Votes for Women. Glasgow and the Suffragettes

Suffragettes of Glasgow and Scotland 

As a schoolchild in Glasgow we learnt about the suffragettes in 'O' Grade history. We learnt of their imprisonment, hunger strikes and release and re-arrest under the "Cat and Mouse Act". Emily Davison and her death whilst running in front of the King's horse at the Derby in 1913, and women being granted the vote in 1918 after World War I were also covered. The recent release of the film Suffragette has brought their campaigning to a new audience, covering pretty much the major points I remember from school. What I was less aware of were the actions of suffragettes in Scotland and Glasgow. 

This was brought home to me on hearing that there is a tree in Glasgow, planted in 1918 to commemorate the struggle these suffragettes. I had not been aware of the "Suffragette Oak" until it won the curious accolade as Scotland's tree of the year 2015.

So I have tried to find out some more about these Scottish women, but discovered that sadly there is surprisingly little information widely available on their activities. It is obviously an area that would benefit from more research and those at the Glasgow Women's Library are one of the teams of people trying to address this.

Early campaigners for the vote in the United Kingdom, such as the Chartists, had many in their ranks campaigning for "universal suffrage", for the rights of all men and women to vote. The Representation of the People Act of 1832 (also called the Great Reform Act) was a disappointment to many when the term "male persons" was specifically included in it. This gradually led to the development of a specific campaign to get women the right to vote, women's suffrage. Organisations such as the National Society for Women's Suffrage, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Glasgow and West of Scotland Woman's Suffrage Movement campaigned, organised petitions and held meetings. However as their members saw little progress some women looked to take more militant actions.

There was some political support for their campaigning.The Scottish Labour Party (later becoming the national Independent Labour Party or ILP) founded in 1888 by Keir Hardie, Shaw Maxwell and John Murdoch had "the establishment of universal adult suffrage" as the first item on its programme. When some women members of the ILP felt that its campaigning for women's suffrage was half-hearted, they left to form the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). This was founded in Manchester by Emmeline Pankhurst and others in 1903. They opened their first Scottish branch in Glasgow in 1906 at 141 Bath Street in the city centre. From the start their motto was "Deeds, not words". Their aim wasn't just to win votes for women, but by doing so to improve the lives and opportunities for women. 

My grandfather's family were active in the ILP
and this was a card, of Women's Freedom League
founder Charlotte Despard, that he had held onto

There was also the breakaway Women's Freedom League who believed in non-violent protest. One of their founding members was the Edinburgh-born, Anglo-Irish Charlotte Despard. She had previously spent two terms in Holloway Prison but disliked the authoritarian way that Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst ran the WSPU. She had met Gandhi in 1909 and was impressed with his ideas of "passive resistance". She was also a member of the ILP, knew Keir Hardie and had known Eleanor Marx. In Glasgow they established a tea room and bookshop at 302 Sauchiehall Street, before moving to larger premises at 70 St Georges Road, where the M8 now sits at Charing Cross. They preferred passive resistance such as not paying taxes or even dog licences and refused to participate in the 1911 census. They took up the cry of the American colonies from two centuries earlier "No taxation, without representation".

Anna Munro, organiser of the Women's
Freedom League in Scotland

In Glasgow many organisers of the local WSPU held strongly socialist principles, such as Helen Crawfurd and Janie Allan. Helen Crawfurd spent a month in prison in 1912 for smashing the windows at the premises of Education Minister Jack Pease. She had at least two further spells in prison, going on hunger strike on one occasion. When Janie Allan was arrested in London for smashing windows and sentenced to four months imprisonment, a petition from Glasgow signed by over 10,000 people demanded her release. She went on hunger strike in prison and like many others was brutally force fed whilst in jail.

Dr Marion Gilchrist

When the Glasgow offices of the WSPU opened on Bath Street in 1908 Dr Marion Gilchrist made a speech. She was the first woman in Scotland to qualify from university as a medical doctor, graduating from the University of Glasgow in 1894. She became a general practitioner in the west end of Glasgow and worked also as an eye surgeon at the Victoria Infirmary and the Redlands Hospital for Women. A member of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Women's Suffrage Movement since 1903 she left and joined the WSPU in 1907. She said in her 1908 speech that she now saw... 

