Thomas Brooks

Thomas Judson Brooks, (7 July 1880 – 15 February 1958) was a British coal miner and politician who became a Labour Party Member of Parliament. A spiritualist, his main achievement was to lead the successful campaign to repeal the Witchcraft Act 1735. Working life Brooks was born on Eastfield Farm at Thurgoland near Barnsley, Yorkshire, where his father was a farmer. He attended Thurgoland Church School, and on leaving instead of following his father into farming, he became a coal miner at Glass Houghton. Active in the Yorkshire Mine Workers' Association, he became Secretary of his branch of the Union in 1911. He was elected as a Labour Party candidate to Castleford Urban District Council in 1914. Local politics In 1924 Brooks was appointed Chairman of Wakefield and Pontefract War Pension Committee and made a Justice of the Peace for the West Riding of Yorkshire. In the next year he was elected to the West Riding County Council, on which he remained until 1942 and was elected as a County Alderman in 1940. He was also Chairman of Trustees for Castleford, Normanton and District Hospital. In 1931 he was awarded Membership of the Order of the British Empire for services to the local community. Election to Parliament When the Labour MP William Lunn died in May 1942, Brooks won the endorsement of the Yorkshire Miners' Association, and at the Rothwell by-election in August he was elected unopposed as Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Rothwell. After the end of the war Brooks was appointed to a Committee advising the Speaker on the rebuilding of the Chamber of the House of Commons, which had been destroyed by German bombs in 1941. He was a firm opponent of capital punishment.