Wales and Socialism

WALES AND SOCIALISM Political Culture and National Identity c. 1880-1914 Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cardiff University, 2011 By Martin Wright Acknowledgment First and foremost I wish to record my thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Bill Jones of Cardiff University. His professionalism, expertise, wisdom and unwavering support over the last four years have been hugely appreciated, and have added immeasurably to the experience of researching and writing this thesis. Diolch o galon, Bill. This work was funded by the Centre for Welsh Medium Education (now the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol). Without this financial support, this thesis would never have been written. My debt to the Coleg and its staff is therefore huge. Numerous archives and libraries have been used during the research for this thesis, and I have received help and support from a great number of their staff. In particular I wish to record my thanks to the staff of the following institutions: National Library of Wales; Bangor University Archive; South Wales Miners‟ Library; Swansea University Library and Archive; Cardiff University Library and Special Collections; Hugh Owen Library, Aberystwyth; Aberdare Public Library; British Library of Political and Economic Science, London; Glamorgan Archive, Cardiff; Cardiff Central Library. From a personal perspective, the four years that it has taken to undertake the research for this thesis have been full indeed. I wish to record my profound thanks to my family and friends, and to the staff of the Royal Gwent and Heath Hospitals in Newport and Cardiff. This thesis is dedicated to Aneurin Dylan Wright. Summary This thesis examines the spread of socialist ideas and the growth of the socialist movement in Wales in the period 1880-1914. It pays particular attention to the way in which socialists related to Welsh national identity, and analyses the processes through which the universalist ideals of socialism were related to the particular and local conditions of Wales. It examines the interplay between Wales and the wider world that occurred through the medium of the socialist movement, and balances this against the internal dynamic and organic growth of socialism within Wales itself. Having surveyed and commented upon existing British and Welsh labour historiography, the thesis opens with a discussion of the first „modern‟ socialists to undertake propaganda in Wales in the 1880s. It then examines the way in which socialist societies began to put down roots in the 1890s, through case studies of the Fabian Society in Cardiff and the Social Democratic Federation in south Wales. The central part of the thesis is concerned with the rise of the most important of the socialist organisations, the Independent Labour Party. Attention is given to the way in which the ILP used the south Wales coal strike of 1898 to gain its ascendancy in Welsh socialist politics, and the nature of the political culture that was created by the party in south Wales. The remainder of the thesis discusses the nature of socialist growth beyond south Wales, and pays particular attention to indigenous Welsh forms of socialism. The thesis concludes with an examination of the rapid growth of the socialist movement in Wales after 1906, and the consequent debate that occurred about the relationship of socialism, Welsh nationalism and the Welsh language. WALES AND SOCIALISM Political Culture and National Identity c. 1880 – 1914 Contents Introduction pp. 1-14 Chapter 1 Pioneers pp. 15-42 Chapter 2 Putting Down Roots pp. 43-96 (i). Fabianism in Cardiff pp. 44-74 (iii). The Social Democratic Federation in South Wales pp. 74-96 Chapter 3 South Wales and the ILP Ascendancy pp. 97-166 (i). The ILP and Socialism in South Wales Before 1898 pp. 99-125 (ii). The 1898 Coal Strike pp. 125-140 (iii). Keir Hardie, Merthyr and the Political Culture of Welsh Socialism pp. 140-166 Chapter 4 Beyond the Heads of the Valleys pp. 167-233 (i). British Socialism and Welsh Wales pp. 169-186 (ii). Socialists, Quarrymen and Lord Penrhyn pp. 186-201 (iii). Towards an Indigenous Welsh Socialism? pp. 201-217 (iv). R.J. Derfel, „Socialist Cymreig‟ pp. 218-233 Chapter 5 Socialists, Culture and Language 1906-1914 pp. 234-277 (i). The Socialist Movement in Wales after 1906 pp. 234-251 (ii). The Struggle for a Welsh Socialist Consciousness pp. 251-266 (iii). Welsh Socialism and the Limitation of Language pp. 267-278 Conclusion pp. 279-281 Bibliography pp. 282-318 Introduction This thesis is an analysis of the elision of two concepts, Welshness and socialism, in the period before the Great War. Both terms defy easy definition, and when considered together they present the historian with something of a Gordian Knot, at the heart of which is a set of problems both universal and specific in nature. On one level these concern the relationship between the ideologies of socialism and nationalism. These two forces, which evolved to maturity in the second half of the nineteenth century, between them influenced the shape of much