Fred Hammill

Frederick Parkin Hammill (4 May 1856 - 8 July 1901) was a British trade union activist, and a co-founder of the Independent Labour Party.

Career

Known generally as "Fred", Hammill was born in Leeds on 4 May 1856, trained as an engineer, and moved to London to work at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, where he became a well-known labour activist and trade unionist.

Hammill spoke in defence of John Burns in trials after the 1887 Trafalgar Square Riot, was active in the London Trades Council (seconding Burns's support for the 1891 Scottish rail strike)^[1] and in the TUC, and he would speak indoors and outdoors to crowds of up to 6,000 people.^[2] He joined the Fabian Society in the early 1890s.^[3]

In 1891 Hammill organised a strike of London bus and tram workers on pay and hours, and he was one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party.^[4] In 1893 he spoke at a demonstration and rally in Trafalgar Square on workers’ rights. Strongly associated with Tom Mann and with Will Crooks' Poplar-based Labour movement, Hammill helped establish the Woolwich ILP in 1894, with Robert Banner.^[5]

In 1894, Hammill became a full-time organiser for the Fabian Society in Durham.^[6] A member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), in July 1895 Hammill was the first socialist to stand for election to parliament as an ILP candidate in Newcastle.^[7] Unsuccessful, he changed tack to run a pub (The Swan in Topcliffe in Yorkshire),^[8] for which he was criticised politically.^[9]

He was elected to the Thirsk Rural District Council in 1901.^[10]

He died on 8 July 1901 from influenza, aged 45 years.

Personal life

When Fred Hammill was a child, his family lived in a pub (the Grey Mare Inn, 132 Low Road, Hunslet) in Leeds, run by his father Thomas.^[11]

Hammill married Ada Peel (9 July 1860 – c. Feb 1940) and they had three children (Arthur Earnest (1880-1945), Helen (1882-1904), Gertrude Wright (1888-1959)). After moving to London from Leeds, they lived at 25 Coxwell Road in Plumstead for a period (c. 1890 to 1892).

Ada's father Joseph Peel was an inn-keeper.^[12]

Works

• An address at the first annual conference of the National Vehicular Traffic Workers’ Union, 1892. (pamphlet) [1892].^[13]
• The Necessity of an Independent Labour Party: speech at the annual meeting of the Newcastle Independent Labour Party held at Newcastle on 3 January 1893. (pamphlet), UK: Newcastle upon Tyne: Dowling [1893].
• The Claims and Progress of Labor Representation. (pamphlet), UK: Newcastle upon Tyne: Dowling [1894].
• Out of Work: The Problem of the Unemployed. (pamphlet), UK: Newcastle upon Tyne: Dowling [1894].
• "Onward to Victory" (a chapter in) The New Party (book), pages 49 to 53, Book Authors: Andrew Reid; Walter Crane. Publisher: Hodder Brothers, 18 New Bridge Street, E.C., Edinburgh and London, UK. [1895].

References

1. Kenefick, William (2007). Red Scotland!: The Rise and Fall of the Radical Left, C. 1872-1932. Edinburgh University Press. p. 43. ISBN 9780748625185.
2. Pugh, Patricia (2013). Educate, Agitate, Organise Library Editions: Political Science Vol 59: One Hundred Years of Fabian Socialism. Routledge, London. ISBN 9781135025380. p.63.
3. 'Fabian Notes' column of the Workman's Times, 28 May 1892 - quoted in McBrian, A.M. (1996), Fabian Socialism and English Politics: 1884-1918, Cambridge University Press, p.245.
4. Fred Hammill – A Short Biography (1893), [online resource], Cornell University, Kheel Center; USA. This text is a printed section at the start of: "The Necessity of an Independent Labour Party" pamphlet
5. Tyler, Paul (2007). Labour's Lost Leader: The Life and Politics of Will Crooks. I B Tauris. pp. 36, 106. ISBN 9780857714176.
6. Reported in the Durham Chronicle, 18 January 1895. Cited by: Marshall, Craig (1976) Levels of Industrial Militancy and the political radicalisation of the Durham miners, 1885 - 1914. Durham University.
7. Howell, David (1984). British Workers and the Independent Labour Party, 1888-1906. Manchester University Press. p. 88. ISBN 9780719017919.
8. "The Decadence of Tom Mann", The Star, Issue 6502, 3 June 1899, Page 7.
9. Pugh, Martin (2011). Speak for Britain!: A New History of the Labour Party. Random House. p. 17. ISBN 9780099520788.
10. John Morley, Joseph Cowen and Robert Spence Watson: Liberal Divisions in Newcastle Politics, 1873–1895. by E.I. Waitt. Thesis, University of Manchester, (1972).
11. UK National Archives, 1861 Census
12. UK National Archives, 1871 Census
13. Humphries, Barbara (2011) Nineteenth century pamphlets online. The Ephemerist, 153 (Summer)