Henry Broadhurst

Henry Broadhurst (13 April 1840 – 11 October 1911) was a leading early British trade unionist and a Lib-Lab politician who sat in the House of Commons for various Midlands constituencies between 1880 and 1906.

[1] He followed his father into stonemasonry at the age of thirteen and during the late 1850s spent a considerable period travelling the south of England, attempting to find work.

Within the House of Commons, he pushed through legislation enabling working men to act as Justices of the Peace, and for all Government contracts to include a "fair wage" clause.

[2] He was appointed as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Liberal government, the first person from a working-class or labour movement background to hold a ministerial post.

Free of ministerial responsibilities, he was again elected Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the TUC, but became increasingly isolated as more left wing members, such as Keir Hardie, accused him of not sufficiently representing the interests of labour within Parliament.