129-595: The Independent Labour Party ( ILP ) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford , after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals ' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie , became its first chairman. The party remained positioned to the left of Ramsay MacDonald 's Labour Representation Committee , which Hardie founded in 1900 and
258-532: A UNESCO World Heritage Site . Henry Ripley was a younger contemporary of Titus Salt. He was managing partner of Edward Ripley & Son Ltd, which owned the Bowling Dye Works. In 1880 the dye works employed over 1000 people and was said to be the biggest dye works in Europe. Like Salt he was a councillor, JP and Bradford MP who was deeply concerned to improve working class housing conditions. He built
387-677: A county borough in 1888, making it administratively independent of the West Riding County Council . It was honoured with city status on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, with Kingston upon Hull and Nottingham . The three had been the largest county boroughs outside the London area without city status. The borough's boundaries were extended to absorb Clayton in 1930, and parts of Rawdon, Shipley, Wharfedale and Yeadon urban districts in 1937. Bradford had ample supplies of locally mined coal to provide
516-553: A Labour government took office it should hold an enquiry into the banking system that would prepare a detailed scheme for transferring the Bank of England to public control, revise the operation of the Bank Acts and ensure that "control of credit is exercised in the national interest and not in the interest of powerful financial groups" by making creditors shift entirely to cheques and possibly getting rid of gold reserves , thus ending
645-587: A destination for immigrants. In the 1840s Bradford's population was significantly increased by migrants from Ireland, particularly rural County Mayo and County Sligo , and by 1851 about 10% of the population were born in Ireland, the largest proportion in Yorkshire . Around the middle decades of the 19th century the Irish were concentrated in eight densely settled areas situated near the town centre. One of these
774-658: A four-page broadsheet published in Glasgow, and sent greetings to the conference which established a Communist Party of Great Britain , although they did not attend. In addition to cutting its ties with the Second International, the 1920 Annual Conference of the ILP directed its executive to contact the Swiss Socialist Party with a view to establishing an all-inclusive international which would join
903-606: A manufacturing centre. Bradford grew slowly over the next two-hundred years as the woollen trade gained in prominence. During the Civil War the town was garrisoned for the Parliamentarians and in 1642 was unsuccessfully attacked by Royalist forces from Leeds. Sir Thomas Fairfax took the command of the garrison and marched to meet the Duke of Newcastle but was defeated. The Parliamentarians retreated to Bradford and
1032-638: A meeting of advocates of an independent labour organisation. An arrangements committee was established and a conference called for the following January. This conference was chaired by William Henry Drew and was held in Bradford during 14–16 January 1893 at the Bradford Labour Institute, operated by the Labour Church . It proved to be the foundation conference of the Independent Labour Party, and MP Keir Hardie
1161-408: A new society." While this inspirational presentation of socialism as a humanitarian necessity made the party accessible as a sort of secular religion or a means for the practical implementation of Christian principles in daily life, it bore with it the great weakness of being non-analytical and thus comparatively shallow. It also offered a political home for some of the women's franchise movement in
1290-510: A political party must hold more than 45 seats in order to take control of the council. A minority-led administration occurs when all parties hold less than 45 seats on the council. Following local elections on 5 May 2022, Labour had majority control over Bradford council with 56 seats; this was followed by Conservatives and the Green Party with 16 and 8 seats, respectively. The council was led by council leader Susan Hinchliffe, representing
1419-561: A restructuring of society, also saw the Liberals as the most obvious means for obtaining working-class representation. Within two years of its foundation in 1884, the gradualist Fabian Society officially committed itself to a policy of permeation of the Liberal Party. A number of so-called " Lib-Lab " candidates were subsequently elected Members of Parliament by this alliance of trade unions and radical intellectuals working within
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#17327662529691548-460: A small group of like-minded radical pacifists, maintained an unflinching opposition to the government and its pro-war Labour allies. The 1917 Russian Revolution Conference in Leeds called for "the complete independence of Ireland , India and Egypt ". During the war the ILP's criticism of militarism was somewhat muted by public condemnation and periodic episodes of physical violence, which included
1677-471: A straight fight with the Conservatives. The electoral debacle of 1895 marked an end to the unbridled optimism which had attended the party's foundation. From its beginning, the ILP was never a homogeneous unit, but rather attempted to act as a " big tent " party of the working class, advocating a rather vague and amorphous socialist agenda. Historian Robert E. Dowse has observed: "From the beginning
1806-465: A temperature of 27.5 °C (81.5 °F), with a total of 6 days rising to a maximum of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above. The absolute minimum temperature recorded was −13.9 °C (7.0 °F) during January 1940. The weather station's elevated suburban location means exceptionally low temperatures are unknown. Typically, 41.4 nights of the year will record an air frost. Colne Valley Labour Union The Colne Valley Labour Union (CVLU)
1935-412: A trade unionist was likely to demand. Fervent and emotional, the socialism of the ILP could accommodate, with only a little strain, temperance reform, Scottish nationalism , Methodism , Marxism , Fabian gradualism , and even a variety of Burkean conservatism . Although the mixture was a curious one, it did have the one overwhelming virtue of excluding nobody on dogmatic grounds, a circumstance, on
2064-460: A wild scene on 6 July 1918, during which an agitated group of discharged soldiers rushed an ILP meeting being addressed by Ramsay MacDonald in the Abbey Wood section of London. Stewards at the door of the ILP meeting were overpowered by the mob, who in what was described as a "riotous scene" broke chairs and wielded their parts as weapons, seizing the auditorium and dispersing the socialists into
