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FAMOUS PEOPLE

Politics

JAMES KEIR HARDIE (1856 - 1915)

Born in Legbrannoch in Lanarkshire, James Keir Hardie began work at the age of eight as a baker's delivery boy. At the age of 10 he began working underground as a miner.

The poverty and distress of life in the mines caused Keir Hardie to agitate for better conditions. He began to attend Union meetings and effectively organised local strikes against wage cuts.

In 1879 he was invited to become Secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Association. He moved to Cumnock and organised a major strike for improved wages in 1881. After the strike collapsed Keir Hardie was sacked from his post.

He then began employment as a journalist with the "Cumnock News" in 1882. During this time he became actively involved with the Cumnock Community, founding a Good Templar Lodge promoting the temperance movement. He was also involved with local societies and churches.

In 1886 he was offered the post of Secretary to the newly formed Ayrshire Miners' Union. 1888 was a notable landmark seeing the formation of the Scottish Labour Party with Keir Hardie standing as Labour candidate later that year at the Mid-Lanark by-election.

He did not become an MP until 1892 when he was elected to the West Ham constituency of London. Although he lost the seat a few years later, he remained as leader of the new Labour Party.

In 1900 he was elected as MP for the Merthyr-Tydfil constituency, a seat he retained for the rest of his life.

Although an active MP in London, Keir Hardie continued to live in Cumnock which he regarded as his home. He lived in "Lochnorris" in Cumnock, a large house which he had built for his family in 1891, which still stands today.

In 1915 shortly after the start of the First World War, Keir Hardie returned to Cumnock for the last time, suffering from a prolonged illness. He died in a Glasgow nursing home later that year.

A magnificent bronze bust of James Keir Hardie stands on a pink granite plinth outside Cumnock Town Hall.

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ANDREW FISHER (1862 - 1928)

Andrew Fisher was born in Orr's Land, Crosshouse on the 22 nd August 1862, the 2nd of a family of 6 sons and a daughter born to Robert Fisher and Jane Garven. Aged 10, he joined his father down the local pits and worked there for 9 years. Robert Fisher was a founder member of the Crosshouse Co-operative Society, founded in the year of Andrew's birth. Andrew had no education beyond the basic elementary level, but he was an avid reader and acquired a level of literacy and rhetoric which led him, in his teens, into the political arena. Aged 17, he was appointed district secretary of the Ayrshire branch of the Miners Union. As such, he played a major role in the bitter miner's strike of 1881, for which he was blacklisted. Unable to obtain work, he used enforced leisure to further his education. Eventually he got work, but was again blacklisted in 1885 and decided that there was no future for him in Scotland .

In June 1885 he emigrated to Australia and settled in Queensland where he obtained employment in the coalmines of Gympie. In his spare time he studied economics and social science and worked as a union leader. In 1893 he was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly as a member for Gympie. In December 1899 Queensland had a Labour government for all of several days and in the short-lived Dawson administration Andrew Fisher was Secretary for Railways and Public Works. In April 1904 Fisher became Minister for Trade and Customs.

In 1907, J. C. Watson resigned the leadership of the party and Fisher was elected in his place. In November 1908 he withdrew the support he had been giving to Alfred Deakin's administration, and became Prime Minister and Treasurer. He was displaced in June 1909, but at the general election of April 1910 Labour secured a majority of the House and Fisher returned to power as Prime Minister and Treasurer. In October 1915 Fisher resigned as Prime Minister, being succeeded by W. M. Hughes. He now became Australian High Commissioner in London , a position which he held until 1921. After a visit to Australia he returned to Britain and in 1923 tried to get adopted as Labour candidate for the Kilmarnock Burghs in the general election of 1924. He was rejected by the constituency selection committee because his views were not in conformity with the programme and policy of the National Labour Party. He retired to London where he died on the 22 nd October 1928, survived by his wife Margaret, five sons and a daughter.