Lancashire Giant: David Shackleton, Labour Leader and Civil Servant

Martin (politics, La Trobe U., Melbourne) recounts the life and career of Shackleton (1863-1938) who from an early age became a leader of the British labor movement and one of the first to sit in Parliament as a member of the Labour Party. He was then convinced to go into the civil service where again he succeeded, becoming the permanent secretary of the new Ministry of Labour. He has been generally neglected in labor history, Martin says, because he was not a copious writer and so left no body of work, and because his prominent time in the movement only lasted eight years before he moved on. His nickname came from his great physical size and his manner of public speaking. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR