Keir Hardie
William Pritchard Morgan | |
---|---|
Succeeded by | Charles Stanton |
Member of Parliament for West Ham South | |
In office 26 July 1892 – 7 August 1895 | |
Preceded by | George Banes |
Succeeded by | George Banes |
Personal details | |
Born | James Keir Hardie 15 August 1856 Newhouse, Lanarkshire, Scotland |
Died | 26 September 1915 Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland | (aged 59)
Political party | Labour |
Other political affiliations | Scottish Labour Independent Labour |
Spouse |
Lillias Balfour Wilson
(m. 1880) |
Children | 4 |
James Keir Hardie (15 August 1856 – 26 September 1915) was a Scottish
Hardie was born in Newhouse, Lanarkshire. He started working at the age of seven, and from the age of 10 worked in the Lanarkshire coal mines. With a background in preaching, he became known as a talented public speaker and was chosen as a spokesman for his fellow miners. In 1879, Hardie was elected leader of a miners' union in Hamilton and organised a National Conference of Miners in Dunfermline. He subsequently led miners' strikes in Lanarkshire (1880) and Ayrshire (1881). He turned to journalism to make ends meet, and from 1886 was a full-time union organiser as secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Union.
Hardie initially supported
After the 1906 election, Hardie was chosen as the Labour Party's first parliamentary leader. He resigned in 1908 in favour of Arthur Henderson, and spent his remaining years campaigning for causes such as women's suffrage, self-rule for India, and opposition to World War I. He died in 1915 while attempting to organise a pacifist general strike. Hardie is seen as a key figure in the history of the Labour Party and has been the subject of multiple biographies. Kenneth O. Morgan has called him "Labour's greatest pioneer and its greatest hero".
Early life
James Keir Hardie was born on 15 August 1856 in a two-roomed cottage on the western edge of
Hardie's first job, when aged seven, was as a message boy for the
A great
At the age of ten years old, Hardie went to work in the mines as a "trapper": opening and closing a door for a ten-hour shift to maintain the air supply for miners in a given section.[7] Hardie also began to attend night school in Holytown at this time.[8]
Hardie's stepfather returned from sea and went to work on a railway line being constructed between
"Keir", as he was now called, longed for a life outside the mines. To that end, encouraged by his mother, he learned to read and write in
Union leader
The 23-year-old Hardie moved from the coal mines to union organisation work.
In May 1879, Scottish mine owners combined to force a reduction of wages,[12] which had the effect of spurring the demand for unionisation. Huge meetings were held weekly at Hamilton as mine workers joined to vent their grievances. On 3 July 1879, Hardie was appointed Corresponding Secretary of the miners, a post which gave him opportunity to get in touch with other representatives of the mine workers throughout southern Scotland.[13] Three weeks later, Hardie was chosen by the miners as their delegate to a National Conference of Miners to be held in Glasgow. He was appointed Miners' Agent in August 1879 and his new career as a trade union organiser and functionary was launched.[12]
On 16 October 1879, Hardie attended a National Conference of miners at
While the Lanarkshire mine strike was a failure, Hardie's energy and activity shone and he accepted a call from Ayrshire to relocate there to organise the local miners.[14] The young couple moved to the town of Cumnock, where Keir set to work organising a union of local miners, a process which occupied nearly a year.[15]
In August 1881, Ayrshire miners put forward the demand for a 10 per cent increase in wages, a proposition summarily refused by the region's mine owners. Despite the lack of funds for strike pay, a stoppage was called and a 10-week shutdown of the region's mines ensued. This strike also was formally a failure, with miners returning to work before their demands had been met, but not long after the return wages were escalated across the board by the mine owners, fearful of future labour actions.[16] One of the other leaders of the strike was 19-year-old miner Andrew Fisher, who decades later would become leader of the Australian Labor Party and Prime Minister of Australia. He and Hardie met regularly to discuss politics when they both lived in Ayrshire and would renew their acquaintance on several occasions later in life.[17]
To make ends meet, Hardie turned to journalism, starting to write for the local newspaper, the Cumnock News, a paper loyal to the pro-labour Liberal Party,[18] after which, Hardie joined the Liberal Association, in which he was active. He also continued his temperance work as an active member of the local Good Templar's Lodge.[19]
In August 1886, Hardie's ongoing efforts to build a powerful union of Scottish miners were rewarded when there was formed the
In 1887, Hardie launched a new publication called The Miner.
