Keir Hardie | |
|---|---|
 Hardie in 1909 byGeorge Grantham Bain | |
| Leader of the Labour Party | |
| In office 17 January 1906 – 22 January 1908 | |
| Chief Whip | David Shackleton Arthur Henderson George Henry Roberts |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Arthur Henderson |
| Member of Parliament forMerthyr Tydfil | |
| In office 24 October 1900 – 26 September 1915 Serving with Edgar Rees Jones (1910–1915) | |
| Preceded by | William Pritchard Morgan |
| Succeeded by | Charles Stanton |
| Member of Parliament forWest 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, UK |
| Died | 26 September 1915(1915-09-26) (aged 59) Glasgow,Lanarkshire, Scotland |
| Political party | Labour |
| Other political affiliations | Scottish Labour Independent Labour |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4 |
James Keir Hardie (15 August 1856 – 26 September 1915) was a Scottishtrade unionist and politician. He was a founder of theLabour Party, and was its firstparliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908.
Hardie was born in Legbrannock,Newhouse,Lanarkshire. He started working at the age of seven, and from the age of ten 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 inHamilton and organised a National Conference of Miners inDunfermline. He subsequently led miners' strikes inLanarkshire (1880) andAyrshire (1881). He turned to journalism to make ends meet, and from 1886; was a full-time union organiser as secretary of theAyrshire Miners' Union.
Hardie initially supportedWilliam Gladstone'sLiberal Party, but later concluded that the working-class needed its own party. He first stood for Parliament in 1888 as an independent, and later that year helped form theScottish Labour Party. Hardie won the English seat ofWest Ham South as an independent candidate at the 1892 general election, and helped to form theIndependent Labour Party (ILP) the following year. He lost his seat in 1895, but was re-elected to Parliament in 1900 forMerthyr Tydfil in South Wales. During the same year, he helped to form the union-based Labour Representation Committee, which was later renamed the Labour Party.
After the1906 general election, Hardie was chosen as the Labour Party's first parliamentary leader. He resigned in 1908 in favour ofArthur Henderson, and spent his remaining years campaigning for causes such aswomen's suffrage,self-rule for India, andopposition to World War I. He died in 1915 while attempting to organise apacifistgeneral 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".
James Keir Hardie was born on 15 August 1856 in a two-roomed cottage on the western edge ofNewhouse,Lanarkshire nearHolytown, a small town between Airdrie and Motherwell in Scotland. His mother, Mary Keir, was adomestic servant and his stepfather, David Hardie, was aship's carpenter.[1] Hardie had little or no contact with his biological father, a miner from Lanarkshire named William Aitken.[2] The growing family soon moved to the shipbuilding burgh ofGovan nearGlasgow (which wasn't incorporated into the city until 1912), where they made a life in a very difficult financial situation, with his stepfather attempting to maintain continuous employment in the shipyards rather than practising his trade at sea – never an easy proposition given the boom-and-bust cycle of the industry.[3]
Hardie's first job, when aged seven, was as a message boy for theAnchor Line Steamship Company. Formal schooling henceforth became impossible, but his parents spent evenings teaching him to read and write, skills which proved essential for futureself-education.[4] A series of low-paying entry-level jobs followed for the boy, including work as anapprentice in a brass-fitting shop, work for alithographer, employment in the shipyards heating rivets, and time spent as a message boy for abaker for which he earned four shillings and sixpence a week.[5]
A greatlockout of theClydeside shipworkers took place in which theunionised workers were sent home for six months. With their main source of income terminated, the family was forced to sell all their possessions to pay for food, with Hardie's meagre earnings the only remaining source of income for the household. One sibling took ill and died in the miserable conditions which followed, while the pregnancy of his mother limited her ability to work. Making matters worse, young James lost his job for turning up late on two occasions. In desperation, his stepfather returned to work at sea, while his mother moved from Glasgow toNewarthill, where his maternal grandmother still lived.[6]
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 inHolytown at this time.[8]
Hardie's stepfather returned from sea and went to work on a railway line being constructed betweenEdinburgh and Glasgow. When this job was completed, the family moved to the village ofQuarter, Lanarkshire, where Hardie went to work as a pony driver at the mines, later working his way into the pits as ahewer. He also worked for two years above ground in thequarries. Around this time he encounteredThomas Carlyle'sSartor Resartus, which he read until "the spirit of it somewhat entered into me". This was an early and enduring influence on his radicalism and pacifism.[9] By the time he was twenty, he had become a skilled practical miner.[10]
"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 inshorthand. He also began to associate with theEvangelical Union becoming a member of the Evangelical Union Church, Park Street, Hamilton – now the United Reformed Church, Hamilton (which also incorporates St James' Congregational Church, attended by the youngDavid Livingstone, the future famous missionary explorer) – and to participate in theTemperance movement.[11] Hardie'savocation of preaching put him before crowds of his fellows, helping him to learn the art ofpublic speaking. Before long, Hardie was looked to by other miners as a logicalchairman for their meetings and spokesman for their grievances. Mine owners began to see him as anagitator and in fairly short order, he and two younger brothers wereblacklisted from working in the local mining industry.
