The cache is part of a short series of local history caches. They are all easy to find. You need to enter the graveyard to find the cache so NOT available 24/7.
John Burns, local MP and Cabinet Minister, is buried here at St Mary’s Cemetery Battersea with his wife and son. He was born on 20 October 1858 in Vauxhall and died on 24 January 1943 aged 84 after a life time of radical politics and practical policies that brought many life enhancing changes to the working people of Battersea and Wandsworth.
John Burns, founded the still functioning, local Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Union Council in 1894. He was a giant in the emerging labour political and trades union movement in London and Battersea in those late Victorian times. His legacy still stands today across the borough where he together with other local councillors provided the basic needs to the local people.
He was the second Labour Party MP to be elected to the House of Commons. He was the first working class member of the UK Cabinet Government. In 1907 he got legislation on the statute books that allowed councils to build houses for rent that housed millions of workers families.
He was a leader of the new unions that in 1889 won the eight hour day and spread like wildfire across the UK. This led to the formation of the Labour Party. This in turn led to votes for women and all men, the NHS and the modern welfare state.
John Burns forseeing the pointless slaughter refused to vote for the first world war and resigned from the Government. His portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square. There are other places in Battersea named after John Burns. There are also 12 John Burns Cottages in Pilton in Somerset for rent in perpetuity to mark his role in housing the working class from which he came.
BWTUC has a 123 years of history of achievements and struggles since set up by John Burns.