George Gibson

Who was George Gibson?

George Gibson CH was a British mental hospital attendant, trade unionist and public servant who was General Secretary of the National Asylum Workers' Union, later renamed the Mental Hospital and Institutional Workers' Union, from 1913 to 1947, then of the Confederation of Health Service Employees, into which the previous union merged, from 1947 to 1948. He was ruined through his largely innocent association with the fraudster Sidney Stanley, which was exposed by the Lynskey Tribunal in 1948.

Gibson was born in Calton, a suburb of Glasgow, the son of Irish-born Johnston Gibson, a drysalter who later successively owned a fish and chip shop, a fish shop and a newsagent. Gibson's mother, Mary, was Scottish. Although he was a good scholar, Gibson left school at the age of eleven and held a variety of jobs before moving to England in 1910 to become an attendant at Winwick Asylum in Warrington.

On 10 July 1910 he became one of the co-founders of the National Asylum Workers' Union and was elected its first Secretary. He became Vice-President in 1911 and Assistant Organising Secretary in 1912. In 1913 he became full-time General Secretary.