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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
Arthur Henderson was the only member of the industrial working classes to lead a British political party. He was the only trade unionist to lead the Labour Party, and, as well, one of only two active Christians to do so. In the history of the Labour Party's first thirty years he seems to have a centrality shared by no other man. But what constitutes his centrality is a genuine problem, and both his contemporaries and his colleagues were aware of it. J. R. Clynes once wrote: “I would not class Mr. Henderson as a type, but as one quite unlike any other of his colleagues.” In this article I would like to test this judgement, to examine both Henderson's “typicality” as a historical figure in the labour movement, and the significance of his career as a labour leader.
1 Arthur Henderson (1863–1935), born in Glasgow, but moved to Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1871. Apprenticed as an iron-moulder. Joined the Friendly Society of Ironfounders in 1883, and eventually became a union organizer. 1893 circulation manager of the New-castle Evening News. 1896 secretary-agent to SirPease, Joseph, Liberal MP for Barnard Castle (Durham).Google Scholar Elected to both Durham and Darlington Councils as a Liberal. Mayor of Darlington, 1903. MP for Barnard Castle (Labour), 1903–1918Google Scholar, and MP for Widnes, Newcastle East, Burnley and Clay Cross, 1918–35. Three times chairman and chief whip of the Parliamentary Labour Party; secretary of the Labour Party, 1911–34; leader of the Labour Party, 1931–32. President of the Board of Education, 1915–16; paymaster-general (labour adviser to the government), 1916; Minister without portfolio in the War Cabinet, 1916–17; led ministerial mission to Russia, 1917, and resigned shortly after his return; Home Secretary, 1924; Foreign Secretary, 1929–31; president of the world disarmament conference, 1932–35.
2 I am thinking here of the leadership of the Labour Party as established after 1922. Before that date the chairmanship rotated, and was important only when Ramsay MacDonald held it, 1911–14.
3 I have discussed this elsewhere, see McKibbin, R., The Evolution of the Labour Party (Oxford, 1974), pp. 124–25.Google Scholar
4 In an introduction to Jenkins, Edwin A., From Foundry to Foreign Office: The Romantic Life-Story of the Rt. Hon. Arthur Henderson (London, 1933), p. vii.Google Scholar
5 Thompson, Alex, Here I Lie (London, 1937), p. 193.Google Scholar
6 Daily Sketch, 16 August 1917.
7 Daily Herald, 22 March 1913.
8 See Murray, H. M., Sixty Years an Evangelist (London, 1935), p. 82.Google Scholar It is alleged that Henderson publicly attested his conversion at an open-air meeting.
9 The Review of Reviews, XXXIII (1906), p. 574.Google Scholar Henderson always acknowledged Spurgeon's influence. Spurgeon was a powerful and compelling evangelist, whose collected sermons alone went through twenty-three editions. He occupies nine full pages in the British Library's catalogue of printed books.
10 See, for example, Henderson, A., “Christianity and Democracy”, in: Whittaker, E. T. et al. , Man's Place in Creation, and other lectures delivered in the Central Hall, Manchester (London, 1905), pp. 28–48.Google Scholar
11 For the flavour of Herron's writings, see his essay “Economics and Religion”, in Social Meanings of Religious Experiences (London, 1897), pp. 49–84.Google Scholar For Kidd, see his “The Function of Religious Beliefs in the Evolution of Society”, in Social Evolution (London, 1895), pp. 97–117.Google Scholar
12 Jenkins, From Foundry to Foreign Office, op. cit., p. 3.
13 See below, p. 99.
14 Quoted in Fyrth, H. J. and Collins, H., The Foundry Workers (Manchester, 1959), p. 124.Google Scholar
15 Dalton, Hugh, Call Back Yesterday (London, 1953), p. 172.Google Scholar After he became Foreign Secretary, men of the world like Dalton and Philip Noel Baker coaxed him into drinking a glass of wine with his evening meal. On most other matters of morals he held orthodox nonconformist views. He was a signatory of the minority report of the 1912 Royal Commission on Divorce, and he supported liberalizing divorce legislation thereafter. In the 1906 Parliament he seconded a resolution to permit marriage to the deceased wife's sister – a typical piece of anti-Angicanism. On the other hand, at the Labour Party head office he always turned a blind eye to the sexual unorthodoxies of the staff, however obvious.
