DOCSLIB.ORG

Carrigan, Daniel (2014) Patrick Dollan (1885-1963) and the Labour Movement in Glasgow

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Carrigan, Daniel (2014) Patrick Dollan (1885-1963) and the Labour Movement in Glasgow Carrigan, Daniel (2014) Patrick Dollan (1885-1963) and the Labour Movement in Glasgow. MPhil(R) thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5640 Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] PATRICK DOLLAN(1885-1963) AND THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN GLASGOW Daniel Carrigan OBE B.A. Honours (Strathclyde) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy School of Humanities College of Arts University of Glasgow September 2014 2 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the life and politics of Patrick Dollan a prominent Independent Labour Party (ILP) member and leader in Glasgow. It questions the perception of Dollan as an intolerant, Irish-Catholic 'machine politician' who ruled the 'corrupt' City Labour movement with an 'iron fist', dampened working-class aspirations for socialism, sowed the seeds of disillusionment and stood in opposition to the charismatic left-wing MPs such as James Maxton who were striving to introduce policies that would eradicate unemployment and poverty. Research is also conducted into Dollan's connections with the Irish community and the Catholic church and his attitude towards Communism and communists to see if these issues explain his supposed ideological opposition to left-wing movements. The thesis will test these perceptions by examining Dollan's role within Glasgow Corporation, the Glasgow and Scottish Federations of the ILP and the public and voluntary organisations that Dollan was involved in. Full use is made of contemporary and socialist newspapers, Glasgow Corporation Minutes, ILP conference reports and minute books, public records and archives. The objective is to look at the growth and development of the Labour movement in Glasgow and establish whether Dollan was indeed a fetter on the 'forward march of Labour' or deserves recognition as someone who made a positive contribution to the labour movement by enhancing the lives of the Scottish working class. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Dr Catriona Macdonald and Dr Jim Phillips of Glasgow University for their supervision, encouragement, advice and guidance in the preparation of this thesis. I would also like to record my gratitude to the staffs of Glasgow University library, Strathclyde University Special Collections and the Glasgow Room at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow for their assistance. I would also like to thank the staff of the College of Arts I.T. department for their assistance in the final presentation of this thesis. 4 CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Introduction Reputation and Historiography 5 Chapter 1 The Developing Socialist 26 Chapter 2 1922-1933 Consolidation and Division 68 Chapter 3 1933-1946 Control and Power 107 Epilogue 'The Quango Years' 149 Conclusion 165 Bibliography 171 5 INTRODUCTION REPUTATION AND HISTORIOGRAPHY Patrick Joseph Dollan (1885 - 1963) was a Labour activist throughout his adult life. He was a prominent 'Red Clydesider' and long-serving Glasgow councillor (1913-46). He held posts as City Treasurer, Leader of the council Labour group and Lord Provost (1938-41) for which he was knighted. Thereafter, he went on to hold other public service roles in the energy and civil aviation fields and also became the first Chairman of East Kilbride Development Corporation in 1947. Whilst his civic contribution may have been noteworthy what makes Dollan particularly interesting to Labour historians was his avowed opposition to the popular and charismatic James Maxton - the apogee of 'Red Clydeside' - and his less charismatic but arguably more competent colleague, John Wheatley. Dollan, despite their earlier close working relationship and friendship, came to believe that Maxton and his inner circle of Clydeside MPs were advocating unrealistic and unpopular policies such as alliances with Communists and the adoption of 'red-blooded' socialism, as in the 1928 Cook-Maxton manifesto, which represented a rejection of Labour's stance of reformism and gradualism. These strategic differences which ultimately led to them being on opposing sides when Dollan fought tenaciously in a vain attempt to halt the Maxton- inspired Independent Labour Party's (ILP) disaffiliation from the Labour party in 1932 together with the consequences of this split for the labour movement in Glasgow will be examined in detail in this thesis. 