23 Facts About Jimmy Knapp

Jimmy Knapp was successively General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen from 1983, and then of the merged National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers from 1990 to his death in 2001.

Jimmy Knapp served on the executive board of the International Transport Workers' Federation from 1983 to 2001, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress from 1983 to 2001, and was President of the Trades Union Congress in 1994.

Jimmy Knapp was born into a railway family in Hurlford, Ayrshire one of two boys.

Jimmy Knapp was educated at Hurlford primary school and Kilmarnock Academy.

Jimmy Knapp learned his politics at a Socialist Sunday school.

Jimmy Knapp married Sylvia Florence Yeomans in 1965 and together they had a daughter.

Jimmy Knapp married his second wife Eva Leigh, shortly before he died.

Jimmy Knapp loved football and supported Kilmarnock FC and Crystal Palace FC.

Jimmy Knapp lived in West Wickham, and died of cancer in the Bromley, Greater London, aged 60.

Jimmy Knapp was survived by his second wife Eva, his first wife Sylvia and their daughter Fiona.

Jimmy Knapp was the last person in Britain to have a full railway funeral in honour of the work he had done, and was carried from London to Glasgow by train with a piper to pipe him on and off the train at either end for burial in Hurlford in August 2001.

Jimmy Knapp left school aged 15 in 1955 to work in the signal box in Gatehead walking 4.5 miles each way in all weather to get there.

Jimmy Knapp rose through the union ranks, becoming a full-time union official at the age of 31.

Jimmy Knapp moved to London in 1972 to work as a divisional officer and worked in the NUR headquarters from 1981.

When Sid Weighell resigned in 1983, Jimmy Knapp was the successful left-wing candidate to replace him as General Secretary of the NUR.

Jimmy Knapp had been a relatively junior union officer, having failed an exam to become assistant general secretary.

Jimmy Knapp improved the NUR's relations with other rail unions, including ASLEF, and fought against closure proposed in the Serpell report on railway finances.

Jimmy Knapp offered strong public support to Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1984 Miners' Strike, with NUR members refusing to work on coal trains, but sought to make the union comply with new trades union legislation, particularly the Trade Union Act 1984 introduced to require secret ballots as a result of the Miner's Strike.

The NUR merged with the National Union of Seamen in 1990 to become the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, and Jimmy Knapp continued as General Secretary of the merged union.

Jimmy Knapp opposed rail privatisation in the early 1990s but the Conservative government forced the policy through.

Jimmy Knapp defeated a challenge for the union leadership in 1999 from Greg Tucker, winning a fourth five-year term as General Secretary.

Jimmy Knapp served as a director of the Trade Union Unit Trust from 1984, and on the board of the Unity Trust Bank from 1984, becoming its president in 1989.

Jimmy Knapp was President of the Trades Union Congress in 1994.