Gurney Rowlerson

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Gurney Rowlerson (1862–1944) was a British trade unionist from Veryan, Cornwall. He worked as a tailor and joined the Amalgamated Society of Tailors and Tailoresses (ASTT). He was elected to the ASTT executive council in 1900, later becoming a full-time official, and he became the union’s general secretary in 1925. He opposed rival unions in the tailoring industry, including the London Ladies’ Tailors’ Union, which he criticised in 1908 as having many foreigners. In 1915 he tried to persuade the General Federation of Trade Unions to have various small affiliates join ASTT rather than form the United Garment Workers’ Trade Union (UGWTU). He sometimes criticized Jewish people, saying that Jewish branch secretaries were inefficient, but by the 1920s he moderated his stance and encouraged Jewish workers to join ASTT. In 1932, Rowlerson led the ASTT into the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, becoming the union’s general president. He retired in 1937, though he remained ASTT’s representative on the Retail Bespoke Tailoring Trade Board.