George Hicks

Who was George Hicks?

Ernest George Hicks was a British trades unionist and Labour Party politician.

Hicks was born in 1879 in Vernhams Dean, Hampshire. Along with fellow bricklayers Jack Fitzgerald and F. K. Cadman, he was one of the founding members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain in June 1904. Hicks resigned on 20 August 1904, rejoining on 14 December 1908 and finally leaving around 1910. He does not seem to have played an active part in the life of the Party, but after leaving it went on to be a prominent trade union leader in the bricklayers' union.

Hicks first came to prominence during the great labour unrest just before the First World War, particularly in the London building trades lockout of 1914. He was a well-known syndicalist agitator at this time, being linked with Tom Mann’s Industrial Syndicalist Education League and its effective successor the Industrial Democracy League. In 1912 he became National Organiser of the Operative Bricklayers' Society, serving as its General Secretary from 1919 to 1921. Subsequently he was General Secretary of Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers from 1921 to 1941.