2193-489: A year, Black and Glyde were deemed unsuitable, and Williams withdrew, preferring to contest Huddersfield . William Crawford Anderson and Ben Turner were added to the list late on. A delegate meeting voted for Anderson and Grayson as its two preferred options, to go forward to a ballot of all members. However, Anderson decided to withdraw, and Grayson was thereby selected. The ILP sent a delegation of J. Howard and Philip Snowden to decide whether to give financial backing to
2322-614: Is no weal save commonweal". The original Bradford Coat of Arms had the Latin words Labor omnia vincit below it, meaning "Work conquers all". A new coat of arms was emblazoned in 1976, after local government reorganisation in 1974, with the English motto "Progress, Industry, Humanity". Bradford is represented by three MPs: for the constituencies of Bradford East ( Imran Hussain , Labour Party), Bradford South ( Judith Cummins , Labour), and Bradford West ( Naz Shah , Labour Party). Bradford
2451-538: Is owned by Meyer Bergman . In 2022, Bradford was named the UK City of Culture 2025, beating Southampton , Wrexham and Durham . The UK City of Culture bid, as of 2023, was expected to majorly stimulate the local economy and culture as well as attracting tourism to the city. By 2025, the UK City of Culture bid is expected to support potential economic growth of £389 million to the city of Bradford as well as to
2580-637: Is the third-largest economy within the Yorkshire and the Humber region at around £10 billion, which is mostly provided by financial and manufacturing industries. It is also a tourist destination, the first UNESCO City of Film and it has the National Science and Media Museum , a city park , the Alhambra theatre and Cartwright Hall . The city is the UK City of Culture for 2025 having won
2709-703: The Yorkshire Factory Times published a letter signed "A Colne Valley Voter", which called for a labour candidate in the Colne Valley Parliamentary seat at the next general election. At the Social Democratic Club, on 21 July 1891, a meeting was held, chaired by G. W. Haigh. James Bartley of the Bradford Labour Union was present, along with Allan Gee and Ben Turner , leading figures in
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#17327662529692838-449: The 1895 general election . With the NAC taking a lead in organising the party's contests , and with finance tight just 28 candidates ran under the ILP banner. A special conference decided that support could be given to either ILP or SDF candidates, which brought a further four contests into the picture. None was elected, however, with even the popular party leader Keir Hardie going to defeat in
2967-581: The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants decided to form a trade union club. Following a series of organising meetings, they secured a cellar on Nabbs Lane, naming it the Social Democratic Club, and displayed a red flag inside. By 1891, there was considerable interest in trade union candidates for elected offices, independent of existing political parties, inspired by the example of the Bradford Labour Union . In mid-July,
3096-852: The British Socialist Party , the Socialist Labour Party , and radical groups in Wales and Scotland . "The emancipation of the British working class and of the working class of the whole world depends upon the Communist elements of England forming a single Communist Party", the ECCI declared. The agitation for affiliation to the Third International of Moscow came to a head in 1921 at the annual conference of
3225-508: The British Wool Marketing Board opened its new headquarters in the city. Also in 2012 Bradford City Park opened, the park which cost £24.5 million to construct is a public space in the city centre which features numerous fountains and a mirror pool surrounded by benches and a walk way. In 2015 The Broadway opened, the shopping and leisure complex in the centre of Bradford cost £260 million to build and
3354-474: The Labour Party performed well in the 1906 UK general election . By 1907, it had 691 members, and it was determined to stand a candidate in the 1907 Parliamentary by-election . It considered seven possible candidates: Edward Black, Charlie Glyde , Victor Grayson , T. E. Moorhouse, William Pickles , Ben Riley and Russell Williams . Moorhouse was disqualified for having held membership for less than
3483-481: The Labour Party was formed in 1906, the ILP immediately affiliated to it. This affiliation allowed the ILP to continue to hold its own conferences and devise its own policies, which ILP members were expected to argue for within the Labour Party. In return, the ILP provided a good part of Labour's activist base during its early years. The emergence and growth of the Labour Party, a federation of trade unions with
3612-602: The Middle Ages , Bradford had become a small town centred on Kirkgate, Westgate and Ivegate. In 1316 there is mention of a fulling mill, a soke mill where all the manor corn was milled and a market. During the Wars of the Roses the inhabitants sided with House of Lancaster . Edward IV granted the right to hold two annual fairs and from this time the town began to prosper. In the reign of Henry VIII Bradford exceeded Leeds as
3741-515: The Social Democratic Federation (SDF), in 1881. Other socialist intellectuals, despite not sharing the concept of class struggle were nonetheless frustrated with the ideology and institutions of the Liberal Party and the secondary priority which it appeared to give to its working-class candidates. Out of these ideas and activities came a new generation of activists, including Keir Hardie , a Scot who had become convinced of
3870-501: The Social Democratic Federation , and individual representatives of a number of other socialist and labour groups. German Socialist leader Edward Bernstein was briefly permitted to address the gathering to pass along the best wishes for success from the Social Democratic Party of Germany . A proposal was made by a Scottish delegate, George Carson , to name the new organisation the "Socialist Labour Party", but this
3999-693: The Territorial Force , based at Belle Vue Barracks in Manningham , and the 10th Battalion (another Kitchener battalion). The 1/6th Battalion first saw action in 1915 at the Battle of Aubers Ridge before moving north to the Yser Canal near Ypres . On the first day of the Somme they took heavy casualties while trying to support the 36th (Ulster) Division . The 10th Battalion was involved in
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4128-521: The Windhill and Wrose ward, and chief executive Kersten England. Bradford is located at 53°45′00″N 01°50′00″W / 53.75000°N 1.83333°W / 53.75000; -1.83333 (53.7500, −1.8333) . Topographically, it is located in the eastern foothills of the South Pennines moorland region. Bradford is not built on any substantial body of water but is situated at
4257-670: The Yorkshire Dales , though as it passes through the city, it is often not recognised as such. The beck's course through the city centre is culverted and has been since the mid-19th century. On the 1852 Ordnance Survey map it is visible as far as Sun Bridge, at the end of Tyrrell Street, and then from beside Bradford Forster Square railway station on Kirkgate. On the 1906 Ordnance Survey, it disappears at Tumbling Hill Street, off Thornton Road, and appears north of Cape Street, off Valley Road, though there are culverts as far as Queens Road. The Bradford Canal , built in 1774, linking
