Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.5
Object Name
rosette
Title
Rosette with badge featuring Keir Hardie
Place
Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, Houses of Parliament, UK
People
Keir Hardie, Labour Party
Events
Elections
Description
This yellow, red and green cloth rosette was made for an election campaign fought by Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, and shows his portrait in the centre.
Keir Hardie (15 August 1856-26 September 1915) sat as MP for West Ham South between 1892-1895, and as MP for Merthyr Tydfil in Wales from 1900 until his death. Hardie was the co-founder of the Scottish Labour Party (1888), the Independent Labour Party (1893), and the Labour Representation Committee (1900) which later became the Labour Party. He founded working class focused political parties to address the needs of workers he felt were neglected by upper class politicians.
Hardie began his working life as a child coal miner, later becoming leader of a miners union. He was the first parliamentary leader of the Labour Party from 1906-1908, and resigned the leadership to campaign on issues like women's suffrage, self-rule in colonised India, and opposing British involvement in World War I. Hardie was calling for a pacifist general strike opposing the War shortly before his death in 1915.
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