From Crow-Scaring to Westminster: An AutobiographyEdwards, George, Sir
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From Crow-Scaring to Westminster: An Autobiography
Edwards, George, Sir
George Edwards, 1850-1933
I was also Superintendent of the Primitive Methodist Sunday-school,
Society Steward and Circuit Steward of the Sheringham and Holt Primitive
Methodist Circuit. To take me from it all was a wrench indeed, and I
don't believe my dear wife ever did settle down to the change.
In moving into a town and a bigger house I knew I should be lifted out
of my natural environment, which was no small matter now that I had
reached sixty years of age. Besides, I was moving many miles from the
spot which was so sacred to me, namely the village churchyard of
Aylmerton, where I had buried my aged mother some eleven years before.
But the movement that I had so successfully launched and for whose
success or failure I was responsible I felt had a greater claim than any
other earthly consideration, so I braced myself up to the inevitable.
Those memories of the past are still, however, sweet to me, and, if I
had my choice, I think I would prefer to go back to them again. On
October 11, 1910, I moved from Gresham to Wensum House, Hempton, near
Fakenham, with all unforeseen events to face which I think I have done
bravely.
But during all my moving troubles I had still the strike troubles to
bear and the propaganda work of the Union, and no extra help allowed. My
assistant Mr. Thomas Thacker had resigned in August through ill health,
and his successor, Mr. James Coe, could not take up his duties until
after harvest. No sooner had I settled down in my new office, nicely
fitted up, than I saw I had great troubles to face which would cause me
greater worries than ever I had been called upon to bear, for the strike
continued as fiercely as ever, and I could see a crisis coming which I
knew would be either the making or the undoing of the Union. At the
conclusion of the harvest in the third week in September I met all the
men on strike in both districts who had lost their harvest through the
strike and paid them the whole harvest wages which they would have
received had they been at work. So no one man suffered the loss of one
penny through the strike. Such a thing no Union had ever done before.
During the quarter from July to October we had some few little disputes
over the harvest wages, at Swanton, Morley and Litcham, in which Mr.
Arnett, a member of the Executive, and myself were able to effect a
satisfactory settlement. On November 19, 1910, a most important meeting
of the Executive was held at Cozens' Temperance Hotel. There were
present Mr. George Nicholls, Mr. Richard Winfrey, Messrs. George
Edwards, J. Arnett, T. Giles, A. Gidney, W. Codling, A. Petch and J.
Stibbons. I presented my financial statement and quarterly report, which
read as follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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