Red Clydeside

Key political figures of the Red Clydeside period

Election address of Emanuel Shinwell, Labour candidate for Linlithgowshire

1924

Emanuel Shinwell's activism in the Labour movement began when he joined the Independent Labour Party and became involved in municipal politics. His support for and work on behalf of the rent strike campaign of 1915-16 ensured that Shinwell was elected as councillor for the Fairfield area of Govan in the municipal elections of November 1916. He was also active in the trade union movement and was elected chairman of Glasgow Trades Council between 1916 and 1919. He was also on the executive committee of the Clyde Workers' Committee throughout the 1916-1919 period.

Shinwell's parliamentary career began with election to the House of Commons in 1922 as one of ten Red Clydesiders. Defeated in the 1924 election, he returned to parliament again 1928. When Ramsay MacDonald became prime minister following the 1929 election, he appointed Shinwell as Financial Secretary of the War Office. Shinwell lost his Linlithgow seat in the 1931 election, although he returned to the Commons in 1935 after defeating Ramsay MacDonald at Seaham.

While chairman of the Labour Party from 1942, he wrote the manifesto which gave Labour its post-war general election victory in 1945. He went on to nationalise the mines as Minister of Fuel and Power in 1946, and served as Secretary of State for Defence between 1947 and 1951. He lost office after the Conservative victory in the 1951 election, but held his seat and between November 1964 and March 1967 was chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Source: Broady Collection, Glasgow University Special Collections