Jack Kielty

It is with profound regret that we record the death, at the age of 45, of our well-known and deeply respected Merseyside comrade Jack Kielty. It leaves a great gap in the ranks of our organisation. 

Jack, a foundation member of the S.W.F., was a familiar figure on the street corners of Liverpool, where he tirelessly propagated, at open-air meetings, the ideas of Syndicalism. 

Like other members of the organisation, Jack threw himself into the struggle in defence of the seven dockers who, last year, stood trial at the Old Bailey on charges of organising strike action. He gained wide respect among portworkers, and served on the Merseyside Portworkers’ Defence Committee. 

Despite prolonged ill health and constant suffering in recent months, Jack continued to give wholeheartedly his energies to the working-class movement. 

In mourning the loss of a fine comrade, and in paying tribute to his memory, we can do no better than to reprint the letter, from Dave Pude, another Merseyside comrade, informing the National Committee of the S.W.F. of his untimely death:—

It is my sad task to tell you Comrade Kielty passed away on Wednesday, August 29, in Sefton Hospital, Liverpool. He had suffered indifferent health for over twelve months but appeared to be making slow but sure progress towards better health. As his collaborator over the last three years in propagating Anarcho-Syndicalism, I know that our movement has lost a truly proletarian character, breathing the old fighting atmosphere of the I.W.W. with a live, modernistic interpretation. Like many more Anarcho-Syndicalists, Jack Kielty found his way to the top through the welter of left-wing Marxism. The bankruptcy of Trotskyism finally led him to a closer examination of our ideas, and his words to me on deciding to work with us I must record, they are so very true: “Dave, I feel I have always been a Syndicalist and Anarchist. They stand for all that’s worthwhile in the working-class movement.” A good fighter has left us. 

From Direct Action, October 1952. 

https://libcom.org/article/direct-action-swf-vol-7-04-59-oct-1952