4386-685: The dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet system to Great Britain, and its view on the necessity of armed force as a universal principle. In July 1920 the fledgling Comintern gave an unequivocal reply: while the presence of communists inside the organisation was acknowledged, and their membership in a new Communist Party welcomed, there would be no joint organisation with those like "the Fabians, Ramsay MacDonald , and Snowden " who had previously made use of "the musty atmosphere of parliamentary work" and "petty concessions and compromises" on behalf of
4515-454: The first Labour government , returned to office in 1924, proved to be hugely disappointing to the ILP. This came despite 30% of the cabinet holding ILP membership; of the most prominent of these figures, Ramsay MacDonald was removed as editor of the ILP's Socialist Review in 1925, and Philip Snowden resigned from the ILP in 1927. The ILP's response to the first Labour government was to devise its own programme for government. Throughout 1928,
4644-595: The internationalist left-wing socialist parties with their revolutionary socialist brethren of the new Moscow international. In a letter dated 21 May 1920, ILP chairman Richard Wallhead and National Council member Clifford Allen asked a further set of questions of the Comintern. The Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) was asked for its positions on such matters as demands for rigid adherence to its programme, applicability of
4773-482: The " Second and a Half International " between 1921 and 1923. The party was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1923 and 1933. At the 1922 general election several ILP members became MPs (including future ILP leader James Maxton ) and the party grew in stature. The ILP provided many of the new Labour MPs, including John Wheatley , Emanuel Shinwell , Tom Johnston and David Kirkwood . However,
4902-412: The "Living Wage" policy, which sought to impose high minimum wages across all industries and nationalize all private enterprises which could not afford to pay them in order to resolve interwar unemployment and poverty , which it held to be caused by underconsumption . Increasing the unemployment allowance and switching to bulk purchasing were to be done in the conventional way, but the method of paying
5031-457: The 1/6th Battalion West Yorks in April 1915. These Territorial Force units were to remain close to each other throughout the war, serving in the 49th (West Riding) Division . They were joined in 1917 by the 2/6th Battalion, West Yorks , and 2/2nd West Riding Brigade, RFA , serving in the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division . Bradford's Telegraph and Argus newspaper was involved in spearheading
5160-491: The 1870s a series of working-class candidates financially supported by trade unions were accepted and supported by the Liberal Party. The federation of British unions, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), formed its own electoral committee in 1886 to further advance its electoral goals. Many socialist intellectuals, particularly those influenced by Christian socialism and similar notions of the ethical need for
5289-547: The 20th century. A culture of innovation had been fundamental to Bradford's dominance, with new textile technologies being invented in the city, a prime example being the work of Samuel Lister . This innovation culture continues today throughout Bradford's economy, from automotive (Kahn Design) to electronics ( Pace Micro Technology ). Wm Morrison Supermarkets was founded by William Morrison in 1899, initially as an egg and butter merchant in Rawson Market, operating under
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5418-582: The 40 Labour MPs in Parliament lent their support to the recruiting campaign for the Great War . Only one section held aloof—the Independent Labour Party. The ILP's insistence on standing by its long-held ethically based objections to militarism and war proved costly both in terms of its standing in the eyes of the general public as well as its ability to hold sway over the politicians who ran under its banner. A stream of its old Members of Parliament left
5547-460: The Battle of the Somme . Of the estimated 1,394 men from Bradford and District in the two battalions, 1,060 were either killed or injured during the ill-fated attack on the village of Serre-lès-Puisieux . Other Bradford Battalions of The Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) involved in the Battle of the Somme were the 1st/6th Battalion (the former Bradford Rifle Volunteers ), part of
5676-534: The Bradford Water Company and embarked on a huge engineering programme to bring supplies of soft water from Airedale, Wharfedale and Nidderdale . By 1882 water supply had radically improved. Meanwhile, urban expansion took place along the routes out of the city towards the Hortons and Bowling and the townships had become part of a continuous urban area by the late 19th century. A major employer
5805-554: The British textile industry. There followed a strike in Bradford , the Manningham Mills strike, which produced as a by-product the Bradford Labour Union , an organisation which sought to function politically independently of either major political party. This initiative was replicated by others in Colne Valley , Halifax , Huddersfield and Salford. Such developments showed that working-class support for separation from
5934-628: The CVLU resolved to support any candidates who supported trade unions and open council meetings. Littlewood won election in Honley, but fourteen other labour candidates were defeated. The 1895 council election was more successful, with Garside holding his seat with 61.4% of the vote, while Farr won the Yorkshire ward in Mossley, and Sanderson Hoyle was only narrowly defeated in the Cheshire ward. This gave
6063-519: The CVLU, and early in 1893 he finally agreed to stand in the next election. The CVLU broadly supported the formation of the national Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1893, but followed Mann's lead in initially remaining separate. It affiliated in January 1894, naming Mann as its delegate, and successfully nominated him to become the ILP's first general secretary. For the 1894 urban district council elections, except where ILP candidates were standing,
6192-410: The ILP attempted to influence the trade unions to back a working-class political party: they sought, as Henry Pelling states: 'collaboration with trade unionists with the ultimate object of tapping trade union funds for the attainment of Parliamentary power.' The socialism of the ILP was ideal for achieving this end; lacking as it did any real theoretical basis it could accommodate practically anything
6321-457: The ILP developed a "Socialism in Our Time" platform, largely formulated by H. N. Brailsford , John A. Hobson and Frank Wise . The programme consisted of eight policies: Of these eight policies, the living wage, the unemployment allowance, nationalisation of banking and the bulk purchase of raw materials and foodstuffs were the chief concern of the ILP. The centerpiece of the ILP program was