"...clearly that nobody has done more for the cause than those militant suffragists. They have been the most heroic and deserve the highest praise. They have brought the question to the public notice and that was what the advocates of women suffrage who had carried on the work quietly for 60 years had failed to do"

Initially the actions of the WSPU were focused on raising awareness of their cause, holding public meetings, selling literature and opening new branches. Much of the activity at this time was towards a major march planned in Edinburgh in October 1909. 

March in Edinburgh for Women's Votes, 1909

Many artists in Glasgow such as Helen Fraser, Jessie Newbery and Ann Macbeth were drawn to the suffragette cause. Jessie Newbery founded the embroidery department at Glasgow School of Art and was married to the art school principal. She was an associate of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Ann Macbeth succeeded her as head of the embroidery department in 1911 and was responsible for creating many of the high quality suffragette banners. She herself was imprisoned and endured solitary confinement and forcible feedings in the name of the cause. Her colleagues at GSA supported her protests. In May 1912, she wrote to the Secretary of the School thanking him for his ’kind letter’. 

"I am still very much less vigorous than I anticipated’, she said, ’after a fortnight’s solitary imprisonment with forcible feedings … but the doctor thinks this will improve when I get away"

Like many other women protesters who were force fed, she suffered long-term ill health. She retired to Cumbria, where she continued her design work and her writing.

Ann Macbeth

In March 1912, in Glasgow, Emily Green was arrested for smashing six windows on Sauchiehall Street as protests turned increasingly violent. Attacks in galleries in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London are reported with "a valuable painting" in Kelvingrove Art Gallery being attacked with a hatchet. These actions were reported around the world.

Aug 1909, Boston newspaper report of Glasgow actions of a suffragette

In 1913 Glasgow pillar boxes were attacked with acid by Jessie Stephen, a domestic servant and trade unionist who headed the Domestic Workers' Union. She was never caught for this. She stated afterwards that dressed as a servant nobody paid her any attention as she deposited her acid containing packages. As a working class suffragette and member of the ILP she also apparently enlisted dockers in the ILP to "deal with" hecklers at WSPU meetings. Elsewhere in Scotland suffragettes cut telegraph wires in Dumbarton, Leuchars train station in Fife was burnt to the ground. An attempt was made to burn down the new stand at Kelso racecourse, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire mansions were burnt down, a portrait of the King was slashed at the Royal Academy in Edinburgh and politicians were attacked or heckled throughout the country. Bowling greens in Glasgow had their lawns cut up, the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh was bombed and the marker flags at Balmoral golf course were replaced one night with flags in the WPSU colours of green, white and purple.

WPSU supporters picketing outside Duke Street Prison in Glasgow

Since 1909 imprisoned suffragettes had been going on hunger strike to protest their cause and being force fed whilst imprisoned. This often had severe effects on the health of these women. By 1913 there were increasing numbers of women being arrested for their actions and the authorities struggled to cope with the numbers going on hunger strike. Fearing a death in custody creating a martyr, in 1913 the Liberal government passed the Prisoners Temporary Discharge For Ill-health Act (better known as The Cat and Mouse Act), temporarily releasing prisoners on hunger strike, to re-imprison them when their health improved.

Suffragette protest against the
Cat and Mouse Act

Different prisons in Scotland applied the laws in different ways, with Perth prison having some of the most brutal regimes, with women tied down for days on end and force fed. Arabella Scott, arrested after the fire at Kelso racecourse, endured five weeks of being force fed at Perth Prison after her re-arrest in June 1914 under the Cat and Mouse Act. During this time she was tied to a bed and not allowed to see anyone. Duke Street Prison in Glasgow had a reputation for less severe treatment of their suffragette prisoners with some suggestion that the governess was more sympathetic to their cause, or possibly to their class background. Whatever the reason, one curious artifact which the Glasgow Women's Library possess is an umbrella stand from  the governess's office at the prison. Rescued from a skip when the prison was demolished this was apparently painted in the nearest they could get to the WPSU colours by suffragette prisoners in the jail.

