SEAMEN’S LEADER

Southland Times, Issue 20662, 18 April 1929, Page 7

SEAMEN’S LEADER

DEATH ANNOUNCED

MR HAVELOCK WILSON’S CAREER

FIGHT AGAINST GREAT ODDS

(United Press Assn.—By Telegraph—Copyright.) London, April 16. The death haa occurred of Mr. Joseph Havelock Wilson, the seamen’s leader. Mr. Wilson, despite seven years’ ill health, worked until 3 p.m. to-day arranging for a meeting of the executive of the Seamens’ Union. He had a seizure while discussing business and was put to bed, but died at five o’clock. A doctor had warned him at Christmas time that he must ease up. Mr. Wilson, however, contented himself -with a holiday at Bognor. Among the tributes to Mr Havelock Wilson none is more generous than that of the Morning Post, which says that few men so completely lived down old prejudices. He was once known as the stormy petrel of Labour, and was constantly denounced by shipowners, but lived to earn the respect of his opponents -and receive more than one honour from the King. The recent expulsion of the Seamen’s Union from the Trade Union Congress in consequence of a loan of £lO,OOO to the nonpolitical Miners’ Union left Mr Wilson undisturbed; he continued to preach against the Socialist class war movement. He postponed his retirement and meantime his friends raised a testimonial of £lO,OOO which would have been presented to him weeks ago, but illness prevented it being done.— 2\.ustralian Press Association.

Mr. Joseph Havelock Wilson, who accomplished the herculean task of organizing the seamen, was born in Sunderland in August, 1859, and apprenticed to a printer, but ran away to sea. Before he was 20 he began to agitate for better conditions for sailors and in 1887 founded the National Union of Seamen. By that time he had left the sea and was running a restaurant business of his own, as this gave him a better chance of organizing. In view of the fact that the men ■were usually away at sea success seemed impossible. The shipowners ignored his growing power for a time and then took alarm at his invincible progress. This brought the Shipping Federation into being in 1890. Then began a desperate struggle for mastery. For 26 years the strongest organization in the world with its equally powerful Press contested the ground with the indomitable Wilson, who frequently found himself in the law courts and on one occasion in gaol. Again and again he extricated himself from critical positions. The efforts of his opponents to keep him out of Parliament only caused him Io be elected with larger majorities and made him a more determined foe. As an open air speaker he put every other Labour leader in the shade. His aims were the recognition of the union, the settlement of disputes' round the table and better pay, food and accommodation for seamen. Eventually the federation recognized the union in 1912. 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. Wilson made many mistakes, but some of them were imposed on him by his union, notably the attempt to force officers into it. The union was very costly to run, as it had to have full-time officials. It accepted foreign members, otherwise the shipowners would have employed them to the exclusion of British seamen, as indeed they did. Wilson also founded branches abroad. He worked hand in hand with Plimsoll in his campaign against Ihe overloading of ships and the like. While he was an M.P., his enemies drove him into the bankruptcy court so that he might have to resign his seat, but on this and three other occasions when attempts were made to have him declared a bankrupt he came out triumphant. The shipowners bought up the debts of the union's branches with a view to stamping it out, so it was decided to anticipate compulsory by voluntary liquidation. Thus the union died, but was at once revived under a slightly different name. In those days Wilson’s salary was £3 10/-, when he got <®t, but often he and his colleague Cathery divided £2 10/- between them. Nevertheless, the shipping papers were declaring that he was living in luxury at the seamen’s expense. There was in fact no case of such persistent persecution as that to which Wilson was exposed. He sat for Middlesbrough from 1892 to 1900 and from 1906 to 1910 and for South Shields from 191 S Io 1922 as a Liberal-Labour M.P. Wilson did not hold with the new political type of trade unionism. His union cut adrift from politics in the summer of 1927 and since then its income has increased by £l,OOO a week. In view of the fact that it had supported and financed the Miners’ Non-Political Union and other organizations “opposed to the principles laid down by the Trades Union Congress” the latter expelled it from membership in September 1928. Wilson had decided to retire from the presidency of his union in 1928, but in re.sponce to urgent appeals he agreed to continue, chiefly because the Transport Workers’ Union under Ernest Bevin had announced a campaign to wipe out the Seamen's Union and get. its members back into the T.U.C. fold. Referring to this in a speech in October, 1928, Wilson said that, if any union had purged the Labour movement of blacklegs, it was the Seamen’s Union. He reminded Bevin that (he shipowners had tried to kill it but had eventually realized the hopelessness of the task. In 1928 a testimonial fund totalling several thousand pounds and contributed to by seamen all over the world was raised for the veteran leader. For his services during the war Wilson was made a C.8.E., while in 1922 be was created a Companion of Honour.