6450-557: The ILP formally disaffiliated from the International in the spring of 1920. In January 1919, Moscow issued a call for the formation of a new Third International , a formation which held great appeal to a small section of the ILP's most radical members, including economist Emile Burns , journalist R. Palme Dutt , and the future Member of Parliament Shapurji Saklatvala , along with Charles Barber, Ernest H. Brown, Helen Crawfurd , C. H. Norman, and J. Wilson. They called themselves
6579-533: The ILP had been secured in the wake of his disillusionment with the Liberal Party over its rejection of a trade unionist candidate in the 1894 Sheffield Attercliffe by-election . While there were substantial personal tensions between the four, they shared a fundamental view that the party should seek alliance with the unions and rather than an ideology-based socialist unity with the Marxist Social Democratic Federation . Following
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#17327662529696708-501: The ILP's leadership meant many converts to the Labour Party continued to join through the ILP, a process which continued until about 1925. On 11 April 1914 the party celebrated its 21st anniversary with a congress in Bradford. The party had grown well in the previous decade, standing with a membership of approximately 30,000. The rank and file membership of the party as well as its leadership were pacifist, now as ever, having held from
6837-497: The ILP. There an overwhelming vote of the party's branches voted not to affiliate with the Third International. This decision was followed by the exit of the defeated radical faction, which immediately joined the CPGB. The " centrism " of the ILP, caught between the reformist politics of the Second International and the revolutionary politics of the Third International, led it to leading a number of other European socialist groups into
6966-482: The Labour Party as being too timid and moderate in their attempts at social reform, detached as it was from the socialist objective during its first years. Consequently, in 1912 came a split in which many ILP branches and a few leading figures, including Leonard Hall and Russell Smart , chose to amalgamate with the SDF of H. M. Hyndman in 1912 to found the British Socialist Party . Until 1918, individuals could only join
7095-547: The Labour Party through an affiliated body, the most significant of which were the Fabian Society and the ILP. As a result, particularly from 1914, many individuals – particularly ones formerly active in the Liberal Party – joined the ILP, in order to become active in the Labour Party. While affiliated body membership was not required after 1918, the presence of MacDonald and other leading Labour Party figures in
7224-432: The Labour Party was "not an organisation but rather 'the expression of a great principle,' since it 'had neither programme nor constitution". Hardie emphasised the fundamental demand of the new organisation as being the achievement of economic freedom and called for a party structure which gave full autonomy to every locality, and only seeking to bind these groups "to such central and general principles as were indispensable to
7353-511: The Left Wing Group of the ILP. The conservative leadership of the ILP, notably Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden , strongly opposed affiliation to the new Comintern. In opposition to them the radical wing of the ILP organised itself as a formal faction called the Left Wing Group of the ILP in an effort to move the ILP into the Communist International. The faction began to produce its own bi-weekly newspaper called The International ,
7482-649: The Liberal Party was growing in strength. Further arguments for the formation of a new party were to be found in Robert Blatchford 's newspaper The Clarion , founded in 1891, and in Workman's Times , edited by Joseph Burgess . The latter collected some 3,500 names of those in favour of creating a party of labour independent from the existing political organisations. At the 1892 general election , held in July, three working men were elected without support from
7611-495: The Liberal Party. The idea of working with the middle-class Liberal Party to achieve working-class representation in parliament was not universally accepted, however. Marxist socialists, believing in the inevitability of class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, rejected the idea of workers making common cause with the petty bourgeois Liberals in exchange for minor, palliative reform legislation. The British orthodox Marxists established their own party,
7740-723: The Liberals: Keir Hardie in West Ham South , John Burns in Battersea , and Havelock Wilson in Middlesbrough , the last of whom actually faced Liberal opposition. Hardie owed nothing to the Liberal Party for his election, and his critical and confrontational style in Parliament caused him to emerge as a national voice of the labour movement. At a TUC meeting in September 1892, a call was issued for
7869-449: The North , the manor of Bradford was laid waste, and is described as such in the Domesday Book of 1086. It then became part of the Honour of Pontefract given to Ilbert de Lacy for service to the Conqueror, in whose family the manor remained until 1311. There is evidence of a castle in the time of the Lacys. The manor then passed to the Earl of Lincoln , John of Gaunt , The Crown and, ultimately, private ownership in 1620. By
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#17327662529697998-426: The Royalists set up headquarters at Bolling Hall from where the town was besieged leading to its surrender. The Civil War caused a decline in industry but after the accession of William III and Mary II in 1689 prosperity began to return. The launch of manufacturing in the early 18th century marked the start of the town's development while new canal and turnpike road links encouraged trade. In 1801, Bradford
8127-463: The UK, the Liverpool branch appointing Alice Morrissey as the branch secretary (1907–08) and first female delegate to a regional Labour Representative Committee. As the movement for women's suffrage grew, the ILP had engaged with the non-militant suffragists, for example, Mary H. J. Henderson , Parliamentary Secretary for the Scottish Women's Suffrage Societies, chaired a joint meeting with ILP, with Ethel Snowden as key speaker in Dundee in 1914. As
8256-420: The abolition of the position of party "President" in 1896 testified to the power of such arguments. Nonetheless, the NAC came to possess considerable power over the party's activities, including hegemonistic control over crucial matters such as electoral decisions and relations with other parties. The electoral defeat of 1895 hastened the establishment of centralising and anti-democratic practices of this kind. In
