James Maxton

James Maxton
Member of Parliament
for Glasgow Bridgeton
In office
15 November 1922 – 23 July 1946
Preceded by Alexander MacCallum Scott
Succeeded by James Carmichael
Personal details
Nationality Scottish
Political party Labour (until 1932)
ILP (1932-1946)

James Maxton (22 June 1885 – 23 July 1946) was a Scottish far-left 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,[1][2] he is remembered as one of the leading figures of the Red Clydeside era. He broke with Ramsay MacDonald and the second Labour administration, 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. After that he was a marginal independent figure on the far left-wing. His biographer Graham Walker concludes:

Maxton was one of the most charismatic figures in twentieth-century British public life. He was essentially a Scottish radical whose propagandist skills for the wider British labour movement have earned him folk hero status in socialist circles.[3]

Biography

Early years

Born in the then burgh of Pollokshaws (now Pollok, Glasgow) in 1885, James Maxton was the son of two schoolteachers. He would himself later enter that profession after his education at Hutchesons' Grammar School and the University of Glasgow.

Maxton had whilst studying at the University of Glasgow described his political loyalties as lying with the Conservatives. He soon came to socialism, however, and in 1904 he joined the Barrhead branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Maxton's move to socialism was heavily influenced by John Maclean, a fellow student at Glasgow University. In addition to Maclean's influence, Maxton was moved towards socialism by a meeting which he attended in Paisley which was addressed by party leader Philip Snowden. He was also influenced by the written word, including books by Robert Blatchford and Peter Kropotkin.[4]

Later in life Maxton claimed that the biggest influence in his decision to become a socialist was the grinding poverty experienced by many of the children he taught. He subsequently convinced all his siblings to join the ILP, with his sister Annie becoming a prominent figure in the organisation.

From 1906 to 1910 Maxton was active in the Schoolmasters' Union, where he refined his talents as a propagandist and orator."[5]

Political career

Campaign leaflet from Maxton's first unsuccessful bid for parliament, 1918.

Maxton was known as an effective public speaker. Historian Robert Keith Middlemas offers this vivid description:

"He was well-known as a platform orator with a thin hatchet face and mane of long black hair which fell across his face giving it a saturnine and piratical appearance, but although he was an established speaker and propagandist for the ILP, his considerable intellect had been somewhat masked by the showman's facility. The genuine hero-worship which grew around him was restricted to his native Barrhead where the ILP branch was his private preserve."[6]

Maxton was a vociferous opponent of World War I. He was a conscientious objector, refusing conscription into the military, and instead being given work on barges. During this time he was involved in organizing strikes in the shipyards as part of the Clyde Workers' Committee. Maxton was arrested in 1916, charged with sedition. He was subsequently found guilty and imprisoned for a year.[7]

In 1918 Maxton was elected to the National Council of the Labour Party.[8] He and Ramsay MacDonald were responsible for moving the motion at the Labour Party's National Executive Committee which dictated that Labour members of the wartime coalition government resign from it in preparation for the 1918 general election. He was also a keen supporter of Scottish Home Rule and was for a while the President of The Scottish Home Rule Association when Ramsay MacDonald was the Secretary of the London Branch.

Maxton stood for parliament in the 1918 general election as a Labour Party candidate but was defeated in this first effort.

In his next electoral attempt Maxton was successful, winning a seat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Bridgeton in the 1922 general election. Once in parliament, however, Maxton's forthright views often caused controversy. In 1923 his parliamentary privileges were withdrawn temporarily when he called the Conservative MP Sir Frederick Banbury a "murderer", following the government's decision to withdraw school milk. When Ramsay MacDonald, with whom Maxton had long since quarrelled, gave his last meandering, incoherent speech to Parliament, it was interrupted by Maxton calling out: "Sit down, man, you're a bloody tragedy."

Maxton was chairman of the ILP from 1926 to 1931, and from 1934 to 1939; he was generally seen as the symbol of the ILP after its break from Labour in 1932. A militant socialist, he was horrified by the perceived class collaborationism of the Trades Union Congress after the defeat of the 1926 General Strike, and was co-author with the left-wing Miners leader, Arthur Cook, of the "Cook-Maxton Manifesto" of 1928 calling for class warfare in the overthrow of capitalism.

In 1932, Maxton published a popular biography of Bolshevik leader V. I. Lenin.

In 1936, following the abdication of Edward VIII, Maxton proposed a "republican amendment" to the Abdication Bill, which would have turned the UK from a monarchy into a republic. Maxton argued that while the Monarchy had benefited Britain in the past, it had now "outlived its usefulness." The amendment was defeated by 403 votes to five. [9]

In his diary (September 3) Sir Ralph Glyn reports that "James Maxton, the pacifist, rose, gaunt, a Horseman from the Apocalypse, doom written across his face," and declared, "Don’t let’s talk of national honour: what do such phrases mean? The plain fact is that war means the slaughter of millions. If the prime Minister can still maintain the peace he will have saved those lives, he mustn’t be rushed."[10]

During the Second World War, Maxton visited Brixton Prison to talk with Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, detained under the Defence Regulations.

Death and legacy

Maxton died in 1946, still sitting as MP for Bridgeton. After his death the ILP stagnated until it ceased to be a viable independent political party.

Maxton was considered one of the greatest orators of the time, both within and outside the House of Commons. Churchill, whilst holding political opinions wholly inconsistent with those of Maxton, described him as "the greatest parliamentarian of his day".

Maxton heavily influenced his family's political opinions, with his mother and all his siblings joining the ILP. His brother John was also a conscientious objector in World War I; his son James and his nephew John Maxton were post-World War II conscientious objectors; John went on to become MP for the Cathcart division of Glasgow from 1979 to 2001 and a life peer in 2004.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confessed to having been fascinated as a young man by Maxton, and has written a biography of him, simply entitled Maxton; Maxton was the basis of his PhD thesis at the University of Edinburgh.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Knox, William (1987). James Maxton. Manchester University Press. p. 49. Retrieved 2009-10-10.
  2. ↑ "Letter from the Scottish Home Rule Association to James Maxton, 16 Nov 1922". Glasgow Digital Library. Centre for Digital Library Research, University of Strathclyde. Retrieved 2009-10-10.
  3. ↑ Walker (2011)
  4. ↑ Robert Keith Middlemas, The Clydesiders: A Left Wing Struggle for Parliamentary Power. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1965. Page 48.
  5. ↑ Middlemas, The Clydesiders, pg. 48.
  6. ↑ Middlemas, The Clydesiders, pp. 47-48.
  7. ↑ "James Maxton", Spartacus Educational, Retrieved 7 September 2009.
  8. ↑ Middlemas, The Clydesiders, pg. 106.
  9. ↑ Denis Judd, George VI. London, IB Tauris, 2012. ISBN 9781780760711 (p.157).
  10. ↑ The Mammoth Book of How It Happened, Edited by Jon E. Lewis, Robinson, London, 2000, p.399

Publications by James Maxton

Further reading

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Alexander MacCallum Scott		 Member of Parliament for Glasgow Bridgeton
1922–1946 		Succeeded by
James Carmichael
Political offices
Preceded by
Clifford Allen		 Chairman of the Independent Labour Party
1926–1931 		Succeeded by
Fenner Brockway
Preceded by
Fenner Brockway		 Chairman of the Independent Labour Party
1934–1939 		Succeeded by
C. A. Smith
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