Horace Barks, OBE was Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent in 1951–2. Barks was born in Ipstones in the countryside near Stoke-on-Trent and came from a working-class background. His experiences in World War I left him with pacifist beliefs and experience of railway operations. After the war he became a train guard and, in 1921, a member of the Labour Party, the dominant party in Stoke-on-Trent during the twentieth century. He was elected a Stoke councillor in 1930 and made an Alderman in 1948. He served as Mayor for 1951–52.