Benjamin Lucraft

Who was Benjamin Lucraft?

Benjamin Lucraft was a famous craftsman chair-carver in London where his radical inclinations led him to be involved in many political movements.

Lucraft was a public advocate of Chartism and a founder member, and sometime chairman, of the "General Council of First International" of the International Workingmen's Association. He was the only working-class man elected to the first London School Board in 1870 where he campaigned for free education for all, among other issues. He was a member, or officer, in a wide number of radical political movements of the 19th century.

In 1874 he stood for election in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and in 1880 for Finsbury; in both elections he was unsuccessful but was one of the forerunners of the Lib-Lab candidates who had their first electoral success in 1874. He died in 1897.