When he was 23 years 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 atHamilton 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 atDunfermline, at which he was selected as National Secretary, a high-sounding title which preceded the establishment of a coherent national organisation by several years.[14] Hardie was active in thestrike wave which swept the region in 1880, including a generalised strike of the mines ofLanarkshire that summer which lasted six weeks. The fledgling union had no money but worked to gather foodstuffs for striking mine families, as Hardie and other union agents got local merchants to supply goods upon promise of future payment.[14] A soup kitchen was kept running in Hardie's home during the strike, manned by his new wife, the former Lillie Wilson.
While the Lanarkshire mine strike was a failure, Hardie's energy and activity shone and he accepted a call fromAyrshire to relocate there to organise the local miners.[14] The young couple moved to the town ofCumnock, 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 minerAndrew Fisher, who decades later would become leader of theAustralian Labor Party andPrime 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, theCumnock News, a paper loyal to the pro-labourLiberal 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 localGood 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 theAyrshire Miners Union. Hardie was named Organising Secretary of the new union, drawing a salary of £75 per year.[20]
In 1887, Hardie launched a new publication calledThe Miner.[citation needed]
Hardie was a dedicatedGeorgist for a number of years and a member of theScottish Land Restoration League. It was "through the single tax" on land monopoly that Hardie gradually became aFabian socialist. He reasoned that "whatever the idea may be, State socialism is necessary as a stage in the development of the ideal."[21][22] Despite his early support of the Liberal Party, Hardie became disillusioned byWilliam Ewart Gladstone's economic policies and began to feel that the Liberals would not advocate the interests of theworking class. Hardie concluded that the Liberal Party wanted the worker's votes without in return the radical reform he believed to be crucial – he stood for Parliament.
In April 1888, Hardie was an Independent Labour candidate at theMid Lanarkshire by-election. He finished last but he was not deterred by this, and believed he would enjoy more success in the future. At a public meeting in Glasgow on 25 August 1888 theScottish Labour Party (a different party from the 1994-createdScottish Labour Party) was founded, with Hardie becoming the party's first secretary. The party's president wasRobert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, the firstsocialist MP, and later founder of theNational Party of Scotland, forerunner to theScottish National Party.
Hardie was invited to stand inWest Ham South in 1892, a working-class seat inEssex (nowGreater London). The Liberals decided not to field a candidate, but at the same time not to offer Hardie any assistance. Competing against theConservative Party candidate, MajorGeorge Banes, Hardie won by 5,268 votes to 4,036. He was variously described as the Labour[23] or "Liberal and Labour"[24] candidate.
Upon taking his seat on 3 August 1892, Hardie refused to wear the "parliamentary uniform" of blackfrock coat, black silktop hat and starchedwing collar that other working-class MPs wore. Instead, Hardie wore a plaintweed suit, a red tie and adeerstalker hat. Although the deerstalker was the correct and matching apparel for his suit, he was nevertheless lambasted in the press, and was accused of wearing aflat cap, headgear associated with the common working man; a "cloth cap in Parliament".