Umbrella stand from Duke Street Prison

Ellison and Margaret Gibb

Assault on Miss Ellison Gibb of Hillhead Glasgow

Beyond these prominent women leading the fight, there were many other lesser lights from around the country taking action and making sacrifices. A pair of Glasgow suffragette sisters that I had never heard of I recently discovered on reading the chess blog of Ilkley Chess Club. 

Ellison Gibb and Margaret Gibb lived at Elliot House, Elliot Street, Hillhead in Glasgow (now 40 Cresswell Street just off Byres Road). Their father was fish merchant Peter Gibb. Their mother, Margaret Skirving Gibb, was the founding member of the Glasgow Ladies Chess Club in 1905. Ellison Gibb was first arrested in 1908 outside 10 Downing Street, and again later on in London for smashing windows. There is a newspaper report of her managing to get into the train compartment next to cabinet minister Winston Churchill on on a Stranraer to Glasgow train in 1912. After haranguing him on the suffragette cause Churchill seems to have lost his temper with her behaviour, and ended their dialogue with "Remove this woman". She was imprisoned several times at Holloway Prison, once for smashing the windows of  Barkers of Kensington and was also on hunger strike whilst in prison. In November 1912 she was imprisoned in Dundee for smashing windows. Afterwards a newspaper recounts (see above) how she was assaulted whilst protesting against the Prime Minister at Ladybank in November 1912. 

Margaret Gibb ("Ann Hunt") in Birmingham Mail, July 1914

Ellison Gibb's younger sister, Margaret Gibb (who also used the alias Ann Hunt), also took up the cudgels for the suffragette cause. In the article above she has been arrested in London for attacking John Millais's portrait of Thomas Carlyle in the the National Portrait Gallery "with a chopper". She is quoted in court unrepentedly as saying

"The picture will have an added value and be of great historical interest because it has been honoured by the attention of a militant"

There is a striking police surveillance photograph of Margaret Gibb on the Museum of London website. It records that she was sentenced to two months in Holloway prison for striking a constable outside the prison with a dog whip.

Margaret Gibb exercising in the yard of Holloway Prison

Their suffragette activities quietened down during the war, but the Ilkley Chess Club blogger tracks the sisters down in later chess matches that they take part in. I do love this report below in the Glasgow Herald of a match played by the Glasgow Ladies Chess Club in 1923 against Paisley Chess Club. "A surprise was in store for the spectators as the ladies were victorious" although the reporter explains away the victory due to a weakened Paisley team, naturally. Both Gibb sisters can be seen to have won their games in this match: from chopping paintings in the National Portrait Gallery, to beating the Paisley men at chess. Well done Margaret Gibb. 

The Campaign Continues

In 1914 the newspapers reported further "Scottish outrages" as the Glasgow Herald put it. Janet Arthur was arrested whilst trying to blow up Burns Cottage in Alloway, Bonnington House in Lanark was completely destroyed by fire. In January 1914 two bombs are placed at the Kibble Palace in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens. Night watchman David Watters discovered a bomb with a burning fuse, which he cut, only to be "stunned" moments later by the blast of another bomb which smashed 27 panes of glass and caused minor damage to some plants. Although nobody was found committing the act, the evidence was clear as the papers report "footprints clearly indicate the high heels of ladies shoes”. Later Helen Crawfurd was arrested in connection with this and sentenced to two years imprisonment, though released after going on hunger strike.

American newspaper report of the incident in January 1914

There were many public meetings held on Glasgow Green for the suffragette cause, often addressed by members of the Pankhurst family on speaking tours. One particular meeting addressed by Emmeline Pankhurst at St Andrews Halls on 9th March 1914 became known as the "battle of Glasgow". At the time the police were trying to re-arrest Mrs Pankhurst under the Cat and Mouse Act and her attendance at the meeting was kept secret, although much anticipated. The front of the stage was decorated with white and purple flowers, which concealed a string of barbed wire and many women at the meeting were apparently armed with clubs, expecting the police to charge the stage. Having smuggled Mrs Pankhurst into the hall past a police cordon outside, as soon as she began to speak the police made their move and 50 police officers who had been in the basement and several plain clothes officers already in the hall charged forwards. A blank was fired from a pistol by one of the women bodyguards present, whilst others revealed the clubs they had concealed about their person or tried to defend Mrs Pankhurst from the police with ju-jitsu that they had been practicing. The actions of the baton-wielding police, at what was a legal meeting, shocked many people and generated publicity for the suffragette cause. The suffragettes also got adverse publicity for their violent response in reports in the Daily Record (which carried the photograph below) and other newspapers. After the meeting 4000 people marched to the Central Police Station to protest. Helen Crawfurd was arrested for attacking police officers who were attempting to arrest the suffragette leader Emily Pankhurst at the public meeting in St. Andrews Halls in Glasgow. Although released later that night without charge, Helen was promptly re-arrested the following night for smashing the windows of the army recruiting offices in Glasgow, and was sentenced to one month's imprisonment in Duke Street prison in Glasgow.

