George Howell (trade unionist)
| George Howell | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
5 October 1833 Wrington |
| Died | 17 September 1910 (aged 76) Shepherd's Bush |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Trade Unionist |
George Howell (5 October 1833 – 17 September 1910) was an English trade unionist and reform campaigner and a Lib-Lab politician, who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1895.
George Howell was born in Wrington, Somerset, the eldest of eight children of a builder and contractor. He was educated at a Church of England primary school in Bristol until the age of twelve, when he began work with his father, who owned a small builders. By the week he worked twelve hours a day as a mortar-boy, and later a bricklayer, but dedicated Sundays to reading. Among his favourite books were John Foxe's Book of Martyrs and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.
Howell grew to dislike his work as a builder so became an apprentice shoemaker. Some of the men he worked with were active chartists and introduced him to radical newspapers including the Northern Star and the Red Republican. As a result, he joined the chartist movement in 1848. Others of his colleagues were Methodists, and Howell attended some of their meetings at Wrington Chapel, before becoming a lay preacher. He also became involved in the local temperance movement.
Howell moved to London in 1854 where he resumed work as a bricklayer, unable to find employment as a shoemaker. He attended many radical political meetings and met prominent radical thinkers of the day, including Karl Marx, George Holyoake, Charles Bradlaugh and Frederic Harrison. He joined the Operative Bricklayers' Society (a New Model Trade Union) in 1859, and played a part in leading the London builders' strike in support of a nine-hour working day. Through his work with the union he became one of the foremost New Model unionists, along with Robert Applegarth and George Potter, but was blacklisted by employers for five years.
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