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Arthur James Cook was a British trade unionist, revolutionary and politician who served as the first Chairman of the Union of Britain from its founding in 1925 to his retirement in 1931. Under his administration, Britain transitioned to a socialist state governed by the Labour Party and its affiliates. Cook remained ideologically fluid throughout his life, having been raised in a Liberal household and then associating with syndicalism in his youth before joining the Independent Labour Party, which he remained a member of until he died. Following its formation, Cook joined the Syndicalist Party of Great Britain but later left, due to a disagreement over disciplinary policy, though he continued to work closely with the party and its successors, later professing that he remained a syndicalist all his life.
Cook was born in the Southwest of England and became involved in the Baptist church though later migrated to the South of Wales for work among the rapidly expanding mining industry. Following his conversion to socialism, Cook became involved with the local trade union movement and quickly became a popular figure among the Rhondda miners, joining the growing radical and syndicalist current, in opposition to the traditional leadership. During the post-war era, Cook experienced a rapid rise through the ranks of the trade union movement, graduating from a leading miners agent to serve as SWMF representative on the MFGB Executive in 1920, two years later he was elected as the General Secretary of the MFGB amid the 1922 Miners Strike. Cook became a leading trade unionist on the national stage and went on to lead the miners into the bitter struggles of the 1924 Miners Strike, the prelude to the dramatic events of the British Revolution. As civil war unfolded, Cook became one of the nation's leading revolutionaries and was elected Chairman of the revolutionary government, going on to form an "all-socialist" coalition of the leading factions within the wider labour movement. Following the end of the Civil War, Cook was successfully re-elected as Chairman of a newly reconstituted TUC.
In his post-revolutionary government, Cook sought to continue the coalition of Labour and its affiliates, though it became dominated by the Independent Labour Party in a ministerial and ideological capacity. Responding to wartime devastation and the burgeoning for reconstruction, Cook encouraged economic growth through the Cook-Maxton Manifesto in 1926 which established a mixed economy. Several political issues rocked the Cook government, notably on the maintaining a doctrine of Free Trade; the abortive attempts to establish a post-Imperial successor organisation; the Scottish Home Rule Referendum; Britain's future on the world stage; the controversial re-adoption of the Gold Standard and the continuing unemployment crisis. Cook's government suffered a further blow with the death of Deputy Chairman John Wheatley and by the end of the year, Cook announced he would resign as Leader of the Labour Party due to his own declining health and would not seek re-election; he was succeeded by Tom Mann. Following his resignation, Cook retired to his native Somerset and lived as a recluse before a surprise attendance at the 1931 Labour Party conference. His health failing, he died shortly after.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Arthur James Cook Cook was born on 22 November 1883, in Wookey, Somerset to Tom Cook, a serving member of the British Army, and Selina Brock, a self-employed dressmaker and devout Baptist who volunteered with the Salvation Army. Cook was the first of ten children to be born, with his name and birth officially registered in the nearby city of Wells, on New Years Day, 1884. Owing to Tom Cook's profession, the family briefly changed residences during Cook's early years before settling in the town of Cheddar and purchasing a property on Silver Street. In Cheddar, the Cook's established a successful Market Garden business and Cook was enrolled in the Cheddar National School. However, in his memoirs, Cook commented that while the scenery of the Mendips was "indeed idyllic", his home life was less so. Cook had a poor relationship with his father, which then worsened with the arrival of additional siblings, and Selina Cook sought to ease the strain by finding employment for her son. He was promptly employed by local farmer and fellow baptist, Caleb Durbin.
At the age of twelve, took up employment as a labourer on Durbin's farm and took up residence with his employer, so as to rise early enough for cow milking. Cook later testified that "Durbin was his real school-master", owing to his lessons on morality and rhetoric. Likewise, Durbin had procured a large library - which he made available to his employee - and started Cook's reading with Smiles' Self-Help before moving onto Shakespeare, Ruskin, Cobden and Bright. Cook later described Durbin as "a Radical - almost the only Radical in a village of Tories". Inspired by his Baptist faith, and with the encouragement of his mother and Durbin, Cook became a noted boy preacher within Somerset. Per his commitments, Cook would tour chapels across the county, addressing Sunday School classes and adult congregations to deliver religious sermons. In his memoirs, he claimed "like so many other labour leaders of the day, I too learned to speak at the Pulpit." Cook's preaching had garnered attention and in 1901, he had been offered a place at a Baptist college, to train for the Ministry. According to his sister, Ms. Louise Cook, this would have pleased his mother but Cook had already decided to leave Somerset to seek a new life in South Wales. Cook's motivations were largely pecuniary, in a 1926 radio interview he recalled that Durbin could no longer pay decent wages and farm work did not appeal to him. Likewise, his father had fallen ill and his mother had been burdened with the care of the rest of his siblings. Having "saved up £5 and a box filled with sermons", Cook and some friends joined a mass migration of disaffected farm-workers from the Southwest of England for South Wales on a promise of better wages.