r working at his trade in various parts of England, and on
board ship, he went for a year to the West African coast at the mouth of
the Niger as a foreman engineer. His earnings from this undertaking were
expended on a six months' tour in France, Germany and Austria for the study
of political and economic conditions. He had early begun the practice of
outdoor speaking, and his exceptional physical strength and strong voice
were invaluable qualifications for a popular agitator. In 1878 he was
arrested and locked up for the night for addressing an open-air
demonstration on Clapham Common. Two years later he married Charlotte Gale,
the daughter of a Battersea shipwright. He was again arrested in 1886 for
his share in the West End riots when the windows of the Carlton and other
London clubs were broken, but cleared himself at the Old Bailey of the
charge of inciting the mob to violence. In November of the next year,
however, he was again arrested for resisting the police in their attempt to
break up the meeting in Trafalgar Square, and was condemned to six weeks'
imprisonment. A speech delivered by him at the Industrial Remuneration
Conference of 1884 had attracted considerable attention, and in that year
he became a member of the Social Democratic Federation, which put him
forward [v.04 p.0856] unsuccessfully in the next year as parliamentary
candidate for West Nottingham. His connexion with the Social Democratic
Federation was short-lived; but he was an active member of the executive of
the Amalgamated Engineers' trade union, and was connected with the trades
union congresses until 1895, when, through his influence, a resolution
excluding all except wage labourers was passed. He was still working at his
trade in Hoe's printing machine works when he became a Progressive member
of the first London County Council, being supported by an allowance of L2 a
week subscribed by his constituents, the Battersea working men. He
introduced in 1892 a motion that all contracts for the County Council
should be paid at trade union rates and carried out under trade union
conditions, and devoted his efforts in general to a war against monopolies,
except those of the state or the municipality. In the same year (1889) in
which he became a member of the County Council, he acted with Mr Ben
Tillett as the chief leader and organizer of the London dock strike. He
entered the House of Commons as member for Battersea in 1892, and was
re-elected in 189