 After he lost his leg in an industrial accident, the Midland Railway forced him to take a pay cut.Angered by this injustice, he joined the Bristol Socialist Society and became an activist in a gasworkers' union, which soon merged into the National Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers.In 1892, Irving worked with Herbert V. Mills in an attempt to start a utopian socialist community at Starnthwaite, but this soon disintegrated, and Irving eventually won a legal case against Mills.