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James Ramsay MacDonald (12 October 1866 – 5 January 1924) was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the only one who belonged to the Labour Party, leading a minority Labour government for nine months in 1923. His government was dogged with accusations of syndicalist sympathies, stoked by his pacifism and implication in the Cachin Letter hoax before finally crumbling under the controversy of the Campbell Case. Following his resignation of the Premiership, MacDonald briefly served as leader of the opposition to the National Government but was assassinated in the opening days of 1924 by a far-right radical allegedly associated with the Britons. The ensuing weeks saw a public outcry.

While considered a moderate by his contemporaries in the Labour Party, his assassination and the public outpouring of grief transformed MacDonald's legacy from that of a moderate Labourite to a radical firebrand taken before his time. Held in immensely high-esteem in the Union of Britain, MacDonald is often considered the 'Chairman that would have been' with scholars continuously debating what impact he would have, had he not been assassinated. While critics have attacked MacDonald as being too moderate to affect real change and may have held sympathies to the National Government, these remain outside the academic consensus which contends MacDonald to be a brilliant statesman who deftly navigated the perils his brief government faced.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

MacDonald was born in Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland, the illegitimate son of John MacDonald, a farm labourer, and Anne Ramsay, a housemaid. Registered at birth as James McDonald (sic) Ramsay, he was known as Jaimie MacDonald in the area. MacDonald's mother had worked as a domestic servant at Claydale farm, near Alves, where his father was also employed. Anne's mother, Isabella Ramsay, was a devout Calvinist and prevented her daughter from marrying a man she deemed unsuitable.

In these early years, MacDonald was educated at a Free Church of Scotland school in Lossiemouth and then later went to the parish school at Drainie. At fifteen, after a few months working on a nearby farm, MacDonald was appointed as a pupil teacher. His appointment saved him from a lifetime working on the land. During his time as pupil teacher he read widely including Progress and Poverty, by Henry George. Already influenced by the political radicalism of the fishermen and farm workers in the area, by 1884 considered himself to be a Christian Socialist.

In 1885, he moved to Bristol to take up a position as an assistant to Mordaunt Crofton, a clergyman who was attempting to establish a Boys' and Young Men's Guild at St Stephen's Church. During these early years, he hoped to become a social worker or a teacher and admitted several years later: "Something is constantly saying to me that I will do nothing myself but that I will enable someone else to do something." In this new city, MacDonald joined the Democratic Federation, a Radical organisation, which changed its name a few months later to become the the Social Democratic Federation. MacDonald became the librarian, organizing the sale of the SDF's newspaper, Justice. MacDonald later recalled that the small group met in a workmen's cafe. "We had all the enthusiasm of the early Christians in those days. We were few and the gospel was new. The second coming was at hand."

MacDonald shortly after the 1885 General Election when he learned the two SDF leaders, Henry M. Hyndman and Henry H. Champion, without consulting their colleagues, accepted £340 from the Conservative Party to run parliamentary candidates in Hampstead and Kensington. The objective being to split the Liberal vote and therefore enable the Conservative candidate to win. MacDonald claimed that the actions of Hyndman and Champion "lacked a spirit of fairness". In his resignation letter he wrote: "If practical Socialism means an autocracy or the Government of a Cabal I for one will have nothing to do with it... To read that paper (Justice) one would think the SDF's hand was against all other Socialist societies in England and that its duty was to heap slander of all sorts upon them... We have over and over again had to read arguments in favour of Socialism that never went deeper than calling an opponent an 'outrageous old hypocrite', 'a bloodsucker', 'ignorant, and many other epithets as delicious as the fumes of a Billingsgate market... It has been plainly shown in the history of the Federation that the great virtues it recognises are unscrupulousness, unfairness and slander. Be it so! I hope there may be many who can now see to what they have been trusting, and how they have been used, many who love the grand principles of Socialism more than the distorted doctrines of the Federation and who have the courage and manliness to act accordingly."

In 1886 MacDonald moved to London and obtained a job as an invoice clerk in a city warehouse after briefly working for the National Cyclists' Union in Fleet Street. Living in cheap lodgings in Kentish Town, he attended evening classes where he studied botany, agriculture, mathematics and physics for a science scholarship at the Birkbeck Institute and the City of London College. MacDonald still aspired to become an educator and hoped to train as a teacher at a school South Kensington though his health suffered due to poverty and overwork. Regardless he continued to take an interest in politics, engaging himself C. L. Fitzgerald's Socialist Union and the efforts of the Scottish Home Rule Movement based out of London. Unfortunately, these activities caused his health to suddenly fail a week before his examinations putting an end to his hopes of a career in the sciences.

