Philip Snowden
Viscount Snowden of Ickornshaw
1864-1937
A Brief Introduction
“He came limping into the lists on foot a pallid hatchet faced young man, and leaning heavily on a stick, one foot dragging helplessly on the ground. Philip Snowden wrought a miracle. That election will never be forgotten by those who saw it, men in their greasy caps, and carrying their ‘kits’ (a metal container for carrying liquid, usually tea, the top of which could be taken off and used as a cup and were often enamelled) hurried from the mills to his meetings, and sat as if hypnotised”.
Thus wrote A. G. Gardiner in his book ‘Prophets, Priests, Kings’. He had been Assistant Editor of the Northern Daily Telegraph in 1900 when Snowden stood for election in Blackburn.
He went from a working-class family to Chancellor of the Exchequer and became the first Labour M.P. for Blackburn. One of the Party’s first twenty-nine M.P.’s, who would end expelled from the Party he helped to form.
How did this come about?
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