Sir William Jenkins was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician and trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 leader.

Jenkins was the son of a coal miner

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

 and attended Glyncorrwg

Glyncorrwg

Glyncorrwg is a village in Britain. It is set in the Afan Valley, in south Wales.Glyncorrwg is also the name of an electoral ward and a community covering the village and surrounding countryside, in Neath Port Talbot county borough.- History :...

 National School before taking up work on the railways at the age of 11½. Six years later he became a miner, and later a checkweigher.

He entered politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 in 1900 when he was elected to Glyncorrwg School Board, and in 1904 he became a member of the town's urban district council. He was chairman of Glamorgan County Council in 1906 and from 1919 to 1921. He was also chairman of Glyncorrwg UDC from 1908 to 1916. He became secretary of the Western Miners' Association in 1906, and chief agent of the Afan Valley Miners' Federation.

At the 1922 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1922

The United Kingdom general election of 1922 was held on 15 November 1922. It was the first election held after most of the Irish counties left the United Kingdom to form the Irish Free State, and was won by Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives, who gained an overall majority over Labour, led by John...

 he was elected as Labour Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Neath

Neath (UK Parliament constituency)

Neath is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election and one Assembly Member by the first past the post system of election.- The Constituency of Neath :The constituency...

, defeating John Hugh Edwards

John Hugh Edwards

Hugh Edwards was a British Liberal Party politician.Aberystwyth-born Edwards was an author, having written a history of Wales and three biographies of David Lloyd George. He was a governor of University College Aberystwyth and University College Cardiff...

, the sitting Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 member for the seat by over 8,000 votes. He was elected chairman of the county council for a third time in 1927. He held positions as vice-president of the of County Council Association of England and Wales, chairman of the Federation of Education Authorities of Wales, member of the council of the University of Wales

University of Wales

The University of Wales was a confederal university founded in 1893. It had accredited institutions throughout Wales, and formerly accredited courses in Britain and abroad, with over 100,000 students, but in October 2011, after a number of scandals, it withdrew all accreditation, and it was...

 and chairman of the Glamorgan School for the Blind. In 1931 he was knighted

Knight Bachelor

The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...

 for his public work.

He continued to hold the Neath seat until his death at Cymmer, Port Talbot

Port Talbot

Port Talbot is a town in Neath Port Talbot, Wales. It had a population of 35,633 in 2001.-History:Port Talbot grew out of the original small port and market town of Aberafan , which belonged to the medieval Lords of Afan. The area of the parish of Margam lying on the west bank of the lower Afan...

in December 1944.