Sir Herbert Edwin Blain (14 May 1870 – 16 December 1942) was a British local government administrator, safety campaigner, political agent and businessman who played a pioneering role in the development of 'white-collar' trade unionism amongst municipal workers.
Blain's organising activities establishing inclusive local government associations at Liverpool and West Ham led to his pivotal involvement in the formation in 1905 of a national body representing local government 'white collar' workers. In the period 1913 to early 1924 Blain held prominent positions in a corporate group integral to London's transport system. He was actively involved in transport and safety matters during this period. From about May 1924 to late 1926 Blain was the principal agent of the Conservative Party, appointed after the party's defeat at the December 1923 general election and given to task of modernising the party organisation. From the late 1920s Blain was a director of various companies.
Biography
Early years
Herbert Edwin Blain was born on 14 May 1870 at Liverpool in county Lancashire, the son of Arbuthnot Harrison Blain and Elizabeth (née Stalker). His father was a chemist and druggist. Herbert was educated at Liverpool Technical School.'Blain, Herbert Edward (1870-1942), Liverpool Footprints website; accessed 11 November 2024.'Sir Herbert Blain' (obituary), The Times (London), 18 December 1942, page 7.
Local government
In 1886 Blain began his working career as a clerk working for the Liverpool Corporation, the local government authority for the city of Liverpool. During his time with the Liverpool Corporation, Blain rose to become the principal traffic assistant of the tramways department.
Herbert Blain married Clara Louisa Brake on 26 October 1892. The couple had one child, a son named Eric born in May 1904.Family records, Ancestry.com.
Blain was skilled in shorthand and during the 1890s he held prominent roles in the National Federation of Shorthand Writers Associations, serving at various times as secretary, treasurer and president.
In 1896, on his own initiative, Blain formed the Liverpool Municipal Officers' Guild, an association which opened its membership to all local government officers in the city, regardless of grade "from the town clerk to the office boy". The objectives of the Liverpool guild was to "provide means for social intercourse amongst its members, and for their improvement, advancement, and recreation, also promote a knowledge of the principles of local government". It was the first inclusive association of local government officers in Britain, as previous associations limited membership to chief and senior officers or had a narrow objective to implement pensions. In order to secure its position, Blain appointed prominent local officials and politicians to honorary positions in the guild. He persuaded Sir William Forwood, a prominent Liverpool merchand and previous Lord Mayor of the city, to take on the role of the guild's first honorary president. The Liverpool Municipal Officers' Guild organised a wide range of social, educational and sporting activities for its members and their families.Alec Spoor (1967), pages 13-15. Within a short period the guild, with Blain as its chairman, proved to be an efficiently run and highly successful friendly society with 1,200 members, supported by their employers. The success of the Liverpool guild encouraged Blain to extend the idea to other local authorities. Over the next few years he worked with staff at other authorities, resulting in similar guilds being formed at localities such as Hull, Derby, Oldham, Tunbridge Wells and Macclesfield.
NALGO
With the growing success of local government employees' guilds, Blain began to envisage the possibility of forming a national organisation linking the local guilds. In 1902 the vice-chairman of the Municipal Officers' Association (MOA), a London-based organisation formed in 1894 with the singular purpose of seeking legislative reform to establish pensions for local government officers, travelled to Liverpool to invite the guild to join forces with the MOA. Since its formation the MOA had been frustrated in its attempts to establish pensions for local government officers, resulting in falling membership numbers. Blain and his colleagues had minimal interest in superannuation, as Liverpool was one of only a few local authorities giving pensions to its staff, but nevertheless agreed to join with the MOA. In October 1903 the MOA and the Liverpool guild sent a joint circular to all known guilds, urging the transformation, "on a large and influential scale", of the Municipal Officers' Association into a national body. The stated aims of the association included pensions for all officers, transferable between authorities, and greater security of tenure.Alec Spoor (1967), pages 15-16.'To-Day', The Times (London), 15 February 1895, page 9; 'Municipal Officers' Association', The Times, 20 March 1896, page 11.
Several weeks prior to the joint circular being sent, Blain had left Liverpool to become manager of the newly-created tramways department at West Ham in east London. After his arrival he joined the MOA, but found the organisation in a moribund state, with dissolution a distinct possibility. Bringing his organisational skills to bear, Blain met with the MOA president and solicitor to the City of London Corporation, Sir Homewood Crawford, and persuaded him to oppose dissolution in favour of a reorganised national body. In June 1904 a reorganisation committee was formed, with Blain as chairman. At a meeting in November 1904 a new executive was elected, with Blain as vice-chairman, determined to restructure the MOA along Liverpool lines.Alec Spoor (1967), pages 16-18.
