DIED IN HARNESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 90, 17 April 1929, Page 7

DIED IN HARNESS.

Seamen's Secretary Has Seizure

At Work.

HAVELOCK WILSON DEAD. (Australian I'rrss Assn.—Vniteil Service.) ( Uriel veil ] ~">0 p.III.) LONDON*. April Ifi. I lie dealli is announced of Mr. Joseph llaveloek Wilson. (.'.U.K.. (Icncral President of tin; National Sailors' and Firemen's I'nion, and secretary of the Mercliant Seamen's League. Despite liis 7(1 years and liis ill-health Mr. Wilson worked until :S p.m. to-day, ai ranging a. meeting of the executive of the Seamen's I'nion. Tie hail a seizure while discussing business and hits put (o bed. 11lit he died at •"> p.m. II is iioeror warned linn at Christmas that lie must, ease up. I>ut Mr. Wilson contented himself with a holiday at Bognor. Joseph llaveloek Wilson, who accomplished the herculean task of organising the seamen, was horn in Sundei land in August, 185!). and apprenticed to a I printer. 1 >ill ran away to sea. Before he I was ".Ml In' bewail to agitate for better conditions for sailors, and in ISS7 founded the National I'nion of Seamen. By that time lie had left the sea and was running a restaurant Inisiness of Ins own. as this «;ivi' him a better chance fit organsim:. Tin; shipowners ignored his pruwiiiK power for a time, and then took alarm at his invincible progress. 'I h:s brought the Shipping Federation into being in 1800. Then he began a desperate .struggle for mastery. For 2<> years the strongest organisation in the world. with its equally powerful Press, contested the ground with the indomitable Wilson. His aims were the recognition of the union, the settlement of disputes round the table, and better pay, food and accommodation for seamen. Kvcntually the Federation recognised the union in 1012. Thus, when the war came, the nation had a contented and patriotic merchant marine under a great leader, and without, this Britain could not have survived. He sat for Middlesbrough from IS! 12 to 1 !>()(). and from 1 !>!)(> to ltdo. and for South Shields from 11> 1S to 1022 as a Liberal-Labour .M.l'. Wilson did not hold with the new political type of trade unionism. His union cut adrilt Irom politics in the summer of 1027. and since then its income has increased by 1000 a week. Wilson had decided to retire from the presidency of his union in 102 S. but in response to urgent appeals he agreed to continue, chiefly because the Transport' Workers' Union, under Fi nest Kevin. had announced a campaign to wipe out the Seamen's I'nion. and tret its members back to the T.l'.C. fold. For his services during the war Wilson was made I a ('.U.K.. while in 1022 he was created I a Companion of Honour.