(1) Tom Mann, Memoirs, (1923)

William Morris joined the Democratic Federation in 1883. He favoured a distinctively Socialist policy, and his body became the Social Democratic Federation in 1884. It soon became manifest that differences of opinion existed, and no doubt some incompatibility action was a bone of contention. William Morris and other members of the executive decided to resign, and to form the Socialist League.

 

(2) Edward Carpenter joined the Social Democratic Federation in 1883.

My ideas had been taking a socialistic shape for many years; but they were lacking in definite outline. That outline as regards the industrial situation was given me by reading Hyndman's England For All. Later on in the same year I one evening looked in at a committee meeting of the Social Democratic Federation in Westminster Bridge Road. It was in the basement of one of one of those big buildings facing the House of Commons that I found a group of conspirators sitting. There was Hyndman, occupying the chair, and with him round the table, William Morris, John Burns, H. H. Champion, J. L. Joynes, Herbert Burrows, and others.

 

(3) George Lansbury, Looking Backwards and Forwards (1935)

I was a great admirer of Henry George and believed firmly in the taxation of land values. During the years 1886 to 1892 I came more and more under the influence of William Morris and H. H. Hyndman, Will Thorne, Tom Mann, Ben Tillet, and decided to join the Social Democrats.

 

(4) Emanuel Shinwell, Conflict Without Malice (1955)

My experience among the miners in some of the mining villages of Fife and Lanarkshire was that the policy of the Social Democratic Federation made a greater appeal than that of the I.L.P. The miner everywhere is suspicious of novelty until he has studied its advantages and disadvantages. The Social Democratic Federation was so close to the old Radical movement that the miner could accept it without misgivings despite the fact that it was essentially English, inspired by Marx's best-known English disciple, H. M. Hyndman, and with little Scottish blood in its hierarchy at the outset. England for All, the title of Hyndman's exposition of the S.D.F. policy, was hardly conducive to the creation of enthusiasm across the Border, though the nationalism we know in Scotland today was not at the time so marked. In the event, the S.D.F.'s powers soon declined, for England for All was really just an anglicized simplification of Marxian views, written without acknowledgment to the originator. Marx did not forget the slight, and by the time I began to read Marx it was the I.L.P. which had received the seal of approval from his collaborator, the other great European Socialist force, Engels.

Two notable S.D.F. members in my day, who played a leading part on the Clydeside, deserve mention; the likeable but formidable Willie Gallagher, and that great exponent of Socialism, John McLean, both of whom served several terms of imprisonment because of their political activities.

 

(5) David Kirkwood, My Life of Revolt (1935)

For some years before the outbreak of war I had been a Socialist, but I had taken no part in any movement except the Trade Union and Temperance. There were great discussions at that time about the Social Democratic Federation, which was in turmoil. H. M. Hyndman and Harry Quelch, two of the foremost pioneers of Socialism, were being opposed by a younger school led by Yates, Matheson, and Tom Clark. When this group failed in their effort to capture the Social Democratic Federation, they formed the Socialist Labour Party. This Party had one outstanding feature. It was purely educative, setting out to pervade the people with the idea that in Socialism lay their only hope of economic progress. They used to tell the people not to vote for them unless they were in favour of Socialism. At that time there was a great deal of talk among the working class that certain individuals took an interest in the working-class movement only for
the fleshpots of Egypt - that is to say, to become well-paid Trade Union officials. To prove that they were not of this type, the S.L.P. made it a condition of membership not to take a paid position in the Trade Union movement and to work for the cause and not for filthy lucre.

 

(6) Herbert Morrison, An Autobiography (1960)

I have to confess that my fidelity to the SDF was short-lived. While a willing and interested student of Marx I was fed up with the excessive adulation of the man and the attitude of the SDF leaders that he was a prophet and his book akin to the Bible as regards the distillation of truth in it. Hyndman's recurrent references to his friendship with Marx were both boring and suspect.

Hyndman had talked to Marx only once so far as anybody knew - in 1880. Twenty-six years later he was still describing the master's conversation as if it had happened yesterday. The suggestion that Marx liked and trusted Hyndman, which the latter was never tired of explaining, was probably really a confession that Hyndman had a childlike faith in, and unrequited adoration for, Marx.

Marx was not the type of man who liked anybody, least of all a rich and aristocratic young man with the manners and accent bred into him at Eton and a high regard for the genteel frock coat and top-hat without which Hyndman never appeared in public.