Thomas Robert Threlfall (6 October 1852 – fl.1932),British Library, Royal Literary Fund Archive, Loan 96 RLF 1/2943. known as T. R. Threlfall, was a British trade unionist and Liberal-Labour politician.
Threlfall was elected as a member of the Southport Town Council, and as President of Southport Trades Council.W. W. Bean, The parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England, p.1078 He was also active in the Typographical Association, and championed the idea of working men standing for election to Parliament. In 1885, he persuaded the Association to sponsor two candidates: Frederick Maddison, and Threlfall himself,Albert Edward Musson, The Typographical Association: origins and history up to 1949, p.349 who stood for the Liberal Party at the 1886 general election in Sheffield Hallam.
In 1885, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was held in Southport, and Threlfall was elected to serve as its President.Frank Herbert Rose, The coming force: the labour movement, p.46 At the following congress, he convinced the TUC to form a Labour Electoral Committee, to sponsor candidates for election to Parliament.Keith Laybourn, The rise of socialism in Britain, c. 1881-1951, p.27 He served as the body's first Secretary, and focused his activity on forming local labour electoral organisations, affiliated to the national body. The committee was renamed as the "Labour Electoral Association",Matthew Worley, The Foundations of the British Labour Party, pp.97-98 and although it championed representation through the Liberal Party, it did sponsor Keir Hardie's independent candidacy at the 1888 Mid Lanarkshire by-election.James G. Kellas, THE MID-LANARK BY-ELECTION (1888) AND THE SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY (1888-1894)
Threlfall stood for Parliament again, as a Lib-Lab candidate, in Liverpool Kirkdale at the 1892 general election, but he was again unsuccessful.G. D. H. Cole, British Working Class Politics, 1832-1914, p.116 Given its generally disappointing results, the body declined in importance, although Threlfall remained its Secretary until it was wound up, in 1895.G. D. H. Cole, British Working Class Politics, 1832-1914, p.113
Threlfall was subsequently appointed as a magistrate in Southport.John Shepherd, "James Bryce and the Recruitment of Working-Class Magistrates in Lancashire, 1892–4", Historical Research, Vol. 52, No. 126 He also took up literature. The Sword of Allah, published in 1899, was described by the Saturday Review as an "illiterate shocker",The Saturday Review, Vol. 88, p.209 and The Strange Adventures of a Magistrate was published in 1903.The Publishers' circular and booksellers' record of British and foreign literature, Vol. 80, p.338 In 1900, he wrote an article for The Nineteenth Century, in which he proclaimed that the Senussi would lead a holy war against Britain and France."Things Warlike", The Evening Post, 5 May 1900 He applied unsuccessfully to the Royal Literary Fund in 1914 and successfully in 1929 and 1932.British Library, Royal Literary Fund Archive, Case Files Loan 96 RLF 1/2943 and Loan 96 1/3344.
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