E. J. Pay
British labour movement activist
Edward J. Pay (c.1875-1931), often known as Teddy Pay, was a British labour movement activist, who was known for his interest in rural affairs.
Biography
Pay was born c.1875 (Kent and Sussex Advertiser, 1 January 1932). He joined the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in about 1898, at which time he was based in Hastings. However, opposition to his views led him to leave the town and move to Tunbridge Wells, where he became a manager in the local co-operative society. Having worked for many years as a farm labourer, this gave him a keen interest in rural affairs, and he held numerous administrative posts within the co-operative movement, including sitting on its General Agricultural Committee, Land Cultivation Sub-Committee, and Wages and Conciliation Committee.
The SDF became the British Socialist Party (BSP), and Pay was member of the minority in the party who supported British involvement in World War I. As a result, he joined the National Socialist Party, a split from the BSP which affiliated to the Labour Party. After a few years, the National Socialist Party was renamed the "Social Democratic Federation", and Pay became its National Organiser in 1932. In this role, he travelled around Britain, and was based at various times in Buckingham, the East Riding of Yorkshire and Surrey.
Pay stood as the Labour candidate for Buckingham at the 1923 and 1924 general elections, with the sponsorship of the SDF, although he missed out on election on both occasions. He stood in Rugby at the 1931 general election, his Labour Party obituary claiming that he made a "good fight" of the contest.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23018734. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1875, 1931, 1932 and 1898.
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This entry incorporates text from “E. J. Pay” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.