Born and brought up in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, and educated at elementary school, he began work aged 13 as a moulder-apprentice, joining the Moulders' Union in 1914.
In the First World War he became active in the Union of Democratic Control, and was arrested for making a speech appealing for immediate peace negotiations.
In 1916 he was offered the chance of exemption from military service on trade and health grounds, but preferred to take his stand as a conscientious objector.
Refused exemption in that category, he was forcibly enlisted, and sentenced to two years imprisonment for disobeying an order; he then accepted the Home Office Scheme, and was transferred to Princetown Work Centre in the erstwhile Dartmoor Prison.
This article about a Labour Party member of Parliament representing an English constituency is a stub.