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A young MacDonald

Nevertheless, after his health recovered, MacDonald renewed his interest in politics and was employed as private secretary to Thomas Lough, the Liberal Party candidate for West Islington. Lough, an Irish nonconformist and tea merchant was a loyal follower of William Ewart Gladstone. According to his biographer, "the 21-year-old Scot entered the world of metropolitan middle-class Liberalism but also moved among the radical and Labour figures who dominated the local party." With access to the National Liberal Club as well as the editorial offices of Liberal and Radical newspapers he took great interest in political dealings and gained valuable experience in the workings of electioneering. However, shortly after arriving in London he joined the left-wing Fabian Society. Another member, George Bernard Shaw, said he had the bearing of an army officer. Beatrice Webb, a founder member of the group, agreed to employ MacDonald as a "lecturer in the provinces". MacDonald wanted to give talks in London but Webb rejected that idea and instead, he later attempted to secure election as a Liberal-Labour candidate for Dover but he was rejected despite impressing the local newspapers and being popular among the local party.

Early Politics[]

After the 1885 General Election there were eleven of these Liberal-Labour MPs now in parliament though some socialists like Keir Hardie, began to argue that the working class needed their own independent political party. This feeling was strong in Manchester and in 1892 Robert Blatchford, the editor of the socialist newspaper, the Clarion joined with Richard Pankhurst to form the Manchester Independent Labour Party. The activities of the Manchester group inspired Liberal-Labour MPs to consider establishing a new national working class party. Under the leadership of Keir Hardie, the Independent Labour Party was formed in 1893. It was decided that the main objective of the party would be "to secure the collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange". Leading figures in this new organisation included Robert Smillie, George Bernard Shaw, Tom Mann, George Barnes, Pete Curran, John Glasier, Katherine Glasier, Henry H. Champion, Ben Tillett, Philip Snowden and Edward Carpenter.

Ramsay MacDonald joined in 1894 and the following year was selected as the ILP candidate for Southampton. At a meeting in May 1895, Margaret Gladstone, a feminist and fellow socialist reformer, attended one of his meetings. She noted that his red tie and curly hair made him look "horribly affected". However, she sent him a £1 contribution to his election fund and a few days later she became one of his campaign workers. At the 1895 General Election, MacDonald, along with the other twenty-seven Independent Labour Party candidates, was defeated and overall, the party won only 44,325 votes.

The following year Ramsay and Margaret began meeting at the Socialist Club in St. Bride Street and at the British Museum, where they both had readers' tickets. In a letter she admitted that before she met him she had been terribly lonely: "But when I think how lonely you have been I want with all my heart to make up to you one tiny little bit for that. I have been lonely too - I have envied the veriest drunken tramps I have seen dragging about the streets if they were man and woman because they had each other... This is truly a love letter: I don't know when I shall show it you: it may be that I never shall. But I shall never forget that I have had the blessing of writing it." They quickly married and in a letter she wrote to MacDonald on 15th June, 1896 about her situation she explained they would have a comfortable livelihood but she wished to live a 'simple life among the people'.

After they married in 1897, Margaret MacDonald was able to finance her husband's political career from her private income of £500 a year. "The marriage was a political partnership, albeit an uneven one. Margaret continued with her own public work, but she also coped with her husband's social awkwardness. About once every three weeks, they were 'at home' to progressive trade unionists and Labour activists, Socialist leaders and radical intellectuals and later to foreign Socialists, dominion Labour leaders and colonial nationalists. These gatherings were important for MacDonald's political career." Nevertheless, the marriage was a very happy one, and over the next few years they had six children: Alister (1898), Malcolm (1901), Ishbel (1903), David (1904), Joan (1908) and Shelia (1910). Margaret's comfortable wealth allowed them to travel, visiting Canada and the United States in 1897, South Africa in 1902, Australia and New Zealand in 1906 and India several times.

Towards the Labour Party[]

With the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899, MacDonald was totally against the conflict as he saw it as a consequence of imperialism. He wrote that "further extensions of Empire are only the grabbings of millionaires on the hunt". He joined forces with John Hobson to move a resolution condemning the war at a meeting of the Fabian Society. It was defeated and George Bernard Shaw wrote to MacDonald claiming: "I don't believe that the causes of the war menace our democracy. Quite the contrary. I don't believe that the capitalists have created or could have created the situation they are now exploiting for all its worth." After failing to win the vote, MacDonald, along with thirteen others, including Walter Crane and Emmeline Pankhurst, resigned from the Fabian Society, with MacDonald growing closer to the ILP and becoming a confirmed pacifist.

In the run up to the 1900 election, Kier Hardie and the ILP foresaw that to bring the Liberal-inclined trade unions onto the side of Labour candidates, they would need to establish a new political organisation to sponsor trade union backed candidates, leading to the formation of the Labour Representation Committee, the forerunner of the Labour Party. MacDonald, now a prominent figure, became Secretary of the LRC, allegedly in part because many delegates confused him with prominent London trade unionist Jimmie MacDonald when they voted for "Mr. James R. MacDonald". MacDonald retained his membership of the ILP; while it was not openly a Marxist organisation it was more rigorously socialist than the LRC would prove to be. As Party Secretary, MacDonald negotiated an agreement with the leading Liberal politician Herbert Gladstone (son of the late Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone), which allowed Labour to contest a number of working class seats without Liberal opposition, thus giving Labour its first breakthrough into the House of Commons.

