George Davy Kelley

Who was George Davy Kelley?

George Davy Kelley was a British trades unionist and Labour politician.

Kelley was born in Ruskington, Lincolnshire in 1848. He became apprenticed to the lithographic printing trade in York. Following his apprenticeship, he worked as a printer in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Bradford. He moved to Manchester to become general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Lithographic Printers, formed in 1880.

Kelley was an early proponent of the Labour movement putting forward candidates for election. He became vice-president of the Labour Electoral Association in 1889, and presided at the Labour Electoral Congress held in Hanley in 1890. He was elected to the parliamentary committee of the Trades Union Congress in 1892.

He held the office of secretary of a number of bodies: the Manchester Trade and Labour Council, the Lancashire and Cheshire Federation of Trade Councils, the Manchester and District Board of Conciliation and the National Printing and Kindred Trades Federation.

In 1902 he travelled to New York as part of Alfred Moseley's Commission of Inquiry into the organisation of Labour. Two years later as vice-chairman of the National Committee of Organised Labour, he campaigned for the introduction of a universal old age pension.