish population. He chose to sit for Liverpool, and represented that constituency in the House of Commons from 1885 until his death in 1929. This was the only constituency outside the island of Ireland ever to return an Irish Nationalist Party MP. O'Connor continued to be re-elected in Liverpool under this label unopposed in the 1918, 1922, 1923, 1924 and 1929 general elections.

Bust of journalist and politician T. P. O'Connor in Fleet Street, London. The inscription reads, "His pen could lay bare the bones of a book or the soul of a statesman in a few vivid lines."

From 1905 he belonged to the central leadership of the United Irish League.[2] During much of his time in parliament, he wrote a nightly sketch of proceedings there for the Pall Mall Gazette. He became "Father of the House of Commons", with unbroken service of 49 years 215 days. The Irish Nationalist Party ceased to exist effectively after the Sinn Féin landslide of 1918, and thereafter O'Connor effectively sat as an independent. On 13 April 1920, O'Connor warned the House of Commons that the death on hunger strike of Thomas Ashe would galvanise opinion in Ireland and unite all Irishmen in opposition to British rule.[3]

O'Connor founded and was the first editor of several newspapers and journals: The Star (1887), the Weekly Sun (1891), The Sun (1893), M.A.P. and T.P.'s Weekly (1902). He was appointed the first President of the Board of Film Censors in 1917, and was appointed to the Privy Council by the first Labour government in 1924. He was also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, the world's oldest journalists' organisation. It continues to honour him by having a T.P. O'Connor charity fund.

Publications

O'Connor authored a range of books, including Lord Beaconsfield – A Biography (1879); The Parnell Movement (1886); Gladstone's House of Commons; Napoleon; The Phantom Millions; and Memoirs of an Old Parliamentarian (1929).

Personal life

In 1885, O'Connor married Elizabeth Paschal, a daughter of a Judge of the Supreme Court of Texas.

Death

He died in London on 18 November 1929 and is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in north-west London. He was the last Father of the House to die as a sitting MP until Sir Gerald Kaufman in 2017.

References

  1. 1 2 Dennis Griffiths (ed.) The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992, London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, pp.445-46
  2. ↑ Miller, David W.: Church, State and Nation in Ireland 1898–1921 p.142, Gill & Macmillan (1973) ISBN 0-7171-0645-4
  3. ↑ Charles Townshend, "The Republic", p.143.

Bibliography

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
George Morris
Michael Francis Ward		 Member of Parliament for Galway Borough
1880–1885
With: John Orrell Lever		 Succeeded by
William Henry O'Shea
New constituency Member of Parliament for Liverpool Scotland
1885–1929 		Succeeded by
David Logan
Political offices
Preceded by
Thomas Burt		 Father of the House
1918–1929 		Succeeded by
David Lloyd George
Preceded by
Sir James Agg-Gardner		 Oldest Member of Parliament
1928–1929 		Succeeded by
C. W. Bowerman
Media offices
Preceded by
New position		 Editor of The Star
1888–1890 		Succeeded by
Henry W. Massingham
Preceded by
George A. Redford		 President of the British Board of Film Censors
1916–1929 		Succeeded by
Edward Shortt
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