Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 4 November 1922
The General Election
Polling – November 15
Mr Tom Williams (Labour)
Mr Tom Williams, the candidate of the Don Valley Labour Party, is the youngest of the three gentlemen before the constituency, been in the mid 30s.
He is a native of the district, and has been engaged for most of his life as a working miner. He is check weighman at the Barnburgh Pit, secretary of the Barnburgh branch of the Yorkshire Miners Association, in which body he represents the Barnburgh men.
He has taken a very prominent part in the affairs of Yorkshire miners, during the last 10 years. Some eight years ago, he was returned as a member of the Bolton on Dearne Urban Council. He is also a member of the Doncaster Board of Guardians.
Mr Williams has been the Labour candidate for the Don Valley for two years, been appointed to succeed Mr E Oh, and retire, after contesting the last election, and been appointed vice president of the Yorkshire Miners Association
Mr James Walton (Independent)
Mr James Walton, who is seeking re-election for the Don Valley, has lived the greater part of his life at Wath on Dearne, just outside the constituency where he still resides.
For 30 years, he was a miner, and for most of that time was employed at the Manvers Main Collieries, continuing to work at the coalface right up to his election to Parliament in December 1918.
For he was for many years a prominent and eloquent advocate of the Labour cause, and was a valuable organiser both for the members and the Labour Party in this district. He brought with the Labour Party 1917, of what he considered there Bolshevik tendencies, his defection really dating from the famous Leeds conference of 1916 (“Hail, Russia!”).
He joined the British workers week, after is the national Democratic pop party, which is now defunct, and it was under the auspices of that party, and as a supporter Mr Lloyd George, that he contesting the Dearne Valley in 1918, against Mr E Hough a member of the Yorkshire Miners Association, and Mr H.B. Lees Smith (radical), winning the election easily