Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Crooks, William
CROOKS, WILLIAM (1852-1921), labour politician, was born in Poplar 6 April 1852. His parents were very poor, his father having become a cripple, and at the age of eight Crooks, who had been already at work as a milkman’s boy, was sent to the workhouse, and later to the Poor Law school at Sutton, Surrey, where he was separated from all his family. This period left an enduring impression on his mind. When his parents were able to resume charge of him, he became first a grocer’s boy and then, at eleven years of age, labourer in a blacksmith’s shop. At fourteen, his mother, at a financial sacrifice, contrived to get him apprenticed to a cooper, and this trade he followed for the rest of his working life. In 1874 he married Miss Matilda South. Already he was reading widely, and had adopted radical ideas. He became a full journeyman, but was dismissed by his employer as an agitator, and for some years was either out of work or only casually employed. Working for a time at the docks, he came to realize fully the evils of casual labour. He began lecturing and teaching in Poplar, and his open-air meetings got the name of ‘Crooks’s college’. His exertions in the London dock strike of 1889 brought on a serious illness. Shortly after his recovery his wife died (1892); and in 1893 he married Miss Elizabeth Lake, formerly a professional nurse. Meanwhile, he had become active in municipal politics. He helped to start the Poplar labour league. In 1892 he was elected to represent Poplar on the London County Council and on the Poplar board of guardians, of which he was chairman from 1897 to 1906. He refused an offer from the progressives to become vice-chairman of the County Council and also refused a managerial post in a coopering works, then, as ever, preferring complete independence. After 1892 he ceased to work at his trade, being supported by the ‘Will Crooks’s wages fund’, raised by voluntary labour subscriptions. He never received from this, his only source of income, more than £4 a week. In 1901 he became mayor of Poplar—the first labour mayor in London. In 1908 he was returned by a huge majority as labour M.P. for Woolwich, becoming the fourth independent labour member in the House of Commons. He was re-elected in 1906, lost his seat at the general election in January 1910, but regained it in that of December 1910, and was returned unopposed in 1918, holding the seat till his retirement owing to ill-health in February 1921, a few months before his death, which took place at Poplar 5 June 1921. In 1906 he was involved in certain charges made against the Poplar board of guardians, but was completely vindicated. He was active on recruiting platforms during the War and was made a privy councillor in 1916.
Will Crooks, as he was always known, excelled as a speaker, mingling humour and pathos with immense effect. He had an unfailing fund of anecdotes, and was unequalled in his power of moving large audiences to support the causes in which he believed. He was universally popular with political opponents as well as sympathisers. Mr. G. K. Chesterton once aptly described him as ‘very like a poor man in Dickens’, and it is characteristic of him that Dickens was his favourite author. By his first marriage he had two sons and five daughters. One of his daughters died during his early struggle for work; the other children survived him.
[George Haw, From Workhouse to Westminster: The Life Story of Will Crooks, M.P.; 1907; private information.]