Jack Jones http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPjonesJ.htm

  • Born: 29th March 1913, Liverpool

  • Died: 21st April 2009, age 96

  • Left school at 14

  • 1927, joined Labour party, and AEU (Amalgamated Society of Engineers)

  • Lost his job during Wall Street Crash

  • Became member of Transport and General Workers Union

  • Converted to socialism

  • 1931 became secretary of the Liverpool Labour College

  • 1936 he was appointed as a Labour councillor in Liverpool

  • June 1937, Jones decided to join the International Brigades

  • When he returned to England he became full-time official of Transport and General Workers Union

  • 1956 Cousins appointed him as Midland region engineering secretary.

  • 1963 Cousins brought him to London making him union's executive national officer

  • 1968 elected General Secretary of Transport and General Workers Union

  • 1978 retired as General Secretary of Transport and General Workers Union

  • President of the National Pensioners Convention up to 2001


Hugh Scanlon http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Hugh_Scanlon

  • Born: 26th October 1913, Melbourne

  • Died: 27th January 2004

  • Emigrated to Britain at the age of 2

  • Went to Stretford elementary school in Manchester and left at 14 to become an apprentice instrument maker where he first joined Amalgamated Engineering Union

  • 1937 joined Communist Party of Great Britain

  • became district official in 1947

  • left the Party in 1954 however he continued as a "broad left" candidate in the union

  • won leadership in 1968

  • Scanlon was against Britain's membership of the EEC

  • Scanlon's political beliefs led to him being effectively blacklisted by the British security service from 1966 to 1977

  • 1977 prevented from becoming chairman of British Shipbuilding

  • Two years earlier, was refused security clearance to joinBritish Gas Board, but later appointed after his files were examined.

  • elevated to the House of Lords in 1979, taking the title Baron Scanlon of Davyhulme in the County of Greater Manchester