In Parliament, Hardie advocated a graduated income tax, free schooling, pensions, the abolition of theHouse of Lords and for women's right to vote.
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In 1893, Hardie and others formed theIndependent 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 theAlbion Colliery in Cilfynydd nearPontypridd 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 futureEdward VIII). The request was refused and Hardie made a speech in the House of Commons attacking themonarchy, which almost predicted the nature of the future king's marriage that led to hisabdication.
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 amorganatic 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 was highly controversial and contributed to the loss of his seat in 1895.[26]
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Hardie spent the next five years of his life building up the Labour movement and speaking at various public meetings; he was arrested at awoman's suffrage meeting in London, but theHome 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 aLabour Representation Committee and so theLabour Party was born. Later that same year Hardie, representing Labour, was elected as the junior MP for the dual-member constituency ofMerthyr 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 forDerby), but from these small beginnings the party continued to grow, forming the first-ever Labour government in 1924.
Meanwhile, the Conservative andLiberal Unionist coalition government became deeply unpopular, and Liberal leaderHenry Campbell-Bannerman was worried about possible vote-splitting across the Labour and Liberal parties in the next election. A deal was struck in 1903, which became known as theLib-Lab pact of 1903 orGladstone-MacDonald pact. It was engineered byRamsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief WhipHerbert Gladstone: the Liberals would not stand against Labour in thirtyconstituencies in the next election, in order to avoid splitting the anti-Conservative vote.
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In 1905 Hardie served as an LRC election agent forWilliam Walker who came close to victory with 48.5% of the vote inBelfast North.[27] Despite his own support forIrish home rule, Hardie, who made repeated visits, appeared determined to treatBelfast as a "typical British city", confident that class politics could surmount sectarian division over the constitutional question.[28]
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.
The1906 general election result was one of the biggestlandslide victories in British history: the Liberals swept the Conservatives (and their Liberal Unionist allies) out of what were regarded assafe seats. Conservative leader and former Prime Minister,Arthur Balfour, lost his seat,Manchester East, on a swing of over 20 per cent. What would later turn out to be even more significant was the election of 29 Labour MPs.
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 leaderMichael 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 byArthur 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...Dr Johnson said God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so." According to Hardie, theLithuanian migrant workers in the mining industry had "filthy habits", they lived off "garlic and oil", and they were carriers of "the Black Death".[34]
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]
After resigning the leadership of the party in 1908, Hardie devoted himself to campaigning for votes for women and developing a closer relationship withSylvia Pankhurst. His secretaryMargaret Symons Travers was the first woman to speak in theHouse of Commons when she tricked her way in on 13 October 1908.[36]
He also campaigned forself-rule for India and an end tosegregation in South Africa.[37][38] During a visit to the United States in 1909, his criticism ofsectarianism among American radicals caused intensified debate regarding theAmerican Socialist Party possibly joining with the unions in alabour party.[citation needed]
Apacifist, Hardie was appalled by theFirst World War and along with socialists in other countries he tried to organise an internationalgeneral strike to stop the war. His stance was not popular, even within the Labour Party, but he continued to address anti-war demonstrations across the country and to supportconscientious objectors. After the outbreak of war, on 4 August 1914, Hardie's spirited anti-war speeches often received opposition in the form of loud heckling. Hardie was among many Scottish socialists, the likes ofJohn MacLean andWillie Gallacher, who opposed the War and believed that working-class men fighting other working-class men only served the interests of capitalism.[citation needed]
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 theMerthyr Pioneer on 28 November 1914, he wrote:[39]
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:[39]
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 ofstrokes, Hardie died in a hospital inGlasgow ofpneumonia at noon on 26 September 1915, aged 59.[40] His friend and fellow pacifistThomas Evan Nicholas (Niclas y Glais) delivered the sermon at Hardie's memorial service at Aberdare, in his constituency.[41] He wascremated in Maryhill, Glasgow.[42] A memorial stone in his honour is at Cumnock CemeteryCumnock,Ayrshire, Scotland.
