James
Stewart
was
born in Scotland in 1863. After leaving
school at 14 he became a hairdresser. 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,
Neil Maclean, George
Hardie, George Buchanan and James
Welsh.
Stewart
became a member of Glasgow City Council in 1909 and served for the
next thirteen years. In the 1922 General Election
Stewart was elected to the House of Commons
for St. Rollox. 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,
Neil Maclean, George
Hardie, George Buchanan and James
Welsh.
In January
1924 Ramsay
MacDonald appointed
Stewart as Under Secretary of Health for Scotland. However, he lost
office when the Labour Party was defeated
in the 1924 General Election. James
Stewart died
on 17th March 1931.
(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.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