Scottish Labour Party
Hardie was a dedicated
In April 1888, Hardie was an Independent Labour candidate at the
MP for West Ham South
Hardie was invited to stand in
Independent Labour Party
In 1893, Hardie and others formed the Independent Labour Party, an action that worried the Liberals, who were afraid that the ILP might, at some point in the future, win the working-class votes that they traditionally received.
Hardie hit the headlines in 1894, when after an explosion at the Albion colliery in Cilfynydd near Pontypridd which killed 251 miners, he asked that a message of condolence to the relatives of the victims be added to an address of congratulations on the birth of a royal heir (the future Edward VIII). The request was refused and Hardie made a speech attacking the monarchy, which almost predicted the nature of the future king's marriage that led to his abdication.
From his childhood onward this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers by the score—[Cries of 'Oh, oh!’]—and will be taught to believe himself as of a superior creation. [Cries of 'Oh, oh!’] A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic alliance will follow—[Loud cries of 'Oh, oh!’ and 'Order!’]—and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill. [Cries of Divide!][25]
This speech in the
Labour Party
Hardie spent the next five years of his life building up the Labour movement and speaking at various public meetings; he was arrested at a woman's suffrage meeting in London, but the Home Secretary, concerned about arresting the leader of the ILP, ordered his release.
In 1900 Hardie organised a meeting of various trade unions and socialist groups; they agreed to form a Labour Representation Committee and so the Labour Party was born. Later that same year Hardie, representing Labour, was elected as the junior MP for the dual-member constituency of Merthyr Tydfil in the South Wales Valleys, which he would represent for the remainder of his life. Only one other Labour MP was elected that year (Richard Bell for Derby), but from these small beginnings the party continued to grow, forming the first-ever Labour government in 1924.
Meanwhile, the Conservative and
In 1905 Hardie served as an LRC election agent for
In 1906, the LRC changed its name to the "Labour Party". That year, the newly established Liberal government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman called a General Election — resulting in a heavy defeat for the Conservative Party (then in opposition), and the landslide affirmation of the Liberals.
The
In January 1907 at the Labour Party's first annual conference, held in Belfast, Hardie helped raise the issue of whether sovereignty lay with the annual conference, as in the inherited tradition of trade union democracy, or with the PLP.[29] In the closing session he shocked the delegates by threatening to resign from the PLP over an amendment to a resolution on equal suffrage for women that would have bound him as an MP to oppose any compromise legislation that would extend votes to women on the basis of the existing property franchise. This, he saw, as potentially delaying the extension of "citizenship" to women on which he spoke passionately:
I thought the days of my pioneering were over but of late I have felt, with increasing intensity, the injustice inflicted on women by our present laws. The Party is largely my own child and I cannot part from it lightly, or without pain; but at the same time I cannot sever myself from the principles I hold. If it is necessary for me to separate myself from what has been my life's work, I do so in order to remove the stigma resting upon our wives, mothers and sisters of being accounted unfit for citizenship.[30][31]
The PLP defused the crisis by allowing Hardie to vote as he wished on the subject. The precedent became the basis of a "conscience clause" in its standing orders, and would be invoked by party leader Michael Foot in 1981 to argue that the will of the conference should not always bind the PLP.[32]
Hardie, never good at dealing with internal dissension, did resign his chairmanship of the party the following year, 1908. He was replaced by Arthur Henderson.[33]
Hardie in his evidence to the 1899 House of Commons Select Committee on emigration and immigration, argued that the Scots resented immigrants greatly and that they would want a total immigration ban. When it was pointed out to him that more people left Scotland than entered it, he replied, "It would be much better for Scotland if those 1,500 were compelled to remain there and let the foreigners be kept out...
In 1908, when visiting South Africa, he said the Socialist movement stood for equal rights for every race but that "we do not say all races are equal; no one dreams of doing that". On return to the UK he stated his belief that black people should be given the opportunity to vote and to take a full part in society.[35]
Later career
He also campaigned for
A
Despite this, once the war had started Hardie seems to have resigned himself to the inevitability of pursuing it rather than stopping it immediately. In a full-page article in the Merthyr Pioneer on 28 November 1914, he wrote:[37]
May I once again revert for a moment to the ILP pamphlets? None of them clamour for immediately stopping the war. That would be foolish in the extreme, until, at least, the Germans have been driven back across their own frontier, a consummation which, I fear, carries us forward through a long and dismal vista.
In the same article he also opposed accusations that he was unpatriotic by claiming that his meetings encouraged young men to enlist while those of his Liberal opponents did the opposite:[37]
I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting; I know too well all there is at stake… If I can get the recruiting figures for Merthyr week by week, which I find a very difficult job, I hope by another week to be able to prove that whereas our Rink meeting gave a stimulus to recruiting, those meetings at the Drill Hall at which the Liberal member or the Liberal candidate spoke, had the exactly opposite effect. Judging by their speeches, they seem far more concerned about defeating me than about defeating the Kaiser.
