The documents letters and newspaper items in this section of the site are arranged in chronological order. To begin with I am mainly concentrating on items where I need help in establishing the context or even the identity of the correspondent.
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Hubert Tunney’s relationship with the Seaham Division Labour Party became fraught to say the least in the early 1930s through to his expulsion from the party in early 1937. Particularly under the leadership of newly arrived Thornley schoolteacher E F Peart, who first came onto the scene in 1929, the Seaham Labour Party officials were happy to take the Durham miners’ money to fund their party, but were less happy with actual miners in positions of power. From surviving correspondence and newspaper items it seems that Peart and his clique did all in their power to undermine Tunney’s position within the Labour Party from 1932 onwards.
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This is area I am still actively researching, but it does seem that the surprise selection of the outsider E Shinwell as Labour Candidate for the Seaham Division in 1932 was linked to this struggle for power.
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Dr W Grant, who was the Medical Officer of Health for Easington Rural District Council, was former Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s agent at the 1935 General Election in which MacDonald lost to Shinwell by a landslide.
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Hubert Tunney was no supporter of MacDonald’s National Government, but these two surviving notes from Dr Grant to him in 1934 do suggest that they were friends and allies in the battle against Peart and the more extreme elements of the local Labour Party.
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Much of the surviving correspondence I will place here refers either obliquely or explicitly to this bitter struggle for power between Thornley Miners’ Lodge and the Seaham Division Labour Party. Since first publishing this site in 2012, I have since researched and written a long draft manuscript on this subject---the long supressed secret history of the Labour Party in east Durham after Peter Lee, and several chapters from this astonishing true story, Animal Colliery, will be posted here in due course.
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Dr Grant’s 1934 letter to Hubert Tunney is reproduced at right and transcribed at right below. Click on the image or the link below for more context. The letter and these other items on this theme are posted so far. More to follow:
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A 1929 letter of support from Wingate Miners’ Lodge Secretary J H Hart.
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Dr W Grant’s 28/3/34 letter to Hubert Tunney in context and a further undated letter of support from him.
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A 1/11/33 letter of support from Durham County Councillor D Plews of Washington: ‘Peter Lee retires next year and I am just three years younger than Peter...’
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A commentary on the above letter and a summary of the 1934 and 1937 Thornley election results.
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E F Peart and Hubert Tunney: a 3/11/33 newspaper article detailing the on-going conflict between the Thornley Miners’ Lodge and the Seaham Division Labour Party
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Hubert Tunney and the 1933 DMA election for Treasurer, a long 11/33 newspaper item and my commentary.
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Tunney versus Peart and the Mystery Men Who Replaced Peter Lee
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E F Peart strongly criticised by the Judge in a slander trial in which Hubert Tunney was a witness for the prosecution, a 20/2/37 newspaper report.
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Hubert Tunney and the aftermath of 1937 local elections, a letter of support from William Snaith JP of Wheatley Hill.
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The 1937 elections defeat, a letter of support from Mr B Mathers,, of Deaf Hill Colliery,Trimdon
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