The LRC put up fifteen candidates in the 1900 General Election and between them they won 62,698 votes. Two of the candidates, Keir Hardie and Richard Bell won seats in the House of Commons. Hardie was the leader of the ILP but Bell, the General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, once in Parliament, associated himself with the Liberal Party. MacDonald stood in Leicester but ultimately lost and was accused of splitting the vote in allowing a Tory to take power. Nevertheless, the local newspaper was impressed with MacDonald: "Mr MacDonald is a tall, strong, vigorous young man, and has evidently got a lot of fight in him. He appears to have a great deal of nervous electric energy as well as abundant muscular force. He stands upright with every inch of his measurement - with conscious power."

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LRC notables, 1906. From left to right:Arthur Henderson, George Barnes, Ramsay Macdonald, Philip Snowden,Will Crooks, Keir Hardie, John Hodge, James O'Grady and David Shackleton

The LRC did much better in the 1906 General Election with twenty nine successful candidates winning their seats. MacDonald won his seat and other successes included James Keir Hardie (Merthyr Tydfil), Philip Snowden (Blackburn), Arthur Henderson (Barnard Castle), George Barnes (Glasgow Blackfriars), Will Thorne (West Ham) and Fred Jowett (Bradford). At a meeting on 12th February, 1906, the group of MPs decided to change from the LRC to the Labour Party. Hardie was elected chairman and MacDonald was selected to be the party's secretary. At this time, the new Labour Party was not a traditional party but rather a vehicle for the labour movement to sponsor candidates, with all members participating in 'affiliate' organisation such as the ILP, the Fabian Society or affiliated trade unions.

This success in the elections was due to the secret alliance with the Liberal Party but this angered left-wing activists who felt betrayed that of the 29 MPs elected, only 18 were socialists. Likewise, Hardie was elected chairman of the party by one vote, against David Shackleton, the trade union candidate. His victory was based on recognition of his role in forming the Labour Party rather than his socialism and this led to growing concerns that the new party would not advocate for socialism but only more moderate causes. With Labour supporting the Liberal government, MacDonald became the leader of the left-wing of the party, arguing that Labour must seek to displace the Liberals as the main party of the left.

In 1909 David Lloyd George announced what became known as the People's Budget. This included increases in taxation. Whereas people on lower incomes were to pay 9d. in the pound, those on annual incomes of over £3,000 had to pay 1s. 2d. in the pound. Despite these measures, Ramsay MacDonald argued that the Labour Party should fully support the budget. "Mr. Lloyd George's Budget, classified property into individual and social, incomes into earned and unearned, and followers more closely the theoretical contentions of Socialism and sound economics than any previous Budget has done." MacDonald went on to argue that the House of Lords should not attempt to block this measure. "The aristocracy... do not command the moral respect which tones down class hatreds, nor the intellectual respect which preserves a sense of equality under a regime of considerable social differences."

Party Leader[]

At first Keir Hardie was chairman of the party in the House of Commons, but in 1908 he resigned from the post and Arthur Henderson became leader. Henderson did not have the full-support of the party and decided to retire as chairman only two years later. Henderson thought that MacDonald should become the new leader and insisted on his appointment. This was not personal affection, or even out of admiration for MacDonald's character and abilities. Rather he knew MacDonald as Secretary was the more powerful of the two - having oversight of the whole party and holding the real power - leading to Henderson wanting to be party secretary himself and believed correctly that MacDonald would be a good one. This was partly because he believed - again correctly - that MacDonald was the only potential candidate capable of reconciling the ILP to the moderate line favoured by the unions.

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Ramsay MacDonald by Solomon Joseph Solomon, 1911

Ramsay MacDonald was expected to become the new leader but in February he suffered two shattering emotional blows. On 3rd February his youngest son, David, died of diphtheria. On 4th July, 1910, MacDonald wrote: "My little David's birthday... Sometimes I feel like a lone dog in the desert howling from pain of heart. Constantly since he died my little boy has been my companion. He comes and sits with me especially on my railway journey and I feel his little warm hand in mine. That awful morning when I was awakened by the telephone bell, and everything within me shrunk in fear for I knew I was summoned to see him die, comes back often too." Eight days later his mother also died. Emotionally destroyed, MacDonald stood aside and it was therefore decided that George Barnes should become chairman instead. A few months later Barnes wrote to MacDonald saying he did not want the chairmanship and was "only holding the fort". He continued, "I should say it is yours anytime".

The 1910 General Election saw 40 Labour MPs elected to the House of Commons. Two months later, on 6th February, 1911, George Barnes sent a letter to the Labour Party announcing that he intended to resign as chairman. At the next meeting of MPs, Ramsay MacDonald was elected unopposed to replace Barnes. Arthur Henderson now became secretary. According to Philip Snowden, a bargain had been struck at the party conference the previous month, whereby MacDonald was to resign the secretaryship in Henderson's favour, in return for becoming chairman." By now, MacDonald was the chief intellectual leader of the party, paying little attention to class warfare and much more to the emergence of a powerful state as it exemplified the Darwinian evolution of an ever more complex society. He was an Orthodox Edwardian progressive, keen on intellectual discussion, and averse to agitation.

