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Bill Lauchlan
William Sinclair Lauchlan (or Laughlan, 10 May 1916 – 2009) was a Scottish communist activist. Lauchlan was born in Irvine in May 1916 to James Lauchlan, a plasterer, and Catherine Sinclair. He was educated to secondary school level.''The Times House of Commons'' (1964), p.214 A Plasterer to trade, Lauchlan joined the Independent Labour Party in Irvine, Ayrshire 1933, then in 1935 switched to the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He quickly rose to prominence, serving as Lanarkshire Organiser in the 1940s, then becoming Scottish District Secretary in about 1951,''The Times House of Commons'' (1951), p.199 then in the 1960s served as National Organiser. He was also active on Glasgow Trades Council, and in 1946 represented it at the Scottish Trades Union Congress. Lauchlan stood for the CPGB in Glasgow Govan at the 1950 general election, then in West Fife in 1951, 1955, 1959 and 1964, although he was never elected. Following his retirement from being a full-time office ...
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Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange which allocates products to everyone in the society.: "One widespread distinction was that socialism socialised production only while communism socialised production and consumption." Communist society also involves the absence of private property, social classes, money, and the state. Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance, but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a constitutional socialist state ...
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1959 United Kingdom General Election
The 1959 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 8 October 1959. It marked a third consecutive victory for the ruling Conservative Party, now led by Harold Macmillan. For the second time in a row, the Conservatives increased their overall majority in Parliament, this time to a landslide majority of 100 seats, having gained 20 seats for a return of 365. The Labour Party, led by Hugh Gaitskell, lost 19 seats and returned 258. The Liberal Party, led by Jo Grimond, again returned only six MPs to the House of Commons, but managed to increase its overall share of the vote to 5.9%, compared to just 2.7% four years earlier. The Conservatives won the largest number of votes in Scotland, but narrowly failed to win the most seats in that country. They have not made either achievement ever since. Both Jeremy Thorpe, a future Liberal leader, and Margaret Thatcher, a future Conservative leader and eventually Prime Minister, first entered the House of Commons after this electio ...
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2009 Deaths
This is a list of deaths of notable people, organised by year. New deaths articles are added to their respective month (e.g., Deaths in ) and then linked here. 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 See also * Lists of deaths by day The following pages, corresponding to the Gregorian calendar, list the historical events, births, deaths, and holidays and observances of the specified day of the year: Footnotes See also * Leap year * List of calendars * List of non-standard ... * Deaths by year {{DEFAULTSORT:deaths by year ...
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1916 Births
Events Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 1 – The British Empire, British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that had been stored and cooled. * January 9 – WWI: Gallipoli Campaign: The last British troops are evacuated from Gallipoli, as the Ottoman Empire prevails over a joint British and French operation to capture Constantinople. * January 10 – WWI: Erzurum Offensive: Russia defeats the Ottoman Empire. * January 12 – The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, part of the British Empire, is established in present-day Tuvalu and Kiribati. * January 13 – WWI: Battle of Wadi (1916), Battle of Wadi: Ottoman Empire forces defeat the British, during the Mesopotamian campaign in modern-day Iraq. * January 29 – WWI: Paris is bombed by German Empire, German zeppelins. * January 31 – WWI: An attack is planned on Verdun, France. February * ...
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Gordon McLennan (politician)
Gordon McLennan (12 May 1924 – 21 May 2011) was a Scottish political activist and draughtsperson who was General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from 1975 to 1990. Background Born in Glasgow, McLennan worked as an engineering draughtsperson before taking on various full-time posts within the CPGB. He contested the Glasgow Govan constituency at the 1959 general election, then the 1962 West Lothian by-election and Glasgow Govan again at the 1966 general election. He became the National Organiser of the CPGB in 1966, and while holding this post, contested elections in St Pancras North at the 1970 and February 1974 general elections. General Secretary In 1975, McLennan was elected as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He held the post while the party was in terminal decline, with factional infighting within the CPGB, finally stepping down in 1989. One of his acts as General Secretary was to appoint Martin Jacques, then an ...
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John Gollan
John Gollan (2 April 1911 – 5 September 1977) was a British political leader who was general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from 1956 to 1975. Gollan was born in Edinburgh, where he grew up and took his first job as a painter's apprentice. His first introduction to political activity was during the 1926 general strike when he helped distribute the papers of the strike committee. On International Workers' Day, 1 May, the following year he joined the and its youth wing the Young Communist League (YCL). He became a signwriter but his career was cut short in July 1931 when he was arrested for distributing anti-militarist leaflets. He had been organising soldiers to demand better rights and conditions, an activity for which he was sentenced to 6 months in HM Prison Edinburgh. After a popular campaign calling for his release he was freed in January 1932 and began working for the party. Gollan became the editor of the 's newspaper ''The Young Worker'' and ...
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Kelso, Scottish Borders
Kelso ( sco, Kelsae gd, Cealsaidh) is a market town in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Roxburghshire, it lies where the rivers Tweed and Teviot have their confluence. The town has a population of 5,639 according to the 2011 census and based on the 2010 definition of the locality. Kelso's main tourist draws are the ruined Kelso Abbey and Floors Castle. The latter is a house designed by William Adam which was completed in 1726. The Kelso Bridge was designed by John Rennie who later built London Bridge. Kelso held the UK record for the lowest January temperature at , from 1881 until 1982. History The town of Kelso came into being as a direct result of the creation of Kelso Abbey in 1128. The town's name stems from the earliest settlement having stood on a chalky outcrop, and the town was known as Calkou (or perhaps Calchfynydd) in those early days, something that is remembered in the modern street name, "Chalkheugh ...
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Dumfriesshire
Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries or Shire of Dumfries (''Siorrachd Dhùn Phris'' in Gaelic) is a historic county and registration county in southern Scotland. The Dumfries lieutenancy area covers a similar area to the historic county. In terms of historic counties it borders Kirkcudbrightshire to the west, Ayrshire to the north-west, Lanarkshire, Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire to the north, and Roxburghshire to the east. To the south is the coast of the Solway Firth, and the English county of Cumberland. Dumfriesshire has three traditional subdivisions, based on the three main valleys in the county: Annandale, Eskdale and Nithsdale. These had been independent provinces in medieval times but were gradually superseded as administrative areas by the area controlled by the sheriff of Dumfries, or Dumfriesshire. A Dumfriesshire County Council existed from 1890 until 1975. Since 1975, the area of the historic county has formed part of the Dumfries and Galloway council ...
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Moffat
Moffat ( gd, Mofad) is a burgh and parish in Dumfriesshire, now part of the Dumfries and Galloway local authority area in Scotland. It lies on the River Annan, with a population of around 2,500. It was a centre of the wool trade and a spa town. Moffat is around to the southeast of Glasgow, southwest of Edinburgh, northeast of Dumfries and northwest of Carlisle. The Moffat House Hotel, located at the northern end of the High Street, was designed by John Adam. The nearby Star Hotel, a mere 20 ft (6 m) wide, was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the narrowest hotel in the world. Moffat won the Britain in Bloom contest in 1996. Moffat is home to Moffat toffee. The town is held to be the ancestral seat of Clan Moffat. The Devil's Beef Tub near Moffat was used by the members of Clan Moffat and later the members of Clan Johnstone to hoard cattle stolen in predatory raids. Early tourism as a spa town From 1633 Moffat began to grow from a small village into a ...
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1964 United Kingdom General Election
The 1964 United Kingdom general election was held on 15 October 1964, five years after the previous election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party, first led by Winston Churchill, had regained power. It resulted in the Conservatives, led by the incumbent Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home, narrowly losing to the Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson; Labour secured a parliamentary majority of four seats and ended its thirteen years in opposition. Wilson became (at the time) the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Rosebery in 1894. To date, this is also the most narrow majority obtained in the House of Commons with just 1 seat clearing labour for Majority Government. Background Both major parties had changed leadership in 1963. Following the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell early in the year, Labour had chosen Harold Wilson (at the time, thought of as being on the party's centre-left), while Alec Douglas-Home (at the time the Earl of Home) had taken over as Conservat ...
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1955 United Kingdom General Election
The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election in 1951. It was a snap election: after Winston Churchill retired in April 1955, Anthony Eden took over and immediately called the election in order to gain a mandate for his government. It resulted in a majority of 60 seats for the government under new leader and Prime Minister Anthony Eden; the result remains the largest party share of the vote at a post-war general election. This was the first general election to be held with Elizabeth II as monarch. She had succeeded her father George VI a year after the previous election. Results The election was fought on new boundaries, with five seats added to the 625 fought in 1951. At the same time, the Conservative Party had returned to power for the first time since World War II and increased its popularity by accepting the mixed economy and welfare state created by the previous Labour Party government. It also ...
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Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates, representing the interests of the majority. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman. The party was positioned to the left of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Representation Committee, which was founded in 1900 and soon renamed the Labour Party, and to which the ILP was affiliated from 1906 to 1932. In 1947, the organisation's three parliamentary representatives defected to the Labour Party, and the organisation rejoined Labour as Independent Labour Publications in 1975. Organisational history Background As the nineteenth century came to a close, working-class representation in political office became a great concern for many Britons. Many who sought the election of working men and thei ...
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