8385-402: The area, in Mossley, the cotton industry unions had a substantial membership, and with the support of Mossley Card and Blowing Room Operatives' Association leader Matthew Burrow Farr , the party held a meeting in November 1892 attended by 500 workers. Leonard Hall , organising secretary of the British Labour Amalgamation , was also supportive, and ran a joint recruitment campaign. In addition,
8514-486: The attack on Fricourt , where it suffered the highest casualty rate of any battalion on the Somme on 1 July and perhaps the highest battalion casualty list for a single day during the entire war. Nearly 60% of the battalion's casualties were deaths. The 1/2nd and 2/2nd West Riding Brigades , Royal Field Artillery (TF), had their headquarters at Valley Parade in Manningham, with batteries at Bradford, Halifax and Heckmondwike . The 1/2nd Brigade crossed to France with
8643-441: The beginning that war was "sinful". The guns of August 1914 shook every left organisation in Britain. As one observer later put it: "Hyndman and Cunningham Graham , Thorne and Clynes had sought peace while it endured, but now that war had come, well, Socialists and Trade Unionists, like other people had got to see it through." With respect to the Labour Party, most of the members of the organisation's executive as well as most of
8772-428: The canal. In modern times, remnants of the canal can still be found, including by Canal Road where the route of the old canal can be seen by car. The underlying geology of the city is primarily carboniferous sandstones . These vary in quality from rough rock to fine, honey-coloured stone of building quality. Access to this material has had a pronounced effect on the architecture of the city. The city also lies within
8901-402: The candidacy; they recommended it do so, but the ILP decided to wait on a decision of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee , and that ultimately decided not to support it. Grayson therefore stood as the candidate of the Colne Valley Labour League, and narrowly won the election on a strongly socialist platform. Grayson was accepted as part of the Labour Party group in Parliament, but
9030-445: The city to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal took its water from Bradford Beck and its tributaries. The supply of water from the polluted Bradford Beck was often inadequate to feed the locks and heavily polluted the canal over time. Due to the polluted state of the canal causing health problems, the council temporarily closed the canal in 1866. In 1922, the canal was permanently closed due to it not being economically viable to maintain
9159-471: The city, and a section of the Muslim community led a campaign against the book. In July 2001, ethnic tensions led to rioting , and a report described Bradford as fragmented and a city of segregated ethnic communities. The Yorkshire Building Society opened its new headquarters in the city in 1992. In 2006 Wm Morrison Supermarkets opened its new headquarters in the city, the firm employs more than 5,000 people in Bradford. In June 2009 Bradford became
9288-534: The city. When the three battalions were taken over by the British Army they were officially named the 16th (1st Bradford), 18th (2nd Bradford), and 20th (Reserve) Battalions, The Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) . On the morning of 1 July 1916, the 16th and 18th Battalions left their trenches in Northern France to advance across no man's land. It was the first hour of the first day of
9417-639: The designation on 31 May 2022. The name Bradford is derived from the Old English brad and ford the broad ford which referred to a crossing of the Bradford Beck at Church Bank below the site of Bradford Cathedral , around which a settlement grew in Anglo-Saxon times. It was recorded as "Bradeford" in 1086. After an uprising in 1070, during William the Conqueror 's Harrying of
9546-462: The development of Bradford as a major exporter of woollen goods from their textile export houses predominately based in Little Germany and the civic life of Bradford. Charles Semon (1814–1877) was a textile merchant and philanthropist who developed a productive textile export house in the town, he became the first foreign and Jewish mayor of Bradford in 1864. Jacob Behrens (1806–1889) was
9675-569: The election of working men and their advocates to the Parliament of the United Kingdom saw the Liberal Party as the main vehicle for achieving this aim. As early as 1869, a Labour Representation League had been established to register and mobilise working-class voters on behalf of favoured Liberal candidates. Many trade unions themselves became concerned with gaining parliamentary representation to advance their legislative aims. From
9804-409: The election to become general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers , but ultimately he did not stand, probably due to financial concerns. The CVLU sent questionnaires to both candidates in the seat in the 1892 UK general election , but reported that it could not recommend either, and so played no part in the election. Despite this, Mann continued to regularly visit and speak in support of
9933-405: The establishment of public measures to reduce unemployment and provide aid to the unemployed, a minimum-wage law, welfare programmes for orphans, widows, the elderly, the disabled, and the sick, the abolition of child labour , the abolition of overtime and piecework , and an eight-hour workday . The keynote address of the foundation conference was delivered by Keir Hardie, who observed that
10062-403: The failure of 1895, this leadership became reluctant to overextend the party by running in too many electoral races. By 1898 the decision was formally made to restrict electoral contests to those where a reasonable performance could be expected rather than putting forward as many candidates as possible to maximise exposure for the party and to accumulate a maximum total vote. The relationship with
10191-423: The first foreign textile merchant to export woollen goods from the town, his company developed into an international multimillion-pound business. Behrens was a philanthropist, he also helped to establish the Bradford chamber of commerce in 1851. Jacob Moser (1839–1922) was a textile merchant who was a partner in the firm Edelstein, Moser and Co, which developed into a successful Bradford textile export house. Moser
10320-490: The historian John Callaghan has noted, in the hands of Hardie, Glasier, Snowden and MacDonald socialism was little more than "a vague protest against injustice." However, in 1909 the ILP laid the basis for the production of agitational material with the establishment of the National Labour Press . Still, the relationship between the ILP and the Labour Party was characterised by conflict. Many ILP members viewed
10449-585: The industrial Model village of Ripley Ville on a site in Broomfields , East Bowling close to the dye works. Other major employers were Samuel Lister and his brother who were worsted spinners and manufacturers at Lister's Mill (Manningham Mills). Lister epitomised Victorian enterprise but it has been suggested that his capitalist attitude made trade unions necessary. Unprecedented growth created problems with over 200 factory chimneys continually churning out black, sulphurous smoke, Bradford gained
