Richard Bell (1859, Merthyr Tydfil—1 May 1930) was one of the first two British Labour Members of Parliament, and the first English one, elected after the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900.
Bell was a high-profile trade unionist, the general secretary of the Railway Servants union. He was elected for Derby, a two-member constituency, alongside a Liberal in the 1900 general election. He sympathised with the Liberals on most ...
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Richard Bell (1859, Merthyr Tydfil—1 May 1930) was one of the first two British Labour Members of Parliament, and the first English one, elected after the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900.
Bell was a high-profile trade unionist, the general secretary of the Railway Servants union. He was elected for Derby, a two-member constituency, alongside a Liberal in the 1900 general election. He sympathised with the Liberals on most issues, except where issues directly affected his union. This meant that he was not very compatible with the other Labour MP, Keir Hardie, a committed socialist member of the Independent Labour Party.
Although its chairman in 1902-03 by 1903, Bell was struggling to adhere to the rules of the LRC group in Parliament, which now had five members following a series of by-elections. By 1904, he was considered to have lapsed from the group and was associated with the Liberal Party. He was re-elected at the 1906 general election.
His supporters in...
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