On 20th July 1911, Ramsay MacDonald arranged for Margaret MacDonald to meet William Du Bois in the House of Commons. He later explained: "A little after noon she joined me at the House of Commons with one whom she had desired to meet ever since she had read his book on the negro, Professor Du Bois; that afternoon we went to country for a weekend rest. She complained of being stiff, and jokingly showed me the finger carrying her marriage and engagement rings. It was badly swollen and discoloured, and I expressed concern. She laughed away my fears... On Saturday she was so stiff that she could not do her hair, and she was greatly amused by my attempts to help her. On Sunday she had to admit that she was ill and we returned to town. Then she took to bed." She was treated by Dr. Thomas Barlow, who told MacDonald that he could not save her. "When she heard that she was doomed, she was silent, and said with a slight tremble in her voice, I am very sorry to leave you - you and the children - alone. She never wept - never to the end. She asked if the children could be brought to see her. When the boys were brought to her, she spoke to each one separately. To the boys she said, I wish you only to remember one wish of your mother's - never marry except for love."

Margaret MacDonald died on 8th September 1911, at her home, Lincoln's Inn Fields, from blood poisoning due to an internal ulcer. Her body was cremated at Golders Green on 12th September and the ashes were buried in Spynie Churchyard, a few miles from Lossiemouth. His son, Malcolm MacDonald, later recalled: "At the time of my mother's death... my father's grief was absolutely horrifying to see. Her illness and her death had a terrible effect on him of grief; he was distracted; he was in tears a lot of time when he spoke to us... it was almost frightening to a youngster like myself." The income from Margaret's trust fund - now around £800 a year - was paid to him. This enabled him to employ a woman to look after the children and the household at Lincoln's Inn Fields.

The Liberal government's next major reform was the 1911 National Insurance Act. This gave the British working classes the first contributory system of insurance against illness and unemployment. MacDonald declared that the premiums were too high and the balance between state, employer and employee was unfair. However, he believed that the Labour Party should try to get the measure modified whereas Keir Hardie, Philip Snowden, Will Thorne and George Lansbury, disagreed and called for the bill to be rejected. MacDonald was furious about this rebellious behaviour and negotiated important concessions to the bill such as the exemption of low-paid workers. John Bruce Glasier argued that Ramsay MacDonald gave him the impression that he had lost faith in socialism and wanted to move the Labour Party to the right. noting his reluctance to use the word 'socialist'.

MacDonald later clashed with some members of the party over votes for women. He had argued for many years that women's suffrage that was a necessary part of a socialist programme. He was therefore able to negotiate an agreement with the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies for joint action in by-elections. In October, 1912, it was claimed that £800 of suffragist money had been spent on Labour candidatures. However, some leaders of the Labour Party, including Keir Hardie and George Lansbury, supported the campaign of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), MacDonald rejected their use of violence: "I have no objection to revolution, if it is necessary but I have the very strongest objection to childishness masquerading as revolution, and all that one can say of these window-breaking expeditions is that they are simply silly and provocative. I wish the working women of the country who really care for the vote ... would come to London and tell these pettifogging middle-class damsels who are going out with little hammers in their muffs that if they do not go home they will get their heads broken." MacDonald also pointed out, the WSPU wanted votes for women on the same terms as men, and specifically not votes for all women. He considered this unfair as at this time only a third of men had the vote in parliamentary elections.

The Great War[]

MacDonald had always taken a keen interest in foreign affairs and knew from his visit to South Africa, just after the Boer War had ended, what the effects of modern conflict would be. Although the Parliamentary Labour Party generally held an anti-war opinion, when war was declared in August 1914, patriotism came to the fore. After the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, warned the House of Commons on 3 August that war with Germany was likely, MacDonald responded by declaring that "this country ought to have remained neutral". In the Labour Leader he claimed that the real cause of the war was the "policy of the balance of power through alliance". In opposing the war, MacDonald was joined by other heavyweights such as Keir Hardie, Philip Snowden, John Bruce Glasier, George Lansbury, Alfred Salter, William Mellor and Fred Jowett. Others in the party such as Arthur Henderson, George Barnes, J. R. Clynes, William Adamson, Will Thorne and Ben Tillett believed that the movement should give total support to the war effort. During this early part of the war, MacDonald was extremely unpopular and was accused of treason and cowardice.

On 5th August, 1914, the parliamentary party voted to support the government's request for war credits of £100,000,000. Ramsay MacDonald immediately resigned the chairmanship and the pro-war Arthur Henderson was elected in his place. Five days later MacDonald had a meeting with Philip Morrel, Norman Angell, E. D. Morel, Charles Trevelyan and Arthur Ponsonby. They decided, in MacDonald's words, "to form a committee to voice our views". They went on to form the Union of Democratic Control. It was agreed that the main reasons for the conflict was the secret diplomacy of people like Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey. They decided that the UDC should have three main objectives: (1) that in future to prevent secret diplomacy there should be parliamentary control over foreign policy; (2) there should be negotiations after the war with other democratic European countries in an attempt to form an organisation to help prevent future conflicts; (3) that at the end of the war the peace terms should neither humiliate the defeated nation nor artificially rearrange frontiers as this might provide a cause for future wars.

