George
Buchanan
was
born in Glasgow, Scotland
in 1890. After leaving school he became a pattenmaker. He also joined
the Independent
Labour Party and
began working closely with other socialists in Glasgow including John
Wheatley,
Emanuel
Shinwell,
James
Maxton,
David
Kirkwood,
Campbell Stephen, William
Gallacher,
John Muir, Tom
Johnston,
Jimmie Stewart, Neil
Maclean, George Hardie and James
Welsh.
Buchanan
was vice-chairman of Glasgow Trade Council and represented Gorbals
on the City Council (1919-23). In the 1922 General
Election Buchanan was elected to the House
of Commons for Gorbals. Also successful were several other militant
socialists based in Glasgow including
David
Kirkwood,
John
Wheatley,
Campbell Stephen, Emanuel
Shinwell,
James
Maxton,
John Muir, Tom
Johnston,
Campbell Stephen, Jimmie
Stewart, Neil Maclean, George
Hardie and James Welsh.
In 1932
Buchanan became chairman of the United Patternmakers Association of
Great Britain. A position he held for sixteen years. Buchan joined
the Labour Party in 1939.
Following
the 1945 General Election, the new prime
minister, Clement
Attlee,
appointed Buchanan as Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. He also
served as Minister of Pensions (October 1947 to July 1948).
Buchanan
retired from Parliament in 1948 to became Chairman of the National
Assistance Board (1948-1953). George
Buchanan died
on 28th June 1955.
(1)
David
Kirkwood
described
his election to the House of Commons in
his autobiography My Life of Revolt (1935)
From the outside circumference
of the city to its very heart, Glasgow was ringing with the message
of Socialism. Within a week of the election day, it seemed likely
that the whole team of eleven would win, that Bonar Law would be defeated,
and that Socialism would be triumphant. Such energy, enthusiasm, and
earnestness had not been known in Glasgow for generations. There we
were, men who a few years before had been scorned, some of us in jail
and many more of us
very near it, now being the men to whom the people pinned their faith.
When, at last, the results
were announced, every member of the team was elected - except our
champion of the Central Division. What a troop we were! John Wheatley,
cool and calculating and fearless ; James Maxton, whose wooing speaking
and utter selflessness made people regard him as a saint and martyr
; wee Jimmie Stewart, so small, so sober, and yet so determined ;
Neil MacLean, full of fire without fury; Thomas Johnston, with a head
as full of facts as an egg's full o' meat ; George Hardie, engineer
and chemist and brother of Keir Hardie; George Buchanan, patternmaker,
who knew the human side of poverty better than any of us; James Welsh,
miner and poet from Coatbridge, John W. Muir, an heroic and gallant
gentleman; and old Bob Smillie, returned for an English constituency
though he was born in Ireland and reared in Scotland.
We believed that this people,
this British folk, could and were willing to make friends with all
other peoples. We were ready to abandon all indemnities and all reparations,
to remove all harassing restrictions imposed by the Peace Treaties.
We were all Puritans. We were all abstainers. Most of us did not smoke.
We were the stuff of which reform is made.
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