of the twentieth century world. Their often turbulent relationship was, however, played out in a multiplicity of settings, each varying according to prevailing socio-economic, cultural and linguistic circumstances. In their mission to inaugurate a universal „Co-operative Commonwealth‟ socialists had to face numerous particularisms; they needed to map the general principles of their creed onto the local conditions of their immediate environment. Some took part in this process almost unconsciously, whereas for others it involved a conscious and theoretical effort. Either way, the tension between the local and the global being a salient theme of modern life, their efforts are worthy of historical examination. Indeed, there is no shortage of secondary literature concerned with the general problem of socialism‟s relationship with nationalism,1 although that is only part of the problem examined here. Behind the ideological relationship between socialism and nationalism was a web of less ideologically specific and more everyday circumstances, characteristics and ideas. These too have been subject to historical examination. Within a British context this has often been abbreviated to a consideration of what E.P. Thompson memorably called „the peculiarities of the English‟.2 This thesis is concerned with a problem that has been less frequently explored by labour and socialist historians, namely „the peculiarities of the Welsh‟. 1 Erica Benner, Really Existing Nationalisms: A Post Communist View from Marx and Engels, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1995); Stefan Berger and Angel Smith, Nationalism, Labour and Ethnicity 1870-1939, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York (1999); Ian Cummins, Marx Engels and National Movements, Croom Helm, London (1980); Horace B. Davis, Nationalism and Socialism: Marxist and Labour Theories of Nationalism to 1917, Monthly Review Press, New York and London (1967); Michael Forman, Nationalism and the International Labour Movement: The Idea of the Nation in Socialist and Anarchist Theory, Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania (1998); Michael Löwy, Fatherland or Mother Earth: Essays on the National Question, Pluto Press, London and Sterling, Virginia (1998); John Schwartzmantel, Socialism and the Idea of the Nation, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead (1991). 2 E.P. Thompson, „The Peculiarities of the English‟, in Ralph Miliband and John Saville (eds.), The Socialist Register, 2 (1965), pp. 311-361. 1 Specifically, it discusses the ways in which late nineteenth and early twentieth century socialists related to those „peculiarities‟, and the way in which Welsh „peculiarities‟ responded to and influenced the development of socialism. A survey of British labour and socialist historiography is not initially very helpful in progressing such an enquiry. The field is both vast and labyrinthine and was traditionally, until at least the 1960s, concerned primarily with narrating the ascendancy of labour – celebrating and detailing „Labour‟s Forward March‟. This narrative was overwhelmingly British in character, culminating in the profoundly pan- British achievement of the Attlee Governments in the creation of the „New Jerusalem‟ after 1945, and Wales - at any rate that part of it beyond the southern coalfield – was marginal to its concerns. Thus Henry Pelling, in The Origins of the Labour Party, reminds us that there was not a single Welsh representative at the foundation conference of the Independent Labour Party at Bradford in 1893. Wales metaphorically - and in the case of Sam Hobson, the unfortunate intended representative from Cardiff, literally - missed the train.3 One representative example will suffice to illustrate the apparent invisibility of Wales within this historiographical tradition. It would almost be possible to read G.D.H. Cole‟s multi volume History of Socialist Thought without realising that Wales existed at all. Wales does not merit a mention in the index of any of the volumes, and the only brief references to the country are to the Taff Vale dispute, Keir Hardie‟s representation of Merthyr Boroughs in Parliament and the Miners‟ Next Step. In the first two instances it is not even specified that the events took place in Wales, and it would be quite possible for a reader with no knowledge of the British Isles to assume that Taff Vale or Merthyr were in England. Indeed Cole could write about the trade union events of 1889 having „an immensely stimulating effect on working class opinion all over the country‟, without feeling the need to specify which country he was referring to.4 Indeed, one suspects that to the majority of traditional British labour and socialist historians, most of Wales was, in the words of Eric Hobsbawm, „little more than a mountainous agricultural annexe‟ whose culture „went its own way‟ and consisted of „largely 3 Henry Pelling, Origins of the Labour Party, Macmillan, London (1954), p. 116; Sam Hobson, Pilgrim to the Left: Memoirs of a Modern Revolutionist, Longmans, Green & Co, London (1938), p.

Load more