 Cover from 31 January 1914 | |
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Keir Hardie |
| Editor | Thomas Evan Nicholas |
| Founded | 1911 |
| Political alignment | Socialist |
| Ceased publication | 1922 |
| City | Merthyr Tydfil |
| Country | Wales |
The Merthyr Pioneer was a weekly Socialist newspaper founded by Keir Hardie that was published in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, from 1911 to 1922. The newspaper was a successful local paper, and also served as a vehicle for communicating Hardie's political opinions.
The weekly Merthyr Pioneer was launched by Keir Hardie in 1911 with Thomas Evan Nicholas (Niclas y Glais) as its Welsh editor. [1] Nicholas was a socialist bard and an Independent minister. [2] The paper was associated with the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and helped promote Hardie as ILP member of parliament for Merthyr Tydfil. [3] Christopher Murray Grieve, better known as Hugh MacDiarmid, used to write for the paper. [2] The suffragette leader Sylvia Pankhurst wrote a weekly article for the paper signed with the initial S. [4] Mark Starr taught a series of course on Industrial History based on Marxist economics that were the basis of a series in the Pioneer and were reprinted as A Worker Looks at History by the Plebs' League in November 1917. [5]
The paper was successful as a local newspaper, while also advancing political ideas. It ceased publication in 1922. [1]
Hardie was in favour of socialism, equality, public ownership of land, and a Welsh parliament. He was against the monarchy, brewers and militarism. [1] The paper was strongly biased in favour of the Welsh language. [2] Hardie argued strongly in the paper for a decentralised, devolved type of socialism based on local communities as opposed to the centralised German system. [6] In April 1914 Hardie wrote in the Pioneer of establishing a union or commonwealth of the English-speaking nations. [7]
Although Hardie was opposed to fighting in World War I (1914–18) he avoided criticising the volunteer soldiers. As he wrote in his weekly column of the Pioneer, "The lads who have gone forth by sea and land to fight their country's battles must not be disheartened by a discordant note at home." [8] After Hardie's death in 1915 George Bernard Shaw wrote a tribute to him in the Merthyr Pioneer titled "Keir Hardie the Patriot" in which he refuted attacks on Hardie's patriotism. [9] Emrys Hughes, secretary of the No Conscription Fellowship in the Rhondda, covered military tribunals for the Merthyr Pioneer. He refused to accept conscription, was arrested in the spring of 1916 and imprisoned until 1919. [10]
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with the government, she broke with the suffragette leadership of her mother and sister, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. She was inspired by the Russian Revolution and consulted with Lenin, but defied Moscow in endorsing a syndicalist programme of workers' control and by criticising the emerging Soviet dictatorship.
James Keir Hardie 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.
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates, representing the interests of the majority. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman.
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and policies were tightly controlled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia; Sylvia was eventually expelled.
Stephen Owen Davies was a Welsh miner, trade union official and Labour Party politician, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Merthyr Tydfil, previously Merthyr for nearly 38 years, from 1934 to 1972. In 1970, well past 80, he was deselected as parliamentary candidate by his local party association because of his age. He fought the election in the 1970 general election as an independent candidate and won comfortably, a rare example in British politics of an independent candidate defeating a major party's organisation. In a BBC TV interview the day after that election, he claimed to be 83 years old.
Emrys Daniel Hughes was a Welsh Labour Party politician, journalist and author. He was Labour MP for South Ayrshire in Scotland from 1946 to 1969. Among his many published books was a biography of his father-in-law, Keir Hardie.
Merthyr Tydfil was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Merthyr Tydfil in Glamorgan. From 1832 to 1868 it returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and in 1868 this was increased to two members. The two-member constituency was abolished for the 1918 general election.
This article is about the particular significance of the year 1915 to Wales and its people.
Charles Butt Stanton was a British politician, who served as an Member of Parliament (MP) from 1915 to 1922. He entered Parliament by winning one of the two seats for Merthyr Tydfil at a by-election on 25 November 1915 caused by the death of Labour Party founder, Keir Hardie. After the two-member Merthyr Tydfil seat was divided into two single member seats, Stanton focused on the Aberdare division, which he won at the 1918 general election, but lost at the 1922 general election.
The Labour Leader was a British socialist newspaper published for almost one hundred years. It was later renamed New Leader and Socialist Leader, before finally taking the name Labour Leader again.
Thomas Evan Nicholas, who used the bardic name Niclas y Glais, was a Welsh language poet, preacher, radical, and champion of the disadvantaged of society.
The 1888 Mid Lanarkshire by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 27 April 1888 for the House of Commons constituency of Mid Lanarkshire in Scotland.
Hannah Mitchell was an English suffragette and socialist. Born into a poor farming family in Derbyshire, Mitchell left home at a young age to work as a seamstress in Bolton, where she became involved in the socialist movement. She worked for many years in organisations related to socialism, women's suffrage and pacifism. After World War I she was elected to Manchester City Council and worked as a magistrate, before later working for Labour Party leader, Keir Hardie.
William Pritchard-Morgan was a Welsh solicitor, mine owner, and company promoter. He acquired the gold mine at Gwynfynydd in 1887, earning the name "Welsh gold king". He was also actively publicised as an investor in Sichuan, China.
The Labour Representation Committee (LRC) was a pressure group founded in 1900 as an alliance of socialist organisations and trade unions, aimed at increasing representation for labour interests in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party traces its origin to the LRC's foundation.
John Emrys Thomas was a Welsh socialist politician.
Charles Wilkins of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, was a prolific writer of historical accounts of Wales and its industries. He produced pioneering reference works on the histories of Merthyr Tydfil and Newport; the coal, iron, and steel trades of South Wales; and Welsh literature. He was also founding editor of The Red Dragon: The National Magazine of Wales.
Lucy Minnie Baldock was a British suffragette. Along with Annie Kenney, she co-founded the first branch in London of the Women's Social and Political Union.
Isabella Bream Pearce was a socialist propagandist and suffrage campaigner. She was the vice-president of the Glasgow Labour Party, president of the Glasgow Women's Labour Party, and a member of the Cathcart School Board.
Margaret Ann Travers Symons was a British suffragette. On 13 October 1908, she became the first woman to speak in the House of Commons when she broke away from her escort into the debating chamber and made an exclamation to the assembly.