Hubert Jenkins

Hubert Jenkins (26 September 1866 – 28 April 1943) was a British trade unionist and politician.

Life Born in Walford, Ross-on-Wye, in Herefordshire, Jenkins was educated at Lea School but left it at the age of twelve. He found work underground at the Wigpool Iron Ore Mines in the Forest of Dean, but these mines closed when he was sixteen, and he moved to work in a coal mine near Cinderford. He joined the Forest of Dean Miners' Association and took part in the Association's 1883 strike, but as the miners received no strike pay, he went to his relatives in the Rhondda to live with them and to support himself.

Jenkins found work at coal mines in the Rhondda and met the trade unionist Lewis John. In 1884, John and Jenkins moved to Bedwas, working at a succession of coal mines, and Jenkins was elected as a delegate to the Caerphilly District of the Miners' National Union. Three years later, Jenkins emigrated to Pennsylvania, working in coal mines there, then in Ohio. He joined the Knights of Labour, and then the United Mine Workers of America, becoming the founding secretary of its lodge at Nicholson's Mine. From 1907, he also served on the executive committee of the SWMF, and he was prominent in the enquiry into the Senghenydd colliery disaster of 1913. In 1930, he was elected as chair of the county council.

In 1932, Jenkins stood down as miners' agent but continued to work part-time for the union, working on compensation claims for fatal accidents. He died in 1943.