12 Liberal Unionist leaflets, 1910, and Co-operative Party leaflets, 1928

Alf Mattison was born in Hunslet, close to Leeds, in 1868. After spending his early years as an apprentice engineer, he worked for most of his life at Leeds City Tramways Department.

In his late teens he became interested in politics and the labour movement, befriending Tom Maguire and other local labour figures. At seventeen he joined the Socialist League, of which the designer and writer William Morris was a member. Mattison was influential in the early development of the Independent Labour Party, attending the inaugural conference of the party in Bradford in 1893. He was friends with important figures in the labour and socialist movements, including Edward Carpenter, John Lister, Philip Snowden and Ramsay MacDonald.

An enthusiastic local historian in later life, Mattison gave many talks in Leeds on local and labour history. By the time of his death in 1944 he had amassed a large collection of books, photographs and original documents. These provide a unique insight into the history of socialism, both nationally and locally.