Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Arch, Joseph
ARCH, JOSEPH (1826–1919), politician, the younger son of John Arch, a farm worker of Barford, near Warwick, by his wife, Hannah Sharard, was born at Barford 10 November 1826. He was the descendant of people who for several generations had been farm or estate labourers and domestic servants. After three years' attendance at the village school he began work on a farm at nine years of age. But with the help of his mother he continued his education in simple subjects at home during his later boyhood and youth. From the age of nine to forty-six, when he took up the task of organizing the farm workers, Arch was working in woods and on farms, partly in the neighbourhood of his birthplace but mainly in distant parts of England and Wales. After the age of eighteen he was rarely a stationary and regular worker, for he was engaged intermittently in skilled tasks. He gained a high reputation for skill in his work, especially as a hedge-cutter; and he obtained an intimate personal knowledge of the conditions of labour and of life of his fellow workers throughout the country.
In 1847 Arch married Mary Ann Mills, the daughter of a mechanic in the neighbouring village of Wellesbourne, and they had a family of seven children. Soon after his marriage he became a lay preacher of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. He thus gained an experience of public speaking. Having obtained some acquaintance with the methods of the industrial labour movement, on his visits to his home he took opportunities of suggesting to his neighbours that the only effective method of improving their conditions was to be found in combination. But Arch was not alone in the idea of promoting a trade union for agricultural labourers. A union was started in Herefordshire in 1871, and in other areas there had been sporadic efforts to combine. The great movement began, however, when a group of labourers invited Arch to address a meeting at Wellesbourne on 7 February 1872. From that day the movement spread rapidly. The Warwickshire Agricultural Labourers' Union was formed on 29 March and, unions having sprung up in other counties, the National Agricultural Labourers' Union was founded just two months later; in December of that year the Warwickshire Union was affiliated to the National. On its formation Arch was appointed organizing secretary of the National Union, and later he was elected president.
For some time ‘the revolt of Hodge’ created a large amount of public and political interest, and not a little consternation. The Union leaders began using the strike weapon. Their opponents replied with lock-outs. But from an early stage the Union assisted and encouraged the migration of workers to industrial areas. Arch was everywhere its most prominent representative and spokesman. In 1875 he went to Canada as the guest of the Canadian government to examine conditions of labour and to arrange a scheme for assisting the emigration of farm workers. In 1880 he stood as liberal candidate for Wilton, Wiltshire, and was defeated. But in 1885 he contested the North-West division of Norfolk and was returned to parliament. In the following year he was defeated by his former opponent. From 1873 to 1886 Arch had devoted himself mainly to the activities of the National Union, but he was always a keen liberal and an active party supporter. On the occasion of the Home Rule split he remained with the Gladstonian party. From 1886 onwards he was much engaged in miscellaneous political activities. The Union at this time was weakening, for the membership, which had reached over 86,000 in the early part of 1874, fell to 20,000 in 1880, and was only about 5,000 in 1889. Arch's interest in it was waning also. He vacillated between belief in industrial combination and in political action—always on the liberal side—as methods of improving the lot of the farm workers. In 1892 he was again elected member for North-West Norfolk. Although the Union was again active and its membership increasing for a time, Arch was ‘moving in the political sphere’ and his parliamentary duties ‘gave him no choice but to look on’. He continued to represent North-West Norfolk as a liberal until 1902, but as the Union declined and finally disappeared Arch's political influence declined also.
Arch's wife died in 1894, and in 1899 he married Miss Miriam Blomfield. On retiring from public life he settled in the family cottage at Barford, where he died 12 February 1919. Always a poor man and always limited in outlook, Arch was never able, except in 1872, to give an effective lead to opinion; yet by his perseverance and energy he did more than any other man of his time to improve the conditions of the agricultural workers; and for some years, especially from 1872 to 1886, he exercised considerable influence in matters relating to agriculture and rural life.
[Joseph Arch, Autobiography, edited by the Countess of Warwick, 1898.]