British socialist activist (1845–1922)
Herbert Burrows (12 June 1845 – 14 December 1922) was a British socialist activist.[1]
Early life
Born in Redgrave, Suffolk, Burrows' father Amos was a former Chartist leader.[1] Burrows educated himself using Cassell's shilling handbooks, becoming a pupil teacher at the age of thirteen; he initially pursued a career in teaching before becoming an excise officer.[2] In 1869, he married Mary Hannah Musk (1845–1889).[1] The couple had a daughter and a son.[1]
From 1872, Burrows studied briefly as a non-collegiate student at the University of Cambridge, but did not take a degree.[1][2] He worked as a civil servant for the Inland Revenue,[2] including in Norwich, Barnet, Blackburn, and Chatham,[1] a career that lasted until his retirement in 1907.[2]
Activism
Burrows moved to London in 1877, where he joined radical clubs including the National Secular Society.[1][2] He was a founder member of the Aristotelian Society in 1880, joined the Social and Political Education League and became Vice President of the Manhood Suffrage League.[1] In 1881, with Henry Hyndman, he formed the Democratic Federation, and became its treasurer in 1883.[1]
Burrows supported the Federation's commitment to socialism in 1884, when it was renamed the Social Democratic Federation (SDF).[1] Often writing under the pseudonym C.V., he contributed articles to its newspaper, Justice.[1] He represented the group on the executive of the Law and Liberty League.[1]
With Annie Besant—whom he had met through his connection with Bradlaugh and the National Secular Society—Burrows was a key organiser of the Bryant & May matchgirls' strike of 1888,[2] and afterwards became the treasurer of the Union of Women Matchmakers, then the largest women's trade union in England.[1] Burrows actively promoted unionisation among workers, and the success of the matchgirls' strike helped to galvanise the trade union movement.[1] He maintained an active role in the Women's Trade Union League and the Women's Industrial Council until 1917.[1]
Burrows also became a prominent member of South Place Ethical Society,[2] the Rainbow Circle,[3] the Theosophical Society, the International Arbitration and Peace Association and the International Arbitration League.[1] From 1907 until 1922, Burrows was Appointed Lecturer to the South Place Ethical Society, now Conway Hall Ethical Society.[4] He was a teetotaller, vegetarian, and lifelong pacifist.[1]
Burrows stood for Parliament unsuccessfully in the 1908 Haggerston by-election,[5] and again in Haggerston in 1910.[1] He resigned from the SDF (then the Social Democratic Party) in 1911.[1]
Death
Afflicted by paralysis from 1917, Burrows died at his home in Highbury Park, London on 14 December 1922.[1]
