1115 Joseph Arch

Constituency : North West  Norfolk 1885-6, 1892-1900

Joseph  won  the  new  seat  of  North  West  Norfolk. His  campaigning  helped  the  Liberals  secure  some  vital  wins  in  rural  constituencies  to  offset  losses  in  the  boroughs. The  National  Liberal  Club  held  a  banquet  in  his  honour  in  January  1886  with  Chamberlain  presiding. Joseph  personally  disapproved  of  canvassing. He  was  fiercely  attacked  by  the  Tories. One  called  him  "a  heavy  lump  of  a  farmer, very  thick-witted  I  thought  &  dull  but  they  say  he  is  a  good  speaker  on  his  own  subjects.... dresses  in  coloured  clothes  and  wears  a  bill-cock  hat  - no  pretence  of  being  a  gentleman  or  a  clever  man". Another  said  "He  has  been  among  Hodges  and  hedge-cutters  all  his  life. He  has  got  into  a  rhetorical  groove- a  low  and  simple  one - which  he  cannot  get  out  of". On  the  other  hand  Joseph  had  support  from  the  local  gentry  who  lent  him  their  carriages  for  the  transport  of  voters.

Joseph  was  a  cottager's  son  from  Warwickshire  who  became  an  agricultural  labourer. He  was  also  a  Prmitive  Methodist  preacher  and  developed  a  reputation  as  a  radical  orator. He  was  self-educated  from  newspapers  and  became  an  ardent  Liberal. He  began  agitating  for  a  living  wage  for  agricultural  workers  in  the  1870s. In  1872  the  National  Agricultural  Labourer's  Union  was  formed  with  Joseph  as  President  and  had  100,000  members  two  years  later. In  1873  he  was  invited  to  Canada  by  the  government  there  to  assess  the  country's  suitability  for  emigration  by  agricultural  workers. Joseph  helped  over  40,000  families  to  settle  there  and  Australia. He  supported  Gladstone's  Bulgarian  agitation  and  attended  a  Workmen's  peace  Association  conference  in  Paris  in 1875.  He  stood  for  Wilton  in  1880  . He  then  agitated  for  his  workers  to  be  enfranchised  by  the  Third  Reform  Act.

Having  secured  that , Joseph  himself  got  elected  in  1885. He  is  not  always  included  in  the  list  of  Lib-Lab  MPs  having  little  in  common  with  those  from  the  industrial  boroughs.  He  himself  was  very  suspicious  of  urban  unionists  coming  onto  his  patch . Joseph  was  the  victim  of  a  derogatory  cartoon  in  Punch  which  portrayed  him  as  a  bovine, badly-dressed   oaf  in a  bowler  hat. His  maiden  speech  in  1886  was  in  support  of  Jesse  Collings's  "three  acres  and  a  cow " amendment  to  the  Queen's  Speech  which  ushered  in  Gladstone's  third  ministry. He  rejected  the  Cottagers  Allotment  Gardens  Bill  as  "derisory, as  flimsy, worthless... an  insult  and  mockery  to  us ".

Joseph was  defeated  in  1886  but   elected  to  Warwickshire  County  Council  in  1889  and  re-elected  to  Parliament  in  1892. He  is  generally  regarded  as  a  political  failure, disappointing  his  supporters  an  making  little  contribution  to  Parliament . He  was  a  member  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  Aged  Poor  in  1893. His  authoritarian  style  at  the  NALU  was  increasingly  criticised. In  1896  the  union  folded  leaving  Joseph  in  financial  difficulty. His  friends  in  the  party  , including  Rosebery,  bought  him  an  annuity.

In  1898  Joseph  published  an  aggressive  autobiography  lambasting  his adversaries  including  his  successors  at  the  Union  who  allowed  it  to  decline.

Joseph  was  a  fierce  defender  of  Free  Trade. He  also  backed  the  Vigilance  Association  for  the  Defence  of  Personal  Rights.

Joseph  retired  before  the  1900  election.

He  died  in  1919  aged  92.