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Jimmy Reid Foundation
The Jimmy Reid Foundation is a left-wing think tank and advocacy group operating in Scotland. It was established in memory of Jimmy Reid, a well-known trade union activist, by the Editorial Board of the Scottish Left Review. It was officially launched on the first anniversary of Reid's death on 10 August 2011, with its activities focusing primarily upon the publication and dissemination of policy reports and an annual lecture (of which Alex Salmond, Len McCluskey and Nicola Sturgeon have been the first to deliver). The Foundation is run by a Project Board, a Director and Convenor, with an array of patrons including the likes of Alex Ferguson and Aamer Anwar. History The agenda of the Foundation is to promote and develop a form of socialism and social democracy in line with the views and perspective of Jimmy Reid. However, the Foundation is independent of any of the political parties that Reid was a member or supporter of, namely, the Communist, Labour and SNP parties. The Foundatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished. Left-wing politics are also associated with popular or state control of major political and economic institutions. According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, left-wing supporters "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated." Within the left–right political spectrum, ''Left'' and ''Right'' were coined during the French Revolution, referring to the seating arrangement in the French Estates General. Those ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Mather
James Stuart "Jim" Mather (born 6 March 1947) is a former Scottish National Party (SNP) politician. He was the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism from 2007 to 2011, and he was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from 2003 to 2011. He was the SNP's National Treasurer for four years and after leaving Parliament has held various non-executive posts and academic roles. Early life Mather was born in Lochwinnoch and was educated at Paisley Grammar School and Greenock High School before attending the University of Glasgow. Prior to his election to Holyrood he worked as a chartered accountant and ran his own business. Political career He joined the SNP in 1996 and was the SNP's National Treasurer from 2000. He is credited with making and presenting the economic case for Scottish Independence, having taken the argument to the media, boardrooms and committee rooms across Scotland between 2001 and 2007. He was the SNP candidate in the 2000 Ayr by-election and was their c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie (15 August 185626 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, Lanarkshire. He started working at the age of seven, and from the age of 10 worked in the 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 indepen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Barr (politician)
Reverend James Barr (26 July 1862 – 1949) was a Scottish minister and a British Liberal then Labour politician and a noted pacifist and socialist. He was also a strong supporter of home rule for Scotland, a minimum wage and the Temperance movement. Life He was born on 26 July 1862 at Beanscroft Farm near Fenwick, East Ayrshire the son of Allan Barr a farmer and his wife Elizabeth Brown. He studied a general degree at Glasgow University graduating MA in 1884. He returned to university around 1889 to study Divinity, graduating BD in 1892. He was ordained as a minister of the Free Church of Scotland in 1889 serving Johnstone and Wamphray. In 1895 he became minister of Dennistoun in east Glasgow. Barr was originally a Liberal but then joined the Independent Labour Party. He served as the Member of Parliament for Motherwell, from 1924 to 1931 and then for Coatbridge from 1935 to 1945. He was also the President of The Scottish Home Rule Association. He served as Chairman of the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Gallacher (politician)
William Gallacher (25 December 1881 – 12 August 1965) was a Scottish trade unionist, activist and communist. He was one of the leading figures of the Shop Stewards' Movement in wartime Glasgow (the 'Red Clydeside' period) and a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He served two terms in the House of Commons as the last Communist Member of Parliament (MP). Early career Gallacher was born in Paisley, Scotland on 25 December 1881, the son of an Irish father and a Scottish mother. His father died when he was seven years old, and one of his earliest ambitions was to earn enough money so that his mother would no longer have to work as a washerwoman. With his sisters, he finally achieved this goal at the age of nineteen, but his mother died shortly afterwards at the age of 54. He began working at ten years old, and left school aged twelve. After a spell as a delivery boy for a grocer – where he had his first dispute with an employer – he found work in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agnes Dollan