Weapons carried by suffragettes at the meeting in 1914

There was a failed attempt to set fire to the waiting rooms of both platforms of the Shields Road train station in Glasgow and in May 1914 a bomb, which failed to detonate, is discovered under the viaduct bringing water to Glasgow from Loch Katrine.

May 1914

War

In July 1914 war with Germany was declared and the women of Scotland declared a truce with the government, to fight the common enemy. The munitions factories, public transport and farms throughout the land would become largely staffed by women. Women took up roles as nurses and doctors at field hospitals in France, such as Glasgow nurse Agnes Climie, who died when the hospital she was working at in France was bombed by enemy aircraft.

Many suffragettes were also pacifists and opposed the war on principle. Sylvia Pankhurst came to Glasgow to speak at John MacLean's great anti-war demonstrations in the city. Helen Crawfurd held strong anti-war beliefs and turned away from the WSPU and sought new directions for the "women's movement". 

Helen Crawfurd, Oct 1915

Helen's involvement in the WSPU ceased shortly after the outbreak of the first world war because of the pro-war stance of Emily Pankhurst and the WSPU leadership. She became a powerful voice against poverty in the city and for peace. A relentless campaigner, she was secretary of the Glasgow Women’s Housing Association and a key player in the Rent Strikes of 1915, alongside other women such as Mary Barbour. A founder of the Women’s Peace Crusade in Glasgow, Crawfurd was also an associate of John MacLean.

Glasgow Rent Strike 1915

Votes For Women

The women's war effort was acknowledged when the Representation of the People Act 1918 granted women over the age of 30 the vote. A separate act that year also allowed woman to stand for election to Parliament for the first time. A further act in 1928 extended the franchise for women, lowering the age limit to 21, giving women voting equality with men. By the time Lochgelly's Jennie Lee was elected to parliament in 1929 representing the ILP, and becoming the youngest MP in the House of Commons at 24 years of age, she was in the curious position of still being too young to vote. 

Having won the vote, women now had to carry on the fight for their rights, a battle still being waged.

Reflections on Scottish Independence Inspired By James Connolly's Songbook

In Glasgow's Glad Cafe recently I attended an evening of music from Mat Callahan. He and fellow musicians have made a recording of some songs by and about James Connolly and were reprinting his book from 1907, "Songs Of Freedom". He talked of the lengths he had to go to in order to see a copy of it (afterwards Eddi Reader offered a copy she had) and gave a rendition of one of the songs printed in the original book, by Irishman Connell, "The Red Flag" but with a "Motown feel" to change it from the traditional dirge it has become. James Kelman had got involved when Mat was in Ireland and persuaded him to also visit the country of James Connolly's birth, Scotland, for two nights. It was a fantastic evening, with James Kelman in fine form, talking at length about the influence that Connolly had on Scottish socialists such as John MacLean.

As we approach our Scottish independence referendum it made me want to read a bit more about Connolly and why he took up arms for Irish independence from Britain. What did he think independence would achieve for Ireland? I asked my dad if he had anything on him. He said "I've got a few of his books. I used to have his Songbook, but I think I loaned it to someone and never got it back." (Aaaargh!) I consider myself not so much as an 'undecided' on the referendum question, but as a 'yet to be persuaded'. Too much nationalist language in general is about being better than others, whether it is the rest of the world, or a close neighbour. This is something that can only be negative and parochial. Nowhere in the current debate am I hearing about the ideals that we can aspire to in an independent country. Perhaps we could aim to be greener, more peaceable, more just, fairer. Liberty, egality, fraternity - that sort of thing.

