Thomas Richards

Accounts and miscellaneous papers concerning the Senghenydd Explosion Relief Fund 1901-1905; correspondence and papers concerning the Prince of Wales National Relief Fund 1914-1917; South Wales Miners' Federation (SWMF) papers and publications concerning wage arrangements 1915; SWMF catering bills 1931-1933.

The Rt. Hon. Thomas Richards was the first General Secretary of the South Wales Miners' Federation 1898-1931 and President of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain 1929-1930. He was born in 1859 at Beaufort, Ebbw Vale, the son of Thomas and Mary Richards. He was educated at Beaufort British School but finished school aged 12 in order to go and work in the mines. He was Alderman of Monmouthshire County Council from 1904 and Chairman 1924-1931. He was a county magistrate for Breconshire and Monmouthshire and a PC for 1918. Tom Richards was a Knight of the Grace of St. John of Jerusalem 1918 and a Director of Ambulances for Wales. He was a Labour Member of Parliament and sat for West Monmouthshire from November 1904 until December 1918. He was returned unopposed for the Ebbw Vale division of Monmouthshire in December 1918 and sat until he resigned in July 1920. Thomas Richards was a member of the General Council of the TUC from 1925. He was a member of the late Llangattock School Board and a manager of the Ebbw Vale County School. Thomas Richards died in 1931.

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