After a series of
Legacy
On 2 December 2006, a memorial bust of Hardie was unveiled by Cynon Valley MP Ann Clwyd outside council offices in Aberdare (in his former constituency). The ceremony marked a centenary since the party's birth.
Hardie is still held in high esteem in his old home town of Holytown, where his childhood home is preserved for people to view, while the local sports centre was named in his own honour as "The Keir Hardie Sports Centre". Keir Hardie Memorial Primary School opened in 1956, named for him.[41] There are now 40 streets throughout Britain named after Hardie. Alan Morrison has, in turn, used the title Keir Hardie Street for his 2010 narrative long poem in which a fictitious, turn-of-the-century, working-class poet discovers a socialist utopia off the dreamt-up Sea-Green Line of the London Underground.[42]
One of the buildings at Swansea University is also named after him, while a main distributor road in Sunderland is named the Keir Hardie Way.[citation needed]
The Ellen Wilkinson Estate in Wardley, East Gateshead (once in the Urban District of Felling, subsumed by Gateshead Metropolitan Borough in 1974) has Keir Hardie Avenue as its main street. Every other street is named after a pre-1960 Labour MP. The England footballer, Chris Waddle, lived in Number 1 Keir Hardie Avenue, Gateshead, between 1971 and 1983.[citation needed]
The Keir Hardie Estate in
Ty Keir Hardie, in his constituency town of Merthyr Tydfil, housed offices for Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and adjoins the Civic Centre on Castle Street. In Merthyr Tydfil, there is also a Keir Hardie Estate with streets named after prominent early Independent Labour leaders such as Wallhead and Glasier.
In recognition of his work as a lay preacher, the Keir Hardie Methodist Church in
There is a Kier Hardie Terrace in Dunfermline, Fife named after him as he helped the mining campaign for local mining families.[citation needed]
Labour founder Hardie has been voted the party's "greatest hero" in a straw poll of delegates at the 2008
Hardie's younger half-brothers
Biographer Kenneth O. Morgan has sketched Hardie's personality:
I found him a man who was not only an idealistic crusader, but a pragmatist, anxious to work with radical Liberals whose ideology he largely shared, subtle in building up the Labour alliance with the trade unions and the other socialist bodies, and supremely flexible in his political philosophy, a very generalised socialism based on a secularised Christianity rather than Marxism. 'Socialists,' he proclaimed, 'made war on a system not a class'....He was no economist and was ill-informed on many issues, but he had uniquely the charisma and vision that any radical movement needs.[49]
Keir Hardie Society
On 15 August 2010 (the 154th anniversary of Hardie's birth) the Keir Hardie Society was founded at
In other media
In August 2016,
Works
- From Serfdom to Socialism (1907)
- Karl Marx: The Man and His Message (1910)
- Keir Hardie (1907). "Wikidata Q107177756.
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 1.
- ^ Morgan 2004.
- ^ Stewart 1925, pp. 1–2.
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 2.
- ^ Stewart 1925, pp. 2–3.
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 6.
- ^ Stewart 1925, pp. 6–7.
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 7.
- ISBN 978-0-7139-0840-4.
- ^ Stewart 1925, pp. 7–8.
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 8.
- ^ a b Stewart 1925, p. 10.
- ^ Stewart 1925, pp. 10–11.
- ^ a b c Stewart 1925, p. 12.
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 14.
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 17.
- ^ David Day (2008). Andrew Fisher: Prime Minister of Australia. Fourth Estate. p. 23.
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 19.
- ^ Stewart 1925, pp. 19–20.
- ^ Stewart 1925, p. 21.
- ^ "Socialism in England: James Keir Hardie Declares that it is Capturing that Country". The San Francisco Call. Vol. 78, no. 117. 25 September 1895. p. 9. Retrieved 4 November 2014 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection. Hardie states, "I was a very enthusiastic single-taxer for a number of years."
- ^ Edwards 1895, pp. 172–175.
- ^ The Globe, 5 July 1892]
- ^ Essex Herald, 9 July 1892
- ^ Paxman 2006, p. 58.
- ^ Brocklehurst, Steven (26 September 2015). "Keir Hardie – The Man who Broke the Mould of British Politics". BBC News. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
- OCLC 5846983.
- JSTOR 23201436.
- JSTOR 23201436.
- ISBN 978-1-4474-9859-9.