6 Dollan's organising and political skills, his Irish and Catholic connections, together with his council activities, have seen him presented by critics as some kind of Tammany Hall Council 'boss' and associated with features of intolerance, control and self- aggrandisement.1 He is viewed at best as controversial, and at worst as a negative political figure by many historians.2 In contrast to the oft-portrayed idealistic James Maxton, Dollan is routinely painted as a politician without scruples or principle who ruled the party in Glasgow and Scotland with a rod of iron and sought to obstruct idealists such as Maxton and John Wheatley, from winning the Labour movement for their brand of socialism which was more radical than that of Dollan and the Labour leadership.3 In the absence of any previous substantive biography of Dollan,4 this thesis 1 Tammany Hall is the term used to describe the political machine that effectively controlled New York Democratic Party politics from the 1860s to the 1930s by dispensing nominations and patronage to its adherents many of whom, at least initially, were of Irish stock. It became associated with and corruption under its infamous leader William M. "Boss" Tweed. See J. J. Smyth, Labour In Glasgow, 1896-1936, (East Lothian: Tuckwell Press, 2000), p. 114. Dollan was not the only Glasgow politician to be accused of practising 'Tammany Hall' politics. Beatrice Webb, a senior Labour politician and historian said of John Wheatley the Shettleston MP and former cabinet minister, in her diaries published in 1932, that, 'In the USA he would have succeeded as a local boss. He is a good mob orator and would have revelled in the intrigue and corruption of the machine; he would have been acute and good- natured in dispensing offices and bribes among his followers.' Quoted in Ian S. Wood, John Wheatley, (Manchester: Manchester University Press,1990), p. 263. 2 Sean Damer, Glasgow: Going for a Song, (London: Lawrence and Wishart,1990 ), p. 154; J. J. Smyth, Labour In Glasgow, pp.113-20; Ian McLean, The Legend of Red Clydeside, (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1999), p.192. 3 William Knox, James Maxton, (Manchester: Manchester University Press,1987), p. 105; William Knox, ' "Ours is not an ordinary Parliamentary Movement":1922-1926' in Alan McKinlay and R.J.Morris, eds, The ILP on Clydeside, (Manchester: Manchester University Press,1991), p. 174; Alan McKinlay and James J. Smyth, 'The end of 'the agitator workman' :1926-1932' in The ILP on Clydeside, ed. by Alan McKinlay and James J. Smyth; Harry McShane and Joan Smith, Harry McShane-No Mean Fighter, (London: Pluto Press, 1978), p. 110. 4 The biographical sources we have for Dollan are: Helen Corr and William Knox, 'Patrick Joseph Dollan', in Labour Leaders1918-39, ed. by William Knox, (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1984), pp. 92- 99; Glasgow, Mitchell Library, P. J. Dollan, Unpublished (and incomplete) 'Autobiography', undated (1953?). There are a number of newspaper cuttings containing articles and interviews with Dollan in Pat Woods, 'A Miscellany' collection, within the Mitchell Library; Irene Maver, 'P. J. Dollan', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography at <http://www.oxforddnb.com>, (hereafter DNB), [accessed 5 April 2012]. 7 will evaluate Dollan's reputation and legacy to ascertain whether historians, many of whom relied on secondary sources and contemporaries' accounts, have painted an accurate picture of him. But before turning to the historiography it would be instructive to survey Dollan's early life to understand the circumstances and environment that led to him developing political consciousness and becoming a socialist in the first place. Dollan was born in Baillieston in 1885 and shared a one-roomed miners' row house with his parents, who were of Irish immigrant stock, together with ten surviving brothers and sisters. He left school aged ten and went to work in a Shettleston rope factory, then in a grocer's store, before following his father into the local pit where he became active in the local Lanarkshire miners' union. He joined the ILP around 1908. Dollan then followed an upwardly-mobile path of 'Samuel Smiles' type self- improvement and 'respectability' by enrolling in educational evening classes, the drama 5 club and the Clarion Scouts. In 1910, Dollan left the world of manual labour when John Wheatley, former miner and at the time, a fellow Lanarkshire ILP colleague and mentor offered him a job in his recently established publishing firm. Within the next few years Dollan embarked on a journalistic career which saw him writing for several Labour- sympathising newspapers such as Forward and the Daily Herald which complemented his growing political activism.6 He met his future wife Agnes Moir (1887-1966), at a 5 Samuel Smile's book, Self Help, published in 1859, advocated personal reform and self-improvement as a way out of poverty. Juliet Gardiner and Neil Wenborn eds, The History Today Companion To British History (London: Collins and Brown, 1995), p.699; It was not uncommon within a Scottish context for aspiring working-class individuals to distinguish themselves from the 'roughs' by gaining the mantle of 'respectability'.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Raya Dunayevskaya Papers
    THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION Marxist-Humanism: Its Origins and Development in America 1941 - 1969 2 1/2 linear feet Accession Number 363 L.C. Number ________ The papers of Raya Dunayevskaya were placed in the Archives of Labor History and Urban Affairs in J u l y of 1969 by Raya Dunayevskaya and were opened for research in May 1970. Raya Dunayevskaya has devoted her l i f e to the Marxist movement, and has devel- oped a revolutionary body of ideas: the theory of state-capitalism; and the continuity and dis-continuity of the Hegelian dialectic in Marx's global con- cept of philosophy and revolution. Born in Russia, she was Secretary to Leon Trotsky in exile in Mexico in 1937- 38, during the period of the Moscow Trials and the Dewey Commission of Inquiry into the charges made against Trotsky in those Trials. She broke politically with Trotsky in 1939, at the outset of World War II, in opposition to his defense of the Russian state, and began a comprehensive study of the i n i t i a l three Five-Year Plans, which led to her analysis that Russia is a state-capitalist society. She was co-founder of the political "State-Capitalist" Tendency within the Trotskyist movement in the 1940's, which was known as Johnson-Forest. Her translation into English of "Teaching of Economics in the Soviet Union" from Pod Znamenem Marxizma, together with her commentary, "A New Revision of Marxian Economics", appeared in the American Economic Review in 1944, and touched off an international debate among theoreticians.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Friendship in Early America
    CAMPBELL, THERESA J., Ph.D. Political Friendship in Early America. (2010) Directed by Dr. Robert M. Calhoon. 250 pp. During the turbulent decades that encompassed the transition of the North American colonies into a Republic, America became the setting for a transformation in the context of political friendship. Traditionally the alliances established between elite, white, Protestant males have been most studied. These former studies provide the foundation for this work to examine the inclusion of ―others‖ -- political relationships formed with and by women, persons of diverse ethnicities and races, and numerous religious persuasions -- in political activity. From the outset this analysis demonstrates the establishment of an uniquely American concept of political friendship theory which embraced ideologies and rationalism. Perhaps most importantly, the work presents criteria for determining early American political friendship apart from other relationships. The central key in producing this manuscript was creating and applying the criteria for identifying political alliances. This study incorporates a cross-discipline approach, including philosophy, psychology, literature, religion, and political science with history to hone a conception of political friendship as understood by the Founding Generation. The arguments are supported by case studies drawn from a wide variety of primary documents. The result is a fresh perspective and a new approach for the study of eighteenth century American history. POLITICAL FRIENDSHIP IN EARLY AMERICA by Theresa J. Campbell A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2010 Approved by Robert M.
    [Show full text]
  • The Attlee Governments
    Vic07 10/15/03 2:11 PM Page 159 Chapter 7 The Attlee governments The election of a majority Labour government in 1945 generated great excitement on the left. Hugh Dalton described how ‘That first sensa- tion, tingling and triumphant, was of a new society to be built. There was exhilaration among us, joy and hope, determination and confi- dence. We felt exalted, dedication, walking on air, walking with destiny.’1 Dalton followed this by aiding Herbert Morrison in an attempt to replace Attlee as leader of the PLP.2 This was foiled by the bulky protection of Bevin, outraged at their plotting and disloyalty. Bevin apparently hated Morrison, and thought of him as ‘a scheming little bastard’.3 Certainly he thought Morrison’s conduct in the past had been ‘devious and unreliable’.4 It was to be particularly irksome for Bevin that it was Morrison who eventually replaced him as Foreign Secretary in 1951. The Attlee government not only generated great excitement on the left at the time, but since has also attracted more attention from academics than any other period of Labour history. Foreign policy is a case in point. The foreign policy of the Attlee government is attractive to study because it spans so many politically and historically significant issues. To start with, this period was unique in that it was the first time that there was a majority Labour government in British political history, with a clear mandate and programme of reform. Whereas the two minority Labour governments of the inter-war period had had to rely on support from the Liberals to pass legislation, this time Labour had power as well as office.