Agnes Johnston Dollan MBE ( Moir; 16 August 1887 – 16 July 1966), also known as Agnes, Lady Dollan, was a Scottish suffragette and political activist. She was a leading campaigner during the Glasgow Rent Strikes, and a founding organiser of the Women's Peace Crusade. In 1919, she was the first woman selected by the Labour party to stand for election to Glasgow Town Council, and later became Lady Provost of Glasgow. Early life Dollan was born on Springburn Road in Springburn, Glasgow on 16 August 1887 to Anne Wilkinson and Henry Moir, a blacksmith in the locomotive works. She was one of eleven children. Dollan attended school locally until the age of eleven before being forced to leave due to family poverty. Dollan also attended the Socialist Sunday Schools, where she "graduated as a Socialist". On leaving school, Dollan went first to work in a factory before becoming a Post Office telephone operator. During this latter job, Dollan joined the Women's Labour League ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Maxton
James Maxton (22 June 1885 – 23 July 1946) was a British left-wing politician, and leader of the Independent Labour Party. He was a pacifist who opposed both world wars. A prominent proponent of Home Rule for Scotland, he is remembered as one of the leading figures of the Red Clydeside era. He broke with Ramsay MacDonald and the second minority Labour government, and became one of its most bitter critics. As the leader of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), he disaffiliated the ILP from the mainstream party in 1932. Afterwards, he became an independent dissident outside front-line politics. Biography Early years Born in then burgh of Pollokshaws (now part of the city of Glasgow) in 1885, James Maxton was the son of two schoolteachers. He would himself later enter that profession after his education at Hutchesons' Boys' Grammar School and the University of Glasgow. Whilst studying at the University of Glasgow, Maxton had described his political loyalties as lying with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Crawfurd
Helen Crawfurd ( Jack, later Anderson; 9 November 1877 – 18 April 1954) was a Scottish suffragette, rent strike organiser, Communist activist and politician. Born in Glasgow, she was brought up there and in London. Biography Born Helen Jack at 175 Cumberland Street in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, her parents were Helen L. ( Kyle) and William Jack. Her mother worked a steam-loom before she wed. Helen's family moved to Ipswich while she was young. Crawfurd later went to school in London and Ipswich before moving back to Glasgow as a teenager. Crawfurd's father, a master baker, was a Catholic, but converted to the Church of Scotland and became a conservative trade unionist. Initially religious herself and a Sunday School teacher, Crawfurd felt a call to be married at 21 to the 67-year-old widower Alexander Montgomerie Crawfurd (29 August 1828 – 31 May 1914), a Church of Scotland minister and family friend. but he became increasingly radical.A. T. Lane, ed., ''Biographical Dic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Barbour
Mary Barbour ( Rough; 20 February 1875 – 2 April 1958) was a Scottish political activist, local councillor, bailie and magistrate. Barbour was closely associated with the Red Clydeside movement in the early 20th century and especially for her role as the main organiser of the women of Govan who took part in the rent strikes of 1915.Audrey Canning, ‘Barbour , Mary (1875–1958)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 200accessed 14 Feb 2014/ref> Life Barbour was born on 20 February 1875 at 37 New Street, Kilbarchan to Jean (Gavin) and James Rough, a handloom carpet weaver. She was the third of seven children. Barbour attended school until she was fourteen years old. In 1887, the family moved to the village of Elderslie and Barbour worked as a thread twister, eventually becoming a carpet printer. On 28 August 1896, Mary Rough married an engineer, David Barbour (2 May 1873 – 13 November 1957), at Wallace Place, Elderslie. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wheatley
John Wheatley (19 May 1869 – 12 May 1930) was a Scottish socialist politician. He was a prominent figure of the Red Clydeside era. Early life and career Wheatley was born to Thomas and Johanna Wheatley in Bonmahon, County Waterford, Ireland. In 1876 the family moved to Braehead, Lanarkshire in Scotland. Initially—as his father had done in Ireland—he worked as a miner in the Baillieston district. After that he worked briefly as a publican. Wheatley then started a successful printing business, which published leftist political works. He wrote many of them, including ''How the Miners Were Robbed'' (1907), ''The Catholic Workingman'' (1909), ''Miners, Mines and Misery'' (1909), ''Eight Pound Cottages for Glasgow Citizens'' (1913), ''Municipal Banking'' (1920) and ''The New Rent Act'' (1920). He was a deeply religious man and a practising Roman Catholic. Influenced by early Christian-socialist thinkers, in 1907 he joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP). He founded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
