Expelled, Excluded and Restored

[finsobruce]

A trawl through the archives to look at councillors in trouble with their own party, or the elected body they were members of, or both.

Hopefully a few amusing anecdotes will be forthcoming.

[finsobruce]

Not necessarily in order you understand, but I'll do my best.

So first up is Cllr Norton of Penzance Town council expelled from that body on the 26th of January 1872 for "habitual and flagrant obstruction of public business".

The Western Morning News added that the opinion of expert counsel had been sought on the matter and no less than three special meetings were held before the action was taken.

But in June the Yorkshire Post reported that Cllr Norton had obtained a writ of mandamus to compel the authority to restore him, on the basis that he had not had the opportunity to defend himself on every count against him.

He sounds like fun,* I'll see if i can find more references to him.

* using the word in its broadest sense

[finsobruce]

Labour will come to the fore soon enough but first up in the 1880s is the Warrington Conservative Association, who in November 1881 "threw over" one Councillor Ashton in favour of a Mr Marsh.

However the ratepayers of Latchford did not take well to this and resolved to support Ashton, presumably as an Independent. At this point the Conservatives apparently realised they were on a hiding to nothing and withdrew Mr Marsh. But they "vowed vengence" against the man who had "set his back against the caucus" and it was reported that Ashton had been expelled from the Conservative Club for his "unpardonable sin".

[Deleted]

Sept 20, 2021 11:08:32 GMT finsobruce said:

Not necessarily in order you understand, but I'll do my best.

So first up is Cllr Norton of Penzance Town council expelled from that body on the 26th of January 1872 for "habitual and flagrant obstruction of public business".

The Western Morning News added that the opinion of expert counsel had been sought on the matter and no less than three special meetings were held before the action was taken.

But in June the Yorkshire Post reported that Cllr Norton had obtained a writ of mandamus to compel the authority to restore him, on the basis that he had not had the opportunity to defend himself on every count against him.

He sounds like fun,* I'll see if i can find more references to him.

* using the word in its broadest sense

That must have been a short news day for the Yorkshire Post .....

[finsobruce]

In 1896 we have our first 'famous' person Ben Turner, later Labour MP for Batley and Morley (1922-4 and 1929-31).

At a meeting held at the Spiritualist Meeting Rooms, Bond Street, Dewsbury on the 21st of April, the minutes of the previous meeting revealed a row between the ILP and the District Trades and Labour council. The discussion is a bit confusing but seems to centre around the ILP holding a demonstration on May Day in addition to the Trades council demonstration. And then to the fact of them standing council candidates possibly in rivalry to those backed by the Trades council. A Mr Robinson of Ravensthorpe said "if they as trade unionists came to hear two or three men bounce (?) because there was something wrong with the Labour club he thought it was time to stop away". It was stated by Mr Gledhill that the ILP had started the row by expelling Cllr Turner for "inserting something in the Factory Times" and complained that he had been obliged to identify with the ILP on his election leaflet when others had not".

Reading between the lines I wonder if this was members who still supported the Liberals kicking against the decision of this Trade Union council to identify with the ILP and socialism.

[gwynthegriff]

Sept 20, 2021 11:47:46 GMT bert said:

Sept 20, 2021 11:08:32 GMT finsobruce said:

Not necessarily in order you understand, but I'll do my best.

So first up is Cllr Norton of Penzance Town council expelled from that body on the 26th of January 1872 for "habitual and flagrant obstruction of public business".

The Western Morning News added that the opinion of expert counsel had been sought on the matter and no less than three special meetings were held before the action was taken.

But in June the Yorkshire Post reported that Cllr Norton had obtained a writ of mandamus to compel the authority to restore him, on the basis that he had not had the opportunity to defend himself on every count against him.

He sounds like fun,* I'll see if i can find more references to him.

* using the word in its broadest sense

That must have been a short news day for the Yorkshire Post .....

Local newspapers of that era frequently filled their columns with "miscellaneous items" from far and wide.

In my menagerie research I'll get excited when I find a reference to "elephant in menagerie runs amok" in something like the Dewsbury Shuttle (ooh! never heard of a menagerie incident there...) only to find they are reporting on an incident in Budapest!

