John Williams (17 February 1861 – 20 June 1922) was a Welsh Labour Party politician. Williams was born in

Aberaman Aberaman is a village near Aberdare in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, south Wales. It was heavily dependent on the coal industry and the population, as a result, grew rapidly in the late nineteenth century. Most of the industry has now ...

and began working at a local

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

at the age of twelve. Eight years later, he was elected as

checkweighman {{Short description, Occupation within mining, especially coal A checkweighman (occasionally checkmeasurer or checkweigher) is a person who is responsible for weighing coal or another mined substance, and thereby determining the payment due to each ...

, a post he held for twelve years. He then became a full-time miners' agent for the Western Miners' Association. In this role, he was a close associate of William Abraham. A supporter of the Liberal-Labour movement, Williams served on

Mountain Ash Mountain ash may refer to: * ''Eucalyptus regnans'', the tallest of all flowering plants, native to Australia * Mountain-ashes or rowans, varieties of trees and shrubs in the genus ''Sorbus'' See also

* Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, a town ...

Urban District Council In England and Wales, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council (UDC), which shared local government responsibilities with a county council. ...

. In 1898, he was nominated as a candidate for

Glamorgan County Council Glamorgan County Council was established in 1889 together with the administrative county of Glamorganshire under the Local Government Act 1888. The first elections to the council were held in January 1889. The council was abolished under the Loca ...

but declined to go to the poll. At the

1906 general election The following elections occurred in the year 1906. Asia * 1906 Persian legislative election Europe * 1906 Belgian general election * 1906 Croatian parliamentary election * Denmark ** 1906 Danish Folketing election ** 1906 Danish Landsting e ...

, Williams was first elected as Member of Parliament for the Welsh

constituency An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

Gower The Gower Peninsula (), or simply Gower (), is a peninsula in the south-west of Wales. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan, and is now within the City and County of Swansea. It projects towards the Bristol Channel ...

West Glamorgan West Glamorgan () is a former administrative county in South Wales. It is now a preserved county. West Glamorgan was one of the divisions of the ancient county of Glamorgan. It was created on 1 April 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972 fr ...

. He stood as an Independent Liberal''British Parliamentary Election Results 1885–1918'', FWS Craig candidate and won election despite being opposed by an official Liberal candidate. Upon election, he took the Liberal whip and was active in the Liberal party's trade union group. When the

Miners' Federation of Great Britain The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales, Newport, Wales in 1888. The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' ...

decided to affiliate to the Labour Party in 1909, along with the other Welsh mining MPs, he joined the Labour Party.

Death

He held his seat until his death in 1922, at the age of 60.

References

Bibliography

* 1861 births 1922 deaths Liberal Party (UK) MPs for Welsh constituencies Liberal-Labour (UK) MPs Miners' Federation of Great Britain-sponsored MPs Welsh Labour MPs UK MPs 1906–1910 UK MPs 1910 UK MPs 1910–1918 UK MPs 1918–1922 {{Wales-Labour-UK-MP-stub