Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom Chambers (trade unionist)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 10:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Tom Chambers (trade unionist)

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Purported politician. No sources provided. Supposedly the first secretary of the British Labour Party. However General_Secretary_of_the_Labour_Party lists Ramsay MacDonald as first secretary and makes no mention of this person. Google doesn't turn up anything either for "Tom Chambers labour party". At this point I'm suspecting a hoax. Travelbird (talk) 07:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Qualified keep, but mark up as needing work on multiple grounds and query notability. Tom Chambers was an official in the National Union of Seamen and associated with Tom Mann. Was involved with him in the Independent Labour Party in the 1890s, in 1898 with Mann formed the Workers' Union (a radical faction), and was international secretary and then president (from 1901) of the International Transport Workers' Federation (I have gleaned this from odd bits and pieces on a Google search). As such he might well be notable enough for an article, but the present article is clearly inadequate and muddled. Technically, though, it does not pass the deletion test purely on those grounds. AJHingston (talk) 13:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  -- Jclemens-public (talk) 00:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - per AJHingston above. The only grounds for deleting this stub would be in the case of a hoax. While I haven't been able to pull up the name in the handful of books I have in the house on related topics, I'm not an English labour history guy either. If he was a pioneer British trade union official, as Hingston intimates, this stub should stand, with appropriate tags for additional work on the piece. Carrite (talk) 04:13, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Hmm. I've still having problems with the article:
 * The article links to Labour party. If he was involved with the Independent Labour Party then that link could be repaired easily enough, however we still need a source to ref what exactly he was doing within that party.
 * The only pertinent hits I get on Google is a minor mention in Wikipedia's Tom Mann (only in an infobox) and a mention here - again only a passing mention and I'm not sure about the reliability of this site.
 * Independent_Labour_Party makes no mention of him either. Let's assume that he was (as source #2 states) the founder of the Workers’ Union - we'd really need a reliable source for that. The Workers' Union was founded in 1898. That means he definitely can't be the son of Fielding Reginald West as the article states.
 * So what are we left with: almost the entire content of the article is wrong: He is not the founder of the Labour party (nor of the Independent Labour Party). He is not the son of Fielding Reginald West. That leaves nothing in the article other than "he was a trade unionist". And for that we only have marxists.org as source.
 * What we could do is delete almost everything the article has now and change it completely to state that "Tom Chambers was the secretary general of the ITWF from 1901-1904. (as there is a source here). However that list seems a bit iffy as well, as it lists several people being both General Secretary and President at the same time which seems highly unlikely. It is rather more likely that one of the two post either didn't exist at the time or was vacant. Was Tom Chambers the president of the general secretary ? I have no idea and I have no way of verifying it. So there are still massive issues with WP:V. Travelbird (talk) 06:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There is reference to his being General Secretary of the ITF and then becoming President in 1901 here That is plausible as Tom Mann emigrated to Australia in 1901 and the article says that Chambers was running it from home, so might well have doubled up as secretary. But I share the doubts. The suspicion is that he was merely an associate of Mann, and his notability depends on whether he contributed to events in his own right. Notability can be cumulative, and if he were constantly present at critical times garnering support for Mann, offering him ideas and encouragement, and so on that might be enough. Another outstanding question is what role he played as a seamen's union leader. The article says, BTW, that Fielding Reginald West was his son and that is plausible. My guess is that this article was contributed by a family member and relies on family anecdote, which would explain confusion and lack of published sources. AJHingston (talk) 01:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - there's enough evidence now that he is notable as a trade unionist. I've started putting in some referenced information and will keep working on the article. Warofdreams talk 17:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.