The National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers (NADSS) was a British veterans' organisation.
The group was founded in early 1917 at a conference in Blackburn, drawing together various local groups representing working men who had served in World War I but had since been discharged. It campaigned for better pensions, and more opportunities for re-training. Led by James Howell, it developed links with trade unions and the Labour Party.
The association sponsored several candidates at the 1918 UK general election, forming part of what was termed the "Silver Badge Party". Robert Hewitt Barker was elected in Sowerby, having been endorsed by the local branch, but not by the executive, and acting essentially an independent Conservative.
Around this time, the group severed its links with the labour movement, and became more conservative in outlook, moving closer to the Comrades of the Great War group. In 1919, James Myles Hogge replaced Howell as President. In 1921, it merged with the Comrades group, the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers and the Officers' Association to form the Royal British Legion.
Famous quotes containing the words national, association, discharged, sailors and/or soldiers:
“Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men’s language. Of course women learn it. We’re not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“New York is a sucked orange. All conversation is at an end, when we have discharged ourselves of a dozen personalities, domestic or imported, which make up our American existence.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“All sailors pause to watch a steamer, and shout in welcome or derision. In one a large Newfoundland dog put his paws on the rail and stood up as high as any of them, and looked as wise. But the skipper, who did not wish to be seen no better employed than a dog, rapped him on the nose and sent him below. Such is human justice!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Soldiers of the ploughshare as well as soldiers of the sword.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)