- George Isaacs
George Alfred Isaacs JP DL (
28 May 1883 –26 April 1979 ) was a Britishpolitician and trades unionist who served in the government ofClement Attlee .Isaacs was born in
Finsbury to aMethodist family. He married Flora Beasley in 1905. He worked as a printer and became active in trade union organising early in life, becomingGeneral Secretary of theNational Society of Operative Printers and Assistants (NATSOPA) from 1909. This post, which he held for forty years, also took him onto the General Council of theTrades Union Congress . He was also active in the Labour Party.He became involved in local politics in
Southwark and was Mayor of the Borough of Southwark from 1919 to 1921. In the 1922 general election he fought Gravesend and was narrowly defeated; he was readopted to fight the seat in the 1923 election and won it from the Conservatives with a majority of 119. He served asParliamentary Private Secretary to Jimmy Thomas, who wasSecretary of State for the Colonies .In the 1924 election Isaacs lost his seat, but when in 1927 the sitting Labour MP for Southwark North resigned after leaving the party, he was the natural choice to be the new candidate. However Isaacs failed to take the seat in the byelection and had to wait until the 1929 general election to return to Parliament. Thomas, now
Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs , reappointed him as Parliamentary Private Secretary.When Thomas joined
Ramsay Macdonald in the National Government, Isaacs remained with the Labour Party, and in consequence again lost his seat in the 1931 general election when the Labour Party was heavily defeated. He failed by 79 votes to regain his seat in 1935. Concentrating on union affairs through the 1930s, Isaacs was appointed to aRoyal Commission on Workmen's Compensation in 1938. In 1945 he was President of the World Trade Union Conference.After the MP for Southwark North died in 1939, Isaacs was finally able to regain the seat. When Labour formed the government after the 1945 election, he was appointed Minister of Labour and National Service. From January 1951 he was Minister of Pensions.
Isaacs retired from Parliament in 1959. He had long since moved to East Molesey in
Surrey where he served as aDeputy Lieutenant and as aJustice of the Peace . He was eventually Chairman of the Surrey Bench of Magistrates.References
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