16 See Corder, P., Life of Robert Spence Watson (London, 1914).Google Scholar
17 In 1892 the Liberals had lost one of the two Newcastle seats they had held. This was assumed by Spence Watson and others to be due to the reluctance of working-class voters to support middle-class Liberal candidates. In March 1895, therefore, they induced the Liberal and Radical Association to select Henderson as the second Liberal candidate. But the Liberal One Thousand refused to acquiesce, and they nominated instead “one James Craig”, Hamilton, M. A., Arthur Henderson (London, 1938), p. 30.Google Scholar Mrs Hamilton implies that Craig was a nonentity. He was, in fact, the former Liberal MP for the city and much better known than Henderson. It is unlikely that Henderson much regretted the outcome. Both Morley and Craig were defeated, and the balance of the votes suggests that Henderson would have been as well. Furthermore, he liked Darlington (and Barnard Castle) more than Newcastle, and would no doubt have agreed with his employer and last patron, Sir J. W. Pease, when he told his son Jack: “I hate the Newcastle low political standard. ‘What shall we pocket? in grog? and money?’ My Dalemen are a superior article.” J. W. Pease to Jack Pease. 11 October 1900, Gainford Papers 12B, Nuffield College, Oxford. For further details of Henderson's earlier career see Purdue, A. W., “Arthur Henderson and Liberal, Liberal-Labour and Labour Politics in the North-East of England, 1892–1903”, in: Northern History, XI (1976 for 1975).Google Scholar
18 Hamilton, op. cit., p. 30.
19 Not only were the Peases large shareholders in Stephenson's, but Jack Pease was then MP for Tyneside.
20 For his union career, see below, pp. 88–89.
21 Fyrth and Collins, The Foundry Workers, op. cit., p. 110.
22 For an account of the by-election campaign, see Poirier, P., The Advent of the Labour Party (London, 1958), pp. 196–206.Google Scholar
23 Barrett, H. L. to MacDonald, J. R., 29 03 1903, Labour Party Letter Files (hereafter LPLF), LRC 8/68, Transport House, London.Google Scholar
24 See Robert Morley (president of the Workers' Union) to MacDonald, 19 March 1903, LPLF, LRC 7/285; H. H. Hughes to MacDonald, 20 May 1903, LPLF, LRC 9/208.
25 Minutes of the National Executive of the Labour Party, 17 12 1903, Transport House.Google Scholar
26 J. R. MacDonald to A. Henderson, 3 July 1903, LPLF, LRC LB/2/280. According to MacDonald, Hardie felt his exclusion “very keenly”, see also Morgan, K. O., Keir Hardie (London, 1975), p. 135.Google Scholar Henderson many-years later told Cripps, quite untruthfully, that the exclusion was done with Hardie's “complete understanding and approval”, Dalton Diaries, 29–30 01 1934, Dalton Papers, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
27 Bruce Glasier thought Henderson “a humbug“, while Hardie later found his leadership of the Labour Party “reactionary and timid”. Thompson, L., The Enthusiasts (London, 1971), pp. 143, 156.Google Scholar
28 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, CXXIX, cc. 1237–41, 12 02 1904.Google Scholar
29 Minutes of the National Executive of the Labour Party, 30 June 1904.
30 Draft Report to the Friendly Society of Ironfounders on Harborough and Devonport Elections, LPLF, LRC 18/92.
31 Tillett, B., Is the Parliamentary Labour Party a Failure? (London, n.d.), p. 3.Google Scholar
32 Ibid., p. 13.
33 And given that both Shackleton and Henderson were devout nonconformists, the attacks could scarcely not be. See also Bruce Glasier on Henderson: “His eternal appearances on Temperance and Methodist platforms and the absence of a single proclamation from him of a leadership order gives countenance to those miserable hints and accusations in the Dispatch and elsewhere that the party is becoming merely a Liberal tail.” Quoted in Morgan, Keir Hardie, op. cit., p. 220.
