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First
published in 1925, My Life's Battles is a classic memoir of a great working
class leader, Will Thorne, founder of the Gasworkers' Union and Labour MP
for West Ham for nearly forty years. Thorne's moving tale of his commitment
to improve the living and working conditions of the people of the East End
and elsewhere is told in a lively style - learned in part from Eleanor Marx
with whom he worked closely.
As secretary of the Canning Town branch of the Social-Democratic Federation, Thorne mixed with some of the most famous and influential early socialists - Tom Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.M Hyndman, Edward Aveling and Frederick Engels among them.
His most important contribution to the labour movement, however, was as one of the founders of the 'New Unionism' which, in the late 1880's, organised semi- and unskilled workers for the first time. With Ben Tillett, John Burns and others, Thorne fought for the eight-hour day and to establish decent working conditions for gasworkers, dockers and others.
He takes his story through the winning of a majority Labour council in West Ham, his own election to Parliament, the disarray of the labour movement on the outbreak of the First world War and his visit to revolutionary Russia
With a Foreword by J. R. Clynes
Introduction by John Saville