In May 1915, Arthur Henderson, became the first member of the Labour Party to hold a Cabinet post when Herbert Asquith invited him to join his coalition government. John Bruce Glasier commented in his diary: "This is the first instance of a member of the Labour Party joining the government. Henderson is a clever, adroit, rather limited-minded man - domineering and a bit quarrelsome - vain and ambitious. He will prove a fairly capable official front-bench man, but will hardly command the support of organised Labour." Later, Horatio Bottomley, argued in the John Bull Magazine that Ramsay MacDonald and James Keir Hardie, were the leaders of a "pro-German Campaign". On 19th June 1915 the magazine claimed that MacDonald was a traitor and that: "We demand his trial by Court Martial, his condemnation as an aider and abetter of the King's enemies, and that he be taken to the Tower and shot at dawn." Bottomley continued his campaign and attempted to 'expose' MacDonald's illegitimacy and so-called deceit in not disclosing his real name was in fact MacDonald Ramsay.

In his diary, MacDonald recorded his reaction to the article. "On the day when the paper with the attack was published, I was travelling from Lossiemouth to London in the company as far as Edinburgh with the Dowager Countess De La Warr, Lady Margaret Sackville and their maid... I saw the maid had John Bull in her hand. Sitting in the train, I took it from her and read the disgusting article. From Aberdeen to Edinburgh, I spent hours of the most terrible mental pain.... Never before did I know that I had been registered under the name of Ramsay, and cannot understand it now. From my earliest years my name has been entered upon lists, like the school register, etc. as MacDonald. My mother must have made a simple blunder or the registrar must have made a clerical error." MacDonald received many letters of support, including this one from a long-term opponent to his anti-war activities: "For your villainy and treason you ought to be shot and I would gladly do my country service by shooting you. I hate you and your vile opinions - as much as Bottomley does. But the assault he made on you last week was the meanest, rottenest lowdown dog's dirty action that ever disgraced journalism."

In August 1915, a group of members of the Moray Golf Club, of which he was a member, submitted a motion demanding that MacDonald should be removed from the roll of members because of his opposition to the Great War. The motion was carried by 73 votes to 24. MacDonald wrote to the club secretary: "I am in receipt of your letter informing me that the Moray Golf Club has decided to become a political association with the Golf Course attached, and that it has torn up its rules in order that some of its members may give rein to their political prejudice and spite. Unfortunately, for some years, the visit of any prominent Liberal or Radical to the Moray Golf Club has been resented by a certain section which has not concealed its offensiveness either in the Club House or on the Course. Though I am, therefore, not sorry that the character of a number of members of the Moray Golf Club has been advertised to the world, I cannot help regretting that the Club, of which I was one of the earliest members, should be held up to public ridicule and contempt."

After the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II in Russia, socialists in Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, United States and Italy called for a conference in a neutral country to see if the Great War could be brought to an end. MacDonald wrote in his diary: "The great service which the Russian Revolution could render to Europe would be to bring about an understanding between the German Democracy and that of the Allied countries." He felt that "a sort of spring-tide of joy had broken out all over Europe." MacDonald warned repeatedly that if the British government and its allies, continued to insist on a military victory, the moderate socialists would lose control in Russia. He was therefore not surprised when Alexander Kerensky was deposed and replaced by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. He added that it was Britain's fault that "Russia now negotiates alone with Russia".

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Cartoon from Punch 20 June 1917

As the war dragged on, his reputation slowly recovered, particularly as public opinion against the war effort began to turn. William Adamson replaced Arthur Henderson as chairman of the party in October 1917 and MacDonald began to repair his reputation in the party and the public at large. Nevertheless, he remained unpopular among the public and was often accused of sympathies to the Soviet government in Russia. He remained important within the Labour Party and at the Party Conference of 1919, agreed that the party needed to make a statement of objectives. This included: "To secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry and service."

Despite Labour faring far better than expected in the 1919 General Election amid the Liberal collapse, MacDonald nonetheless lost his seat for Leicester East. He did not consider he had much chance of winning has he had suffered four years of hostile press coverage. "Four years indignity, lying, blackguardism, have eaten like acid into me. Were I assassinated before it is all over would give no one who has followed the attacks cause for wonder. It is best to say I have become a kind of mythological demon in the minds of the people"

The opposing candidate, Joseph Frederick Green, was a representative of the pro-war and left-wing National Democratic Party. Though much opposition came from the neighbouring constituency's Liberal candidate, Gordon Hewart, who concentrated on MacDonald's opposition to the war. He argued that MacDonald had "put an odious stain and stigma upon the fair name of Leicester". He went on to say that this was not "an indelible stain" and "the citizens of Leicester now had the opportunity of wiping it away and of meting out to its author his well-merited reward." MacDonald hit back against his critics and argued that he had ultimately been proven right about the disastrous conflict but nevertheless lost the election by 1,000 votes.

