Keir Hardie

James Kerr

James Keir Hardie

Glasgow

James Keir Hardie, originally James Kerr, was the son of Mary Kerr, a Scottish farm servant. His father was probably William Aitken, a miner from Holytown, but Mary Kerr brought up her son alone before meeting David Hardie, a former ship’s carpenter, who she married in 1859. The family moved between Glasgow and the nearby countryside, suffering periods of poverty caused by unemployment. Keir Hardie received no formal education and started work as a miner at the age of 10. At the age of 17, he joined the temperance movement, and soon afterwards he became involved in miners’ associations, becoming Secretary of the Hamilton District Branch of the Lanarkshire Miners’ Union at the age of 21. At a similar time he became a committed Christian, joining the Evangelical Union, a branch of the United Secession Church, in 1877. It was through the church that he met his future wife, Lillias Balfour Wilson, who he married in 1879. The couple had four children.

Hardie left the mines for trade union work in 1879, eventually becoming Secretary of the Ayrshire Miners’ Union. He then progressed to party politics, rejecting liberalism for socialism, and launching his own monthly paper, the Labour Leader. Having moved to London in 1891, Hardie was returned for West Ham South as an ‘independent Labour’ candidate in the general election of 1892. Hardie played a key role in the major events of its early history, including the founding of the Independent Labour Party in 1893 and that of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 – which became the Labour Party in 1906. Defeated in 1896, he was elected MP to Merthyr Tudful in 1900. In 1906 he was elected first Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party but resigned from the post in 1907. Both within and outside Parliament, he campaigned tirelessly for the unemployed, free schooling, pensions, Indian self-rule and, perhaps most of all, women’s rights. He had a close friendship with the Pankhurst family, particularly Sylvia, who was probably his lover. Hardie was also a pacifist and outspoken in his criticism of the First World War.

Hardie was an internationalist and vociferous critic of the British Government in India, frequently calling for Indian self-rule in Parliament. On 20 July 1906 he made a particularly harsh denunciation of conditions in India, including death rates, low wages and the exclusion of Indians from local government, receiving support from many of his fellow Labour MPs. The following year, he toured India. He gave numerous speeches there, exposing the corruption of the Raj, speaking out in favour of Indian self-determination and against racism, advocating non-violent agitation and encouraging the Congress Party. He was accompanied on his tours by the revolutionary Indian nationalist B. G. Tilak as well as leaders of the swadeshi movement J. Chowdhury and Surendranath Banerjea, and is said to have peppered his speeches with the slogan ‘Bande Mataram’, even though he advocated a gradual extension of self-government rather than immediate withdrawal. Hardie’s tour of India alarmed the British authorities, and was stirred up by the press. There were calls for him to be deported and accusations of sedition. On his return he continued speaking out for Indian self-rule in the House of Commons, campaigning (unsuccessfully) for the release from prison of Tilak, and publishing in 1909 India: Impressions and Suggestions, which was formative to the Labour Party’s position on India for the next fifty years.