Robert Thomas

Sir Robert Evan Thomas JP (8 October 1901 - 17 April 2004) was a British politician and trade unionist who served as Leader of Manchester City Council on three occasions between 1956 and 1973. A member of the Labour Party, he was also leader of Greater Manchester County Council from 1974 to 1977.

Early life and career

Robert Evan Thomas was born on 8 October 1901 in Ince-in-Makerfield, Lancashire, he was the youngest of five children born to parents from North Wales.

At the age of 14, Thomas began working in a coal mine before serving eighteen months in the army after the end of the First World War. In 1924, he became bus driver, a job through which he became an official in the Transport and General Workers' Union, acting as the union's passenger secretary in Manchester. In April 1940, he formed part of a deputation from the union which protested against the introduction of women ticket-inspectors on Manchester buses. Thomas retired from the union in 1955.

Local politics

On 12 May 1943, Thomas was elected as acting secretary of the Labour Party on Manchester City Council. Later that year, he was nominated by the Labour Party to fill a vacancy on the council created by the death of Councillor Charles Beamand and became a councillor for St. George's ward on 5 January 1944. He was successfully elected in that ward in 1945.

By 1947, Thomas had become the chairman of the council's Markets Committee and he would go on to fill several committee chairmanships. When Tom Nally, leader of the controlling Labour group, died in December 1956, Thomas became his successor as both group leader and city alderman.

As leader of the controlling group, Thomas oversaw the introduction of comprehensive schools in Manchester and the introduction of air-control zones to combat air pollution in the city. Through much of this period, the corporation's rates increased leading to public backlash and the formation of a Ratepayers' Party which won more than 7,000 votes in the 1960 local elections.

In 1962-63 Municipal year, Thomas served as Lord Mayor of Manchester and resigned the leadership of the Labour group, he was succeeded by Alderman Maurice Pariser. Three years later, Alderman Pariser resigned the Labour group leadership on health grounds and Thomas found himself once again elected group leader.

On 14 February 1967, Thomas was knighted as part of the 1967 New Year Honours for services to Local Government in Manchester. Months later, Labour lost control of Manchester City Council to the Conservatives for the first time in fourteen years.

Manchester Labour continued to lose seats on the council in a period when the Labour government of Harold Wilson had become deeply unpopular, in 1968 Labour won just eight seats out of forty-one.

Thomas led Labour back to power in Manchester in the 1971 local elections when all of the seats on the city council were up for election. The election resulted in the city Labour Party winning its greatest number of seats to that point.

The Local Government Act 1972 abolished the Manchester Corporation as it had existed up to that point and replaced it with a new authority covering an almost identical area. The Act also created the county of Greater Manchester which would take over many powers previously enjoyed by the corporation. Thomas was elected to the Greater Manchester County Council in 1973 in Manchester No.8 ward (which included his former ward of St. George's) and became leader of the new region.

Thomas retired from politics before the next set of elections to the county and Greater Manchester was gained by the Conservatives. The Guardian posited that Labour's defeat was brought about by the failure to materialise motorway expansion and the cancellation of the Picc-Vic tunnel, both projects championed by Thomas.

Personal life

Thomas married Edna Isherwood in 1924, they had two children together.

He died on 17 April 2004 at the age of 102.