REBELLION is in the air. On Wednesday, Tony Blair's majority of 66 fell to just one as Labour backbenchers voted against their own government. Traitors! Treason! Betraying their own leader! But they followed a long and noble tradition begun 81 years ago by a Durham MP.

A new book The Rebels by Philip Cowley identifies the Reverend Herbert Dunnico as the very first Labour backbencher to vote against his own Prime Minister. The Reverend walked into the Opposition lobby on February 21, 1924 - when the first Labour Government's first Parliamentary session was just nine days old.

Information about Dunnico is thin on the ground, but his motivation for becoming the first Labour rebel provides a big clue to his character. Ramsay MacDonald wanted to bring forward the construction of five replacement battleships so that 2,000 dock labourers would not be thrown out of work. But Dunnico was a pacifist. He believed the money could be better spent than on sparking another arms race. He believed the proposal was "a flagrant breach of Labour's promises and pledges".

Dunnico was born in 1875 and started work in a factory aged ten. Studying in his spare time, he won a scholarship to University College, Nottingham and was ordained a Baptist minister. He appears to have been influenced by Tom Richardson, the North-East Labour pioneer and who in 1910 became MP for Whitehaven. Richardson opposed the First World War, and he toured with Dunnico making anti-war speeches.

In 1916, Dunnico formed the Peace Negotiation Committee that called for Britain to lead talks with Germany "since the prolongation of the conflict would produce a punitive settlement containing the seeds of a future war".

But it was an unpopular stance. During the war, Dunnico and Richardson were "stoned and sodded off several platforms in the district", according to the Dictionary of Labour Biography in a delightful turn of phrase. Afterwards, Richardson lost his seat and emigrated to Canada.

Dunnico prospered. In 1922, he was elected by Durham Consett, a constituency whose boundaries are roughly those of today's Durham North West. The first Labour Government held office from January to October 1924 and, according to Mr Cowley, Dunnico voted against it on 16 occasions, usually on armaments issues. His pacifism chimed with his Christian socialism - which was so left-wing he flirted with communism. He was also a committed freemason which was then a right-wing organisation.

Despite his contrariness, he rose to become Deputy Speaker of the House in 1929, but in 1931 the people of Durham Consett failed to re-elect him. He appears to have moved to Geneva to work for the United Nations. He picked up a knighthood and died in 1953 - a pair of ornamental gates are dedicated to his memory at an athletics ground in Ilford, Essex!

The best explanation of Dunnico's political views was contained in a speech he gave to freemasons in the 1930s. He said that 50 years earlier, countries could live independently but now that the world was shrinking to the size of a village they all had to live in brotherhood - be it religious, socialist or masonic. Looking down from the global village in the sky, Labour's first rebel would probably have approved of those who on Wednesday voted against this Labour Government's anti-terror proposals.

* The Rebels: How Blair Mislaid His Majority by Philip Cowley (Politico's, £9.99).

Published: 05/11/2005