Frank Tomney

Who was Frank Tomney?

Frank Tomney was a British Labour Party politician.

Born in Bolton, Lancashire, Tomney found himself jobless during the Great Depression and walked to London in search of employment. After arriving in London he moved into the Rowton House in Hammersmith, a hostel for working men. This was to be the beginning of a long association with that area of west London.

Tomney obtained work as a night-watchman in a glass blowing factory, and became an active trade unionist. From 1940 he was branch secretary of the General and Municipal Workers Union.

With an approaching general election in 1950, the Labour Party found itself without a candidate at Hammersmith North. The sitting member of parliament, D. N. Pritt, had been expelled from the party and had won the seat in 1945 as a member of the left-wing Labour Independent Group. Tomney volunteered to stand, and was comfortably elected with a majority of nearly 3,000 votes over Pritt. He was re-elected at each election until he stood down in 1979, and was seen as being on the right wing of the Labour Party, a fact that was often to lead to conflict within the constituency party in Hammersmith North.