Tag: R C Wallhead

Stanley Beynon J.P. 1893 – 1979

by Malcolm Llywelyn

The distinction of Freedom of the Borough being presented to Stanley Beynon

The distinction of the Freedom of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil dates from 1907 when David Alfred Thomas, member of parliament for the town was the first recipient of the honour. It is a distinction conferred on those have rendered a valuable service to the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil.  A viscount, a baronet, prime ministers, politicians, sportsmen and businessmen have been among those who have been awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil.

In 1974, Stanley Beynon J.P. was honoured with the Freedom of the Borough of his home town. He lived in a council house in Penydarren and he worked as a miner and  then a school caretaker until his retirement. He was an active member of Nantwen Pit Lodge and the chairman on two occasions during his employment in the mining industry. Stanley Beynon was general secretary of the Merthyr Tydfil Trades Council and the Labour Party in 1930 until his retirement from office in 1968. In 1932, he was parliamentary agent to Mr. R.C. Wallhead  M.P. and held the same position for his close friend Mr. S.O. Davies M.P. for over 30 years. He also fulfilled the role of Justice of the Peace from 1934. In 1953, Stanley Beynon was awarded the Trades Union Congress Silver Medal of Merit for his long and dedicated service to the Trade Union Movement.

“Man of the people,”  Stanley Beynon was a counsellor, an advocate and facilitator for those in need in his community.

The admission of Mr. Stanley Beynon J.P. as an Honorary Freeman of the County Borough of Merthyr Tydfil on 22nd March 1974 was conferred on him with the following words:

“In Mr. Stanley Beynon the Council recognise a person who has made a notable contribution to the trade union and political life of the County Borough of Merthyr Tydfil over a period of almost forty years.”    

 

R. C. Wallhead, M.P.

Following on from the last post, we’ll have a look at S O Davies’ predecessor as Merthyr’s Member of Parliament – R C Wallhead.

Richard Christopher Wallhead (he later changed his middle name to Collingham) was born in London on 28 December 1869. He was educated at St Edward’s Elementary School at Romford before beginning his career as a clerk with the Great Eastern Railway. He then re-trained as a decorator and designer.

Remembering some of the privations of his youth, he became increasing drawn towards socialism, and he joined the Independent Labour Party, under the leadership of Keir Hardie, becoming an active member, and was noted as a successful orator on behalf of the party. In 1906 he was appointed manager of the ‘Labour Leader’, the official publication of the party. With the headquarters of the publication housed in Manchester, Wallhead moved to the city, eventually becoming a member of Manchester City Council in 1919, this despite the fact that, as a committed opponent of World War I, he was detained in 1917 under the Defence of the Realm Act, following an anti-war speech he delivered in South Wales.

Wallhead unsuccessfully contested Coventry in the 1918 general election for the Labour Party, to which the I.L.P. was affiliated, but was elected as chairman of the Party in 1920. In 1921 he resigned his seat on the Manchester City Council to devote his time to his own political career, and to the administrative affairs of the Party.

In 1920 he represented the I.L.P. on the British Labour delegation to Russia to investigate conditions there, where he met Lenin. He would subsequently visit Russia again in 1925.

British Labour delegation to Russia. Wallhead is in the centre.

In 1922, he contested his former mentor, Keir Hardie’s seat at Merthyr. The previous incumbent Edgar Rees Jones, the Liberal candidate, chose not to stand for re-election, and Wallhead, standing as a Labour candidate beat his only rival in the election, the Independent candidate, Richard Mathias, with 53% of the vote. He was subsequently one of only five I.L.P. M.P.s to retain their seats in the 1931 general election, after Labour withdrew their support, and he initially supported the party’s disaffiliation from Labour.

In 1933, however, Wallhead, having become increasing disillusioned with the I.L.P.’s gravitation towards the Soviet policies of violence since its cessation from the Labour Party the previous year, resigned from the I.L.P and joined the Labour Party.

By this time however, concern had been growing for a few years about Wallhead’s health, and he died at his home in Welwyn Garden City on 27 April 1934. Following his death, Clement Attlee, the then acting head of the Labour Party said:

“Dick Wallhead will be mourned by many thousands in the Labour Movement, for he was a man who sacrificed himself to the cause of Socialism….There was no more popular and effective exponent of Socialism than Wallhead in the days when the foundations of the Labour Party were being laid.”