34 Henderson to Ponsonby, 22 January 1909, Ponsonby Papers C 658, Bodleian Library, Oxford. See also the Master of Elibank's testimony, dated 14 April 1910. His relations with Henderson were based upon “cordiality and trust”. Murray, A. C., Master and Brother (London, 1945), p. 48.Google Scholar
35 See, for example, Daily News, 11 January 1915.
36 “There are some people who thought that it did not matter […] whether England or Germany came out victors in the war. […] Such people took up tremendous risks. Was any man going to see his child butchered and his wife dishonoured without retaliating. He did not believe it!” Yorkshire Observer, 1 January 1915.
37 Northern Echo, 15 January 1915.
38 For Henderson's resignation, see Winter, J. M., “Arthur Henderson, the Russian Revolution and the Reconstruction of the Labour Party”, in: Historical Journal, IV (1972)Google Scholar; more generally, Brand, C. F., British Labour's Rise to Power (London, 1941).Google Scholar
39 Sykes to Henderson, undated but almost certainly August 1917, LPLF, Henderson Papers, HEN/13/1.
40 Labour Party Leaflet, No 44 (1919).
41 World Brotherhood, ed. by Matthews, B. J. (London, 1920), p. 105.Google Scholar
42 Manchester Guardian, 28 August 1921.
43 Nottingham Daily Express, 5 January 1915.
44 Stenographic Report of the Reconstruction Meeting of the Second International at Berne, 26–28 January 1919, Transport House.
45 Quoted in Le Populaire, 30 January 1919.
46 Fyrth, and Collins, , The Foundry Workers, p. 102.Google Scholar
47 Dalton Diaries, 27–29 March 1922.
48 See Porter, J. H., “Wage Bargaining under Conciliation Agreements, 1860–1914”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XXIII (1970), pp. 474–75.Google Scholar
49 See Askwith, Lord, Industrial Problems and Disputes (London, 1920), pp. 198–99Google Scholar; Sharp, I. G., Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration in Great Britain (London, 1950), pp. 298–302.Google Scholar
50 Report of Proceedings at the Annual Trades Union Congress, 1911, pp. 229–31.Google Scholar
51 Henderson to J. S. Middleton, 17 September 1913, LPLF, LP/HEN/08/1/89.
52 Henderson to Middleton, 13 November 1913, LPLF, LP/HEN/08/1/100.
53 An organization comprising both the political and industrial wings of the movement, and designed to co-ordinate action between the two.
54 Henderson to Middleton, 18 November 1913, LPLF, LP/HEN/08/1/103.
55 Yorkshire Post, 19 February 1917.
56 Henderson to R. W. Raine, 19 June 1917, LPLF, Henderson Papers, HEN/1/29.
57 Henderson to T. W. Dowson, 19 June 1917, ibid., HEN/1/30.
58 Brighton Herald, 29 June 1918.
59 See Seymour, J. B., The Whitley Councils Scheme (London, 1932), pp. 94–105.Google Scholar
60 “The Problem of Permanent Industrial Peace”, in: Financial Review of Reviews, 12 1920, p. 378.Google Scholar
61 Ibid., p. 367.
62 The Times, 17 September 1921.
63 The Ploughshare, December 1919.
64 Manchester Guardian, 20 March 1920.
65 See his gleeful letter to J. S. Middleton: “We had the finest conference at Newcastle I have yet attended. The delegates filled the floor space and crowed into the gallery. […] Two or three syndicalists did not get a look in as Wilkie ruled them out of order every time.” Henderson to Middleton, undated but clearly 1913, LPLF, uncatalogued. This was a conference held before the ballots required by the 1913 Trade Union Act. The syndicalists were opposed to “balloting in” and, indeed, to almost any other form of support for the Labour Party.