10578-432: The introduction of machine-combing. This Industrial Revolution led to rapid growth, with wool imported in vast quantities for the manufacture of worsted cloth in which Bradford specialised, and the town soon became known as the wool capital of the world. A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Bradford Moor Barracks in 1844. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and
10707-545: The junction of three valleys, one of them, that of the Bradford Beck which rises in moorland to the west, and is swelled by its tributaries, the Horton Beck, Westbrook, Bowling Beck and Eastbrook. At the site of the original ford, the beck turns north, and flows towards the River Aire at Shipley . Bradfordale (or Bradforddale) is a name given to this valley (see for example Firth 1997 ). It can be regarded as one of
10836-473: The labour movement: [T]hese leaders have lost touch with the wide unskilled masses, with the toiling poor, they have become oblivious of the growth of capitalist exploitation and of the revolutionary aims of the proletariat. It seemed to them that because the capitalists treated them as equals, as partners in their transactions, the working class had secured equal rights with capital. Their own social standing secure and material position improved, they looked upon
10965-684: The lack of ILP backing for the election campaign led the CVLL to drift away from the ILP. In 1908, it renamed itself as the Colne Valley Socialist League , emphasising its political principles. The party sponsored Grayson in the Parliamentary seat at the January 1910 UK general election , again without Labour or ILP backing, causing Littlewood to resign, but Grayson was easily beaten, taking third place. The following year,
11094-542: The last years of the 19th century, four figures emerged on the NAC who remained at the centre of the party shaping its direction for the next 20 years. In addition to the beloved party leader Keir Hardie came the Scot Bruce Glasier , elected to the NAC in 1897 and succeeding Hardie as Chairman in 1900; Philip Snowden , an evangelical socialist from the West Riding , and Ramsay MacDonald , whose adhesion to
11223-414: The left and at the time, which cannot be lightly dismissed." Of course in a party of loose and diverse opinions, the essential nature of the organisation and its programme would always remain a matter of debate. Initial decisions about party organisation were rooted in an idea of strict democracy. These arguments did have some impact, as the conference held to set policy prior to the 1895 general election and
11352-476: The living wage differed from Labour practices. The ILP criticised the "Continental" method of paying wage allowances from employers' pools, which had been implemented in 1924 by Rhys Davies . The ILP proposed to redistribute the national income, meeting the cost of the allowances by taxing high income earners. The nationalisation of banking involved more significant changes to economic policy, and had nothing in common with Labour practices. The ILP proposed that once
11481-518: The locally based West Riding Power Loom Weavers' Association . On the proposal of two local trade unionists, George Henry Cotton and George Garside, the meeting agreed to form the Colne Valley Division Labour Union. Unlike the Bradford Labour Union organisation, it would cover a single Parliamentary constituency, and it was agreed to invite Tom Mann to contest it at the next general election. The first committee of
11610-440: The municipal borough of Bradford was created in 1847 there were 46 coal mines within its boundaries. Coal output continued to expand, reaching a peak in 1868 when Bradford contributed a quarter of all the coal and iron produced in Yorkshire. The population of the township in 1841 was 34,560. In 1825 the wool-combers union called a strike that lasted five-months but workers were forced to return to work through hardship leading to
11739-408: The name of Wm Morrison (Provisions) Limited . The grandest of the mills no longer used for textile production is Lister Mills , the chimney of which can be seen from most places in Bradford. It has become a beacon of regeneration after a £100 million conversion to apartment blocks by property developer Urban Splash . In 1989, copies of Salman Rushdie 's The Satanic Verses were burnt in
11868-593: The need for independent labour politics while working as a Gladstonian Liberal and trade union organiser in the Lanarkshire coalfield. Working with SDF members such as Henry Hyde Champion and Tom Mann he was instrumental in the foundation of the Scottish Labour Party in 1888. In 1890, the United States imposed a tariff on foreign cloth; this led to a general cut in wages throughout
11997-531: The news of the 1936 Abdication Crisis, after the Bishop of Bradford publicly expressed doubts about Edward VIII 's religious beliefs (see: Telegraph & Argus#1936 Abdication Crisis ). After the Second World War migrants came from Poland and Ukraine and since the 1950s from Bangladesh , India and particularly Pakistan . The textile industry has been in decline throughout the latter part of
12126-601: The night. Following the termination of World War I in November 1918, the Second International was effectively relaunched and the question of whether the ILP should affiliate with this renewed Second International or with some other international grouping loomed large. The majority of ILP members saw the old Second International as hopelessly compromised by its support for the European bloodbath of 1914, and
12255-562: The north western parts of the Yorkshire Coalfield which is mostly composed of carboniferous coal measures . The coal measures stimulated early urban development, in the modern day, geological extraction of minerals is heavily reduced in terms of scale. As with the vast majority of the UK , Bradford experiences a maritime climate ( Köppen : Cfb ), with limited seasonal temperature ranges, and generally moderate rainfall throughout
12384-403: The organisation consisted of George Garside (president), Kossuth Pogson (treasurer), George W. Haigh (secretary), W. H. Barber, Joseph Baxter, George Henry Cotton, Savile Hirst, Walter May, Ephraim Sykes, and James Sykes, with Sam Eastwood co-opted shortly afterwards. By the end of the year, some sympathetic non-trade unionists had also joined, including France Littlewood and Ben Shaw . Garside
12513-450: The organisation, the inaugural conference overwhelmingly accepted that the object of the party should be "to secure the collective and communal ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange ". The party's programme called for a range of progressive social reforms, including free "unsectarian" education "right up to the universities", the provision of medical treatment and school feeding programmes for children, housing reform,
12642-556: The party held public meetings, and approached prominent individuals who it believed might support it. The party's first electoral contest was the West Riding County Council election of 1892. From five possible candidates, the party selected George Garside, and he won the seat with 55.1% of the vote, defeating the Liberal Godfrey Woodhead. The party agreed to cover Garside's transport costs and loss of wages for attending council meetings. Following this, Tom Quarmby