Looking at the headlines on a newspaper website by searching the word 'independence' the lofty subjects include "would face greater security risk", "face tough choices on tax", "jobs fears" and "we're all doomed" (I made that last one up). It is almost as if a country of 5 million people is unheard of. People can apparently only succeed as a giant supermarket of a nation, there's no room for a worker's co-operative corner shop on these streets. Maybe one angle the 'Yes' campaign should emphasise is that becoming independent has not stopped Bosnia-Hercegovina getting to the World Cup finals in Brazil next year, and Croatia are also still in with a shout. But maybe this highlights part of the problem. Scotland has always been a wee bit of a separate country from England anyway whether in law, sport, education, history or perspective. None of these benefits other states may fight for can be so prominent in our debate as they may be in other parts of the world. So I think we need to hear about what Scots, given a blank canvas, think they could achieve. What virtues could our country aspire to?

James Connolly

James Connolly is known as a socialist and trade unionist who fought, and died for the Irish Nationalist cause. He is maybe more well known in Ireland than in the country he was born. In Dublin a statue of him stands outside Liberty Hall and he is remembered in the name of Connolly Station, whilst it is reported that all his life he spoke in a Scottish accent. He was truly an internationalist. He opposed the false divisions of people along lines of religion or gender, and the nationalism he fought for was not nationalism for nationalism's sake, but for the establishment of an "Irish Socialist Republic". As he said

"If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed."

He was born to Irish immigrant parents in the Cowgate of Edinburgh in 1868 where he was reportedly a fan of Hibernian football club. He left school aged 10 to start working, and aged 14 lied about his age to join the British army. The time he spent in the army in Ireland opened his eyes to the treatment of the Irish people at the hands of the British. He met his future wife here, Irish protestant Lillie Reynolds, and returned with her to Scotland in 1890 where he became active in trade unionism and the socialist movement. He was involved in the Independent Labour Party which Keir Hardie established in 1893. In 1895 he moved to Dublin where he founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party. After a speaking tour of America in 1902 he returned to Edinburgh and launched the Socialist Labour Party before emigrating to the USA for 6 years. Working initially as an insurance salesman, then in a Singer sewing machine factory in Newark, he became involved in the IWW (International Workers of the World or the "Wobblies") and became paid as the national organiser for the Socialist Party of America. He had established various socialist newspapers and was publishing his ideas in pamphlets and on speaking tours. Whilst in America he published "Songs for Freedom" in 1907 and the words of the songs clearly encapsulated his ideas. As he says in the introduction

"No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and hopes, the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by joyous, defiant singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement; it is a dogma of a few and not the faith of the multitude."

In 1910 he returned to Ireland and became involved with the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. The police brutality against workers in the 1913-14 Dublin 'lock-out' lead him to found a workers' militia, the Irish Citizens Army (ICA). He spoke out against the division of Ireland, wrote to warn Orangemen in Ulster from being blinded to the common cause they should have with the working people of Ireland, against their capitalist bosses "hiding their sweat shops behind orange flags". With regards to women he wrote that "of what use...[was the re-establishment of an Irish State]...if it does not embody the emancipation of womanhood". He saw the First World War as an imperialist war and campaigned against sending Irishmen abroad to fight. Today's conflicts around the world could be being referenced with these words

"If these men must die, would it not be better to die in their own country fighting for freedom for their own class, and for the abolition of war, than to go forth to strange countries and die slaughtering and slaughtered by their own brothers that tyrants and profiteers might live?"

In the rising in Dublin of Easter 1916, James Connolly and members of his ICA tried to make their stated aims a reality. Whilst Commandant of the Dublin Brigade at the GPO he was badly wounded in the fighting. He was one of the seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation. Following the surrender he was arrested and at his court-martial again mentioned the role of women and the war in Europe,

"We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British government has been asking them to die for in Belgium . . . I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth and to seal it with their lives if necessary."

Sentenced to death he was taken to Kilmainham Goal, still seriously ill from his wounds, on a stretcher where he had to be tied to a chair to be shot.

