William Mainwaring
William Henry Mainwaring was a Welsh coal miner, lecturer and trade unionist, who became a long-serving Labour Party Member of Parliament. Both as a trade unionist and a politician he struggled, largely successfully to counter Communist influence. He was said to have spoken "with passion and fire on behalf of his fellow miners".
Mining
Mainwaring was born in Swansea and went to local schools, leaving to work as miner in the South Wales coalfield. He was a member of the South Wales Miners' Federation, and through their sponsorship was able to continue his education at the Central Labour College in London where he studied economics.Labour College lecturer
After two years at the college, he returned to the coal face, but in 1919, Mainwaring was appointed as a lecturer in Economics and Vice-Principal of the Central Labour College. This college, which renamed as The Labour College in 1920, was founded by the South Wales Miners' Federation and the National Union of Railwaymen, but most of the students were South Wales miners; opponents suspected the college was "class teaching for revolutionary aims".Miners' agent
Mainwaring ran for the South Wales nomination for a candidate to be Secretary of the Miners Federation of Great Britain in 1924, but was narrowly defeated by A. J. Cook. Mainwaring polled 49,617 against Cook's 50,123 votes. Cook went on to win the post and vacated his previous post as miners' agent for the Rhondda district; Mainwaring was appointed to succeed him. He was one of two agents for the district, and with his fellow agent Alderman David Lewis, Mainwaring had to fight the attempts by members of the Communist Party of Great Britain to gain influence. In 1928, under Communist influence, the lodges of the Rhondda Miners' Federation called for a membership ballot to elect their representative on the South Wales Miners' Federation executive. Mainwaring and Lewis offered their resignations but the district committee refused to accept them.Industrial dispute
After a new law allowed the miners' working day to increase to 7½ hours, the South Wales coalowners decided to reduce the wages of miners in November 1930. Mainwaring declared that the new terms of employment were "absolutely preposterous" and threatened to lead a strike. However, after lengthy negotiations, the South Wales miners agreed to work under the new terms "under protest". Communists picketed the Lewis Merthyr colliery at Trehafod in Rhondda, and nearly half of the men did not go in to work.Mainwaring did get the South Wales nomination for the secretaryship of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain in 1932, after the death of A. J. Cook. A preferential voting system was used, and Mainwaring came in third place on first preference votes, being eliminated from the voting.
Rhondda East byelection
The death of Lieutenant-Colonel David Watts-Morgan, the Labour Member of Parliament for Rhondda East, in early 1933 left a vacancy for a Labour candidate in which the influence of the miners was predominant. Mainwaring's name was immediately mentioned as a possible candidate, with rivals including Alderman David Lewis, Mrs Watts-Morgan, and some local party figures. Mainwaring was selected, and faced opposition from Arthur Horner of the Communist Party and William Thomas, a local Liberal, in the byelection.Mainwaring received a letter of support from Labour Party leader George Lansbury, and an appeal from the President, vice-president and General Secretary of the South Wales Miners' Federation was made for all miners and their families to vote for him. The Labour Party had won easily in a straight fight with Arthur Horner at the previous election, but the decision of the Liberal Party to fight an energetic campaign was thought to have given the party a scare because Labour had benefited from Liberal votes in 1931. Mainwaring predicted that he would get between 20,000 and 22,000 votes. In the event, Mainwaring won with 14,127 votes, with Horner second having increased his vote compared with 1931.
Parliament
In Parliament, Mainwaring concentrated on mining issues, calling in July 1933 for the Home Secretary to examine the circumstances of the Bedwas colliery dispute where miners and their families had been imprisoned for breaches of the peace. He moved the rejection of the government's Coal Mines Bill in 1934, arguing that legislation dealing with coal mines was futile while the mines were in private ownership, and had evaded previous acts. He was also active on issues affecting the unemployed, where he consistently opposed attempts to reduce unemployment benefit; in 1935 he warned that agitation on the subject in South Wales would "spread like a flame throughout the country".Arms industry
During the 1930s he was a pacifist, criticising private armament firms for "trafficking in the blood of nations". Mainwaring also moved to delete a provision which would criminalise possession of documents which if distributed to the armed forces would incite disaffection, pointing to the fact that some parts of holy scripture might be included within the description and declaring his certainty that his own possessions included enough to keep him in prison forever. He also moved a motion in 1936 that called for the government to be given full power to take action against profiteers in the event of war; this motion was agreed.At the 1935 general election, Mainwaring had to defend his seat against the Communist leader Harry Pollitt. The Communists caused some amusement when they appealed to Labour to withdraw their candidate to stop splitting the working-class vote. Mainwaring succeeded in increasing his majority to 8,433.