Ness Edwards

Ness Edwards (5 April 1897 – 3 May 1968) was a trade unionist and Welsh Labour Party politician: he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Caerphilly from July 1939 until his death.

He was born in Abertillery, Monmouthshire, Wales, the second of six children of Onesimus Edwards Snr and his wife Ellen.

A coal miner and trade unionist, he started work at the Penybont colliery on 5 April 1910, his 13th birthday.^[1] By the age of 17 he was elected chairman of the miners lodge at the Arriel Griffin colliery.

In 1917, at the age of 20, he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector to military service in the First World War. He had joined the Independent Labour Party in 1915, and through the ILP he came into contact with the No Conscription Fellowship. When conscription was introduced in 1916, Ness Edwards' conscientious objections to compulsory service were 'absolutist' and based on his trade union and socialist principles. He was treated harshly - imprisoned with hard labour at Dartmoor and later at Wormwood Scrubs, beaten in Brecon barracks and chased naked by soldiers with fixed bayonets, forced to work in stone quarries in freezing weather.^[2]

He was elected to Parliament at the 1939 Caerphilly by-election, following the death of Labour MP and fellow conscientious objector Morgan Jones. Edwards remained as Caerphilly's MP until his death in 1968.

At the beginning of World War II Edwards was instrumental in helping Czech miners escape the Sudetenland.

An associate of Aneurin Bevan and Jim Griffiths, Edwards was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service from 1945 to 1950 and Postmaster General from 1950 to 1951. In 1948 he became a member of the Privy Council.^[3]

In 1925 Ness Edwards married Elina Victoria Williams, one of six children of Richard Williams, a county court bailiff, and his wife Anne Davies, of Bridgend. His daughter Llin Golding, born 'Llinos', was Labour MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1986 to 2001: she was appointed to the House of Lords in 2001 as Baroness Golding

Ness Edwards died at Caerphilly Miners' Hospital on 3 May 1968, aged 71.^[3]

Works

• (1920) "Some Thoughts on Tactics" Workers' Dreadnought Vol. VII No. 18 24 July 1920
• (1938) History of the South Wales Miners' Federation; vol. 1. Lawrence & Wishart,
• (1958) "Is this the road?"; Cambrian Press, Hughes (1 Jan. 1956)

References

1. "Ness Edwards". Archives Hub. JISC. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
2. Kenneth O. Morgan Revolution to Devolution: Reflections on Welsh Democracy (2014) Ch. 5, pp 162-3
3. "Ness Edwards dies, aged 71". South Wales Echo. 3 May 1968. p. 1.

• Davies, J., (2001). EDWARDS, NESS (1897 - 1968), trade unionist and Member of Parliament. Dictionary of Welsh Biography. Retrieved 19 Dec 2021, from https://biography.wales/article/s2-EDWA-NES-1897. (With links to photographs and election literature held by the National Library of Wales)
• Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918-1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages ^{[self-published source] [better source needed]}

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Morgan Jones	Member of Parliament for Caerphilly 1939–1968	Succeeded by Fred Evans
Trade union offices
Preceded by Hubert Jenkins	Agent for the East Glamorgan District of the South Wales Miners' Federation 1932–1934	Post abolished
Preceded by Bryn Roberts	Agent for the Rhymney Valley District of the South Wales Miners' Federation 1934–1939 With: Albert Thomas	Succeeded by Will Paynter