15 Facts About Thomas Burt

Thomas Burt PC was a British trade unionist and one of the first working-class Members of Parliament.

Thomas Burt was sworn of the Privy Council in 1906 and continued to represent Morpeth in Parliament until 1918.

Thomas Burt resigned as general secretary of the Northumberland Miners' Association in 1913.

Thomas Burt was born at Murton Row, near Backworth, in the county of Northumberland, on 12 November 1837.

At the age of 10 Thomas Burt's working life began as a trapper boy at the Haswell Pit.

Thomas Burt died on 12 April 1922, aged 84 and was buried in Jesmond Cemetery which was in the neighbourhood of his residence in Newcastle upon Tyne.

On 12 April 2014 a re-dedication of the Thomas Burt Memorial took place in Jesmond Cemetery.

In 1865 Thomas Burt was elected executive secretary of the Northumberland Miner's Mutual Confident Association.

Thomas Burt was guest speaker at the 2nd Durham Miners' Gala and attended as a guest speaker on a regular basis in subsequent years.

Thomas Burt stood on a Radical reform platform, he believed that the franchise should be extended and this would lead to the election of reform-minded MPs.

Thomas Burt called for universal suffrage, which would include women, reapportionment of districts to provide roughly the same number of voters in each constituency, shorter duration of each Parliament and payment of MPs.

In 1874 Thomas Burt was elected as Member of Parliament for the Borough of Morpeth in Northumberland.

Thomas Burt made sure he was in attendance for every important union meeting.

Thomas Burt lost the formal support of his own Union, in 1909, because he would not join the Labour Party.

The aged miners' homes at Choppington, under construction at the time of Thomas Burt's death were named the Thomas Burt Memorial Homes.