Stephen Walsh (politician)

The Right Honourable Stephen Walsh
Secretary of State for War
In office 22 January 1924 – 3 November 1924
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	The Earl of Derby
Succeeded by	Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Bt
Member of Parliament for Ince, Lancashire
In office 12 January 1906 – 16 March 1929
Preceded by	Henry Blundell-Hollinshead-Blundell
Succeeded by	Gordon Macdonald
Personal details
Born	26 August 1859 (1859-08-26)
Died	16 March 1929 (1929-03-17) (aged 69)
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour

Stephen Walsh (26 August 1859 – 16 March 1929) was a British miner, trade unionist and Labour Party politician.^[1]

Background

Born in Liverpool, Walsh became an orphan at a very young age. He was educated at an industrial school in the Kirkdale area of the city, leaving school aged 13 to work in a coalmine in Ashton in Makerfield.^[1]

Political career

Walsh was an official of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation before he was elected to parliament for Ince in the 1906 general election. Later that year he attacked the idea that an MP needed an Oxbridge education further adding that: "To use an arithmetical metaphor, the Labour party had reduced the points of difference among the working classes to the lowest common denominator, and had promoted and developed the greatest common measure of united action".^[2]

Walsh was a member of David Lloyd George's Coalition Government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service in 1917 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board from 1917 to 1919.

Walsh stood in the 1918 election as a Coalition Labour candidate opposed by the official Labour Party. He was vice-president of National Union of Mineworkers from 1922 to 1924 until he was appointed Secretary of State for War by Ramsay MacDonald in January 1924, a post he held until the government fell in November of the same year. He was sworn of the Privy Council in January 1924.

Family

One of Walsh's sons died in World War I. Walsh himself died in March 1929, aged 69.

References

1. "Obituary: Mr. Stephen Walsh. Labour War Minister". The Times. 18 March 1929. p. 19.
2. The Manchester Guardian, "The Fear Of The Socialist", 17 October 1906

External links

• Stephen Walsh at Spartacus Educational
• Stephen Walsh at Hansard

Trade union offices
Preceded by Herbert Smith	Vice-President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain 1922–1924	Succeeded by Thomas Richards
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Henry Blundell-Hollinshead-Blundell	Member of Parliament for Ince 1906–1929	Succeeded by Gordon MacDonald
Political offices
Preceded by New office	Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service 1917	Succeeded by Cecil Beck
Preceded by William Hayes Fisher	Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board 1917–1919	Succeeded by Hon. Waldorf Astor
Preceded by The Earl of Derby	Secretary of State for War 1924	Succeeded by Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Bt