On 29 July 1905 a conference was held at the Inns of Court Hotel in High Holborn, attended by fourteen men representing seven provincial guilds (Bolton, Derby, Hull, Midlands, Oldham, Peterborough and Woolwich), the MOA and the Institute of Municipal and County Engineers. The Liverpool guild was not represented, but had sent a message approving the proposals to be put to the meeting. Blain was elected chairman. The meeting resulted in the formation of the National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO), with an initial membership of five thousand, pledged to work for pensions, security of tenure, and "other matters of national importance" to its members, as well as "to encourage the interest and working of district and local associations and guilds". Within three months after the inaugural meeting the first National Executive Council, representing the founding guilds plus West Ham, Ilford and Bradford, met at Derby. The meeting created 'missionary' sub-committees to encourage and assist the formation of new guilds. Two months later the MOA was subsumed into NALGO.Alec Spoor (1967), page 19.
In 1906 Blain approached the publishers Hodgetts Ltd. and persuaded them to convert their weekly magazine, The Public Health Engineer, to become NALGO's official journal, renamed The Local Government Officer and Contractor. By this stage NALGO's membership had reached ten thousand, so the increased circulation had the potential to boost advertising revenue. The journal was published under its new name in September 1906.Alec Spoor (1967), pages 24-25. Blain contributed a weekly column to the journal using the pen-name 'A Candid Friend'.Alec Spoor (1967), page 28.
In the early years of NALGO its leaders "repeatedly and emphatically disavowed every suggestion that the Association was or might become a trade union".Alec Spoor (1967), page 47. NALGO had been founded and was being run predominantly by the chief officers of local government bodies, most of whom were politically conservative, and it was generally considered that NALGO and local authorities were mutually supportive of each other. In general municipal officers considered themselves to be socially superior to the workers in manual or skilled professions, for whom trade unions had been established. To call themselves 'trade unionists' would have been a renouncement of status for municipal employees, allying themselves with socialism and the extremes of industrial action.Alec Spoor (1967), page 48.
In 1908, however, the cosy relationship between NALGO and municipal authorities was put under strain. In October 1908 East Ham Council announced its intention to dismiss twenty-two officers, as well as reduce the wages and conditions of employment of the remainder of its staff, causing anger and consternation amongst the NALGO membership. The announcement had been made less than a month before the municipal election, which Blain saw as an opportunity. He enlisted the support of Francis May, the editor of the Municipal Journal, to assist in opposing the election of every councillor who had supported the dismissals, each of them members of the 'Municipal Alliance' party. May was not a member of NALGO, nor a local government officer, so his involvement was seen as detached and objective. Members of neighbouring guilds were mobilised to act as election agents for rival candidates, to canvass for them and write speeches. Blain's tactics proved to be highly successful. Each 'Municipal Alliance' councillor who had supported the cuts was defeated. The new council rescinded its predecessors' decisions and agreed to retain the dismissed staff.Alec Spoor (1967), pages 50-52.
During his years of municipal service at West Ham, Blain was a member of the executive of the Municipal Tramways Association and served as its president during the period 1910 to 1913.'Obituary', Electrical Review, 25 December 1942, page 821.'The late Sir Herbert Blain', The Railway Gazette, 1 January 1943, pages 1-2.'Personal', The Surveyor and Municipal and County Engineer, 6 June 1913, page 881. The West Ham Corporation Tramways hosted the 1912 annual conference of the Municipal Tramways Association in September that year.'West Ham's First Trolleybus' by John Prentice, Tramway Information website; accessed 18 November 2024.
Transport and safety
In June 1913 Blain left local government employment and became the purchasing agent for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London Ltd. In the following October he was appointed operating manager of the London General Omnibus Company, recently-acquired by the Underground Railways Company, and in January 1915 he was appointed as the operating manager for the whole of the group's transport system, comprising railways, buses and tramways. During World War I Blain assisted in providing motor transport and personnel, in training drivers for the Army Services Corps and providing air raid shelter facilities.Martin Gilbert (1979), Winston S. Churchill, Volume V: The Exchequer Years 1922-1929, London: William Heinemann Ltd., page 177.
In early December 1916 Blain was responsible for organising a conference at Caxton Hall in Westminster, "with a view to lessening the dangers of street traffic". A resolution was passed at the meeting to form the London "Safety First" Council, the first meeting which was held in January 1917. Blain was elected as one of the honorary secretaries of the body.'"Safety First" Street Campaign', The Times (London), 24 November 1916, page 5; 'White Armlets at Night', The Times, 16 January 1917, page 5.
In about October 1918 the British Industrial "Safety First" Association was formed "with the object of preventing industrial accidents". Blain served as the honorary secretary of the association.'News in Brief', The Times (London), 4 November 1918, page 5; 'Organising Secretary required...', The Times, 29 August 1919, page 3.
In October 1920 Blain was invested as a Commander (civil division) of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE).'Court Circular', The Times (London), 13 October 1920, page 13.