John Elliot Burns was an English trade unionist and politician, particularly associated with London politics and Battersea.
32 Facts About John Burns
2.
John Burns was a socialist and then a Liberal Member of Parliament and Minister.
3.
John Burns attended a national school in Battersea until he was ten years old.
4.
John Burns then had a succession of jobs until he was fourteen years old and started a seven-year apprenticeship to an engineer at Millbank and continued his education at night-schools.
5.
John Burns read extensively, especially the works of Robert Owen, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine and William Cobbett.
6.
John Burns began practising outdoor speaking, with the advantage of exceptional physical strength and a strong voice.
7.
John Burns worked at his trade in various parts of England, having joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in 1879.
8.
John Burns worked on a ship, and went for a year to the West African coast at the mouth of the Niger as a foreman engineer for the United Africa Company.
9.
John Burns disapproved of treatment of Africans and spent his earnings on a six months' tour to study political and economic conditions in France, Germany and Austria.
10.
In 1884 John Burns was elected to the Social Democratic Federation's executive council.
11.
John Burns stood for Parliament in the 1885 General Election at Nottingham West but was unsuccessful.
12.
John Burns was arrested and later acquitted at the Old Bailey of charges of conspiracy and sedition.
13.
John Burns was arrested again the following year on 13 November 1887 for resisting police attempts to break up an unlicensed meeting in Trafalgar Square.
14.
The demonstration ended in the 'Bloody Sunday' clashes; John Burns was imprisoned for six weeks.
15.
John Burns was still working at his trade in Hoe's printing machine works and was an active member of the executive of the Amalgamated Engineers' Union.
16.
John Burns devoted his efforts against private monopolies and introduced a motion in 1892 that all contracts for the County Council should be paid at trade union rates and carried out under trade union conditions.
17.
John Burns was connected with the Trades Union Congresses until 1895.
18.
John Burns displayed fervent Parliamentary opposition to the Second Boer War.
19.
John Burns became well known as an independent Radical, but while fellow socialist Keir Hardie argued for the formation of a new political party, John Burns remained aligned with the Liberal Party.
20.
John Burns remained proud of his working-class roots, declaring to the Commons in a speech in 1901: "I am not ashamed to say that I am the son of a washerwoman".
21.
John Burns was sworn into the Privy Council in 1905.
22.
In 1914 John Burns was appointed President of the Board of Trade, but on 2 August 1914, just two days before Britain declared war on Germany, signalling the start of the First World War, John Burns resigned from the government in protest.
23.
John Burns played no role in the war and left parliament in 1918.
24.
John Burns has been described as an antisemite by scholars of Jewish history such as David Feldman, Colin Holmes, Robert Wistrich and Anthony Julius.
25.
Later, John Burns declared in Parliament that "wherever we examine, there is the financial Jew, operating, directing, inspiring the agencies that have led to this war".
26.
John Burns deplored the British Army which had, in his view, been transformed from the "Sir Galahad of History" into the "janissary of the Jews".
27.
In 1902, John Burns further denounced "syndicated Jews who don't fight but do know how to rob".
28.
John Burns remarked during a tour of the East End that "the undoing of England is within the confines of our afternoon's journey amongst the Jews".
29.
In 1900, David Lindsay recorded John Burns telling him that he believed that the "Jew is the tapeworm of civilisation".
30.
John Burns was a long-time lover of cricket, being a regular at The Oval and Lord's, and sustained severe injuries being hit in the face by a cricket ball while watching a match in 1894.
31.
John Burns developed an acknowledged expertise in the history of London, and in 1929, when an American compared the River Thames unfavourably with the Mississippi, he responded "The St Lawrence is water, the Mississippi is muddy water, but the Thames is liquid history".
32.
John Burns died aged 84 and was buried in St Mary's Cemetery, Battersea Rise.