Arthur Hayday

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Hayday (born 24 October 1869, London - died 28 February 1956) was a Labour politician and a trade unionist in the United Kingdom.

Hayday was born at 36 Roscoe Street, Plaistow, West Ham, London, in 1869, the son of Thomas Bloomfield Hayday, a labourer at a manure works, and his wife, Sarah Susannah Glander. His date of birth was registered as October 27, although in his Who's Who entry he gave it as October 24. He attended St Luke's National School in Tidal Basin, and left school at the age of 9 to work in market gardening. His subsequent employments included work as a kitchen boy, chemical worker, and trimmer and stoker in the merchant navy. West Ham was the birthplace of Will Thorne's National Union of Gasworkers and General Labourers, and Hayday became an early member. His workplace activism led to victimization by his employers in 1893; the following year he joined the Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF), the dominant independent labour organization in West Ham.

The weakness of local Liberalism and the enthusiasm of Thorne and his lieutenants with their combination of trade union activism and socialism transformed the character of West Ham's municipal politics. Hayday was elected to the Borough Council on the SDF ticket in 1896. Two years later West Ham produced Britain's first Labour municipal majority, a coalition of SDF and Independent Labour Party, trades council, and Progressive members. Hayday was the only socialist alderman. The majority embarked on a programme of municipal improvements and increased expenditure. Labour lost its majority in 1900, but Hayday remained on the council until he left West Ham at the beginning of 1909.

Hayday's status in West Ham politics was enhanced by his union base. In 1898, he became a full-time official of the National Union of Gasworkers and General Labourers responsible for organisation of what was rather misleadingly entitled the London district. This extended as far north as Nottingham and Derby, and as far west as Plymouth. The optimism of the union's early days had long vanished, and Hayday and his colleagues battled to maintain the union's viability. They depended very much on the organization of municipal employees, and therefore had a keen interest in political representation. Hayday was present at the foundation conference of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in February 1900, and his union was one of the first affiliates to the new organization. This connection allowed him, like Thorne, to combine membership of the SDF with involvement in the politics of the LRC (subsequently the Labour Party).

During 1908, members of the Gasworkers' and General Labourers' union in the Midlands requested their own district organizer. Hayday was appointed to the new post and moved to Nottingham. The city's politics contrasted with those of West Ham. The Nottingham Trades Council still contained Liberal sympathizers, and working-class Liberalism was strong, not least among the local miners. Tariff reform, promoted by some Conservatives, appealed to many workers within the lace industry. No Labour candidate stood for a Nottingham parliamentary seat before 1914, and Labour's municipal representation was meagre. Hayday's robust style could grate on the respectable both within and beyond the local trade union movement. In May 1910, he created a stir when he characterized the recently deceased King Edward VII as a ‘parasite’. Along with other social democrats he joined the British Socialist Party (BSP) in 1912, but was thoroughly pragmatic in his trade union, and in most of his political, activities.

Hayday took a strongly patriotic line in August 1914. He spoke on recruiting platforms and later served on the tribunals set up under the Military Service Act. As a local conservative newspaper acknowledged, his involvement was robust: "no one was more prompt in unmasking any shirker who masqueraded as a “conshie”" (Nottingham Guardian, December 14, 1918). When the BSP split into pro- and anti-war factions in April 1916, he went with the former, which seceded to form the National Socialist Party. His patriotism played well with many members of the Nottingham Trades Council and wartime conditions facilitated his work as a trade union organizer within what had become the National Union of General Workers.

In the general election of December 1918, Hayday fought Nottingham West (UK Parliament constituency) as the official Labour candidate. His only opponent was a Liberal who had been regarded favourably by the pre-war trades council. Hayday's victory, based on a blend of patriotic and class sentiments, marked a decisive change in the political credibility of the local labour movement. He retained the seat at every inter-war election with the exception of 1931.

Hayday combined his parliamentary duties with a growing status within the trade union movement. He was a member of the general council of the Trades Union Congress from 1922 to 1936; his union was the largest constituent of the 1924 amalgamation that produced the National Union of General and Municipal Workers. His own politics were reflected in those of the new union. It stood unreservedly on the right of the labour movement and took a tough line against communist influence in the recriminations that followed the 1926 general strike.