66 Friendly Society of Ironfounders, Monthly Report, July 1919.
67 Williams to Henderson, 15 September 1920. LPLF, uncatalogued.
68 Notes on Mr Williams's letter by the Secretary, September 1920, LPLF, uncatalogued.
69 See below, pp. 99–100.
70 As its name implies a joint council made up of representatives of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the National Executive of the party and the General Council of the TUC.
71 See McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party, op. cit., pp. 91–111.
72 Weber, M., “Politics as a Vocation”, in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. by Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W. (London, 1948), p. 102.Google Scholar
73 Lenin, V. I., Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (Moscow, 1970), p. 46.Google Scholar
74 L. Thompson, The Enthusiasts, op. cit., p. 206.
75 Buchanan, M., The Dissolution of an Empire (London, 1932), pp. 210–11.Google Scholar For these purposes Lenin must be regarded as upper-class. See his comments in Left-Wing Communism, pp. 46–47.
76 Michels, , Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1925), pp. 69–72.Google Scholar
77 Henderson to Middleton, 13 November 1913, LPLF, Middleton Papers, uncata-logued.
78 Dalton Diaries, 26 November 1919.
79 Stenographic and Confidential Minutes of a Conference between the Vienna Union and the National Executive of the Labour Party, 19–20 October 1921, Transport House.
80 For illuminating details, see Hamilton, Arthur Henderson, op. cit., pp. 221–25.
81 Weber, “Politics as a Vocation”, loc. cit., pp. 86–87.
82 Michels, Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens, op. cit., pp. 86ff.
83 Hamilton, , Arthur Henderson, p. 220.Google Scholar
84 Wertheimer, E., Portrait of the Labour Party (London, 1929), p. 183.Google Scholar
85 Henderson to Runciman, 17 August 1917, Runciman Papers, University of Newcastle.
86 I have discussed this elsewhere, see McKibbin, , “The Economic Policy of the Second Labour Government”, in: Past & Present, No 68 (1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
87 MacDonald Diaries, 17 August 1931, Public Record Office.
88 Labour Leader, 1 June 1916.
89 See, for example, Henderson to Camille Huysmans, 26 July 1920, LPLF, International Files.
90 Henderson to Middleton, 21 July 1934, LPLF, Middleton Papers.
91 Ibid. He was not above exploiting his well-known sacrifices for the movement as a political tactic. He clearly used his sufferings in 1917 as a weapon to force through the constitutional changes of 1917–18: “a certain door-mat for example is now being used very effectively as an altar-cloth”. Report by Edward Magegan on the January 1918 Conference of the Labour Party, circulated to the Cabinet, 4 February 1918, Cabinet Papers 24/42/3609, Public Record Office.
92 I.e. “No Primitive Methodist no Member of Parliament.” For the social and cultural background of County Durham, see Moore, R., Pit-men, Preachers & Politics (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 140–90.Google Scholar Dr Moore, however, inaccurately notes that Henderson, “held the Barnard Castle seat for Labour, unsponsored. He had agreed to support the Lib.-Labs, in 1903.” (p. 183)Google Scholar Henderson was, of course, the sponsored candidate of the Ironfounders and sat as a pledged member of the Labour Representation Committee.
93 See above, pp. 85, 97.
94 The Political Diaries of C. P. Scott, ed. by Wilson, T. (London, 1970), pp. 316–17.Google Scholar
95 For this, see McKibbin, , The Evolution of the Labour Party, p. 245.Google Scholar
96 Minutes of a Joint Meeting of the General Council of the TUC and the National Executive of the Labour Party, 10 November 1931, filed in the 1931 volumes of the minutes of the National Executive.
97 See McKibbin, “The Economic Policy of the Second Labour Government”, loc. cit., pp. 118–20.
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