Woolf Wess

Woolf Wess
Woolf Wess as a young man.
Born	Woolf Wess 1861 Ukmergė, Russian Empire
Died	23 May 1946(1946-05-23) London, England, United Kingdom
Other names	William Wess; William West
Occupation	Shoemaker, machinist, printer, typesetter, editor
Organization	Freedom Press

Woolf Wess (also known as William Wess or William West; 1861 – 23 May 1946) was an Anglo-Jewish anarchist, trade union organizer, and newspaper editor notable for his involvement with the International Working Men's Educational Club and the Freedom Press.

Wess was born in 1861 in Ukmergė, Russian Empire (now Lithuania), to a Hasidic baker. At the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. He also worked as a factory machinist in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia). In 1881, Wess immigrated to England to avoid military service.

After getting to London, Wess joined the Hackney branch of the Socialist League and became one of the founders of the International Working Men's Educational Club (located at 40 Berner Street (now called Henriques Street) in the East End), later becoming its secretary and the overseer in the printing office there. In 1888, he was the first witness called at the inquest into the death of Elizabeth Stride, a hypothesized victim of Jack the Ripper.

Wess became heavily involved in the local labour movement and "[...] played an important part in the Jewish trade-union movement in Britain. He helped to establish almost all of the Jewish unions in the 1880s and 1890s." In one case, he was the secretary for the strike committee of a group of East London tailors during their strike from 27 August to 2 October 1889. As secretary, he ensured that the strikers and their families had their basic needs fulfilled by obtaining donations from philanthropists and other trade unions, including ₤100 from the dockers' union. The next year, Wess became the founding secretary of the East London Workers' Unions, later becoming the secretary of the International Tailors, Machinists and Pressers' Trade Union and the United Ladies' Tailors and Mantle Makers' Association. He also helped to set up a Jewish cooperative bakery on Brushfield Street in Spitalfields.