John
Hodge,
the son of a puddler at the local iron works, was born in Linkeyburn,
Ayrshire, on 29th October 1855. His father, William Hodge, was active
in trade union activities and as a result of being victimized, was
unable to find work in the area. Hodge moved his family to Glasgow
and John attended the Hutcheson's Boys' Grammar School.
At the age of thirteen Hodge left school and
became a solicitor's clerk. He also worked in a grocer's shop before
settling down in the same trade as his father. Hodge worked in Coatbridge
and Motherwell and it was not until he was nearly thirty that he became
involved in trade union activities.
In 1885 Hodge and his fellow workers at Colville
Works in Motherwell, were told they had to accept a 20% wage reduction.
The workers responded by forming the British Steel Smelters' Association
(BSSA), and elected Hodge as their secretary. Although there was a
National Amalgamated Association of Ironworkers in existence, the
union had no members in Scotland.
The growth of Hodge's union was rapid and by the summer of 1886 virtually
every smelter in Scotland had joined. Hodge now began recruiting workers
from England and Wales and by 1888 the union had 750 members and had
joined the Trade Union Congress. With so many
members Hodge was in a good position to negotiate good wage increases
with large firms such as the Steel Company of Scotland. The BSSA was
rarely involved in costly industrial disputes and Hodge's considerable
success at persuading employers to accept his demands encouraged more
men to join the union. The BSSA was particularly strong in Lancashire,
Lincolnshire and the Midlands.
Hodge also had ambitions to enter the House
of Commons. He failed several times as a Liberal
but in 1906 General Election he won at Gorton,
Manchester, for the Labour
Party. In Parliament he was mainly concerned with trade union
issues but at the outbreak of the First World
War he took a strongly patriotic position and derided Labour
Party leaders such as James Keir Hardie
and Ramsay MacDonald that called for
a negotiated peace. Hodge was also a sharp critic of those unions
that went on strike during the war.
When David Lloyd George replaced Herbert
Asquith as Prime Minister in 1916, Hodge was appointed as Minister
of Labour
in the new government. Hodge was a useful acquisition as he was now
arguing that any industrial action in wartime was equal to treason.
When a group of Liverpool boilermakers
went on strike, Hodge sent them a telegraph warning them he intended
charging them under the Defence of the
Realm Act. The threat succeeded and the men went back to work.
Although a member of the Cabinet, John
Hodge retained his position as leader of the BSSA. With a membership
of 36,000, the union moved its head office from Glasgow
to London. Other unions is the steel and
iron industry had complained for years about Hodge poaching their
members but in 1916 they accepted defeat and agreed to form the British
Iron, Steel & Kindred Trades Association. Hodge was elected president
of this new union.
The Labour Party in Gorton was unhappy with
the way Hodge had behaved in government and in the 1918
General Election selected another candidate to represent the constituency.
Hodge now used his negotiating skills to persuade the constituency
party to change its mind in return for promises made about future
behaviour. The Conservative Party,
declined to put up a candidate against Hodge so he was returned by
a large majority.
Although Hodge was also elected in the 1922 General
Election his attendance in the House of
Commons after the First World War
was poor and he rarely spoke in debates. He retired from Parliament
at the 1923 General Election but retained
his position as president of the Iron & Steel Trades Confederation.
Hodge upset many trade unionists by refusing
to support the 1926 General Strike and
after coming under considerable pressure from union members, finally
resigned in 1931. John
Hodge died at Bexhill on 10th August 1937.
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