Frederick Tait (born 27 November 1893) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

socialist activist. Born in Elswick, near

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

, Tait was educated at Shipcote Boys' School in

Gateshead Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, ...

, and then at the

City of Leeds Training College The City of Leeds Training College was a teacher training college established in 1907 at Beckett Park in Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. After merging with the Carnegie College of Physical Education in 1968 it was renamed the Cit ...

, following which he became an assistant schoolteacher. From 1923 until 1926, Tait chaired the Gateshead Higher Education Committee, and in his spare time, he lectured for the

Workers' Educational Association Workers' Educational Associations (WEA) are not-for-profit bodies that deliver further education to adults in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. WEA UK WEA UK, founded in 1903, is the UK's largest voluntary sector provider of adult edu ...

. Tait's father was a trade unionist, and Tait was inspired by him to join the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...

(ILP). In line with the majority of the ILP, he opposed

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. As a

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

, he was imprisoned, kept in solitary confinement, and compelled to sew mailbags. In 1922, he became the chair of the Gateshead ILP, then the following year was chair of the Gateshead Labour Party, to which the ILP was affiliated. This brought him to greater prominence, standing unsuccessfully for the Labour Party in

Penrith and Cockermouth Penrith and Cockermouth was a parliamentary constituency centred on the towns of Penrith and Cockermouth in Cumberland, England. It was alternatively known as Mid Cumberland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons o ...

at the

1924 United Kingdom general election The 1924 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 29 October 1924, as a result of the defeat of the Labour minority government, led by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, in the House of Commons on a motion of no confidence. It was th ...

, then from 1925 serving as the North East representative on the ILP's National Administrative Committee. During this period, he wrote several pamphlets, including "What do you Lack?", and "Socialism and Wealth Distribution". By 1932, the ILP and the Labour Party were in conflict, but a conference of the North East Division of the ILP voted to try to resolve the problems. Tait believed that the ILP should disaffiliate from the Labour Party without attempting to resolve the disagreements, and stood down as the region's representative. Tait was also a supporter of

social credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...

, and spent the mid-1930s championing the theory. His daughter, Margaret, later married

Lyall Wilkes Lyall Wilkes (19 May 1914 – 28 March 1991) was an English historian, circuit judge and Labour Party politician. Biography A noted barrister and later judge in the North-East of England, Wilkes was a member of Broad Chare Chambers, a leadin ...

, who became a Labour Member of Parliament in 1945.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tait, Fred 1893 births Year of death missing Independent Labour Party National Administrative Committee members Labour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates People from Newcastle upon Tyne (district)