‘It is not a Socialist we want…but a labour man. The textile workers of Clitheroe… feel that they ought to have a representative of their own in Parliament.’
Labour Representation Committee, Clitheroe
Sir David Shackleton started work in a textile mill at the age of 9, but he went on to chair the Labour Party, be elected president of the TUC and become the first working class man to scale the peaks of Whitehall, as Permanent Secretary to the newly formed Ministry of Labour. In 1902 he was elected unopposed in Clitheroe, just the third Member of Parliament for the Labour Representation Committee and the first ever weaver to represent his fellow textile workers at Westminster.
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David Shackleton was born at Cloughfold near Rawtenstall in 1863, the only surviving child of a power-loom weaver, William Shackleton, and his wife, Margaret. From the age of nine he was working half time in a weaving shed at Haslingden, becoming full time by the age of 13. Aged 20 he married fellow mill worker Sarah Broadbent, whose family were committed trade unionists, and over the next few years they had a son and a daughter. At this time he was working in Accrington. He joined and became active in the Accrington Weavers’ Association.
He became secretary of Ramsbottom and then Darwen Weavers’ Associations. In 1894 he was elected to Darwen Town Council. In 1902 he was elected Member of Parliament for the Clitheroe Division, becoming one of only four Labour MPs. In 1905 he became Chairman of the National Labour Party. In 1908 Shackleton was elected President of the Trade Union Congress.
He was a champion of women’s suffrage and the trade union movement. He served on various committees, including the Board of Education and Old Age Pensions. In 1910 he was appointed Labour Advisor to the Home Office by Winston Churchill and in 1911 was made a national health insurance commissioner. In 1916 he became Permanent Secretary to the newly created Ministry of Labour. He became the first Labour Knight in 1917, after twice declining the award.
David Shackleton retired in 1925 and moved from London to Lytham St Anne’s. He died in 1938 at the age of 74 and was buried in Darwen Cemetery.
For Pendle Radicals
In 2025 we aim to install a Radicals Trail stone panel, dedicated to Shackleton, alongside the Pinnacle on Clitheroe Castle mound.
Explore further
Spartacus Educational website
Book – The Lancashire Giant: David Shackleton, Labour Leader and Civil Servant by Ross M Martin, published in 2000. Second-hand copies can be found, or it can be accessed via online academic sites such as JSTOR.
Book – Dissent: A Radical History of the Clitheroe Parliamentary Constituency by Roger Smalley, published in 2018 is still available from book stores.