My mother-in-law in the yard of a wet
Kilmainham Gaol

He had crystal clear aims for the nationalism for which he was fighting, something I have yet to hear in Scotland's current debate. His programme included a republic

"based upon public ownership by the Irish people of the land and instruments of production, distribution and exchange."

Also, there was to be nationalisation of the railways (and canals), abolition of private banks and government financed loans at cost price, graduated income tax, universal suffrage, establishment of a minimum wage, free maintenance for all children, free education up to higher university grades and public management of schools. What was the point of self-determination if it didn't provide a programme to benefit all of the ordinary citizens?

Prompted by James Kelman talking about him as though we were all familiar with his ideas, I recently sought out a book on an early Scottish Marxist called Willie Nairn. He was born in 1856 in Brechin, and aged 18 he gravitated to Glasgow where he worked as a labourer and stonebreaker. He lived in exciting times. Agitated by questions of land ownership in a country still reeling from the Highland clearances and by the ideas of the Paris Commune of 1871 he studied the writings of Marx and Engels in his evenings. The Communist Manifesto (first translated into English by Barrhead's Helen MacFarlane) and Das Kapital were hot off the presses when he first read them. As John MacLean later would, he spoke at meetings and in Cathedral Square and Glasgow Green trying to spread the ideas he found there. He was a founder member of one of Glasgow's first Socialist organisations, the Social Democratic Federation and active in the infant Cooperative movement. He was president of the St George Cooperative Society which stood at St George's Cross. Nothing is left of this building except for the statue of George and the dragon which once stood atop it, but now marks the junction beneath the Great Western Road flyover. Like Keir Hardie and James Connolly he spoke out against the Boer War and criticised the socialist leaders who could "out-jingo the jingoists" as they fell in behind the war bandwagon. In 1902 he died, aged 46. Despite his origins, the poverty and hardships he endured, he looked for a better way and tried to put it into effect.

My great-great uncle Robert
standing beside Keir Hardie

Early Scottish socialists often had a desire for Scottish independence. Keir Hardie is often quoted as an advocate of home rule for Scotland. He first stood for election, in 1888, as the "Labour and Home Rule" candidate but as Bob Holman points out in his biography of Hardie "this was to let the sizeable number of Irish residents in the constituency know where he stood on the question of home rule for Ireland". I have struggled to find any statements or writings by him on the issue of Scottish Home Rule. Later in 1888 Keir Hardie founded the Scottish Labour Party (not to be confused in ANY way with a party currently using that name), soon to merge with the Independent Labour Party he was to lead into parliament. In 1908 Hardie travelled to South Africa and was unusual in his day in condemning the treatment of blacks there. He also visited New Zealand, Australia and India on his tour. Writing in his book on India he writes about the Indians' desire for self government. He felt that the Indians had a right to self-determination, for their benefit and the benefit of future relations between Britain and India.

"Concerning political reforms, I am certain that no matter what is done for India there can be no real pacification, no allaying of discontent, no breaking down of the barrier rising between European and Asiatic, until the people of India have some effective form of self-government."

His book, which he wrote of his two months in India, is a fascinating read. The effort he goes to in order to meet people, to research facts and figures to support his arguments is just not something that you see in political analysis now. The fact that in the USA of the 1960s it was thought acceptable to segregate public transport on racial grounds seems even more bizarre than it was, when a Victorian mine worker from Holyton found it so obviously odd in the India of 1908.

"When I entered the train at Madras there were  two Indian gentlemen in the compartment. One of them rose as I entered and said: "Shall we move to another compartment, sir?" I stared at the gentleman and asked whether he had paid his fare.....Now I knew that in parts of America the colour line was strictly drawn, but I was not prepared for this kind of thing in India. Here, be it remembered, is a people who have inherited a civilisation which was old ere the West had begun to emerge from savagery." 

Again, like Connolly, Hardie was a man from a previous age who shaped his opinions through no narrow, parochial viewpoint. Hardie's colleague in The Scottish Labour Party it's president, Robert Cunninghame-Graham later founded the National Party of Scotland, forerunner to the Scottish Nationalist Party so there were other socialists at that time who did feel that Scottish home rule was an important issue of the time.

