Resistance to the War: The Independent Labour Party in Hebden Royd and the Sowerby Division in 1914 -15

Fenner Brockway, Editor of the ILP newspaper, Labour Leader, 10 September 1914 

This article explores the history of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) during the years 1914 and 1915, in the area now covered by Hebden Royd Town Council. To do so, it sometimes goes wider and considers the politics of the Sowerby Parliamentary Division, the forerunner of Calder Valley constituency, because local ILP activity often took place on a divisional, rather than at a local branch level. Before reading it, it is worth bearing in mind that the British Expeditionary Force was a volunteer army before 1916 and no one was forced to serve in it before then. So there were no conscientious objectors until 1916. Those who opposed the war in 1914 and 15  expressed their opposition by refusing to take part in recruitment campaigns and arguing for an early peace settlement.

The ILP was once the largest democratic socialist party in Great Britain; it co-founded the Labour Party and remained affiliated to it until 1932. It is managed, then as now, by the National Administrative Council (‘the NAC’), a decision-making body that acts in accordance with members’ wishes.

The Sowerby Division Labour Representation Association (‘Sowerby LRA’) was the embodiment of the Labour Party within the Sowerby Parliamentary Division. At the time, the Labour Party was an electoral pact between the trade unions and socialist societies and parties, including the ILP, dedicated to winning independent working class representation in council and parliamentary elections.

The ILP in the West Riding

The ILP’s connections in the West Riding and East Lancashire were particularly strong. It was founded in Bradford in 1893. The ILP’s first treasurer was John Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax. Philip Snowden, MP for Blackburn in 1914, started his political life in Keighley ILP. It held its ‘coming of age’ conference in Bradford  in April1914.  And there was a delegate from Hebden Bridge ILP present, a Mrs J Wheelhouse. It seems likely that she was Nancy Wheelhouse, a fustian machinist, who lived in Eton Street, with her husband, Joseph, also a fustian worker and executive member of Sowerby LRA.

The ILP in the Upper Calder Valley in 1914 

Mrs Wheelhouse was not a lone voice in Hebden Royd or the upper valley. Records show that during the period immediately preceding WW1, and just after war was declared, there were ILP branches in Luddendenfoot, Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Charlestown, Todmorden, Ripponden and Sowerby Bridge. The minute book of Sowerby LRA makes reference to an ‘ILP institute’ in Hebden Bridge, but nothing is known about its location, size or longevity.

The ILP responds to the War

When war was declared on 4 August 1914, the ILP took a firm stance in opposition to it. Its newspaper, the Labour Leader ran a statement on its front page which read “Workers of Great Britain, you have no quarrel with the workers of Europe. They have no quarrel with you….This is not your war. It is the war of the British ruling class, of  the German ruling class, of the French Ruling Class and of  the Austrian ruling class….Down with the war!’

Subsequent editions and pamphlets spelled out a series of political aims to rid Europe of future wars. These included:

·         An end to ‘secret diplomacy’

·         Peace on non punitive terms

·         Condemnation of the influence of private profit in the arms industry

·         The creation of a united states of Europe and international courts of arbitration

The National Administrative Council immediately declared that the ILP and its branches would not help recruit volunteers for the war. On 24 September 1914, Labour Leader announced on page 7 that  a conference of ILP branches representing Huddersfield, Halifax, Sowerby, Holmfirth and Dewsbury Parliamentary Divisions had passed “a resolution…. unanimously and enthusiastically ….. endorsing the policy of the National Administrative Council”. Two days later Sowerby LRA resolved ‘that we as an executive cannot see our way to take part in any recruiting but allow each individual member to use their own discretion’. In doing so, it expressly rejected the Parliamentary Labour Party’s position seen in the minutes below.

So, in substance, Sowerby LRA took the same position at the time as the ILP. This anti-war spirit was reflected nationally by the resignation of ILP member Ramsay MacDonald as Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party (effectively, leader of the Labour Party) because it decided to vote for ‘war credits’ (i.e. funding the war). He was replaced by Arthur Henderson, who was not an ILP member, and who later served in the coalition war cabinet in 1915. In time, Sowerby LRA would move away from the local ILP branches and towards the position represented nationally by Henderson.

