WINSTONE, JAMES (1863 - 1921), miners' leader in South Wales;

Born at Risca, Monmouthshire, 1863, son of William and Hannah Winstone. He started to work at 8 years of age in a brick-works, and then at the Risca colliery. He had to leave owing to his trade union activities and went to Treharris. He was, however, appointed check–weighman at Risca, and in 1901, made miners' agent for the eastern valleys district. He was one of the founders of the South Wales Miners Federation and succeeded William Brace as president in 1915, which post he held until his death in 1921. In 1917 he visited Canada as a representative of the British trade union movement. He unsuccessfully fought three Parliamentary elections, Monmouth boroughs in 1906, and as Anti-Coalition candidate in the by-election in Merthyr boroughs in 1915, and again in the same constituency in 1919.

He was a member of the Risca and, later, the Abersychan urban district council, and in 1906 was elected to the Monmouthshire county council, of which, in 1919, he became an alderman, and in 1920, the chairman. He was also vice-chairman of the education committee, and a justice of the peace for Monmouthshire. He was married at Newport in 1886 to Sarah Jane Iven. They had seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Winstone was a Baptist and was prominent in the Nonconformist and Temperance movements. He died in London, after an operation, 27 July 1921.

Author

• Professor Huw Morris-Jones, (1912)

Sources

• Information from R. Winstone, S. O. Davies, and Margaret S. Taylor (Merthyr Public Library)
• South Wales News and Western Mail, 28 July 1921
• Who's who in Wales, 1920

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: James Winstone

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q6145721

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/