Within the House of Commons, Hayday emerged as one of the most influential Labour backbenchers. In part this reflected his expertise in the fine print of the complex unemployment insurance regulations. An observer noted that he was ‘not an expert of the study, trained on scientific lines, and possessed of an abundance of theories, but an expert of experience’ (Yorkshire Post, June 30, 1930). He also saw himself as representing the trade union interest within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). Early contacts between the TUC and the 1929 Labour Government indicated tensions. Hayday was clear about his primary loyalty: He was an industrialist before he was a politician. Were they going to leave it to the political intriguers who knew nothing about their movement? It was the industrial side that would have to bear the brunt of the storm. (TUC general council, June 26, 1929, University of Warwick, TUC Archive, MS 292 75 1/14) In the second half of 1929, the two themes coalesced. Hayday was appointed by the government to the Morris committee, set up to consider conditions of eligibility for unemployment benefit. The existing ‘not genuinely seeking work’ disqualification was regarded within the labour movement as both insulting, and, in areas of high unemployment, inoperable. The TUC position presented to the Morris committee was that disqualification should depend on a claimant's definite refusal of a suitable job offer. This became known as the Hayday formula. The Morris committee's recommendations did not unambiguously endorse the Hayday formula, and this ambiguity was reflected in government legislation introduced in November 1929. After much private pressure and some open criticism including a Commons speech from Hayday, the government accepted the formula.

This was the first round in a series of engagements between the TUC general council, influential Labour backbenchers, and Labour ministers that culminated in the crisis of August 1931. Hayday was regularly involved in exchanges between general council members and ministers, particularly once he became TUC chairman for the twelve months from September 1930. Although these critics always distinguished themselves sharply from the small band of left-wing rebels in the parliamentary party, their unhappiness with ministerial style and policies was made evident in private meetings. The bargaining was complex because the principal figures had a range of identities. As a trade unionist Hayday was critical of key government policies; as a party loyalist and member of the PLP consultative committee he took a tough line against open dissent. His adversary on unemployment insurance — the minister of labour, Margaret Bondfield — was also an official in his union, but in these critical encounters collegiality was limited.

Hayday pronounced the authorised requiem on the second Labour government from the chair at the Trades Union Congress held at Bristol in early September 1931: ‘courageous and determined action by the national bodies invested with authority in the Labour and Trade Union Movement has saved the working class from destruction’ (TUC Report 1931, 67). As fraternal delegate at the subsequent Labour Party conference he pronounced an anathema on the Labour ministers who had joined the National Government. They were ‘political blacklegs’ (Labour Party Conference Report 1931, 201). He insisted that future unity must involve a recognition that the Labour government had treated the unions badly.

These sentiments shaped Labour politics for several years; Hayday however was subsequently a marginal figure. He lost his Nottingham seat in the October 1931 general election, and although he regained it in November 1935 his final period in the Commons, until his retirement in June 1945, was much less active. He died at his home, 28 Stamford Road, West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, on February 28, 1956. He married twice, the second time in 1910, and according to several accounts fathered eighteen children (his Who's Who entry claimed twelve). One son, Frederick Hayday, became an official in his father's union and chaired the TUC 1962–63.

Hayday's robust politics were typically directed to immediate objectives. In this combination he reflected the culture of West Ham Labour, and especially of its dominant figure, Will Thorne. His actions in the critical years of 1929–31 showed an acute sense of the complex relationship between the Labour government, the Labour Party, and the TUC. He articulated a political identity that was loyalist, and yet licensed distance from the actions and styles of Labour ministers. This was a crucial ingredient in the trade union and Labour Party response to the crisis of 1931.

[edit] Sources

• R. Skidelsky, Politicians and the slump (1967)
• D. Howell, MacDonald's party: Labour identities and crisis, 1922–1931 (2002)
• H. Clegg, General union (1954)
• P. Wyncoll, ‘'A history of the labour movement in Nottingham, 1880–1918’', PhD diss., Open University, 1982
• P. Thompson, Socialists, liberals and labour: the struggle for London, 1885–1914 (1967)
• J. Johnston, A hundred commoners (1931)
• S. V. Bracher, The Herald book of labour members (1924) [profile]
• Nottingham Guardian [election reports]
• NUGMW Journal
• WWW
• b. cert.
• d. cert.

[edit] Archives

People's History Museum, Manchester, parliamentary labour party minutes • University of Warwick, Trades Union Congress archives, MS 292 • Working Class Movement Library, Salford, records of National Union of General and Municipal Workers and its predecessors

Persondata
NAME	Hayday, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Labour politician
DATE OF BIRTH	24 October 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH	London, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH	28 February 1956
PLACE OF DEATH