Keir Hardie, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Keir Hardie

Scottish socialist and labour leader

Date of Birth: 15-Aug-1856

Place of Birth: North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 26-Sep-1915

Profession: politician, journalist, union organizer, trade unionist

Zodiac Sign: Leo


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About Keir Hardie

  • James Keir Hardie (15 August 1856 – 26 September 1915) was a 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, North Lanarkshire.
  • He started working at the age of seven, and from the age of 10 worked in the South 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 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".

Read more at Wikipedia

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