On 2 December 2006, a memorial bust of Hardie was unveiled byCynon Valley MPAnn 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 ofHolytown, 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.[43] There are now 40 streets throughout Britain named after Hardie.Alan Morrison has, in turn, used the titleKeir Hardie Street for his 2010 narrative long poem in which a fictitious, turn-of-the-century, working-class poet discovers a socialistutopia off the dreamt-up Sea-Green Line of theLondon Underground.[44]
One of the buildings atSwansea University is also named after him, while a main distributor road inSunderland is named the Keir Hardie Way.[citation needed]
TheEllen 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 inCanning Town (Newham, East London) is named after him as a legacy to his tenure as MP for West Ham South, Newham.[45] Keir Hardie Avenue in the town of Cleator Moor, Cumbria, has been named after him since 1934[46][47][48] Furthermore, an estate in the London Borough of Brent was also named after Hardie. Keir Hardie Crescent inKilwinning in Scotland is named after him, as is a block of apartments in theBlackshots estate ofLittle Thurrock. There is also a Keir Hardie Street in Greenock and a Keir Hardie Street in Methil, Fife, a predominantly Labour stronghold.There is also a Hardie Street in West Dunbartonshire, amongst a range of streets named after famous socialist leaders or thinkers and Labour figures.
Ty Keir Hardie, in his constituency town ofMerthyr Tydfil, housed offices forMerthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and adjoins the Civic Centre on Castle Street. In Merthyr Tydfil, there is also the Keir Hardie Health Park and the 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 inNewham, London bears his name.[49]
There is a Kier Hardie Terrace inDunfermline,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 2008Labour conference in Manchester. Labour peerLord Morgan,Ed Balls,David Blunkett andFiona Mactaggart argued the case for four Labour figures at aGuardian fringe meeting at the Labour conference 2008 in Manchester, 23 September 2008.[50]
Hardie's younger half-brothersDavid Hardie,George Hardie and sister-in-lawAgnes Hardie all became Labour Party Members of Parliament after his death. His daughterNan Hardie and her husbandEmrys Hughes both became Provost ofCumnock; Hughes also became Labour Member of Parliament forSouth Ayrshire in 1946.[citation needed]
BiographerKenneth 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.[51]
Keir Starmer, the currentPrime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party,[52] who serves as MP in the House of Commons forHolborn and St Pancras, was reportedly named after Hardie,[53][54] though Starmer said in 2015 that he did not know whether this is true.[55]Keir Mather, Labour MP forSelby and Ainsty, is also named after Hardie.[56]
On 15 August 2010 (the 154th anniversary of Hardie's birth) the Keir Hardie Society was founded atSummerlee, Museum of Scottish Industrial Life.[57] The society aims to "keep alive the ideas and promote the life and work of Keir Hardie".[58] Among the co-founders wasCathy Jamieson, who at the time was the MSP forthe constituency of Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, which covers the area where Hardie lived most of his life.Scottish Labour leaderRichard Leonard was the main founder of the society, along withHugh GaffneyMP.
In August 2016,Jim Kenworth's playA Splotch of Red: Keir Hardie in West Ham was premiered at various venues inNewham, including Neighbours Hall inCanning Town at which Hardie spoke.[59] The play deals with Hardie's battle to win the constituency of West Ham South. It was directed byJames Martin Charlton; Samuel Caseley played Keir Hardie.[60]
Hardie appears as a character in Howard Spring's 1940 novel,Fame Is the Spur, in which he gives advice and support to the main protagonists in the early days of the labour movement.[citation needed]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forWest Ham South 1892–1895 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forMerthyr Tydfil 1900–1915 With:D. A. Thomas to 1910 Edgar Jones from 1910 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| New office | Chairman of theIndependent Labour Party 1894–1900 | Succeeded by |
| Chairman of the British Labour Party 1906–1908 | Succeeded by | |
| Preceded by | Chairman of theIndependent Labour Party 1913–1914 | Succeeded by |
| Media offices | ||
| New office | Editor of theLabour Leader 1888–1904 | Succeeded by |
| Trade union offices | ||
| New office | Secretary of theAyrshire Miners' Union 1886–1889 | Succeeded by |
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