Catalogue Number
NMLH.1992.915
Object Name
Lamp
Place
Newarthill, Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK
People
Keir Hardie, Labour Party,
Description
A small green-brown oil lamp with a handle.
This lamp belonged to Keir Hardie (1856-1914) who began working in a coal mine in Newarthill, Scotland, at the age of 10 as a 'trapper' boy. The lamp provided the light for his task of opening the ventilation doors for pit ponies pulling tubs of coal. Hardie's experiences as a mine worker - an industry where many workers were injured or killed in workplace accidents, and pit owners often behaved unscrupulously, convinced him of the importance of trade unions and collective organising. He became a union organiser in local mines as a young adult, and also campaigned as part of the Temperance movement, viewing the results of excessive alcohol drinking in the working class as a 'social evil', perhaps influenced by his father's alcoholism.
Hardie ultimately became convinced that participation in parliament was necessary to protect exploited workers and the unemployed, and was a leading figure in the establishment of a political party to achieve this, in 1900. When the party returned a substantial number of working class MPs in the 1906 General Election, it took the name the Labour Party. Hardie participated in parliamentary politics, for much of the rest of his life, and also campaigned against the First World War, which he viewed as a class issue - where many working class soldiers would die to advance the aims of the upper classes - until his death in 1914.
**ON DISPLAY**
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