A "GREAT" WORKING MAN

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 38, 13 August 1921, Page 7

A "GREAT" WORKING MAN

THE LATE WILL CROOKS

LABOUR MAN AND PATRIOT.

(fROM ODR OWN COMBSPONMIfT.)

LONDON, 9th Jute.

In February last. Mr. Will Crooks, whoa© health had never recovered from tho shock ol a London air raid during the war, resigned hie seat as member for Woolwich, where ho had sat* eirico 1903. Since thch he lias gradually failed, and he died in Poplar Hospital last Sunday evoning. Will Crooks -was Poplar. He was born in a. little side street in Poplar. He died in Poplar. He lived all his life in I Poplar, save for.one year, when he went I to Enfield, so that Mrs: Crooks could grow some flowers. But he joined in the party of members of Parliament who in 1913 passed rapidly through New Zealand On a- tour of the Dominion. "The friend of all and . the enemy of none," is what he is designated to-day. No man did more to sweeten life in the House of Commons; none devoted him- | self more unselfishly to the people among" whom he lived and the class which he represented; none was a more persuasive ! and largo-hearted type of the moderate Labour leader. Will Crooks had a large heart and a boyish enthusiasm. He was a great sentimentalist, with the power of infecting otheM. He did great work for his country in the war, and his death has been, do doubt, hastened by his labours. He has the greatest reward of public service aild personal philanthropy. He will hot bo forgotten by his countrymen. | THE WORKHOUSE BOY. Will Ctooks's father -was a ship's stoker. He lost one of his arms ■ before tho days of workman's compensation, and Will Crooks's mother received 10s 6d and a rttd potticoat as a set-off. for her husband's lost. arm. When the father died the mother worked to keep herself and the seven children. She also made their clothes and cobbled their boots, She had to take parish relief, and one day the guardian* ordered her and five of hot- children to #6 into tho "hon.se." So little Will Crooks became % "workhouse boji" ■ Ho .has declared that lie was "everlastingly hungry-" in the "house," .and that he YKiit through more agony of mind than cvet afterward*, evon when he tramped the streets as oni ol tho ■unemployed. When ] he loft school ho worked a$ a blacksmith's lftd for about ft yea*. Then his mother apprenticed him to a cooper, and he served his sovon years? He married when he was twenty, before his "apprenticeship was up. v COURAGE OF HIS -CONVICTIONS. He was twenty-four when he was flung into the ranks of the unemployed. One of his mates Was hurt wfifle at work, and the foreman tried to stop his sick pay. The matter was discussed at a meeting in the yard, arid no 6no had tho courage to oppose tho foreman. At last Will Crooks broke out. He coiild not stand the .injustice. Ho made a speech, and carried a resolution against the foreman. Then he lost his job Ho tramped London, at times alfliost fdodless and penniless. Then he Wed Liverpool. He trumped tho streets of' Liverpool on Christmas Day, 1876, without a coppet. While he Was | tramping for work one of his children died. He found,work in Liverpool, and after some months returned to London and secured a job as oooper with a, sugar firm. He_ never forgot the horrors of his.^lifo < while he was asking in vain for work.''He. knew thh "unemployed problem" froni the Insidp. ■ ■ ■ In the middle of the war, Will Croaks spoke at a crowded War Loan meeting in the London Opera House. Mr. Churchill and Lord Birkenhead ako Bpoke. They both spoke brilliantly, but at was ■Will Crooks, the. Poplar coopery who "brought tho house down." It was a typical Crooks speech. He began by recalling the days just before tho War, and he askedj "Who would ever ha' thought of ma und Winnie and 'F.E. bom' on one platform?", That set everyone langlunK.- He told Crooks stories—the kind or Btoriefl that' made people rock With laughter, but brought to the eyes tears of sympathy or of prido. Ho told the story of the solitary man in the Australian bush who had a Union >faek flying outside his ..shack. "What's the flag flying for?" jhe asked. "For Deopi© to look at," said tho man. "But there aren't any people," said Will Crooks. "Well," said the, man, "when there's nobody else, I go out and look at it myself." There was always a serious moaning behind Will Crook'B/ humour. He made people laugh, but ho also made them feel and think. No one ever heard Will Crooks apeak without' feeling bettor' for it.. In the House o^f Commons, he moved members to. roars of laughter at one moment, and in the next to wipe away i a furtive tear. Ho was also given to praotical joking in the House. On ono occasion, in December, 1908, the sitting was suspended until the Lords had finished the consideration of eotne Bills eont to them from tho Obmmons. No sooner had the Speaker left the chair then Mr. Crooks rose and said, "I propose that the House of Lords be abolished forthwith." "I second that," eaid Mr. Will- Thorne. Mr. Crooks then put tho question, "Those who are of that opinion, say 'Aye." All the Labour members shouted "Aye." '/The Ayes have it," said Mr. Crooks, and added, amid laughter, "The House of Lords no longer exists." . ■ • CROOKS AS AN ORATOR. ... "Imagine Sam Weller turned from », gentleman's gentlemen into a Labour orator," writes Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., in the Daily Telegraph, "and you have some' idea of the wit of Crooks ; a wit spontaneous, inexhaustible, apt, and as eeoentially Cockney as that of the immortal oroation of Dickens. Like Sam Weller, Crooks always had an aneodote or a saying to illustrate his wit. Unlike Sam Wellor—at least so far ac wo know the immense resources of that being—Crooks added to his wit a very remarkable command of pathos. With his deep and melodious voice he could toll a story of poverty, of grief, of sympathy, which would move an audience to stillness and then to tears. Given the education of men born under more auspicious Btavs, Crooks would probably have been the equal of any orator of his time, especially in addressing popular audiences. All these gifts were added to by the palpable sincerity, tho real modeety, of the man. He waa not without the art of the politician or of the orator, and he know how to create, ibis effects with natural artistic taste and talent, but underneath all these arts, which ate ooramon to all orators, and, indeed, to all artists, Will Crooks always' spoke from the depths both of his exporienco and his sympathies. On every Sunday he used to address an audienco outside the Eatit India. Dock Gates, and these deliverances booam© so popular and so wellknown that thay came to be called 'Crooks' College.' 'Crooks' College ' began to affect the local life of Poplir, and.created the successful demand for ai better water supply, for a larger library, for a technical college, for a gynasium and a playground. MEMORABLE SCENE IN THE HOUSE. "First he was elected to some office in Poplar, and then he became one Of the county councillors; and before long had gained his position there as ono of tho most respected and eloquent advocates of tho Labour cause. By this time he had been induced by his fellows to receive a salary as a Labour representative, and so his old trade as Coopor knew him no more. Thenceforward Will Crooks was a publio man, and especially in the district in which he had spont his life. Poplar made him its mayor, and ho was also chairman of the workhouse in which ho had spent the darkest hours 6f his childhood. And then caftift the climax, when. Woolwich olected him as its member. "When the war oame Crooks at once threw in his lot With those who thought the intervention of bis country was called for, and when war was declared he took part in a memorable scene in the House

