Joseph Gibbins, JP (1888 – 26 August 1965) was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician. Early life Joseph Gibbins was born in the Toxteth Park district of Liverpool in early 1888. He was educated at evening classes at Liverpool University. Gibbins married Sarah Beatrice Hugill at Princes Park Methodist Church, Liverpool in 1912, and they had two sons and two daughters. He served with the RNR during the First World War, and afterwards became Secretary of the Liverpool Boilermakers' Union. Political records Gibbins unsuccessfully contested the West Toxteth division of Liverpool for Labour in the general elections of 1922 and 1923, losing by only 139 votes on the latter occasion. Shortly after the 1923 election, the Labour party formed its first government, taking office on 22 January 1924. In April 1924, the long-serving but low-profile Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) for West Toxteth, Sir Robert Paterson Houston, Bt. retired. Joseph Gibbins was once again selected to fight the seat for Labour. He was 36 years old. Liverpool was a notoriously sectarian city, divided along Protestant and Catholic lines. The Conservative city-boss, Alderman the Rt Hon. Sir Archibald Salvidge had built a career in stoking these divisions. As early as 1907, at the count for the Liverpool Kirkdale by-election, Ramsay MacDonald had remarked to him bitterly It is astonishing how in Liverpool, whatever the issue appears to be at the start, you always manage to mobilise the full force of Orangeism. We will never do any good here until that power is broken... And so it was in West Toxteth in 1924. To Salvidge and his candidate, Thomas White, the issue was religion and specifically, denouncement of any attempt to adjust the boundaries of the newly created Northern Ireland. The Boundary Commission (Ireland) was then in the early stage of its report. The by-election was notable in that it saw Winston Churchill's first speech to a Conservative meeting in over 20 years, when he addressed the Liverpool Conservative Workingman's Association on 7 May 1924. The Liberals did not put forward a candidate and advised their supporters to vote Labour. On 22 May 1924 Joseph Gibbins, a non-sectarian Protestant, triumphed for Labour, with a majority of 2,471 over the Conservative. The result was exceptional, as it remains the only occasion that a Labour government has gained a seat from the Opposition in an electoral contest.1 Gibbins held the seat by