    [Show full text]
  • 'The Left's Views on Israel: from the Establishment of the Jewish State To
    ‘The Left’s Views on Israel: From the establishment of the Jewish state to the intifada’ Thesis submitted by June Edmunds for PhD examination at the London School of Economics and Political Science 1 UMI Number: U615796 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615796 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 F 7377 POLITI 58^S8i ABSTRACT The British left has confronted a dilemma in forming its attitude towards Israel in the postwar period. The establishment of the Jewish state seemed to force people on the left to choose between competing nationalisms - Israeli, Arab and later, Palestinian. Over time, a number of key developments sharpened the dilemma. My central focus is the evolution of thinking about Israel and the Middle East in the British Labour Party. I examine four critical periods: the creation of Israel in 1948; the Suez war in 1956; the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and the 1980s, covering mainly the Israeli invasion of Lebanon but also the intifada. In each case, entrenched attitudes were called into question and longer-term shifts were triggered in the aftermath.
    [Show full text]
  • Media Culture for a Modern Nation? Theatre, Cinema and Radio in Early Twentieth-Century Scotland
    Media Culture for a Modern Nation? Theatre, Cinema and Radio in Early Twentieth-Century Scotland a study © Adrienne Clare Scullion Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD to the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Glasgow. March 1992 ProQuest Number: 13818929 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13818929 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Frontispiece The Clachan, Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry, 1911. (T R Annan and Sons Ltd., Glasgow) GLASGOW UNIVERSITY library Abstract This study investigates the cultural scene in Scotland in the period from the 1880s to 1939. The project focuses on the effects in Scotland of the development of the new media of film and wireless. It addresses question as to what changes, over the first decades of the twentieth century, these two revolutionary forms of public technology effect on the established entertainment system in Scotland and on the Scottish experience of culture. The study presents a broad view of the cultural scene in Scotland over the period: discusses contemporary politics; considers established and new theatrical activity; examines the development of a film culture; and investigates the expansion of broadcast wireless and its influence on indigenous theatre.
    [Show full text]
  • The Women of Red Clydeside the Women of Red Clydeside
    THE WOMEN OF RED CLYDESIDE THE WOMEN OF RED CLYDESIDE: WOMEN MUNITIONS WORKERS IN THE WEST OF SCOTLAND DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR By MYRA BAILLIE, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School ofGraduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment ofthe Requirements for the Degree Doctor ofPhilosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Myra Baillie, September 2002 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2002) McMaster University (History) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: The Women ofRed Clydeside: Women Munitions Workers in the West ofScotland during the First World War. AUTHOR: Myra Baillie, B.A., M.A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Professor R.A. Rempel NUMBER OF PAGES: x,320 11 ABSTRACT During World War One, the Clydeside region became one ofthe most important centres ofwar production in Britain. It also had one ofthe most volatile male workforces, earning it the reputation 'Red' Clydeside. Previous historical accounts have focussed on the skilled workers, debating the extent to which they were red-hot revolutionaries or narrow craft conservatives. To date, there has been no study ofthe region's large, capable, hard-working female workforce. This thesis traces the experience ofthe tens ofthousands ofwomen employed in the Clydeside munitions industry, paying particular attention to the working conditions in local factories. This thesis contributes to the long-standing historiographical arguments over the nature ofRed Clydeside by offering a new view ofthe dilution crisis which stands 11t the epicentre ofthe debate. It finds more cooperation between male and female munitions workers than has previously been recognized, and suggests that class confrontation, not craft conservatism, was at the root ofthe deportation ofthe shop steward leaders in March 1916.
    [Show full text]
  • Heroes of Peace Profiles of the Scottish Peace Campaigners Who Opposed the First World War
    Heroes of Peace Profiles of the Scottish peace campaigners who opposed the First World War a paper from the Introduction The coming year will see many attempts to interpret the First World War as a ‘just’ war with the emphasis on the heroic sacrifice of troops in the face of an evil enemy. No-one is questioning the bravery or the sacrifice although the introduction of conscription sixteen months after the start of the war meant that many of the men who fought did not do so from choice and once in the armed forces they had to obey orders or be shot. Even many of the volunteers in the early stages of the war signed up on the assumption that it would all be over in a few months with few casualties. We want to ensure that there is an alternative – and we believe more valid – interpretation of the events of a century ago made available to the public. This was a war in which around ten million young men were killed on the battlefield in four years, about 120,000 of them were Scottish. Proportionately Scotland suffered the highest number of war dead apart from Serbia and Turkey. It was described as the ‘war to end wars’ but instead it created the conditions for the rise of Hitler and the Second World War just twenty years later as a result of the very harsh terms imposed on Germany and the determination to humiliate the losing states. It also contributed to some of the current problems in the Middle East since, as part of the war settlement, Britain and France took ownership of large parts of the Ottoman Empire and divided up the territory with no reference to the identities and interests of the people.