John MacLean took this idea and ran with it, calling for

"a Scottish Communist Republic as a first step towards World Communism with Glasgow as its headquarters."

No matter how many times I read over that statement, the only response I can think of is "Build a Scottish Communist Republic, and make Glasgow the centre of this world. Bloody brilliant. Think big - when do we begin?" He also issued a leaflet in 1920, 'All Hail! The Scottish Communist Republic' with echoes of Connolly's call for an "Irish Socialist Republic", in which he made his views clear.

"Scotland must again have Independence, but not to be ruled by traitor kings and chiefs, lawyers and politicians....The control must be in the hands of the workers only, male and female alike...".

10 days before his death in 1923 at the age of 44,  he wrote in his last political address that

"Before England is ready I am sure the next war will be on us. I therefore consider that Scotland's wisest policy is to declare for a republic in Scotland, so that the youths of Scotland will not be forced out to die for England's markets."

Sitting to write this and trying to find the views of these men, I struggled with my lack of knowledge about these thinkers from Scotland's recent history, and that is from someone brought up as a child in a politically active, trade unionist household. I could lay my hands on some of their writings I've bought from obscure online bookstores over the years or borrowed from relatives. Even then, what I could access in these days of the internet being the font of all knowledge, the amount of detail I could find was very limited. This is where the gap is in the current debate. It is a knowledge gap. We don't know about these working class people with sparkling, positive, idealistic ideas. We aren't taught about these men in school history, or of the tanks in George Square in 1919 or the UCS work-in. My granny, living in the Gorbals had seen and heard John MacLean, my great uncle was involved in the UCS work-in but they are dead now. The link to these words and ideas dies with that generation unless it is documented and today's children are shown what working people can and have achieved.

Why fight for a new state which will keep people as enslaved as the old state? That is a question that is not being heard in the current referendum. What sort of Scotland do you envisage in the future and how can we get there? 'That's no fair' is something we see as an unbeatable argument when we are schoolchildren. We should start with this fine axiom as adults too. Surely it is clear that the historical, socialist beliefs and feelings of our country should still be our guiding principles. Take Connolly's programme and start from there. Add in the maintenance of a free NHS, the scrapping of Trident and highlight the benefits of creating a country welcoming immigrants and I'd vote for that country. Free education and childcare, minimum wage and a graduated income tax (not tax breaks for the wealthy), nationalisation of essential services. Why not add democratic control of our rich energy resources too? Yes, hoist the Scottish flag over Edinburgh Castle, but not if we end up being run by the same capitalists, financiers, commercial institutions and individuals as before.

The politicians debating the referendum all look and sound like middle management people discussing how they'll run the office stationary fund better than the other mob. Come on, people.
Raise the level of the debate, as so far the politicians are grinding it down to their mundane level.  Think a bit bigger. Okay, you could regard a lot of what I've written above as complete pie in the sky. But if we aim for the pie, we might miss and land in the beans.

There are people trying to look forwards and see what benefits we could all gain with a vote for independence, such as the Radical Independence Campaign. The Jimmy Reid Foundation, named in honour of the union leader at the heart of the UCS work-in, launched their "Common Weal Project" with the aim of starting a debate about how Scotland could develop socially and economically with "mutuality and equity" as guiding principles. I agree that we should take advantage of this juncture to start from scratch. The question shouldn't be whether we want independence or not, but what type of society we want. If independence will be used to make a better society then I'd vote for it. If not, I really don't see the point.

Lenin famously said that for a revolution to occur required "mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which never, not even in a period of crisis, 'falls', if it is not toppled over”. I quite like the idea of jolting our political situation enough to dislocate our current politics.

A simple cairn in Pollokshaws is the only memorial we have in Glasgow to John MacLean. It reads

FAMOUS PIONEER OF WORKING CLASS EDUCATION

HE FORGED THE SCOTTISH LINK IN THE

GOLDEN CHAIN OF WORLD SOCIALISM

Start with this as a simple aspiration for a new nation and I think it would be off to a good start. Pioneer working class education and forge Scotland as a Socialist link in a worldwide chain.

Scotland is a small country. However people should try to think a bit bigger.