The Road to No. 10[]

Out of Parliament, MacDonald was deprived of his £400 parliamentary salary and found work as a writer and lecturer. He gradually rebuilt his political reputation both within and outside of the Labour Party. David Low, a cartoonist from New Zealand, met MacDonald and later wrote about he was "greatly impressed by Ramsay MacDonald, who looked to me a real leader. He seemed taller in those days and more craggy, as he stalked up and down. A handsome figure, fine voice, shabby blue serge suit, handlebar moustache solid black against solid white of hair forelock." MacDonald was quick to relaunch his political career when in 1921 he stood for Parliament in the Woolwich East by-election but lost. His opponent, Captain Robert Gee, a Conservative-backed Anglo-Jewish Soldier, had been awarded the Victoria Cross at Cambrai; MacDonald tried to counter this by having ex-soldiers appear on his platforms. MacDonald also promised to pressure the government into converting the Woolwich Arsenal to civilian use. MacDonald's nemesis, Horatio Bottomley intervened in the by-election, opposing MacDonald's election because of his anti-war record. Bottomley's influence may have been decisive in MacDonald's failure to be elected as there were under 200 votes difference between Gee and MacDonald.

MacDonald did not cease his efforts however, and in 1922, the incumbent Liberal MP for Aberavon, Wales, John Edwards, died in a car accident. MacDonald was selected by the local Labour party to stand after its last candidate, Robert Williams, was expelled for his ties to the SPGB. MacDonald won the seat handily with a vote of 16,318 against 9,111 and 3,328 for his main opponents. His rehabilitation was complete; the Labour New Leader magazine opined that his election was, "enough in itself to transform our position in the House. We have once more a voice which must be heard".

At a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on 21st November, 1922, Emanuel Shinwell proposed Ramsay MacDonald should become chairman instead of John R. Clynes, who had held the position since 1918. David Kirkwood, a fellow Labour MP, commented: "Ramsay MacDonald fascinated me. His head was a thing of beauty. Black hair waved and rolled over a fine brow, one curl almost touching his straight, strong eyebrows, from under which his eyes glowed. His voice was rugged, but soft, and, as he spoke, there came into it a throb. It was the natural instrument of an orator. Standing upright, he was a splendid figure of a man, and his appearance of height and strength was increased by his habit of rising on his toes and throwing back his head..... Nature had dealt unevenly with them. She had endowed MacDonald with a magnificent presence, a full resonant voice, and a splendid dignity. Clynes was small, unassuming, of uneven features, and voice without colour." Fenner Brockway, who worked with MacDonald in the peace movement during the war also supported him against Clynes: "Ramsay MacDonald was a born leader, with a commanding personality and a magnificent presence; the most handsome man in public life. He was a great orator whose deep, resonant voice and sweeping gestures added to the force of his words." John Beckett described him as having a "handsome face" with a "organ-like voice". After much discussion, John R. Clynes received 56 votes to MacDonald's 61. Clynes, "with characteristic generosity, declared that the whole party was determined to support the new leader".

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Labour Poster for the 1923 Election

On 7th February, 1923, Andrew Bonar Law was told he was suffering from cancer of the throat, and given around six months to live. Five days later he announced his intention to hold an election and resigned, being replaced by Austen Chamberlain despite the attempts of Lord Curzon to take control of the Premiership, nearly sparking a constitutional crisis, for which MacDonald attacked the government in parliament. Faced with growing economic problems; heavy unemployment and the ongoing Dreadnought Race, Chamberlain believed the solution to improving Britain's financial woes lied in continuing the work his father had started with the Imperial Tariff Reforms. However, a split had emerged within the Conservatives over the issue of trade and Chamberlain hoped to unite the party with an electoral success. The Labour Party election manifesto completely rejected the notion of tariff reform however: "The Labour Party challenges the Tariff policy and the whole conception of economic relations underlying it. Tariffs are not a remedy for Unemployment. They are an impediment to the free interchange of goods and services upon which civilised society rests. They foster a spirit of profiteering, materialism and selfishness, poison the life of nations, lead to corruption in politics, promote trusts and monopolies, and impoverish the people. They perpetuate inequalities in the distribution of the world's wealth won by the labour of hands and brain. These inequalities the Labour Party means to remove."

The Premiership[]

In the 1923 General Election, Labour won 201 seats, while the Liberals secured 163. The Conservatives remained the largest party with 243 seats however. The new parliamentary Labour Party was now a very different body from the old one. In 1918, 48 Labour M.P.s had been sponsored by trade unions, and only three by the ILP. Now some 100 members belonged to the ILP, while 32 had actually been sponsored by it, as against 85 who had been sponsored by trade unions. MacDonald now argued it could present itself for the first time as the movement of opinion rather than of class. Although the Conservative Party had the plurality of seats, Herbert Asquith announced that the Liberal Party would not keep the Tories in office. If a Labour Government were ever to be tried in Britain, he declared, "it could hardly be tried under safer conditions". Conservative hardliners and high aristocrats tendered the possibility of the King simply refusing to appoint MacDonald Prime Minister and instead reappoint Chamberlain (or potentially Curzon, despite not being the Conservative leader) though the King did not acquiesce to this plan and it was shelved. The Daily Mail warned about the dangers of a Labour government called on the King to step in as the Daily Herald commented on the "Rothermere press as a frantic attempt to induce Mr Asquith to combine with the Tories to prevent a Labour Government assuming office". John R. Clynes, the former leader of the Labour Party, argued: "Our enemies are not afraid we shall fail in relation to them. They are afraid that we shall succeed."