of Commons. He asked Mr. Whitley, then acting as Deputy Speaker, whether it Would be in order tb sing 'Übd Save tho King.' Silence gave consent, and Crooks sfeted the National Anthony I* was taken up by all those present. _ When its last sounds ended Crooks, looking to the benches where the Irish Nationalists —then in full foree —were sitting, called out 'God SaVe Ireland.' 'And God Save England,' replied Mir. Redmond, who had just given the adhesion of himself. and his colleagues to the cause of the Allies. During the war the best use was made of Crooks by sending him to the front to address the soldiers. There could hot have been a more admirable selection for that work. His thoroughly Cockney wit, his infectious good humour, and his kindliness made him a more popular orator with' the Tommies than perhaps anybody else who went out to cheer them through tho black and depressing work of the trenches; and he became an immense favourite. The experiences he had gained he Utilised to encourage the people at home, rtnd all over - the country he preached the gospel ,of self-sacrifice a-hd hard work by everybody to help the men at the front. ,

"In JanuaSy, 1916. he was created A Privy Councillor, and the announcement brought him telegrams of congratulation from all par..tss>of the world, and iperhaps an even more valuable tribute from an alien enemy: ' You bssst; God strafe England.' ' '

"It is but a, few months ago since he finally gave tip tho 'Struggle and resigned hi' 3 sdat. Sympathy and regret came to him in full roeitßUTo from all parts »nd from all classes of the country, the King beinp among tliosfe who joined in this chorus of esteem and regret. And now his weary body is at resju. In ph^ique he was a short, and, for most of his life, a rather stout man; he never sought to disguise his origin by adopting any other olothea than the short sad coat and tho soft blac''. hat of the working man; a working man he was, and a working man he appeared alyrays. He wore a 'short, black beard: his eves sparkled with humour and kind feeling; he had innumerable friends, and no enemy." When was he happiest? asks another writer. Perhaps '(it was,,, on Christßtafc Days; when he always went back to Poplar Workhouse slid sanpf' !'Tho.Rooky Road to Dublin" arid "When We were Boys 'together." and old people who kne* him hs a little lad thsered him fbT makltig their old age 1 a little edsior, and old £mnhies kigsed him uhdet tho mistletoe. Ho was never a trade-tiiiion official, but no nun more,truly represented the "irorkinf? olßsses. , Will Crooks was a (treat " workIng man."