Sowerby LRA breaks with the ILP

During 1914 and most of 1915, the local ILP branches and Sowerby LRA appear to have maintained apparent unanimity about the war.

Indeed, in early 1915, Hebden Bridge ILP remained defiantly optimistic. Undeterred by recruitment fever, the branch held their ’annual business meeting’ at the Trades Club (reported in the Hebden Bridge Times on 12 March 1915). The report says ‘the branch has had a very successful year. ‘Mr (sic) N Wheelhouse’ was elected auditor. Apparently,

'a vegetarian supper was served, which consisted of the following: tomato and nut soup; vegetarian pies with potatoes, roasted in butter; mock salmon steaks; macaroni cutlets; savoury gravy. Mr W Robertshaw, of Eastwood, was the caterer’.

The picture of vegetarian pacifists enjoying a meal together in the Trades Club may sound strangely familiar, but we should recall that Nancy and the others were working people likely to have only a rudimentary formal education.  They were also likely to have been the odd ones out in a town that was sending more and more recruits to the front.

So, the pressure to change must have been immense. Eventually, on 24 October 1915, the Sowerby LRA executive broke with the ILP. The minute book reads: ‘Resolved that as an executive we take part in the joint Labour recruiting campaign.” Perhaps as a face saver, and compromise with ILP comrades, it continues ‘resolved that this executive press upon the Labour party to oppose conscription unless it is accompanied by the conscription of all the material wealth of the country’. ‘Mr Ogden JP’ (the Labour Party parliamentary candidate at the time) ‘then addressed the delegates present’. Did Ogden attend to help assert Labour Party pragmatism over the ILP’s anti-capitalist pacifism, or was he there co-incidentally to address the meeting on another matter? Whatever happened, afterwards we know that ‘tea was provided ….in the Trades Club Hebden Bridge by the Club Committee. After, In the Evening an enjoyable Smoking Concert was held in the Trades Club’.

Even if the ILP was no longer dominating Sowerby LRA politically, it still continued to be the most outspoken source of views that were widespread in the Labour movement and perhaps amongst some upper valley Liberals as well. These views were expressed by the Hebden Bridge Labour and Trades Council in1915, in its annual statement to the Hebden Bridge Times:

The nations of Europe have been plunged into the greatest war the world has ever known. Militarists and diplomats have succeeded in bringing this awful calamity upon the nations without consulting the workers in any of the countries involved….We sincerely trust that the war will end militarism and secret diplomacy; that it will destroy forever the accursed profit-making armament rings; and that democracy will assert its power in demanding that international disputes shall in future be settled upon the lines of reason and arbitration, common sense and justice.

They were echoed at Eastwood, where the Liberals, in their first annual meeting after the declaration of war, discussed ‘the ending of the dismal system of secret diplomacy…the abolition of private profits out of armaments construction, and…the establishment of a permanent court of arbitration to which all international disputes shall be referred’.

All of which would have been familiar sentiments to the ILP branches in the upper valley, and in particular to that inveterate ILP annual meeting attender, Nancy Wheelhouse.

Cllr Jonathan Timbers (ILP)

Note on sources

This paper explores the history of the Independent Labour Party in Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Cragg Vale, during the years 1914 and 1915. Because evidence is sketchy, it goes even wider and considers the Sowerby Parliamentary Division, the forerunner of Calder Valley constituency. However, national ILP sources have been consulted to find out more about the politics of the ILP, as local records are almost entirely silent as to the views of Hebden Royd’s ILP-ers.

Thanks to Calder Valley Constituency Labour Party and Independent Labour Publications for permission to reproduce primary sources. Thanks also to my friends, Mike Crawford and Barry Winter (ILP), for their advice on the text. I dedicate this piece to Mrs Nancy Wheelhouse and the thousands of other comrades from the ILP who worked to make peace and social justice a reality, without seeking office or thanks.