Ness Edwards

Onesimus Edwards (5 April 1897 – 3 May 1968), generally known as Ness Edwards, was a Welsh Labour Party politician.

Ness Edwards was born in Abertillery, Monmouthshire, Wales, the second of six children of Onesimus Edwards Snr and his wife Ellen.

He started work at the Penybont colliery on 5 April 1910, his 13th birthday.^[1] By the age of 17 he was working at the Arriel Griffin colliery filling the role of chairman of the local miners lodge.

A trade unionist, he was imprisoned in 1917 as a conscientious objector to military service in the First World War. He was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Caerphilly at a by-election in 1939 following the death of Labour MP and fellow conscientious objector Morgan Jones. He held the seat until his death in 1968, aged 71.

At the beginning of World War II Edwards was instrumental in helping Czech miners escape the Sudetenland. An associate of Aneurin Bevan and Jim Griffiths, Edwards was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service from 1945 to 1950 and Postmaster General from 1950 to 1951. In 1947 he was sworn of the Privy Council.

In 1925 Ness Edwards married Elina Victoria Williams, one of six children of Richard Williams, a county court bailiff, and his wife Anne, of Bridgend. His daughter Llin Golding, born 'Llinos', was Labour MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme 1986-2001.

Works

• (1920) "Some Thoughts on Tactics" Workers' Dreadnought Vol. VII No. 18 24 July 1920
• (1938) History of the South Wales Miners' Federation; vol. 1. Lawrence & Wishart,

References

• Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918-1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages