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Abe Moffat
Abraham Moffat (24 September 1896 – 28 March 1975) was a Scottish trade unionist and communist activist. He was elected repeatedly to high office in the trade unions and represented the union on government coal boards. He held major union offices: President of the National Union of Scottish Mine Workers; member of the executive committee of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain; Vice-chairman Scottish Regional Coal Board; and member National Coal Board. He served as president of the union from 1942 to his retirement in 1961, when he was succeeded by his younger brother Alex Moffat, also an activist. Joining the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1922, Abe Moffat was active in a variety of ways. In 1924 he was elected as a communist candidate to the Ballingry Parish Council, serving for 5 years. He was appointed as a full-time official of the United Mineworkers of Scotland, a communist union, becoming its general secretary in 1931. He served until 1935, when the uni ...
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Portrait Of Abe Moffat By R Wolstein 1961
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. History Prehistorical portraiture Plastered human skulls were reconstructed human skulls that were made in the ancient Levant between 9000 and 6000 BC in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes. The skulls denote some of the earliest sculptural examples of portraiture in the history of art. Historical portraitur ...
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Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is headed by the Chief Royal Engineer. The Regimental Headquarters and the Royal School of Military Engineering are in Chatham in Kent, England. The corps is divided into several regiments, barracked at various places in the United Kingdom and around the world. History The Royal Engineers trace their origins back to the military engineers brought to England by William the Conqueror, specifically Bishop Gundulf of Rochester Cathedral, and claim over 900 years of unbroken service to the crown. Engineers have always served in the armies of the Crown; however, the origins of the modern corps, along with those of the Royal Artillery, lie in the Board of Ordnance established in the 15th century. In Woolwich in 1716, the Board formed the Royal Regime ...
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Blairhall
Blairhall is a village in West Fife, Scotland. It is situated 1.1 miles (1.77 km) west of Comrie, and 6.7 miles (10.783 km) west of Dunfermline. The village was originally a small hamlet but was expanded in 1911 to house the miners from a nearby colliery. Today Blairhall has a primary school and a community leisure centre. The village has a population of around 1000 people. Nearly to the south, beyond Shiresmill, and to the west of the Bluther Burn, stands the 17th-century laird's house of Blairhall, which was the birthplace (c.1630) of Sir William Bruce, later baronet of Balcaskie and then Kinross, and Surveyor-General to King Charles II. In 2008, a further expansion of the village took place to the northwest, in an area called the Coo Park which was formerly the grounds of Comrie Castle. The park was landscaped with several parkland trees and a rigg-and-furrow system of cultivation from earlier times was evident. The house was owned by a James Anderson of Blairgo ...
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Valleyfield, Fife
Valleyfield consists of High Valleyfield and Low Valleyfield which are neighbouring villages in Fife, Scotland, midway between Dunfermline and Kincardine-on-Forth. Low Valleyfield is on the shore of the Firth of Forth, High Valleyfield on the ridge immediately to the north. The population of High Valleyfield was 2,940 in the 2001 Census; separate figures for the smaller settlement of Low Valleyfield were not published. In 1801, merchant and politician Sir Robert 'Floating Bob' Preston, 6th Baronet, commissioned the English landscape architect, Sir Humphry Repton, to design a parkland setting for his classical mansion, Valleyfield House. Botanist David Douglas worked there as an apprentice gardener for a time. The Baronetcy of Valleyfield became dormant in 1873, following the death of the 9th Baron. By 1918, the estate had been abandoned by its owners, the East of Fife Coal Company, who had opened the Valleyfield Colliery in 1912. Valleyfield House was demolished in 1941. Pres ...
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Fife County Council
Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i.e. the historic counties of Perthshire and Kinross-shire) and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as ''Fib'', and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland. A person from Fife is known as a ''Fifer''. In older documents the county was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire. Fife is Scotland's third largest local authority area by population. It has a resident population of just under 367,000, over a third of whom live in the three principal towns, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes. The historic town of St Andrews is located on the northeast coast of Fife. It is well known for the University of St Andrews, the most ancient university o ...
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Checkweighman
{{Short description, Occupation within mining, especially coal A checkweighman (occasionally checkmeasurer or checkweigher) is a person who is responsible for weighing coal or another mined substance, and thereby determining the payment due to each worker. In many coal mines, workers have been paid by the weight of coal they mine. Historically, it was impractical to weigh the coal until it had been conveyed to the surface, and therefore the system required a high level of trust. Checkweighmen appointed by the colliery management were often accused of underestimating weights, or even working with scales which they knew to produce incorrect values.Eric Arensen, ''The Human Tradition in American Labor History'', pp.73-74Brian Kelly, ''Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908-21'', pp.68-69 From the mid-19th century, there was a movement in many countries among miners and their trade unions to make the position of checkweighman an elected one. This right was won in the ...
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UK Miners' Strike (1926)
The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reductions and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners. Some 1.7 million workers went out, especially in transport and heavy industry. The government was well prepared, and enlisted middle class volunteers to maintain essential services. There was little violence and the TUC gave up in defeat. Causes From 1914 to 1918, the United Kingdom participated in World War I. Heavy domestic use of coal during the war depleted once-rich seams. Britain exported less coal during the war than it would have in peacetime, allowing other countries to fill the gap. This particularly benefited the strong coal industries of the United States, Poland, and Germany. In the early 1880s, coal production was a ...
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Fife, Kinross And Clackmannan Mineworkers' Association
The Fife and Kinross Miners' Association was a coal miners' trade union based in Fife and Kinross-shire in Scotland. History The union was founded in 1869 or 1870, and proved immediately successful by achieving the eight-hour day for miners in the counties, and was the first union to be recognised by Scottish mine owners. In 1877, employers organised a lockout, targeting the union, but alone out of Scottish coal miners' unions, it survived. The union was a strong supporter of the 1892 UK miners' strike, even publishing a list of strikebreakers in the county. In 1894, the association became a founder member of the Scottish Miners Federation, which in turn affiliated to the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). By 1907, it had 15,500 members. In 1922, the FKMA merged with the Clackmannan Miners' Association, forming the ''Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan Miners' Association'' (FKCMA).Arthur Ivor Marsh and Victoria Ryan, ''Historical Directory of Trade Unions'', vol.6, p.492 ...
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Lochgelly
Lochgelly ( ; gd, Loch Gheallaidh, IPA: ɫ̪ɔxˈʝaɫ̪ai is a town in Fife, Scotland. It is located between Lochs Ore and Gelly to the north-west and south-east respectively. It is separated from Cowdenbeath by the village of Lumphinnans. According to the 2007 population estimate, the town has a population of 6,834. History From the 1830s until the 1960s Lochgelly was a mining town. With the industry now dead the town has slipped into economic and social deprivation as with other former mining towns. Lochgelly is now classed as a town in need of both social and economical regeneration and has the cheapest average home price in Britain. Lochgelly, as part of the old parliamentary constituency of West Fife, was known as " Little Moscow" up to the 1950s owing to its Communist political leanings. An area of Lochgelly was known as the Happy Lands (or Happy Valley) and is referenced in the Scottish folk song 'The Kelty Clippie'. The town is served by Lochgelly railway stati ...
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Bob Stewart (communist)
Robert J. Stewart (16 February 1877 – 1971) was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and was in charge of the underground cell which, in the 1930s, operated a clandestine transmitter in Wimbledon that relayed information between the CPGB and the Comintern in Moscow. He was the CPGB's spymaster and, at one stage, controlled the Cambridge Five. Biography Stewart was born in Eassie, Angus, in Scotland, but grew up in Dundee. Stewart trained as a ship's carpenter from the age of twelve. He joined the Amalgamated Association of Carpenters and Joiners and was soon elected to the local management committee."Bob Stewart"
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In the early 20th century Stewart moved to

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John Maclean (Scottish Socialist)
John Maclean (24 August 1879 – 30 November 1923) was a Scotland, Scottish schoolteacher and revolutionary socialist of the Red Clydeside era. He was notable for his outspoken opposition to the World War I, First World War, which caused his arrest under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, Defence of the Realm Act and loss of his teaching post, after which he became a full-time Marxist lecturer and organiser. In April 1918 he was arrested for sedition, and his 75-minute speech from the dock became a celebrated text for Scottish left-wingers. He was sentenced to five years' penal servitude, but was released after the Armistice of 11 November 1918, November armistice. Maclean believed that Scottish workers were especially fitted to lead the revolution, and talked of "Celtic communism", inspired by clan spirit. But his launch of a Scottish Workers Republican Party and a Communist Labour Party (Scotland), Scottish Communist Party were largely unsuccessful. Although he had been appo ...
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