Free Trade Union group, Stafford

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Date:1909 - 1914 (c.)

Description:A group of Free Trade Union members and lecturers in front of their offices at 65 Eastgate Street, Stafford. Seated front right is Stafford Town Councillor Arthur Finney who was appointed as the Free Trade Union's Staffordshire and Shropshire representative in 1909 and was well known locally as a lecturer on tariff reform in the years leading up to the First World War. The son of a Stafford shoemaker, he died in 1917 aged 50. This glass plate was probably taken by Weiss & Fowke of Stafford.

The Tariff Reform League wanted to see the British Empire transformed into a single trading bloc, to compete with Germany and the United States. It favoured imposing duties on imports - as did Germany and the United States - and the channelling of the money raised from these duties into social reforms. High import duties, the League claimed, would make increasing other taxes unnecessary. However opponents claimed that protection would mean dearer food, especially bread. The Free Trade Union was formed in 1905 to fight against the aims of the Tariff Reform league.

Charles Fowke was based at the Victoria Road studio from about 1904, at first in partnership with Paul Weiss (Wise). The partnership was dissolved in 1916 and Fowke carried on until about 1937. Bertram Sinkinson was a celebrated Stafford photographer, who took over the premises of C.E. Fowke at 15 Victoria Road, Stafford in 1936-7. Sinkinson was later president of the Royal Photographic Society, 1953-1955. He was awarded an OBE in 1957 and was Mayor of Stafford in 1959 and died in 1985.

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Donor ref:5.1.4845 (201/31588)

Source: Staffordshire County Record Office

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