Thomas Duckworth Benson (1857–1926), known as T. D. Benson, was a British socialist activist.
Living in Eccles, Benson worked as an accountant,David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, p.130 and later as an estate agent.Fenner Brockway, Towards Tomorrow, p.28 He first came to prominence as a follower of Swedenborg, and in 1895, he was the founding treasurer of the New Church Socialist Society, and editor of its journal, Uses.Leonard Smith, Nonconformity and the Emergence of the Independent Labour Movement, c.1880-c. 1914, p.22 He also became active in the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and was the main financial backer of Keir Hardie's unsuccessful candidacy in the 1896 Bradford East by-election.
In 1901, Benson became Treasurer of the ILP.The Socialist Year Book and Labour Annual (1913), p.30 Within the party, he became known as a leader of the right wing. In 1909, when Hardie, Ramsay MacDonald, Philip Snowden and Bruce Glasier resigned in protest at the membership's willingness to oppose sitting Liberal Party candidates, he remained on the executive, working with J. R. Clynes and William Crawford Anderson to win the body to Macdonald's views.Duncan Tanner, Political Change and the Labour Party 1900-1918, p.59 He also wrote extensively for the party, including a controversial pamphlet promoting eugenics in a future socialist state.Logie Barrow and Ian Bullock, Democratic Ideas and the British Labour Movement, 1880-1914, p.163
Benson remained treasurer for twenty years, opposing World War I, but suffering long-term ill health.Independent Labour Party, Report of the Annual Conference (1926), p.26 His son, George Benson, became a Labour Party Member of Parliament, and was also Treasurer of the ILP.Gordon Rose, The Struggle for Penal Reform, p.102
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