1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Snowden, Phillip

SNOWDEN, PHILLIP (1864-⁠), British Labour politician, was born at Cowling, Yorks, July 18 1864. He was educated partly privately and partly at a board school, and in 1886 entered the Civil Service. In 1893 he retired, and devoted himself to journalism and lecturing, becoming well known for his ardent advocacy of extreme socialistic views. He unsuccessfully contested Blackburn in 1900 and Wakefield in 1902, and in 1903 he became chairman of the Independent Labour party. He held this position until 1906, and in that year was returned as Socialist member for Blackburn. He sat on various royal commissions, including those on the Civil Service and Venereal Diseases, and from 1917 to 1919 was again chairman of the Independent Labour party. Mr. Snowden made himself extremely unpopular during the World War owing to his pacifist opinions, and was one of the Socialist members of Parliament who lost their seats at the general election of 1918. He had married in 1905 Miss Ethel Annikin, who became well known as a speaker and writer on social subjects. In 1920 she went to Russia as a member of one of the various Labour delegations invited to inspect Soviet conditions of government. She published on her return an account of her experiences, under the title of Through Bolshevik Russia (1920).