    [Show full text]
  • Stewart2019.Pdf
    Political Change and Scottish Nationalism in Dundee 1973-2012 Thomas A W Stewart PhD Thesis University of Edinburgh 2019 Abstract Prior to the 2014 independence referendum, the Scottish National Party’s strongest bastions of support were in rural areas. The sole exception was Dundee, where it has consistently enjoyed levels of support well ahead of the national average, first replacing the Conservatives as the city’s second party in the 1970s before overcoming Labour to become its leading force in the 2000s. Through this period it achieved Westminster representation between 1974 and 1987, and again since 2005, and had won both of its Scottish Parliamentary seats by 2007. This performance has been completely unmatched in any of the country’s other cities. Using a mixture of archival research, oral history interviews, the local press and memoires, this thesis seeks to explain the party’s record of success in Dundee. It will assess the extent to which the character of the city itself, its economy, demography, geography, history, and local media landscape, made Dundee especially prone to Nationalist politics. It will then address the more fundamental importance of the interaction of local political forces that were independent of the city’s nature through an examination of the ability of party machines, key individuals and political strategies to shape the city’s electoral landscape. The local SNP and its main rival throughout the period, the Labour Party, will be analysed in particular detail. The thesis will also take time to delve into the histories of the Conservatives, Liberals and Radical Left within the city and their influence on the fortunes of the SNP.
    [Show full text]
  • Lessons for Labour Barbara Castle
    34 soundings issue 1 Autumn 1995 Lessons for Labour Barbara Castle Barbara Castle recounts from her experience how much 'old Labour' achieved in its periods of office. She warns New Labour against the accommodations to financial orthodoxy which wrecked previous Labour governments, and declares that unemployment is the blight that most needs to be challenged. I think it is common knowledge that I am 'Old Labour'. At 84 some people would describe that as 'Very Old'. As a schoolgirl in Bradford in the 1920s 1 rubbed shoulders with party veterans- like Fred Jowett who was to become a Cabinet Minister in the first ever Labour Government in 1924- He had been brought up in the infamous back-to-back slum terraces whose sanitation consisted of a row of 'privy middens' - a chain of earth closets between the terraced houses, serving all of them. No water flushing, of course. Just the nightly clearance of the accumulated excrement by mysterious 'night soil' men. Fresh air never blew through the back-to-backs and bathrooms were unknown. So am I just an old sentimentalist living in the past? I only wish this degradation of so many of our fellow citizens was past history. Of course, we all have water closets today - if we have a home. At least Fred Jowett had a roof over his head which is more than we can say of everyone in our 'prosperous' 35 Soundings society 70 years on from my Bradford days. In fact, the technological revolution has left as many human scars as the industrial one did.
    [Show full text]
  • 29Th Annual Report 1923 (PDF 18MB)
    V( iiA n& Trade TWENTY-NINTH ANNUAL REPORT INCLt'DING THE Report of the National Executive For 1922-1 Am the Proceedn gs of I weiitv-ni h Annual Me the \h and ;t, IVii \of thefi Executive CUAUACC Oitope eijteAtiti if CorhAifite HA Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress TWENTY-NINTH ANNUAL REPORT INCLUDING TJJE Report of the National Executive For 1922-1923 And the Report of the Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting held in the Mansion House, Dublin, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th August, 1923 Published by Authority of the National Executive 32 Lower Abbey Street, Dublin. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE, 1923-24 5 REPORT OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE, 1922-23 7 MEETINGS, ATTENDANCES AND EXPENSES OF NATIONAL EXECUTIVE, 1922-23 ....... 41 INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT, 1922-23 42 REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE 29TH ANNUAL MEETING . 43 UNIONS AFFILIATED—WITH MEMBERSHIP, AFFILIATION FEES PAID, SECRETARY, DELEGATES, AND DELEGATION FEES PAID . 108 TRADES' AND WORKERS' COUNCILS AFFILIATED—WITH MEMBERSHIP, AFFILIATION FEES PAID, SECRETARY, DELEGATES, AND DELEGA- TION FEES PAID ....... 120 • PAST CONGRESSES, 1894-1923 122 DAIL ELECTIONS, 1923—ANALYSIS OF VOTING 123 LABOUR MEMBERS OF DAIL EIREANN, 1922-23 AND 1923 124, 125 LABOUR MEMBERS OF SEANAD EIREANN 126 CONSTITUTION ...... 128 STANDING ORDERS ..... • 134 SCALE OF ALLOWANCES FOR NATIONAL EXECUTIVE AND CONGRES- SIONAL OFFICERS . .. .. 138 INDEX OF SUBJECTS ...... 140 PERSONAL INDEX ....... 145 Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress National Executive, 1923-1924 ELECTED AUGUST, 1923 Chairman : L. J. DUFFY (Irish Union of Distributive Workers' and Clerks). Vice-Chairman : THOMAS KENNEDY (Irish Transport and General.Workers' Union).
