Alfred Barry Williams (7 February 1928 – August 2005) was a British boilermaker, trade union official [1] , and Communist politician in the United Kingdom.
A boilermaker is a trained tradesperson who produces steel fabrications from plates and tubes.
He was one of three children of Elizabeth and Alfred John Williams; his father was also a boilermaker. He was the first of three children, born on 7 February 1928 in Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom. He grew up in Liverpool and served an apprenticeship as a boilermaker at the firm of Francis Morton & Co. [2] Engineers in Garston, Liverpool, England.
Liverpool is a city in North West England, with an estimated population of 491,500 in 2017. Its metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in the UK, with a population of 2.24 million in 2011. The local authority is Liverpool City Council, the most populous local government district in the metropolitan county of Merseyside and the largest in the Liverpool City Region.
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool. Merseyside, which was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972, takes its name from the River Mersey.
The United Kingdom, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but more commonly known as the UK or Britain, is a sovereign country lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
Williams was drafted for National Service in the British Army's RAMC in 1946 and was posted to Palestine as part of the force administering the British Mandate. On returning to the UK he worked for various employers including shipbuilders and repairers Grayson Rollo and Clover and Cammell Laird and the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board as a plater, a sub-division of boilermaker trade.
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of British Armed Forces. As of 2018, the British Army comprises just over 81,500 trained regular (full-time) personnel and just over 27,000 trained reserve (part-time) personnel.
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. Together with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps and Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, the RAMC forms the Army Medical Services.
He was a leading figure in the UK labour movement in the second half of the 20th century, [3] twice running for General Secretary of the Boilermakers' Society [4] in highly contentious elections. He was elected Vice President of the Liverpool Trades Council in 1970, [5] later becoming its President. Williams also came up with the idea for the 1981 People's March for Jobs from Liverpool to London. He was also elected to the national executive of the Communist Party of Great Britain, representing it at the founding congress of the Workers Party of Ethiopia in 1984 where he delivered a speech on the party's behalf. [6]
The Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers (ASB) was a trade union in the United Kingdom. Many of its members worked in shipbuilding, in which industry it was the leading trade union, while over time it also developed strength in engineering and construction.
The People's March for Jobs is the name for two different marches in protest against high unemployment in the United Kingdom. The first started on 1 May 1981 and the second started on 23 April 1983.
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was a British communist party which was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.
Williams stood as the Communist Party candidate in the 1965 Liverpool Borough Council Elections, in the Childwall Ward, polling only 74 votes, or one percent. The following year he stood as the Communist Candidate in the Birkenhead constituency in the United Kingdom General Election. He achieved only 1.5 percent of the vote. He saw these acts as important to the political process despite openly acknowledging that his candidacy was unlikely to result in a seat in Parliament. [7] He stood again in Birkenhead in the 1970 General Election for the Communist Party achieving 0.6 percent of the vote. As well as his political activity for the CPGB he also wrote football reports on Everton FC for the Morning star under the nom de plume "Bill Morton". [8]
Birkenhead is a constituency recreated in 1950 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1979 by Frank Field, who currently sits as an independent MP, having previously been a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party until 30th August 2018. A former constituency of the same name existed from 1861-1918. In the intervening years, the area on the Liverpool-facing side of the Wirral Peninsula was split in two and joined with other land which had become more developed.
Everton Football Club is a football club in Liverpool, England, that competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The club have competed in the top division for a record 116 seasons, missing the top division only four times since The Football League was created in 1888. Everton have won 15 major trophies: the League Championship nine times, the FA Cup five times and the UEFA Cup Winners Cup once.
The Morning Star is a left-wing British daily newspaper with a focus on social, political and trade union issues.
Barry Williams died in Wrexham, North Wales, in August 2005. [9] He was briefly married to Susannah Lash and was the father of Clare Lash-Williams and Oliver Lash-Williams.
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of the Labour Party in 1945.
William Thomas Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank, PC, usually known as William Rodgers but also often known as Bill Rodgers, is one of the 'Gang of Four' of senior British Labour Party politicians who defected to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He subsequently helped to lead the SDP into the merger that formed the Liberal Democrats, and later served as that party's leader in the House of Lords.
The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 321,238, and encompasses 60 square miles (160 km2) of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula. Major settlements include Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, Heswall, Hoylake and West Kirby. The city of Liverpool over the Mersey, faces the northeastern side of Wirral. Bordering is the River Mersey to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and the River Dee to the west; the borough of Cheshire West and Chester occupies the remainder of the Wirral Peninsula and borders the borough of Wirral to the south. The borough of Wirral has greater proportions of rural areas than the Liverpool part of Merseyside.
The 1964 United Kingdom general election was held on 15 October 1964, five years after the previous election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party, first led by Winston Churchill, had entered power. It resulted in the Conservatives, now led by its fourth leader, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, narrowly losing the election to the Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson, with Labour having an overall majority of four seats. It resulted in Labour ending its thirteen years in opposition and led to Wilson to become, at the time, the youngest Prime Minister in more than 150 years.
The 1935 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 14 November 1935 and resulted in a large, albeit reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party. The greatest number of members, as before, were Conservatives, while the National Liberal vote held steady. The National Labour vote also held steady, but the resurgence in the main Labour vote caused over a third of their MPs, including party leader Ramsay MacDonald, to lose their seats.
Peter Mahon was a British Labour Party politician.
The Crosby by-election, 1981 was a by-election held in England on 26 November 1981 to elect a new Member of Parliament (MP) for the House of Commons constituency of Crosby on Merseyside. It followed the death of Crosby's MP Sir Graham Page, of the Conservative Party.
The Knowsley North by-election, 1986 was a parliamentary by-election held on 13 November 1986 for the British House of Commons constituency of Knowsley North.
The Liverpool West Derby by-election, 1919 was a parliamentary by-election held on 26 February 1919 for the British House of Commons constituency of Liverpool West Derby, in the County Palatine of Lancashire.
The Neath by-election, 1945, was a parliamentary by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Neath in South Wales.
The Liverpool Kirkdale by-election, 1907 was a by-election held in England on 27 September 1907 for the House of Commons constituency of Liverpool Kirkdale, a division of the city of Liverpool.
The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) is a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. The party was established in 1996 and is led by Arthur Scargill, a former Labour Party member and the former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers. The party's name highlights its commitment to socialism and acknowledges Clause IV of the Labour Party's former constitution, as fundamental to the party's identity.
The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist) (RCPB-ML) is a small British communist political party, previously named the Communist Party of England (CPE-ML) on formation in 1972 until being reorganised in 1979 after rejecting Maoism and aligning with Albania. The party's thinking is based on the politics of Hardial Bains, who travelled the world founding anti-revisionist communist parties.
The Shipley by-election was a parliamentary by-election for the British House of Commons constituency of Shipley on 6 November 1930.
3,971 candidates stood in the United Kingdom general election of 2015, which was held on 7 May 2015.
Aitken Ferguson was a Scottish communist activist.
Joseph James Vaughan was a British politician.
Phillip Leslie Davies, is a British Labour politician and current Leader of Wirral Council.
Mary Ann Mercer was a British politician, who served as the first woman and first Labour Party Mayor of Birkenhead.