[finsobruce]

Sept 20, 2021 11:47:46 GMT bert said:

Sept 20, 2021 11:08:32 GMT finsobruce said:

Not necessarily in order you understand, but I'll do my best.

So first up is Cllr Norton of Penzance Town council expelled from that body on the 26th of January 1872 for "habitual and flagrant obstruction of public business".

The Western Morning News added that the opinion of expert counsel had been sought on the matter and no less than three special meetings were held before the action was taken.

But in June the Yorkshire Post reported that Cllr Norton had obtained a writ of mandamus to compel the authority to restore him, on the basis that he had not had the opportunity to defend himself on every count against him.

He sounds like fun,* I'll see if i can find more references to him.

* using the word in its broadest sense

That must have been a short news day for the Yorkshire Post .....

Not at all. Surprisingly matters like this were reported countrywide (some possibly as a result of syndication?) and at some length.

[finsobruce]

In 1896 The Daily Record reported a discussion on the Town council (not clear which one. Glasgow?) as to whether it was acceptable for a tramway employee to take a councillor by the collar and throw him out of the stables when he paid a visit at eight o'clock in the morning. Mr Ferguson stated that this was no laughing matter as it might be difficult to get people to stand for the council if this is how they were to be treated, and had to be accompanied by a uniformed policeman when on unofficial visits.

[finsobruce]

And now onto Dundee (readers will come to notice that Scotland features heavily in these stories).

Thursday the 25th of November 1909 saw a meeting of the Checking Committee of Dundee Town Council. I'm assuming that this was the finance committee as they rejected a number of accounts presented by officials.

Of particular concern was use of the Corporation motor car on trips other than those to buy horses and hay ,"and personalities of the liveliest order were indulged in by certain members of the council". This went on all afternoon and eventually the council officials had to retreat, with one councillor being threatened with expulsion.

[finsobruce]

Into the twentieth century and the ILP are really getting into their stride.

On Friday 29th May 1903 the South West Ham branch voted 22-11 to expel Cllr Saunders Jacobs, Eynesford Jacobs, Davis, Godbold and ex Cllr Pert from membership. In the elections of November that year, Jacobs was defeated. He got back in for Forest Gate ward the following year as an Independent Socialist.

Saunders Jacobs had been charged with libel in 1893 when he had (as a teetotaller) said intemperate things about the Mayor of West Ham Mr G W Kidd, publican and licensee of the Blue Boar, Stratford High Street. He conceded the libel and paid costs.

In 1900 he was apparently selected as a parliamentary candidate for Rochdale by the Social Democratic Foundation, but never made it to the poll, with C A Clarke standing for Labour. In 1901 The West Ham Trades Council met to endorse Will Thorne as their parliamentary candidate , condemning those who had separtely endorsed Saunders Jacobs. Someone called ILP er wrote to the papers about this saying that the local radical and labour associations have no problems with a socialist candidate, just not Jacobs and "the same thing is true of the bulk of the Nonconformists". A 1905 story has him at a bazaar to raise funds for the local Primitive Methodist church.

In 1905 the Socialist newspaper of Edinburgh reported that Jacobs had - or  had not - been excluded from the SDF for non payment of contributions. So he may have been booted out of two Socialist organisations in less than two years. The left wing newspaper 'Justice' said that while Jacobs called himself a socialist "he was not our man".

[David Ashforth]

'Two more councillors have been expelled from the Rawmarsh and Parkgate Labour Party, making a Socialist "opposition" of three on the all-Socialist Rawmarsh Urban Council'

- Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Saturday 8 July 1950

[Toylyyev]

May be too broad?

My request for a copy of the GG expulsion trial minutes was met with a see of silence apart from a man asking for directions.

vote-2012.proboards.com/post/747893/thread


PS. The thread title is a number one hit for the biblio by me.

www.la-pleiade.fr/Catalogue/GALLIMARD/Bibliotheque-de-la-Pleiade/L-Idiot

[finsobruce]

In August 1938 the Rev C W Rawson, vicar of Doddington was voted off Glendale Rural District council when he could not give a satisfactory reason for missing council meetings for six months.

