10 Facts About Joseph Cowen

Joseph Cowen was a firm friend to Anglo-Jewry, and an early advocate of Jewish emancipation, regularly contributing to The Jewish Chronicle.

Son of Joseph Cowen, Snr, a prominent citizen and Member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne from 1874 to 1886, was born at Stella Hall, Blaydon .

Joseph Cowen junior was educated privately in Ryton and at the University of Edinburgh where he interested himself in European revolutionary movements.

Joseph Cowen then joined his father in his Blaydon brick business, smuggling documents abroad in the consignments of bricks.

Joseph Cowen numbered among his friends Mazzini, Louis Blanc and Ledru-Rollin, as well as Herzen and Bakunin.

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Joseph Cowen supported the miners and improved the lot of the working-classes.

One area of improvement revisited again by Joseph Cowen was education: changes to the Mechanics Working-men institute, was followed by a public library for Newcastle.

Radical on domestic questions when elected, Joseph Cowen was a sympathizer with Irish Nationalism, In speech, dress and manner he identified himself with the coal miners of North East England.

Joseph Cowen's independence brought him into collision both with the Liberal parliamentary party and with the party organization in Newcastle itself, but Cowen's personal popularity and his remarkable powers as an orator triumphed in his own birthplace, and he was again elected in 1885.

Joseph Cowen served as President of the first day of the 1873 Co-operative Congress.