page_title: John Ward (trade unionist)
section_title: Pre-war trade union and political career
hierarchical_section_title: John Ward (trade unionist) / Pre-war trade union and political career
caption_attribution_description: Caricature of Ben Tillett and John Ward. Caption read "Labour Men".
context_page_description: Lieutenant-Colonel John Ward CB CMG was an English Liberal Party politician, trade union leader and soldier.
context_section_description: In 1889, Ward founded the Navvies, Bricklayers' Labourers and General Labourers' Union, and continued to serve as its general secretary throughout its existence. He was also a co-founder of the short-lived National Federation of Labour Union the same year. In 1901, he was elected to the management committee of the new General Federation of Trade Unions and served on it until 1929; from 1913 he was its treasurer.
  In 1892, Ward married Lilian Elizabeth Gibbs. They had three sons and a daughter. Lilian Ward died on 14 December 1926.
  In 1888 and 1892 Ward unsuccessfully stood as an SDF candidate in local elections. He was prominent in the National Democratic League founded in 1900. In 1906 he was elected to the House of Commons as Liberal–Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-upon-Trent, having refused to sign the Labour Representation Committee constitution three years earlier. He never joined the Labour Party and took the Liberal Party whip.
caption: Benjamin Tillett and John Ward caricatured by Spy for Vanity Fair, 1908
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