the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Will Thorne
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
"WILL THORNE (1857-), British Labour politician, was born at Birmingham Oct. 8 1857. He started work at the age of seven in a ropeworks, attending the wheel of a rope-spinner for ten hours a day, and on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings toiled in a barber's shop. He afterwards became a gasworker, and in 1889 he helped to found the National Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers, becoming its general secretary. This union (under the title of the National Union of General Workers) had in 1921 a membership of over 600,000. He became a member of the parliamentary committee of the Trades Union Congress in 1894. He was chairman of the Congress in 1912. In 1900 he contested West Ham unsuccessfully in the Labour interest, but in 1906 was elected to Parliament and came to the front as an active and energetic member of his party. At the general election of 1918 he was returned with a majority of 11,505. From 1890 he was a member of the West Ham town council, being elected mayor in 1917. He had been a member of the Social Democratic Federation since 1883.
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Will Thorne'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​bri/​w/will-thorne.html. 1910.