Ben Turner

Sir Ben Turner CBE (1863 – 30 September 1942) was an English trade unionist and Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Morley from 1922 to 1924 and from 1929 to 1931. Born in Holmfirth, Turner later claimed that his family had connections to the Chartist and Luddite movements. He became a textile worker, and first joined a trade union in 1883, when he has involved in a strike of weavers in Huddersfield. He worked as a full-time union organiser from 1889. Turner was Secretary of the Heavy Woollen district branch of the West Riding of Yorkshire Power Loom Weavers' Association from 1892, then General President of the General Union of Textile Workers and its successor, the National Union of Textile Workers, from 1902 to 1933. A supporter of independent workers' representation, Turner was elected to a local school board in 1892, and was a founder member of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. Also that year, he was elected to Batley Town Council, serving for many years, including a stint as Mayor of Batley from 1913 to 1916.