John Burns

This article is about the English politician. For other people with the same name, seeJohn Burns (disambiguation).

John Elliot Burns(20 October 1858 – 24 January 1943) was an Englishtrade unionistand politician, particularly associated with London politics andBattersea.He was a socialist and then aLiberalMember of Parliament and Minister. He wasanti-alcoholand a keen sportsman. When the Liberal cabinet made a decision for war on 2 August 1914, he resigned and played no further role in politics. After retiring from politics, he developed an expertise inLondon historyand coined the phrase "The Thames is liquid history".

The Right Honourable John Burns
Burns, circa 1911
President of the Local Government Board
In office 10 December 1905 – 11 February 1914
Monarchs	Edward VII George V
Prime Minister	Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman H. H. Asquith
Preceded by	Gerald Balfour
Succeeded by	Herbert Samuel
President of the Board of Trade
In office 11 February 1914 – 5 August 1914
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	H. H. Asquith
Preceded by	Sydney Buxton
Succeeded by	Walter Runciman
Personal details
Born	(1858-10-20)20 October 1858 Vauxhall,London, England
Died	24 January 1943(1943-01-24)(aged 84)
Citizenship	United Kingdom

Early life

Burns was born inLondonin 1858, the son of Alexander Burns, aScottishfitter, growing up with his railwayman father in a house at 80 Grant Road,Batterseaon what is now theWinstanley and York Road Estates.He attended anational schoolinBatterseauntil he was ten years old. He then had a succession of jobs until he was fourteen years old and started a seven-year apprenticeship to an engineer at Millbank and continued his education atnight-schools.He read extensively, especially the works ofRobert Owen,John Stuart Mill,Thomas PaineandWilliam Cobbett.A French fellow-worker, Victor Delahaye, who had been present during theParis Communeintroduced him to socialist ideas, and Burns claimed that he was converted because he found the arguments of J. S. Mill against it to be insufficient. He began practising outdoor speaking, with the advantage of exceptional physical strength and a strong voice.

In 1878, he was arrested and held overnight for addressing an open-air demonstration onClapham Common.He worked at his trade in various parts of England, having joined theAmalgamated Society of Engineersin 1879. In 1881 he formed a branch of theSocial Democratic Federation(SDF) inBattersea.He worked on a ship, and went for a year to the West African coast at the mouth of theNigeras a foreman engineer for theUnited Africa Company.He disapproved of treatment ofAfricansand spent his earnings on a six months' tour to study political and economic conditions in France, Germany andAustria.

Radical politics

Caricature of Burns inVanity Fair,October 1892, wearing the straw hat for which he was famous during the 1889 Dock Strike.

In 1884 Burns was elected to the Social Democratic Federation's executive council. At theIndustrial Remuneration Conferenceof 1885 he made some interventions that attracted attention.

He stood for Parliament in the1885 General ElectionatNottingham Westbut was unsuccessful. A year later, he took part in a London demonstration against unemployment which resulted in theWest End riotswhen the windows of theCarlton Cluband other London clubs were broken,where he encouraged rioters to loot bakeries. He was arrested and later acquitted at theOld Baileyof charges ofconspiracyandsedition.He was arrested again the following year on 13 November 1887 for resisting police attempts to break up an unlicensed meeting inTrafalgar Square.The demonstration ended in the 'Bloody Sunday' clashes; Burns was imprisoned for six weeks.

In August 1889, Burns played a major part in theLondon Dock Strike.He was the most effective of the strikers' speakers, and each day after the meeting he led the strikers on a five abreast march through the City of London, wearing his trademark straw hat.By this time he had left the SDF and, with fellow socialistTom Mann,was focusing on trade union activity as a leader of the New Unionist movement. With other London radicals such asBen Tillett,Will Crooks,Ben CooperandJohn Benn,Burns ('The Man with theRed Flag') helped win the dispute. He was still working at his trade in Hoe's printing machine works and was an active member of the executive of the Amalgamated Engineers' Union.

In 1889, he became aProgressivemember of the firstLondon County CouncilforBattersea.He was supported by his constituents, who subscribed an allowance of £2 a week. He devoted his efforts against private monopolies and introduced a motion in 1892 that all contracts for the County Council should be paid at trade union rates and carried out under trade union conditions. As a local politician, Burns is particularly noted for his role in the creation of Battersea'sLatchmere Estate,the firstmunicipal housing estatebuilt using a council's own direct labour force, officially opened in 1903. He was connected with theTrades Union Congressesuntil 1895.

Parliamentary career

Burns as theColossus of Battersea,in a 1909Punchcartoon byLeonard Raven-Hill

Sing a Song of Sixpence,
Dockers on the strike.
Guinea pigs are hungry,
As the greedy pike.
Till the docks are opened,
Burns for you will speak.
Courage lads, and you'll win,
Well within the week.

London dockworkers in 1889

In 1892, he was elected as Member of Parliament forBatterseaas the candidate of the Battersea Liberal Association. He displayed fervent Parliamentary opposition to theSecond Boer War(1900).