There was a by election. Only one candidate came forward. The Rev C W Rawson. Who was elected unopposed.

When asked again to explain his previous absence he put it down to a lack of chairs in the council chamber.

[finsobruce]

Sept 21, 2021 18:45:27 GMT peterl said:

Sept 21, 2021 17:58:16 GMT finsobruce said:

In August 1938 the Rev C W Rawson, vicar of Doddington was voted off Glendale Rural District council when he could not give a satisfactory reason for missing council meetings for six months.

There was a by election. Only one candidate came forward. The Rev C W Rawson. Who was elected unopposed.

When asked again to explain his previous absence he put it down to a lack of chairs in the council chamber.

Then he should have stood as chair himself

Also, he'd moved to Wooler.

[finsobruce]

In January 1948 Cllr William Wilson was expelled from the Sunderland Divisional Labour party, after being kicked out of the Labour group on the council.

He was allegedly expelled for giving permission to an evicted family to take possession of two rooms requisitioned for the storage of their furniture without the authority of the Corporation Estates Committee.

[finsobruce]

Now I know what you're thinking. We haven't had a Liberal yet - but never fear in July 1950 Nottingham City Liberal Association voted to expell Cllr W G E Dyer by 24 votes to 13 on the not wholly unreasonable grounds that he appeared to have joined the Conservative party.

Cllr Dyer disputed this and said that he had only written a letter of support to the Council's Conservative group leader Alderman Littlefair in personal capacity. Only after had he been expelled did he advocate a joint plan of action between the Conservative and Liberal groups. He pointed out that all Liberal motions to the council had been blocked by Labour whereas no such opposition had come from the Tories. His supporting the Conservative group would give them one more seat than Labour and leadership of the authority.

He went on "I could tell you a good deal more if the press were not here".

[finsobruce]

In 1959 in Accrington two of the three Liberal councillors were expelled from the district party after voting to support the election of Tory Cllr Mrs Grace Rothwell to the Aldermanic bench.

This perhaps wouldn't have been so bad had the other candidate not been their fellow Liberal councillor James Hodson. As some sort of compensation Hodson became Mayor, which effectively reduced the Liberal group to zero.

[ColinJ]

Sept 21, 2021 18:59:11 GMT finsobruce said:

In January 1948 Cllr William Wilson was expelled from the Sunderland Divisional Labour party, after being kicked out of the Labour group on the council.

He was allegedly expelled for giving permission to an evicted family to take possession of two rooms requisitioned for the storage of their furniture without the authority of the Corporation Estates Committee.

A councillor for West ward at the time of his expulsion, most recent (to his spot of bother) being elected in November 1947.

By the time his term of office was completed, Wilson was back in the fold, winning Pennywell ward in 1951.  Re-elected unopposed in 1954 and 1957, things had gone awry again by 1960, when as an Independent he was defeated by the official Labour candidate, a certain E. Armstrong. I'm pretty certain this was Ernest Armstrong, who later was MP for Durham North-West, who was a member of Sunderland Council in the late 50s and early 60s, and who had contested Sunderland South in 1955 and 1959.

[finsobruce]

let's go back now to 1840 and the marriage of Queen Victoria.

In February of that year Liverpool Town Council resolved to send a delegation to London to congratulate the Royal couple. It consisted of the mayor and "Alderman Shiel - an expelled councillor, Ultra Liberal and a staunch Papist - and Mr Councillor Bushell - an uncompromising Conservative". So a nice balanced ticket.

Had Shiel been expelled from the council in anything other than an election defeat? i can't find anything, and he was certainly a prominent figure being recorded as speaking for the Radical candidate at the February 1841 Walsall by election, which unfortunately for him and Liberalism, resulted in a Conservative gain. However this gain was lost back to the Whig Robert Wellbeloved Scott at the General Election in June/July.

[neilm]

Sept 20, 2021 11:57:10 GMT finsobruce said:

At a meeting held at the Spiritualist Meeting Rooms, Bond Street, Dewsbury on the 21st of April, the minutes of the previous meeting revealed a row between the ILP and the District Trades and Labour council.

Surprised they didn't have the minutes of the next meeting.