Chamberlain resigned and MacDonald went to Buckingham Palace to be appointed prime minister. He later recalled how George V complained about the singing of the Red Flag and the La Marseilles, at the Labour Party meeting in the Albert Hall a few days before. MacDonald apologized but claimed that there would have been a riot if he had tried to stop it. Despite fears of an animosity owing to the near constitutional crisis caused earlier over the potential reappointment of Chamberlain, King George and MacDonald reacted warmly to each other's presence and held a cordial relationship for the rest of their careers together. Nevertheless, Robert Smillie, the Labour MP for Morpeth, believed that MacDonald had made a serious mistake in forming a government. "At last we had a Labour Government! I have to tell you that I did not share in that jubilation. In fact, had I had a voice in the matter which, as a mere back-bencher I did not, I would have strongly advised MacDonald not to touch the seals of office with the proverbial bargepole. Indeed, I was very doubtful indeed about the wisdom of forming a Government. Given the arithmetic of the situation, we could not possibly embark on a proper Socialist programme." G.D.H. Cole pointed out that MacDonald was in a difficult position. If he refused to form a government "it would have been widely misrepresented as showing Labour's fears of its own capacity, and it would have meant leaving the unemployed to their plight." Left-wing members of the Labour Party suggested that MacDonald should accept office and invite defeat by putting forward a Socialist programme. The problem with that argument was the party could not financially afford another election.

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Ramsay MacDonald, Jimmy Thomas, Arthur Henderson and John Clynes outside Buckingham Palace

MacDonald agreed to head a minority government, and therefore became the first member of the party to become prime minister. He had the problem of forming a Cabinet with colleagues who had little, or no administrative experience. MacDonald's appointments to the Great Offices of State included Philip Snowden (Chancellor of the Exchequor), Arthur Henderson (Home Secretary), John R. Clynes (Lord Privy Seal), Lord Haldane (Lord Chancellor) and himself to the Foreign Office with Arthur Ponsonby his deputy. John R. Clynes wrote in his diary: "An engine-driver rose to the rank of Colonial Secretary, a starveling clerk became Great Britain's Premier, a foundry-hand was charged to Foreign Secretary, the son of a Keighley weaver was created Chancellor of the Exechequer, one miner became Secretary for War and another Secretary of State for Scotland."

However, a major problem arose as the Labour government was not represented in the House of Lords. Herbrand Sackville, the 23 year-old, the 9th Earl De La Warr, who had expressed socialist beliefs while at Eton, told MacDonald that he was not a wholehearted supporter of any party "but my sympathies are all with yours... I fully realise... that the Labour Party will need support in the next Parliament, and I shall gladly help, by constant attendance and vote whenever possible." Sackville formally joined Labour and became the first Labour peer. MacDonald felt he was unable to appoint such a young man to a government post, and caused great controversy when he gave Cabinet jobs to Charles Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor (Lord President of the Council) and Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford (First Lord of the Admiralty), two men who had previously supported the Conservative Party. (91) Chelmsford was asked why he had accepted this post from a political arrival. He replied: "I enquired, naturally, when the offer was made, as to what the Labour policy was likely to be in the immediate future... I had to satisfy myself that that policy, so far as disclosed to me, was such as I could reasonably help to promote." This fed into growing accusations the party had changed dramatically since before the First World War and had been taken over by middle-class elements.

George Lansbury was not offered a post in the Cabinet as MacDonald had not been fully supportive of the Poplar Councillors in their dispute with the London County Council. Likewise, MacDonald shared King George V's suspicion's regarding Lansbury's sympathy for the Communard regime. This proposal was attacked by John Wheatley, the new Minister of Health, who had been a supporter of Poplarism. MacDonald had great doubts about appointing Wheatley because of his strong socialist views and had been described as the Cabinet's "solitary left-winger" as he was the only one who attempted to introduce radical legislation. MacDonald wrote in his diary that it was necessary to have one representative of the radical left but feared that he might not "play straight". Wheatley was determined to introduce socialist measures to deal with the housing crisis and MacDonald ultimately supported his Housing Act 1924, which greatly expanded municipal housing for low paid workers. A substantial proportion of all rented local authority housing in Britain was built under its terms and the 'Wheatley houses' inspired housing reform in the Union of Britain.

MacDonald received a salary as prime minister of £5,000 a year. At this time the prime minister was not given an entertainment allowance and had to pay out of own pocket for such items of household equipment as linen and china. To save coal, the MacDonald family ate their meals not in their private quarters but in the official banqueting-rooms which were centrally heated at the Government's expense. Likewise, he was told that he had to wear a special uniform of black evening dress and knee breeches when he appeared before the King. The cost of this was £30 from Moss Brothers. He was informed that if any of his cabinet ministers refused to wear this uniform they would not be allowed to attend official functions. "When the parliamentary party discussed whether members should accept invitations to Windsor and the palace, members voted thirty-eight to thirty-seven in favour of acceptance." Lansbury feared this kind of compromise would undermine its radicalism but he was nonetheless overulled.

