Hardie, J Keir

Hardie, J Keir

▪ British labour leader

born Aug. 15, 1856, Legbrannock, Lanark, Scot.
died Sept. 26, 1915, Glasgow
 British labour leader, first to represent the workingman in Parliament as an Independent (1892) and first to lead the Labour Party in the House of Commons (1906). A dedicated socialist, he was also an outspoken pacifist (from the time of the South African, or Boer, War, 1899–1902) and the chief adviser (from 1903) to the militant suffragists headed by Emmeline Pankhurst.

      Unmarried at the time of Hardie's birth, his mother, a farm servant, later married a ship's carpenter who was an early trade unionist. In this setting, Hardie became the eldest of a family of nine children, and his childhood, passed partly in Glasgow and partly in the Lanarkshire coalfield, was one of great hardship. He never went to school. He began to work at age seven or eight and became a coal miner at 10. In the late 1870s he was fired and blacklisted by the Lanark mineowners for his strike activity. Moving to Ayr, he was chosen secretary of a miners' organization. From 1881 he helped to form miners' unions on a county basis, meanwhile earning his living as a journalist. In his own newspapers, The Miner (1887–89) and Labour Leader (from 1889), he expressed Christian socialist views on labour and on wider political issues. He founded the Scottish Labour Party in 1888, the year in which he was badly defeated in his first attempt at election to the House of Commons. Successful in the 1892 general election, he was a member of Parliament when, at Bradford, Yorkshire, in January 1893, he participated in organizing the Independent Labour Party (ILP). More a propaganda enterprise than a true political party, the ILP was the first socialist group having a genuine Christian, English, and working-class appeal; it was neither middle class and intellectual (as was the Fabian Society) nor specifically Marxist and thus foreign in inspiration and atheistic.

      Following the loss of his Commons seat in 1895, Hardie assisted in planning a Labour Party resembling the Liberals and the Conservatives in parliamentary organization. Delegates at a labour conference in London on Feb. 27–28, 1900, formed the Labour Representation Committee, forerunner of the Labour Party. In the same year, Hardie was returned to Parliament, and, six years later, he was joined in the Commons by 28 other members of the committee, which then became a party organization with an elected leader (at first called the chairman) and party whips. Temperamentally unsuited to the routine administration of a group, Hardie ended his chairmanship in 1907.

      As World War I approached, Hardie became primarily concerned with the role of labour in maintaining peace. He sought to bind the Second International to declaring a general strike in all countries in the event of war. His failure in this effort and the decision of a majority of the Labour Party to support British participation in the war caused Hardie to withdraw in disillusion from his colleagues.

Additional Reading
Biographies include Kenneth O. Morgan, Keir Hardie: Radical and Socialist (1975); Iain McLean, Keir Hardie (1975); and Fred Reid, Keir Hardie: The Making of a Socialist (1978).

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Keir Hardie — James Keir Hardie James Keir Hardie (15 août 1856 26 septembre 1915) était un socialiste écossais, premier travailliste élu à la Chambre des Communes, sept ans avant la conférence de fondation du Labour Party, dont il fut le premier président.… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Keir Hardie — 1909 James Keir Hardie (* 15. August 1856 in Newhouse, North Lanarkshire; † 26. September 1915 in Glasgow) war ein britischer Politiker (Labour Party). Hardie wurde berühmt als einer der Gründer der Labour Party sowie als einer ihrer ersten… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Keir Hardie — [Keir Hardie] (1856–1915) a Scottish ↑miner who became a politician. He started the Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party in 1888, and the ↑Independent Labour Party in 1893, and then played a major part in creating the British ↑Labour Party, which… …   Useful english dictionary

  • Keir — steht für: Keir (Ort), einen Ort in Schottland Keir ist der Nachname von folgenden Personen: Anna Keir (* um 1910), kanadische Badmintonspielerin James Keir (1735–1820), britischer Chemiker Andrew Keir (1926–1997), schottischer Schauspieler Keir… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Hardie — is a surname, and may refer to* Andrew Hardie, Baron Hardie, British lawyer and politician * Andrew Hardie (radical) * Brad Hardie, Australian rules footballer * James Allen Hardie, (1823 76), American soldier * Keir Hardie, British politician *… …   Wikipedia

  • Hardie — ist der Nachname folgender Personen: Andrew Hardie, Baron Hardie, britischer Politiker Brad Hardie, australischer Footballspieler Keir Hardie (1856–1915), britischer Politiker Michael Hardie Boys, neuseeländischer Richter Philip Russell Hardie (* …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Keir — m Scottish: transferred use of the surname, in origin a variant of KERR (SEE Kerr). In some cases, the name may be chosen in honour of the trade unionist and first Labour MP, James Keir Hardie (1856–1915), whose mother s maiden name was Keir …   First names dictionary

  • Hardie —   [ hɑːdi], James Keir, britischer Arbeiterführer, * Legbrannock (bei Lanark) 15. 8. 1856, ✝ Glasgow 26. 9. 1915; Bergmann; Mitbegründer der Scottish Labour Party (1888) und der Independent Labour Party (1893), deren erster Präsident er wurde.… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Hardie — (spr. hārdĭ), James Keir, engl. Arbeiterführer, geb. 15. Aug. 1856 in Schottland, arbeitete vom 7. bis zum 24. Jahr in den Kohlenbergwerken von Ayrshire, bildete sich aber privatim aus und trat 1882 in die journalistische Laufbahn ein. Er… …   Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon

  • Keir Hardie — ➡ Hardie * * * …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”