The Constituency Party organised a Members’ meal and talk on 2 December 2023 at the Blue Boar, Oulton starting at 19.00.
It was great to get together and celebrate in the company of friends both old and new. The evening was finished with Simon Gooch speaking about his grandfather Edwin Gooch.
Edwin Gooch - the subject of the talk
Edwin Gooch was a significant figure in agricultural trade unionism and Labour Party politics in the mid-20th century. After setting up South Norfolk Labour Party in his native town of Wymondham in 1918, he helped elect George Edwards MP, then came to prominence himself in the 1923 Great Strike of Norfolk farmworkers. As President of the National Union of Agricultural Workers from 1930 he served for almost 35 years in an honorary but influential role. In 1945 he was elected MP for North Norfolk, becoming Party Chairman ten years later. He led the fight for decent wages and conditions for farmworkers and campaigned against the tied cottage, with support from Labour heroes George Lansbury, Clement Attlee and Aneurin Bevan.
His teetotal blacksmith father and his mother, both Primitive Methodists, set high standards, and after working briefly at the family forge he became first a printer then a journalist and chief sub-editor on the Norwich Mercury. His profession allowed him to play an independent role in the Union, immune from victimisation suffered by organisers who worked on the land. It also gave him a platform for his vision of prosperity for workers and farmers alike in a shared rural economy, subsidised and regulated by government. His marriage to Ethel Banham was a meeting of minds: both dedicated their whole lives to public service in their home county. Edwin Gooch’s role in the NUAW has been examined by labour historians, but Simon's biography, published in 2020, is the first and only exploration of his life in the Labour movement. His grandson Simon's research draws on his late father’s reminiscences, his own childhood memories and archival research—often using Edwin’s own words from the NUAW’s journal The Land Worker.