One of the statues just off the promanade terrace.
 
J.T. FIELDING J.P.
 
FOR OVER 20 YEARS
THE SECRETARY OF THE OPERATIVE COTTON SPINNERS' ASSOCIATION
AND UNITED TRADES COUNCIL OF BOLTON AND DISTRICT
 
UNITY AND EQUITY WERE THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF HIS LIFE. ERECTED BY THE TRADE UNIONISTS AND PUBLIC OF BOLTON AND PRESENTED TO THE BOROUGH JULY 11TH 1896
 
John Fielding (1849-1894), a trade unionist, born at Redlaur, near Blackburn the son of a cotton worker.
 
At the age of 12 he took up the same profession, and remained a mill worker, until 1874, when he succeeded his father as secretary to the Self-Actor Minders' [cotton spinners] Association.
 In November of 1874 he was appointed secretary to the Bolton Trades' Council.
 
He was instrumental in uniting the two branches of the cotton spinning industry's trade unionism into one organisation, the Operative Spinners' Provincial Association, a union which was, according to the Bolton Journal, "second to none in the kingdom for wealth and power."
 
The same paper praised his "indomitable energy, his great grasp of thought, his forceful character, and his kindliness of disposition" which had "lifted his fellow workers from the chaotic weakness of disunion to the higher plane of united combined effort" and to the "proud position they now occupy in the industrial world."
 
 In 1879 he became a J. P for Bolton.