High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Mortimer Grimshaw (1824 or 1825 – 22 December 1869) was an English political activist, strike leader and cotton weaver. He briefly attained national fame in the 1850s due to his part in the Preston strike of 1853–54. A large man whose face was marked by smallpox, he was renowned for his oratory, which earned him the nickname of the "Thunderer of Lancashire".