# Liberal-Labour (UK)

The Liberal–Labour movement refers to the practice of local Liberal associations accepting and supporting candidates who were financially maintained by trade unions. These candidates stood for the British Parliament with the aim of representing the working classes, while remaining supportive of the Liberal Party in general.
The first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the 1870 Southwark by-election. The first Lib–Lab candidates to be elected were Alexander MacDonald and Thomas Burt, both members of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), in the 1874 general election. In 1880, they were joined by Henry Broadhurst of the Operative Society of Masons and the movement reached its peak in 1885, with twelve MPs elected. These include William Abraham (Mabon) in the Rhondda division whose claims to the Liberal nomination were essentially based on his working class credentials.
The candidates generally stood with the support of the Liberal Party, the Labour Representation League and one or more trade unions. After 1885, decline set in. Disillusion grew from the defeat of the Manningham Mills Strike, a series of decisions restricting the activity of unions, culminating in the Taff Vale Case and largely unchallenged by the Liberal Party, and the foundation of the Independent Labour Party in 1893 followed by its turn towards trade unionism.
The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, followed by the Labour Party in 1906, meant that in the House of Commons, there were two groups of MPs containing trade union–sponsored MPs, sitting on either side of the chamber (about 28 took the Labour whip and about 23 took the Liberal whip). The Trades Union Congress decided to instruct its affiliate unions to require their MPs to stand at the next election as Labour Party candidates and take the Labour whip. Of the 23 trade union–sponsored Liberal MPs, 15 were sponsored by unions affiliated to the Miners Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). When the MFGB affiliated to the Labour Party in 1909, most of their MPs joined Labour after the January 1910 general election.
The Liberal-Labour group finally died out at the 1918 general election, when Thomas Burt (by then Father of the House) and Arthur Richardson stood down.

## List of Liberal-Labour MPs

| Name | Constituency | Union | From | To | Notes |
| William Abraham | Rhondda | SWMF/MFGB | 1885 | 1910 | Joined the Labour Party in 1910 |
| Joseph Arch | North West Norfolk | NALU | 1885 | 1886 | |
| Joseph Arch | North West Norfolk | NALU/None | 1892 | 1900 | |
| William Brace | Glamorganshire, South | MFGB | 1906 | 1909 | Joined the Labour Party in 1909 |
| Henry Broadhurst | Stoke-upon-Trent | Masons | 1880 | 1885 | |
| Henry Broadhurst | Birmingham Bordesley | Masons | 1885 | 1886 | |
| Henry Broadhurst | Nottingham West | Masons | 1886 | 1892 | |
| Henry Broadhurst | Leicester | Masons | 1894 | 1906 | |
| John Burns | Battersea | Local committee | 1892 | 1905 | Sat as a Liberal after joining the Henry Campbell-Bannerman cabinet. Retires as MP in 1918. |
| Thomas Burt | Morpeth | NMA/MFGB | 1874 | 1918 | |
| William Pollard Byles | Shipley | None | 1892 | 1895 | |
| Herbert James Craig | Tynemouth | None | 1906 | 1918 | |
| William Crawford | Mid Durham | DMA | 1885 | 1890 | |
| Randal Cremer | Haggerston | ASCJ | 1885 | 1895 | |
| Randal Cremer | Haggerston | ASCJ | 1900 | 1908 | |
| John Charles Durant | Stepney | None | 1885 | 1886 | |
| Enoch Edwards | Hanley | MFGB | 1906 | 1909 | Joined the Labour Party in 1909 |
| Charles Fenwick | Wansbeck | NMA/MFGB | 1885 | 1918 | |
| Frederick Hall | Normanton | MFGB | 1905 | 1909 | Joined the Labour Party in 1909 |
| William Edwin Harvey | North East Derbyshire | MFGB | 1907 | 1910 | Joined the Labour Party in 1910 |
| John George Hancock | Mid Derbyshire | MFGB | 1909 | 1918 | Joined Labour Party 1910. Re-joined Liberal Party 1915. |
| John George Hancock | Belper | MFGB | 1918 | 1923 | Sat as a Liberal. |
| George Howell | Bethnal Green North East | Operative Bricklayers | 1885 | 1895 | |
| John Hagan Jenkins | Chatham | Associated Shipwrights | 1906 | 1906 | Joined the Labour Party soon after election |
| John Johnson | Gateshead | MFGB | 1904 | 1910 Jan | |
| William Johnson | Nuneaton | MFGB | 1906 | 1909 | Joined the Labour Party in 1909; Liberal from 1914 |
| Barnet Kenyon | Chesterfield | MFGB | 1913 | 1929 | Broadly a Liberal after 1918 |
| Joseph Leicester | West Ham South | Glassmakers | 1885 | 1886 | |
| Alexander Macdonald | Stafford | MNA | 1874 | 1881 | |
| Fred Maddison | Sheffield Brightside | Typographical Association | 1898 | 1900 | |
| Fred Maddison | Burnley | Typographical Association | 1906 | 1910 Jan | |
| George Nicholls | North Northamptonshire | NUAW | 1906 | 1910 Jan | |
| William Parrott | Normanton | MFGB | 1904 | 1905 | |
| Ben Pickard | Normanton | YMA/MFGB | 1885 | 1904 | |
| Arthur Richardson | Nottingham South | Local committee | 1906 | 1910 Jan | |
| Arthur Richardson | Rotherham | | 1917 | 1918 | |
| Thomas Richards | West Monmouthshire | MFGB | 1904 | 1909 | Joined the Labour Party in 1909 |
| James Rowlands | Finsbury East | None | 1886 | 1895 | |
| Albert Stanley | North West Staffordshire | MFGB | 1907 | 1910 | Joined the Labour Party in 1910 |
| W. C. Steadman | Stepney | Barge Builders | 1898 | 1900 | |
| W. C. Steadman | Finsbury Central | Barge Builders | 1906 | 1910 Jan | |
| Henry Harvey Vivian | Birkenhead | ASCJ | 1906 | 1910 Dec | |
| John Wadsworth | Hallamshire | MFGB | 1906 | 1910 | Joined the Labour Party in 1910 |
| John Williams | Gower | MFGB | 1906 | 1909 | Joined the Labour Party in 1909 |
| Havelock Wilson | Middlesbrough | Sailors and Firemen | 1892 | 1900 | |
| Havelock Wilson | Middlesbrough | Sailors and Firemen | 1906 | 1910 Jan | |
| John Wilson | Houghton-le-Spring | DMA | 1885 | 1886 | |
| John Wilson | Mid Durham | DMA/MFGB | 1890 | 1915 | |
| Sam Woods | Ince | MFGB | 1892 | 1895 | |
| Sam Woods | Walthamstow | MFGB | 1897 | 1900 | |