- ^ "James Keir Hardie". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
- ^ Trevor Fisher (1983), 'Crisis in the Labour Party: Keir Hardie and the 1907 conference', History Today, 33, 6 (June), pp. 12-15
- ^ Heppell 2010, pp. 2–3.
- ^ Reid 1978, p. 122.
- ^ Martin Plaut (20 May 2020). "KEIR HARDIE IN SOUTH AFRICA". Young Fabians. Archived from the original on 14 July 2021. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
- ISBN 1-135-43402-6.
- ^ a b Hardie, Keir (28 November 1914). "My Weekly Budget". Merthyr Pioneer. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
- ScotlandsPeople. Retrieved 11 September 2022.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Ammanford, Carmarthenshire web site". Terrynorm.ic24.net. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
- ISBN 0-19-861375-X.Article by Kenneth O. Morgan.
- ^ "Keir Hardie Memorial Primary and Nursery". northlanarkshire.gov.uk. 8 April 2009. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
- ^ Morrison 2010, pp. 9–42.
- ^ "James Kier Hardie, MP (1856-1915)". The Newham Story. 25 September 1915. Archived from the original on 12 January 2014. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
- ^ The date of 1934 is derived from local Electoral Rolls available at Whitehaven Archives, on microfilm JAC 557, the records of the building of the estate are in the records of Cleator Moor Urban District Council (also available at Whitehaven Archives, various references
- ^ The Local Council minute books (SRDEB/1/1/15 and 1/1/16) show that the houses were built between 1933 and 1934 by The Workmen's Housing Association. Completion was twice delayed from the end of December 1933 to end March 1934 and then end June 1934. By then Cleator Moor Urban District Council had been replaced with Ennerdale Rural District Council, whose minutes give no further information on exactly when the scheme was completed, and the first tenants moved in. (that latter minute book is reference SRDE 1/1/1A)
- ^ The Whitehaven News of 4 January 1934 reports on the provision of a show home on the estate from 5 to 10 January, which is reported the following week to have had almost 1,000 visitors.
- ^ https://www.nmc20.org.uk/churches/keir-hardie.html
- ^ Griffiths, Emma (22 September 2008). "Hardie is 'Greatest Labour Hero'". BBC News. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
- ^ Morgan 2015, pp. 89–90.
- ISSN 0261-3077.
- ^ "Keir Mather - Labour's newest MP and 'baby of the House'". BBC News. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
- ^ "Society Launched to Honour Keir Hardie". Motherwell Times. Johnston Publishing. 26 August 2010. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
- ^ "About the Society". Keir Hardie Society. Archived from the original on 16 September 2017. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
- ^ "A Splotch of Red – Keir Hardie in Westham". A Splotch of Red – Keir Hardie in Westham. Archived from the original on 28 August 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
- ^ "West Ham United in a Socialist Vision". Morning Star. 24 August 2016. Archived from the original on 16 September 2017. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
Bibliography
- Edwards, Joseph, ed. (1895). The Labour Annual: A Year Book of Industrial Progress and Social Welfare. Manchester: Labour Press Society. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
- Heppell, Timothy (2010). Choosing the Labour Leader: Labour Party Leadership Elections from Wilson to Brown. International Library of Political Studies. Vol. 48. London: Tauris Academic Studies. ISBN 978-0-85771-850-1.
- .
- JSTOR j.ctt17w8h53.
- Morrison, Alan (2010). Keir Hardie Street. Middlesbrough, England: Smokestack Books. ISBN 978-0-9560341-6-8.
- ISBN 978-0-14-101222-3.
- Reid, Fred (1978). Keir Hardie: The Making of a Socialist. London: Croom Helm. ISBN 978-0-85664-624-9.
- Stewart, William (1925). J. Keir Hardie: A Biography (rev. ed.). London: Independent Labour Party Publication Department.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-0-09-175343-6.
- ISBN 978-0-7459-5354-0.
- ASIN B0006DBKFK.
- Jefferys, Kevin Jefferys, ed. (1999). Leading Labour: From Keir Hardie to Tony Blair. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-86064-453-5.
- ISBN 978-0-297-76886-9.
- ISBN 978-0-19-285270-0.
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Keir Hardie
- J. Keir Hardie Biography, Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
- J. Keir Hardie Internet Archive at Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
- Rhondda Cynon Taff Online: Unveiling the Keir Hardie Bust. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
- Works by or about Keir Hardie at Internet Archive
- Works by Keir Hardie at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Scottish Labour Party, History
- Kier Hardie – Labour's First MP
- Newspaper clippings about Keir Hardie in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW