About: Ivor Owen Thomas

Ivor Owen Thomas (5 December 1898 – 11 January 1982) was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician. Thomas was the son of Benjamin L. Thomas from Briton Ferry in South Wales.He was educated at Vernon Place School in Briton Ferry. He was employed as a barber's lather boy, and then at Gwalia Tinplate Works from 1912 to 1918, when he was called up for WW1 military service. As a conscientious objector, he refused, and spent a year in prison. Thomas was an engine cleaner on the Great Western Railway from 1919 to 1923. He won a scholarship to the Central Labour College in London, where he studied from 1923 to 1925, then worked at the head office of the National Union of Railwaymen until 1945.