Liberal Unionist
Which position did Jesse Collings hold from Oct 1900 to 1906?
Jesse Collings Jesse Collings ( 2 December 1831 – 20 November 1920 ) was Mayor of Birmingham , England , a Liberal ( later Liberal Unionist ) member of Parliament , but was best known nationally in the UK as an advocate of educational reform and land reform . Background . Collings was the youngest son of Thomas Collings , Littleham-cum-Exmouth , Devon , and Annie Palmer . His father was a bricklayer , who later established a small building firm . He was educated at a Dame School and for a time at Church House School , Stoke , Plymouth . He started work as a shop assistant aged 15 years , later becoming a clerk and a traveller for an ironmongery firm . In 1850 , he started working for Booth and Company , a firm of ironmongers in Birmingham ; in 1864 he became a partner in the renamed business , Collings and Wallis . In 1879 , he retired from the partnership . He came under the influence of George Dawson , worshipped , along with other prominent families , in Dawsons Church of the Saviour , and became an adherent of Dawsons doctrine of the Civic Gospel . In 1858 he married Emily Oxenbould , the daughter of a master at King Edwards Grammar School , Birmingham . They had one daughter . Birmingham Town Council . He was a close friend of Joseph Chamberlain and supported the radical group around Chamberlain in developing local improvement schemes in Birmingham , parks , and what at the time was called gas-and-water socialism . He took over practical management of the education committee and served as Mayor of Birmingham in 1878–79 . He was responsible for free public libraries in Birmingham and was the original proponent of the Birmingham Art Gallery funded from the profits of the gas company . Free education . Early on , Collings had shown an interest in education by helping to found the Devon and Exeter Boys Industrial School in 1862 . He visited America to study its education system and published An Outline of the American School System in 1868 . This pamphlet recommended that a similar free and non-sectarian ( non-denominational ) form of school education to that of the USA should be set up in England and Wales . Collings pamphlet led directly to the formation of the National Education League by Birmingham Liberals in 1869 , with George Dixon as President and Jesse Collings as Secretary . The League became a major campaigning organisation , but Forsters Education Act retained the dominance of Church Schools in providing education for the young in England , Wales and Ireland . Collings called for Local Authorities to be obliged to set up sufficient schools to enable all children to attend ; these schools should be inspected by the state and managed by local government ; they should be free ; and attendance should be compulsory . Land reform . Collings background in Devon gave him an appreciation of the problems of the agricultural worker and small-scale farmer rare in a major industrial city like Birmingham . He was a friend of Joseph Arch , the founder of the National Agricultural Labourers Union , who lived in Barford , Warwickshire , near Birmingham . Collings believed that education was essential to improving the conditions of agricultural workers and that it needed to be free . The National Agricultural Workers Union joined the National Education League . Collings ensured that Chamberlain , Mayor of Birmingham and a millionaire industrialist , chaired the meeting in Birmingham to support the Agricultural Workers first strike . When Chamberlain became President of the Board of Trade , Collings acted as his unofficial advisor on agricultural matters affecting peasants in Britain and Ireland . Collings advocated land reform through providing allotments and small holdings for the rural poor , landless peasants , and even the industrial poor . He cited the Chartist settlement at Great Dodford as a successful example of what could be achieved . The slogan for Collings 1885 land-reform campaign Three Acres and a Cow became the battle cry of land reform and the fight against rural poverty . Three acres and a cow was seen as being sufficient for a family to live on , particularly when compared to the rural poverty common at that time . To some , however , this slogan was backward looking and the source of amusement amongst many Conservatives and farmers . Joseph Chamberlain adapted the Three Acres and a Cow slogan for his own Radical Programme : he urged the purchase by local authorities of land to provide garden and field allotments for all labourers who might desire them , to be let at fair rents in plots of up to of arable and three to of pasture . Collings founded the Allotments Extension Association in 1883 to promote the formation of allotments and smallholdings . he also collaborated closely with the Highland Land Reform Association . The 1882 Allotments Extension Act was put through Parliament by Collings . By 1886 there were 394,517 allotments of under and 272,000 garden allotments ( Haywood , 1991 ) . In 1886 , Collings work defeated Lord Salisburys Government , which lost the vote on the Queens speech , when Collings moved his Small Holdings Amendment Act . A Liberal Government under William Ewart Gladstone took its place . Collings work also led to 1908 Small Holdings and Allotments Act ( which led to 30,000 families being resettled on the land ) and the 1919 Land Settlement Act . However , the programme of land reform via allotments and small holdings never made a considerable impact upon the countryside , either in Collings time or in the interwar period . Member of Parliament . He was Liberal Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Ipswich from 1880 until he was unseated on petition in April 1886 , and then for Birmingham Bordesley from 1886 until 1918 ( until 1912 as a Liberal Unionist , when the party was wound up , thereafter as a Conservative ) . On Chamberlains recommendation , Collings served in Gladstones administration as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board in 1886 , although at a reduced salary . Collings joined the Liberal Unionist group set up by Chamberlain in 1886 as a result of the split with the Gladstonian Liberals over Ireland . Collings served in Salisburys government as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from 1895–1902 . Although he served in Parliament from 1880 ( with a small interruption ) and was a junior minister in two Governments , he was most influential outside Parliament – his ministerial posts were not connected to his lifelong advocacy of free education and land reform . He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1892 . As a Liberal Unionist . The concern of Liberal Unionists was that what they perceived as the need for important reforms was being subordinated to a preoccupation with Ireland . The land reform movement was split . Joseph Arch remained a Gladstonian Liberal and ensured that Collings was deposed from the Allotments Extension Association . Collings later set up the Rural Labourers League , which supported land reform and advocated tariffs on imported food to support the rural economy . Collings proposed a system of vocational education through free schools in rural areas . Erroneously or not , Collings along with Chamberlain and others believed that land reform in Ireland would give the peasants a stake in the country and reduce poverty , but convinced neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives to attempt it . He was made an Honorary Freeman of the City of Birmingham in 1911 . Collings published Land Reform in 1906 and in 1914 The Colonization of Rural Britain . He also published The Great War : Its Lessons and Warnings in 1915 . Collings continued to be active in promoting land reform until 1918 , when he retired from Parliament on the abolition of his seat when he was then aged 87 and oldest member of the House . He died in November 1920 aged 88 . Portrait . A portrait of Collings , painted circa 1885 , by Jonathan Pratt ( 1835–1911 ) , hangs in Birmingham Council House . It is not in a public area but may be viewed by prior application . Sources . - Collings , J . and Green , J . L . ( 1920 ) The life of Jesse Collings ( 2 vols ) .