Ernest Marklew, Burnley

Ernest Marklew, Burnley
Ernest Marklew, Burnley
Ernest Marklew, Burnley
277824
EBU20190219001
Ernest Marklew, Burnley
Burnley
Ernest Marklew, Dan Irving, Henry Hyndman, Robert Blatchford, Victor Grayson, Philip Snowden, Clara Bramwell
Ernest Marklew, Socialist, Orator, Spiritualist and author. B16.4.1874, d 14.6.1939. The obituary in the Burnley Express 17.6.1939 described him as a pioneeer of socialism in Burnley.
Largely self educated, Marklew went from being a part time child worker on the land, working in a steelworks at 14, to being elected a member of Parliament for Colne Valley. He combined a belief in spiritualism with socialism and free-thinking. He edited and published a spiritualist magazine "The Medium", first in Preston, then in Burnley where he was for a time Resident Pastor/Speaker at Burnley Hamerton Street Spiritualist Church (ca. 1906). He was an activist and public speaker for the SDF in Burnley, associated with Dan Irving and Henry Hyndman and Robert Blatchford. . Arrested on 22 .5.1906 for obstructing the highway whilst speaking in Market St., Nelson, he chose 14 days in jail instead of paying the 20s fine, claiming he was being jailed for Freedom of Speech.

He had left Burnley by 1911, and married his second wife Clara Bramwell in Grimsby in 1913, his first marriage ending in divorce. He became a councillor in Grimsby and stood for parliament there in 1929, unsuccessfully, and again in Colne Valley in 1931, before being elected for Colne Valley in 1935. Marklew died in office in June 1939, in Cleethorpes, having suffered ill health for some time.
Photographic print
Monochrome
9 x 14
1906?
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T5
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