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John Robert Clynes

The Right Honourable
John Robert Clynes
Jrclynes.jpg
Home Secretary
In office
8 June 1929 – 26 August 1931
Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by Sir William Joynson-Hicks
Succeeded by Sir Herbert Samuel
Lord Privy Seal
In office
22 January 1924 – 6 November 1924
Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by Robert Cecil
Succeeded by James Gascoyne-Cecil
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
In office
21 November 1922 – 25 October 1932
Leader Ramsay MacDonald
Arthur Henderson
Preceded by Office Created
Succeeded by Clement Attlee
Leader of the Labour Party
In office
14 February 1921 – 21 November 1922
Chief Whip Arthur Henderson
Preceded by William Adamson
Succeeded by Ramsay MacDonald
Minister of Food Control
In office
9 July 1918 – 10 January 1919
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Preceded by David Alfred Thomas
Succeeded by George Henry Roberts
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Food Control
In office
2 July 1917 – 9 July 1918
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Preceded by Charles Bathurst
Succeeded by Waldorf Astor
Member of Parliament
for Manchester Platting
Manchester North East (1906–1918)
In office
14 November 1935 – 5 July 1945
Preceded by Alan Chorlton
Succeeded by Hugh Delargy
In office
8 February 1906 – 27 October 1931
Preceded by James Fergusson
Succeeded by Alan Chorlton
Personal details
Born 27 March 1869
Oldham, Lancashire, England
Died 23 October 1949(1949-10-23) (aged 80)
London, England
Political party Labour

John Robert Clynes PC (27 March 1869 – 23 October 1949) was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 35 years, and as Leader of the Labour Party (from 14 February 1921 to 21 November 1922), led the party in its breakthrough at the 1922 general election. He was the first Englishman to serve as leader of the Labour Party.

The son of a labourer named Patrick Clynes, he was born in Oldham, Lancashire, and began work in a local cotton mill when he was 10 years old. At the age of 16, he wrote a series of articles about child labour in the textile industry, and a year later he helped form the Piercers' Union. He was mainly self-educated, although he went to night school after his day's work in the mill. His first book was a dictionary and then, by careful saving of coppers, he bought a Bible, Shakespeare's plays, and Bacon's essays. Later in life, he would amaze colleagues in meetings and in parliamentary debates by quoting verbatim from the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton and Ruskin. He married Mary Elizabeth Harper, a mill worker, in 1893.

In 1892, Clynes became an organiser for the Lancashire Gasworkers' Union and came in contact with the Fabian Society. Having joined the Independent Labour Party, he attended the 1900 conference where the Labour Representation Committee was formed; this committee soon afterwards became the Labour Party.


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