Mexborough and Swinton Times, April 21 1939
As the very first duty of his year of office as the new chairman of the Urban Council, councillor Tom Shephard at the Council’s Annual meeting on Wednesday, made an appeal for the corporation of all the members of the Councils. With that cooperation they could, he said, make it a very promising year; without that it would be a very bad year.
But one could not help feeling that within 5 minutes of that remark be made that the spirit of cooperation was already missing. The council proceeded immediately to elect their committees for the next year and to appoint their representatives on the various other authorities.
Excluding positions be occupied by co-opted members there were exactly 40 seats to be filled. In every case the seats were filled by members of the Labour group on the Council.