Burns became well known as an independent Radical, but while fellow socialistKeir Hardieargued for the formation of a new political party, Burns remained aligned with theLiberal Party.In December 1905Campbell-Bannermanincluded him in the cabinet asPresident of the Local Government Board,the second workingman (afterHenry Broadhurst) to serve as a government minister. Burns remained proud of his working-class roots, declaring to the Commons in a speech in 1901: "I am not ashamed to say that I am the son of a washerwoman". Whilst an MP he voted in favour of the 1908 Women's Enfranchisement Bill.He received praise for his administrative policy and was retained in the government afterH. H. Asquithbecame Prime Minister in 1908. He was sworn into thePrivy Councilin 1905.

In 1914 Burns was appointedPresident of the Board of Trade,but on 2 August 1914, just two days before Britain declared war on Germany, signalling the start of theFirst World War,Burns resigned from the government in protest.He played no role in the war and left parliament in 1918.

Despite his earlier radicalism, Burns adopted various positions during his time in Cabinet that placed him on the right-wing of the Liberal Party. Although supportive of the government's introduction of old-age pensions in 1908,Burns was opposed to the provision of government aid to the unemployed, arguing that no outdoor relief should be given to the poor. According to Kenneth D. Brown, Burns had long believed “that poverty and its related problems were the combined outcome of individual failure and an inadequate social environment. This was reinforced by a strong streak of puritanism which expressed itself in his opposition to smoking, drinking, and gambling." Burns had also spoken out in opposition to the gradual development of what would become known as the Welfare State, arguing in 1913 that charitable organisations and government “should not" supersede the mother, and they should not by over-attention sterilise her initiative and capacity to do what every mother should be able to do for herself. "

Antisemitism

Burns has been described as an antisemite by scholars of Jewish history such asDavid Feldman,Colin Holmes,Robert WistrichandAnthony Julius.

His opposition to theSecond Boer Warwas interconnected with his personal antisemitism, making repeated references to the "trail of the financial serpent", declaring at an anti-war rally atBattersea Parkin 1900 that “the South African Jew has…no bowels of compassion…every institution and class had been scheduled by the Jew as his heritage, medium and dependent. Where he could not intimidate, he corrupted; where he could not corrupt, he defamed…[the Boers] defend their land, not from a nation armed, vindicating a righteous cause, but against a militant capitalism that is using our soldiers as the uniformed brokers’ men turning out the wrong tenants in South Africa for the interests of the Jews...with wisdom foresight and kindliness, we may yet retain South Africa for the Empire and humanity, even though we may lose it for the Jews”.

Later, Burns declared in Parliament that "wherever we examine, there is the financial Jew, operating, directing, inspiring the agencies that have led to this war".Wistrich has compared this conspiratorial antisemitism to that which spread during France during the time of theDreyfus Affair.

Burns deplored the British Army which had, in his view, been transformed from the "Sir Galahadof History "into the"janissaryof the Jews ".In 1902, Burns further denounced "syndicated Jews who don't fight but do know how to rob".

He remarked during a tour of theEast Endthat "the undoing of England is within the confines of our afternoon’s journey amongst the Jews".In 1900,David Lindsayrecorded Burns telling him that he believed that the "Jew is the tapeworm of civilisation".

Interests

Burns was a non-drinker and enthusiast for sporting activity.He was a long-time lover ofcricket,being a regular atThe OvalandLord's,and sustained severe injuries being hit in the face by a cricket ball while watching a match in 1894.

In 1919 he was left anannuityof £1000 byAndrew Carnegiewhich left him financially independent and he spent the rest of his life devoted to his interests in books, London history andcricket.As a book collector, he created a very large private library, much of which he left to University of London Library.He developed an acknowledged expertise in the history of London, and in 1929, when an American compared theRiver Thamesunfavourably with the Mississippi, he responded "The St Lawrence is water, the Mississippi is muddy water, but the Thames is liquid history".

A collection of his papers is held at theUniversity of Londonlibrary, and embraces many of his political interests, including universal adult suffrage, working hours and conditions, employment, pensions,poor laws,temperance,social conditions, local government, South African labour, and the Boer War.

He died aged 84 and was buried inSt Mary's Cemetery,Battersea Rise. His connections withBatterseaare recalled by the naming of a local school and a housing estate after him, as does John Burns Drive inBarking,and one of theWoolwich Ferryvessels also carried his name.

Sources

• Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911)."Burns, John".Encyclopædia Britannica(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Pelling, Henry(1992) [1963].A History of British Trade Unionism.London: Penguin.ISBN978-0-14-013640-1.

Further reading

• Knott, G. H. (1901).Mr John Burns, MP.Henry J. Drane. pp. Introductory.
• Kenneth D. Brown, "Burns, John Elliott (1858–1943)",Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(Oxford University Press, 2004) online edn, May 2010accessed 13 Sept 2014doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32194

External links

• "Archival material relating to John Burns".UK National Archives.
• Hansard1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by John Burns
• John Elliott Burns (1858–1943), Labour leader and politicianin National Portrait Gallery