James Keir Hardie (1856 – 1915). Scottish trade unionist and
politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and served as its
first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908.
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 electe
d
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
William Gladstone's Liberal 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 the Scottish Labour Party.
Hardie won the English seat of West Ham South as an independent
candidate in 1892, and helped to form the Independent Labour Party (ILP)
the following year. He lost his seat in 1895, but was re-elected to
parliament in 1900 for Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. In the same year
he helped to form the union-based Labour Representation Committee, which
was later renamed the Labour Party.
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 specific 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".
- "
James Mavor met Keir Hardie for the first time in 1879: "When I
first met him he was an alert, good-looking young man - reddish hair,
ruddy complexion, honest but ecstatic eyes, average stature, very
fastidious about his dress..."
https://spartacus-educational.com/PRhardie.htm
- "
In his late teens and early twenties he was an attractive young man
with a strong figure, red beard and thick curly hair, who had several
girlfriends."
https://books.google.it/books…