    [Show full text]
  • Helen Crawfurd Helen Jack, Born in the Gorbals District
    Helen Crawfurd Helen Jack, born in the Gorbals district of Glasgow in 1877, was the third child of William Jack, a Master Baker, and Heather Kyle Jack, of 61 Shore Street, Inverkip. Her father was a member of the Conservative Party and a member of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. Helen shared her father's religious views and became a Sunday school teacher. Her siblings were William, James, John, Jean and Agnes. In 1898 Helen married Reverend Alexander Montgomerie Crawfurd, and they had one son, Alexander in 1913. His parish was in a slum area of Glasgow and she was deeply shocked by the suffering endured by the working classes. She wrote to a friend about the "appalling misery and poverty of the workers in Glasgow, physically broken down bodies, bowlegged, rickets." Helen Crawfurd also became very interested in the work of Josephine Butler, particularly The Education and Employment of Women. She became convinced that the situation would only change when women had the vote and in 1900 she joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), claiming that "if the Mothers of the race had some say, then things would be changed". She held regular meetings in her Glasgow house and took part in protest meetings but she became increasingly frustrated by the lack success of the movement. By 1905 the media had lost interest in the struggle for women's rights. Newspapers rarely reported meetings and usually refused to publish articles and letters written by supporters of women's suffrage. The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) decided to use different methods to obtain the publicity they thought would be needed in order to obtain the vote.
    [Show full text]
  • The London Gazette of TUESDAY, the Ytih of DECEMBER, 1947 By
    TOnmb, 38161 SUPPLEMENT TO The London Gazette Of TUESDAY, the ytih of DECEMBER, 1947 by Registered as a newspaper THURSDAY, i JANUARY, 1948 CENTRAL CHANCERY OF THE ORDERS David KIRKWOOD, Esq., J.P., M.P., Member of OF KNIGHTHOOD. Parliament for Dumbarton Burghs since 1922. St. James's Palace, S.W.I. For political and public services. 1st January, 1948. The Honourable William John McKELL, K.C., The KING 'has been graciously pleased to Governor-Gerieral of the Commonwealth of signify His Majesty's intention of conferring Australia. Peerages of the United Kingdom on=> the The Honourable Sir Malcolm Martjin« following:— MACNAGHTEN, K.B.E., lately Judge of the High Court of Justice. To be a Viscount:— George Heaton NICHOLLS, Esq., High Commis- The Righti Honourable John SCOTT, Baron sioner for the Union of South Africa in HYNDLEY, \ G.B.E., Chairman, National London, 1944-1947. Coal Board. Lately Controller-General, The Honourable '• .Sir Humphrey Francis Ministry of Fuel and Power, and Chairman, O'LEARY, K.C.M.G., Chief Justice of New Finance Corporation for Industry, Ltd. Zealand. To be Barons:— Sir Valentine George CRITTALL, J.P. For CENTRAL CHANCERY OF THE ORDERS political and public services. OF KNIGHTHOOD. Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir (William) Sholto DOUGLAS, G.C.B., M.C., D.F.C., St. James's Palace, S.W.I. Comma-nder-in-i&hief and Military Governor, ist January, 1948. Germany, 1946-1947. Sir, Harold Vincent MACKINTOSH, Bt, J.P.; The KING has been graciously pleased to D.L., Chairman, National Savings Com- signify His Majesty's intention of conferring mittee.
    [Show full text]