Ben Purse
Benjamin Ormond Purse (29 August 187431 March 1950) was a British trade unionist and campaigner for the rights of blind people. Purse, who was completely blind by the age of 13, was a piano tuner. He became a founder-member of the National League of the Blind (NLB) in 1894 and was elected as its first general secretary in 1897. Purse held the position for two years, during which he founded its journal the Blind Advocate. Purse became president of the NLB in 1905 and held the position until 1916. He was regarded as particularly energetic in this role, successfully negotiating concessionary travel for blind people with 37 municipal authorities, attending an international conference and giving evidence to the 1907 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. The early NLB had been a combative organisation, confronting charities that it claimed exploited blind workers, but Purse put it on more conciliatory footing, that won it support from key political figures. Purse campaigned for neonatal conjunctivitis to become a notifiable disease, which was achieved in 1914 and in the same year joined a government committee that helped influence the bill that became the Blind Persons Act 1920. Purse became a founder-member of the government's Advisory Committee for the Welfare of the Blind in 1917 and held that role for 25 years. The NLB split in 1921 over the question of whether it should register as a charity and Purse left to found the National Union of Industrial and Professional Blind, which later became the National Association of Blind Workers. He was editor of the new organisation's journal, the Tribune until 1942. Purse published two books on blind people's welfare in the 1920s and, in 1931, a book of verse. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1944 New Year Honours. Early life Ben Purse was born in Salford, Lancashire on 29 August 1874 to Edward Purse, a general labourer, and Matilda Purse (née Clavering). He was born with a visual impairment and was completely blind by the age of 13. Purse trained as a piano tuner at Henshaw's Blind Asylum in Old Trafford, but struggled to find work. Purse determined upon a career as a professional or a public servant and in 1894 became a founder-member of the National League of the Blind (NLB). The NLB had been founded to campaign against the exploitation of blind workers by companies and charities and for the government to take over responsibility for blind persons welfare from the charities. National League of the Blind Purse was elected general secretary of the NLB in 1897, the organisation's first full time leader. Purse organised the NLB's first national congress in 1897 and remained general secretary until 1899. Purse inherited £60 in 1898 and used it to found the NLB's journal, the Blind Advocate, of which he was its first editor. He married in 1899 to Mary Elizabeth Alcock. Purse became a fulltime employee of the NLB in 1901 and served for a