12771-451: The party hope for the 1895 UK general election , but Mann was easily defeated, taking only 13.4% of the vote. Disappointed by the result, he withdrew from his connection with the CVLU, and contested by-elections in other seats he felt were better prospects. In 1897, the CVLU interviewed five possible successors to Mann as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate : Pete Curran , J. R. Clynes , Bruce Glasier , Leonard Hall and E. J. Sale. Sale
12900-470: The party over the ILP's refusal to support the British war effort. Among those breaking ranks were George Nicoll Barnes , J. R. Clynes , James Parker , George Wardle and G. H. Roberts . Others held true to the party and its principles. Ramsay MacDonald, a committed pacifist, immediately resigned the chairmanship of the Labour Party in the House of Commons. Keir Hardie, Philip Snowden, W. C. Anderson , and
13029-572: The policy of deflation practised by the Treasury and the Bank of England. Bradford Bradford is a city in West Yorkshire , England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the 1974 reform , the city status has belonged to the larger City of Bradford metropolitan borough . It had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 census , making it
13158-469: The power that the industry needed. Local sandstone was an excellent resource for building the mills, and with a population of 182,000 by 1850, the town grew rapidly as workers were attracted by jobs in the textile mills . A desperate shortage of water in Bradford Dale was a serious limitation on industrial expansion and improvement in urban sanitary conditions. In 1854 Bradford Corporation bought
13287-503: The progress of the movement". The conference also established the basic organisational structure of the new party. Annual Conferences, composed of delegates from each local unit of the organisation, were declared the "supreme and governing authority of the party". A Secretary was to be elected, to serve under the direct control of a central body known as the National Administrative Committee (NAC). This NAC
13416-467: The reputation of being the most polluted town in England. There were frequent outbreaks of cholera and typhoid, and only 30% of children born to textile workers reached the age of fifteen. This extreme level of infant and youth mortality contributed to a life expectancy for Bradford residents of just over eighteen years, which was one of the lowest in the country. Like many major cities Bradford has been
13545-486: The second-largest subdivision of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area after Leeds , which is approximately 9 miles (14 km) to the east. The borough had a population of 552,644, making it the 9th most populous district in England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire , the city grew in the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture , particularly wool . It
13674-556: The socialist intellectuals of the ILP, helped its constituent parts develop and grow. In contrast to the Orthodox Marxism of the SDF and its even more orthodox offshoots like the Socialist Labour Party and the Socialist Party of Great Britain , the ILP had a loose and inspirational flavour that made it relatively more easy to attract newcomers. Victor Grayson recalled a 1906 campaign in the Colne Valley which he
13803-596: The surrounding local areas, creating over 7,000 jobs, attracting a significant amount of tourists to the city and providing thousands of performance opportunities for local artists. The city played an important part in the early history of the Labour Party . A mural on the back of the Bradford Playhouse (visible from Leeds Road) commemorates the centenary of the founding of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, and quotes its motto "There
13932-494: The town by countryside. Blast furnaces were established in about 1788 by Hird, Dawson Hardy at Low Moor and iron was worked by the Bowling Iron Company until about 1900. Yorkshire iron was used for shackles, hooks and piston rods for locomotives, colliery cages and other mining appliances where toughness was required. The Low Moor Company also made pig iron and the company employed 1,500 men in 1929. when
14061-513: The trade unions was also problematic. In the 1890s the ILP was lacking in alliances with the trade union organisations. Individual rank and file trade unionists could be persuaded to join the party out of a political commitment shaped by their industrial experiences, but connection with top leaderships was lacking. The ILP played a central role in the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and when
14190-497: The world through the rose-coloured spectacles of a peaceful middle-class life. Disturbed in their peaceful trading with the representatives of the bourgeoisie by the revolutionary strivings of the proletariat they were the convinced enemies of the revolutionary aims of the proletariat. The ECCI instead made its appeal directly to "the communists of the Independent Labour Party", noting that "the revolutionary forces of England are split up" and urging them to unite with communist members of
14319-617: The world's first UNESCO City of Film and became part of the Creative Cities Network since then. The city has a long history of producing both films and the technology that produces moving film which includes the invention of the Cieroscope, which took place in Manningham in 1896. In 2010 Provident Financial opened its new headquarters in the city. The company has been based in the city since 1880. In 2012
14448-535: The year. Records have been collected since 1908 from the Met Office's weather station at Lister Park, a short distance north of the city centre. This constitutes one of the nation's longest unbroken records of daily data. The full record can be found on the council's website. The absolute maximum temperature recorded was 37.9 °C (100.2 °F) in July 2022 . In an 'average' year, the warmest day should attain
14577-477: Was Titus Salt who in 1833 took over the running of his father's woollen business specialising in fabrics combining alpaca , mohair , cotton and silk. By 1850 he had five mills. However, because of the polluted environment and squalid conditions for his workers Salt left Bradford and transferred his business to Salts Mill in Saltaire in 1850, where in 1853 he began to build the workers' village which has become
14706-588: Was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution , and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the "wool capital of the world"; this in turn gave rise to the nicknames "Woolopolis" and "Wool City". Lying in the eastern foothills of the Pennines , the area's access to supplies of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of a manufacturing base, which, as textile manufacture grew, led to an explosion in population and
