J. T. Murphy

John Thomas Murphy (9 December 1888 – 13 May 1965) was a British trade union organiser and Communist functionary. Murphy is best remembered as a leader of the communist labour movement in the United Kingdom from the middle 1920s until his resignation from the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1932.

Biography Early years

J. T. Murphy, known to his peers as "Jack," was born on 9 December 1888 in Gorton, Manchester. His father, a Roman Catholic, worked as a blacksmith, while his Protestant mother worked as a baker. Marjory Newbold, Tom Quelch, Dave Ramsay and Jack Tanner at the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern as delegate for the Shop Stewards Movement. Then in April 1933 he joined the Socialist League, becoming general secretary of that organisation later in the year.

After the war, Murphy stopped all formal political activity, spending much of his time writing company histories, including one of Marks and Spencer and one of Sainsbury's. Following Stalin's death, he renounced Marxism and, later, wrote an article detailing his thoughts on the subject for the New Reasoner.

Death and legacy

J. T. Murphy died on 13 May 1965 aged 76. His son, Edward, was a first-class cricketer and doctor.

Footnotes

Works

The Workers' Committee: An Outline of Its Principles and Structure. (1917) First Year of the Lenin School (1927) The Labour Government: An Examination of Its Record. (1930) Preparing for Power: A Critical Study of the History of the British Working Class Movement. (1934) New Horizons. (1941) —Memoir Stalin, 1879–1944. (1945) Labour's Big Three: A Biographical Study of Clement Attlee, Herbert Morrison and Ernest Bevin. (1948)