Henry Snell, 1st Baron Snell (1 April 1865 – 21 April 1944), was a British socialist politician and campaigner. He served in government under Ramsay MacDonald and Winston Churchill, and as the Labour Party's leader in the House of Lords in the late 1930s.
Background
Born in Sutton-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, the son of agricultural workers, Harry Snell was educated at his local village school before beginning work as a farm hand at the age of eight. He worked full-time from the age of ten and became an indoor servant at the farm aged twelve. Dissatisfied with this work, Snell left and travelled around the county, taking a variety of jobs including work as a groom and at Hazelford Ferry on the River Trent and as a French polisher in Nottingham. During long periods of unemployment he occupied himself with extensive reading, and was particularly influenced by the writing of Henry George. Inspired by Charles Bradlaugh and the cause of secularism in Nottingham 1881, he joined th