J. R. Clynes

The Right Honourable John Robert Clynes
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
Preceded by	Office Created
Succeeded by	Clement Attlee
Leader of the Labour Party
In office 14 February 1921 – 21 November 1922
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
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	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.

Early life

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.

Trade union and political involvement

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.

Clynes stood for the new party in the 1906 general election and was elected to Parliament for Manchester North East, becoming one of Labour's bright stars. In 1910 he became the party's deputy chairman.

Parliamentary career

During the First World War Clynes was a supporter of British military involvement (in which he differed from Ramsay MacDonald), and in 1917 became Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Food Control in the Lloyd George coalition government. The next year he was appointed Minister of Food Control, and at the 1918 general election he was returned to Parliament for the Manchester Platting constituency.

Clynes became leader of the party in 1921, and led it through its major breakthrough in the 1922 general election. Before that election, Labour only had 52 seats in parliament; but as a result of the election, Labour's total number of seats rose to 142.

MacDonald had resigned as Labour leader in 1914, due to his wartime pacifism, and at the 1918 general election he lost his seat. Not for another four years did he return to the House of Commons. By that stage, MacDonald's pacifism had been forgiven. When the occupant of the Labour leadership had to be decided on through a vote of Labour parliamentarians, MacDonald narrowly defeated Clynes.

Governmental office

When MacDonald became Prime Minister he made Clynes the party's leader in the Commons until the government was defeated in 1924. During the second MacDonald government of 1929–1931, Clynes served as Home Secretary. In this role, Clynes gained literary prominence, when he explained in the Commons his refusal to grant a visa to the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, then living in exile in Turkey, who had been invited by Ramsay MacDonald's party to give a lecture in Britain. Clynes had then been immortalised by the scathing criticism of Clynes' concept of the right to asylum, voiced by Trotsky in the last chapter of his autobiography "My Life" entitled "The planet without visa".

In 1931, Clynes sided with Arthur Henderson and George Lansbury, against MacDonald's support for austerity measures to deal with the Great Depression. Clynes split with MacDonald when the latter left Labour to form a National Government. In the 1931 election, Clynes was one of the casualties, losing his Manchester Platting seat. Nevertheless, he regained this constituency in 1935, and then remained in the House of Commons until his retirement ten years later at the 1945 general election.

Family and death

He died in 1949. He had married Mary Harper, a mill worker, in 1893.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by J. R. Clynes

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Sir James Fergusson	Member of Parliament for Manchester North East 1906–1918	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Manchester Platting 1918–1931	Succeeded by Alan Chorlton
Preceded by Alan Chorlton	Member of Parliament for Manchester Platting 1935–1945	Succeeded by Hugh James Delargy
Political offices
Preceded by The Lord Rhondda	Minister of Food Control 1918–1919	Succeeded by George Henry Roberts
Preceded by The Viscount Cecil of Chelwood	Lord Privy Seal 1924	Succeeded by The Marquess of Salisbury
Preceded by Sir William Joynson-Hicks	Home Secretary 1929–1931	Succeeded by Sir Herbert Samuel
Trade union offices
Preceded by Herbert Skinner and John Wadsworth	Trades Union Congress representative to the American Federation of Labour 1909 With: Alfred Henry Gill	Succeeded by William Brace and Ben Turner
Party political offices
Preceded by William Adamson	Chairman of the British Labour Party 1921–1922	Succeeded by Ramsay MacDonald