14835-706: Was a philanthropist, he founded the Bradford Charity Organisation Society and the City Guild of Help. In 1910 Moser became the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Bradford. To support the textile mills , a large manufacturing base grew up in the town providing textile machinery, and this led to diversification with different industries thriving side by side. The Jowett Motor Company founded in the early 20th century by Benjamin and William Jowett and Arthur V Lamb, manufactured cars and vans in Bradford for 50 years. The Scott Motorcycle Company
14964-576: Was a political party based in the Colne Valley , in Yorkshire, in England. The first labour party organised on the basis of a Parliamentary constituency, it successfully backed Tom Mann as secretary of the Independent Labour Party , and Victor Grayson as the local Member of Parliament. Its successor is the Colne Valley Constituency Labour Party . On 16 November 1890, members of the Slaithwaite branch of
15093-417: Was a rural market town of 6,393 people, where wool spinning and cloth weaving were carried out in local cottages and farms. Bradford was thus not much bigger than nearby Keighley (5,745) and was significantly smaller than Halifax (8,866) and Huddersfield (7,268). This small town acted as a hub for three nearby townships – Manningham , Bowling and Great and Little Horton , which were separated from
15222-442: Was a stimulus to civic investment. There is a large amount of listed Victorian architecture in the city including the grand Italianate city hall . From the mid-20th century, deindustrialisation caused the city's textile sector and industrial base to decline and, since then, it has faced similar economic and social challenges to the rest of post-industrial Northern England , including poverty, unemployment and social unrest. It
15351-625: Was a well known producer of motorcycles and light engines for industry. Founded by Alfred Angas Scott in 1908 as the Scott Engineering Company in Bradford, Scott motorcycles were produced until 1978. The city played an important part in the early history of the Labour Party. A mural on the back of the Bradford Playhouse in Little Germany commemorates the centenary of the founding of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford in 1893. The Bradford Pals were three First World War Pals battalions of Kitchener's Army raised in
15480-419: Was defeated by a large margin by a counterproposal reaffirming the name "Independent Labour Party", moved by the logic that there were large numbers of workers not yet prepared to formally accept the doctrine of socialism who would nonetheless be willing to join and work for an organisation "established for the purpose of obtaining the independent representation of labour". Despite the apparent timidity in naming
15609-452: Was elected as its first chairman. About 130 delegates were in attendance at the conference, including, in addition to Hardie, such socialist and labour worthies as Alderman Ben Tillett , author George Bernard Shaw , and Edward Aveling , partner of Karl Marx 's daughter Eleanor and translator of his Das Kapital . Some 91 local branches of the Independent Labour Party were represented, joined by 11 local Fabian Societies , four branches of
15738-639: Was elected to Linthwaite School Board unopposed, on a platform of providing free books and providing education free of charge, while Pogson and Edwin Hoskins failed to win election to the Slaithwaite School Board. Mann showed some interest in contesting the Parliamentary seat, attending meetings of the party in August and October 1891, but initially he favoured focusing on trade unionism. He again showed interest early in 1892, after he lost
15867-496: Was in turn to be made up of regionally appointed delegates who were in theory confined to act according to the instructions given them by branch conferences. The new party was founded in a social environment of great hope and expectation. However, the first few years were difficult. The direction of the party, its leadership and organisation were heavily contested and the expected electoral progress did not emerge. The party did not fare well in its first major test of national support,
15996-839: Was part of the Yorkshire and the Humber European constituency, which elected six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) using the D'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation , until the UK exit from the European Union on 31 January 2020. In the final European Parliament election , in 2019, 29.9% of voters in Bradford chose the Brexit Party , with 28.8% voting Labour and 14.1% voting Liberal Democrat. The Conservatives only polled 6.7% and UKIP 3.7%. The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council has 90 councillors (2023). As of 2023,
16125-593: Was proud to have conducted "like a religious revival," without reference to specific political problems. Future party chairman Fenner Brockway later recounted the revivalist mood of the gatherings of his local ILP branch gathering in 1907: "On Sunday nights a meeting was conducted rather on the lines of the Labour Church Movement —we had a small voluntary orchestra, sang Labour songs and the speeches were mostly Socialist evangelism , emotion in denunciation of injustice, visionary in their anticipation of
16254-577: Was soon removed from contention, replaced by Frank Smith , but by 1899 the party decided not to run any candidate. By then, membership had slumped to only 83 and several branches had ceased functioning, but despite this, the party maintained its positions on the county council and school board, and increased its district council representation. The party was reorganised in 1900, becoming the Colne Valley Labour League (CVLL), and its membership again began increasing, particularly once
16383-419: Was soon renamed the Labour Party , and to which the ILP was affiliated from 1906 to 1932. In 1947, the organisation's three parliamentary representatives defected to the Labour Party, and the organisation rejoined Labour as Independent Labour Publications in 1975. As the nineteenth century came to a close, working-class representation in political office became a great concern for many Britons. Many who sought
16512-536: Was the Bedford Street area of Broomfields , which in 1861 contained 1,162 persons of Irish birth—19% of all Irish born persons in the Borough. During the 1820s and 1830s, there was immigration from Germany . Many were Jewish merchants and they became active in the life of the town. The Jewish community mostly living in the Manningham area of the town, numbered about 100 families but was influential in
16641-605: Was the leading figure in the party's organisation, while Gee was its main publicist, writing regularly for the Yorkshire Factory Times in its support. Over the first couple of years, the party worked to establish branches throughout the constituency; by the end of 1892, there were labour clubs in Slaithwaite, Honley , Marsden , Milnsbridge , Golcar and Longwood , which organised social events, and also lectures. While trade unions were generally weak in
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