Will Paynter

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William Thomas Paynter (1903 - 1984) was a Welsh miners' leader involved in the hunger marches of the 1930s.

Paynter was born in Cardiff, where he had a basic education before going to work at a colliery at the age of fourteen. By the age of eighteen, he was working on the coal-face, and soon joined the Communist Party. He was instrumental in setting up the National Unemployed Workers' Movement, and in 1937 he joined the International Brigade to fight in the Spanish Civil War. In 1951 he became President of the South Wales branch of the National Union of Mineworkers, and from 1959 to 1969 he was General Secretary. He was also a member of the Advisory Conciliatory and Arbitration Service.

[edit] Publications

• Trade Unions and the Problems of Change (1970)
• My Generation (autobiography) (1972)

Political offices
Preceded by Alf Davies	President of the South Wales Miners' Federation 1951–1959	Succeeded by William Whitehead
Preceded by Arthur Horner	General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers 1959–1968	Succeeded by Lawrence Daly