Keir Hardie

I am led to understand that Keir Starmer is visiting this region today.   This offers a temptation to rush over to him and ask if he has ever heard of 'Keir Hardie?'  

Keir Hardie is the man who made the Independent Labour Party, out of which grew the Labour Party of today, a very different beast now.  

Born illegitimate, in the small Lanarkshire mining village of Legrannock, Lanarkshire,  on 15th August 1856, to Mary Keir.  The father was a local miner.  Three years later his mother married David Hardie, a ships carpenter and the family lived in various poor areas of Glasgow seeking work.  Money was scarce and young Keir found himself doing various jobs from the age of seven.  How many children today would enjoy that?  By the time he reached 10 years he was a bakers roundsman, supposedly of three shillings and sixpence a week.  This possibly meant ten hour days, six days a week!   Near Christmas he was fired because he had been caring for his pregnant mother and sick brother, this made no difference and he lost his job.  We are led to believe the Baker was doing well and possessed a well stocked household.  Hardie and his family lived in run down 'single end' housing in Glasgow, the cheapest possible, and struggled like so many others.  

Soon after this the family moved back to Mary's mother in Newarthill, near where he was born as David Hardie took the only job open to him and went back to sea.  The boy failed to obtain apprenticeships and was therefore forced into the only work available, mining!  

At first this meant sitting in the dark opening and shutting the doors as pit ponies and men passed by.  When aged twelve he himself was guiding the ponies up and down the shafts.  On one occasion a fall of rock left him entombed, however, when rescuers found him he was lying asleep by his pony in its stable.  This event left a mark on him however.

The boy's education came only from night school.  He would practice writing on slates covered with coal dust.  By his teens his reading was filled with Scottish writings.  Robert Burns, the Covenanters and Thomas Carlyle influenced him greatly.  Burns especially with his 'A man's a mans for a that,' alongside one portion from Carlyle which led to Hardies' strong pacifist ideals.   

His mother was also a strong influence on his youth, she may have been an agnostic, but they say, she was a Scots Presbyterian agnostic!  The culture permeated Hardie, influencing his teetotal life, and he learned how to communicate by leading the 'Temperance' movement around the Pits.

The speaking for Temperance was good practice for speaking on behalf of mineworkers.  However, this also upset the mine owners and by 1878, the year he claims he became a Christian and joined the Congregationalists, he had been removed from the pits and banned sine die.  He never worked down a mine again.

By the end of the 19th century the nearest thing to workers representation was the Liberal Party.  Hardie soon saw himself as a 'Gladstonian Liberal.'  The great William Ewart Gladstone a man who found favour with the working man.  This in spite of Gladstone's opposition to the 'socialism' that grew in Hardies' mind.   Hardie earned money by writing for a local Liberal paper but his ideas were much more radical than those offered by the Liberals.

By 1888 Hardie was standing as an Independent Labour Candidate, losing, but gaining some support.    Keir Hardie entered the House of Commons by winning the West Ham South seat in 1892.  No miners in this area, however, the conditions replicated those of working men elsewhere and many chose Hardie before the Conservatives.  

Being a man of independent and strong mind Keir Hardie refused to wear the top hat and frock coat that members of the House routinely wore.  Hardie came in tweed suit, with deerstalker hat, the appropriate hat at the time.  The press attacks were merciless, nonetheless Keir continued to speak for a radical agenda, votes for women, free schooling, pensions and the abolition of the House of Lords. 

He remained in the House until 1895.

The growth, first of the Independent Labour Party, and after 1900 the Labour Party, came from the hard work Keir Hardie endured.  Consider the opposition, from both Liberals and Conservatives.  The outcry, when during the congratulations for the arrival of a new Prince, (later Edward VIII) he asked for condolences to be added regarding the deaths of 251 miners in a Welsh mining accident.  This outcry led to losing his seat.

Elected once again in 1900 for Merthyr Tydfill, he continued to pursue radical policies.  All around the Labour Party was developing and though elected first leader in 1906 he resigned the post in 1908. 

Keir Hardie continued to represent Scotland's miners, to such an extent that he wished to end immigration from places like Lithuania, their workers were cheaper than Scots miners and jobs were being lost!  However, he supported votes for black men, though none were in his area, votes for women, and freedom for India.  

He became more unpopular when he refused to back the Great War.  His pacifism, and the idea of working men killing one another went all the way back to his reading of Thomas Carlyle's work.  He refused to support war, and gave support to those who refused to fight.

Illness led to pneumonia and in September 1915 he died in a Glasgow hospital.

His legacy can be seen in the Labour Party, though much changed since his day.  That change can be seen in Keir Starmer, a stranger to mine workings and heavy labour, and today a stranger to socialism.

Still, whatever gets you elected...

This book is far from young, published in 1975, and at times is very dense.  This is caused by the detail given to the development of Hardies opinions and then the growth of the Labour movement.  This, as you can imagine, was not straightforward.  Neither is the book.  Worth a read if you have the time.