MacDonald and the Communards[]

The Labour Party, and MacDonald himself, received constant criticism from the media that it was in thrall of Communard Paris, ultimately revolving around three major incidents. MacDonald, who had gradually drifted away from the radical socialism of his youth hotly denied these allegations but his administration remained dogged by them to the end. Popular speculation held that intelligence community and the ruling elite was appalled by the idea of a Prime Minister who was a socialist. A notable incident occurred early on, when just two days after forming the first Labour government MacDonald received a note from General Borlass Childs of Special Branch that said "in accordance with custom" a copy was enclosed of his weekly report on revolutionary movements in Britain. MacDonald wrote back that the weekly report would be more useful if it also contained details of the "political activities... of the burgeoning radical reactionary movement in this country" in reference to the British Conservative League. Childs wrote back that he had never thought it right to investigate movements which wished to achieve their aims peacefully.

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John Bernard Partridge, Punch Magazine (June, 1923)

MacDonald's administration faced its first major crisis during the Communard Diplomatic Fiasco of May 1923. Following the French Civil War, a radical syndicalist government had taken power in Paris with the Blue forces having fled to colonial Algeria. Germany and her allies had recognised Communard France for pragmatic purposes and much of the world followed suit, though Britain and the Empire continued to confer recognition onto the Algiers Government. An increasingly reactionary and oppressive dictatorship intent on nationalist revanchism, the Labour Party held little support for Britain's nominal allies. An increasing liability to British security and with fears that the French could attempt to drag Britain into a chaotic war of national reclamation, MacDonald and Labour sought to break off relations with Algiers and instead 'normalise' relations with the Communards as a part of a general diplomatic realignment.

In the middle of the month, he informed parliament that he intended to begin treaty negotiations with Paris. The treaty was to cover Anglo-Communard trade and the reopening of basic diplomatic relations. There were, in fact, two proposed treaties: one would cover diplomatic-commercial matters, and the other would cover a fairly vague future discussion on the problem of the British property in France that was nationalised by the revolutionaries. If the treaties were signed, the British government would conclude a further treaty and look into the guaranteeing of a loan to the Communards. The treaties were popular neither with the Conservatives nor with the Liberals, who, in early June, criticised the loan so vehemently that negotiation with them seemed impossible. Neither party was truly keen on their allies in Algiers, but both accused MacDonald of a 'stab in the back' and questioned if he was truly loyal to Britain. In Algiers, outrage erupted and the government publicly attacked MacDonald.

In early August, the government experienced its second crisis in the eponymous Campbell Case. Having returned from a motor-car trip to continental Europe with the rising star, Oswald Mosley, on 25th July 1923, the Worker's Weekly, a newspaper controlled by the Syndicalist Party of Great Britain, published an "Open Letter to the Fighting Forces" that had been written anonymously by Harry Pollitt. The article called on soldiers to "let it be known that, neither in the class war nor in a military war, will you turn your guns on your fellow workers, but instead will line up with your fellow workers in an attack upon the exploiters and capitalists and will use your arms on the side of your own class." After consultations with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General, Sir Patrick Hastings, it was reluctantly decided to arrest and charge, John Ross Campbell, the editor of the newspaper, with incitement to mutiny. The following day, Hastings had to answer questions in the House of Commons on the case. However, after investigating Campbell in more detail, he discovered that he was only acting editor at the time the article was published; he began to have doubts about the success and fairness of a prosecution.

The matter was further complicated when, some days later, the ILP notable, James Maxton, informed Hastings about Campbell's war record. In the Great War, Campbell was posted to the Clydeside section of the Royal Naval division and served throughout the war. Wounded at Gallipoli, he was permanently disabled at the battle of the Somme, where he was awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous bravery. Hastings was now deeply troubled about the possible reaction to the idea of a war hero being prosecuted for an article published in a small circulation newspaper and decided that he had no stomach to carry out a potentially spurious prosecution. At a meeting on the morning of the 6th August, Hastings told MacDonald that he thought that "the whole matter could be dropped". MacDonald agreed that the issue was "certainly overblown" but replied that prosecutions, once entered into, should not be dropped under political pressure. At a Cabinet meeting that evening, Hastings revealed that he had a letter from Campbell confirming his temporary editorship. Hastings also added that the case should be withdrawn on the grounds that the article merely commented on the use of troops in industrial disputes. MacDonald agreed with this assessment and agreed the prosecution could be safely dropped.

On 13th August, the case was quietly withdrawn but this created a great deal of controversy and MacDonald was accused of being soft on syndicalism. MacDonald, who had a history of being on the left of the ILP but had since softened, told King George V that, "you never seen me as a Minister without making me feel that you were also seeing me as a friend. I ask you now to trust my judgement, for honesty compels me to tell you I am no syndicalist." While the King attempted to afford his support, the damage had been done and MacDonald was painted in the press as a syndicalist sympathiser. While the Worker Weekly and Campbell gave their thanks to MacDonald for stopping the prosecution, if anything this simply made the situation worse as Conservative MPs took this as a sign that MacDonald was in league with the SPGB. Edward Stanley, the Earl of Derby, attacked MacDonald in parliament and asked that, if forced to speak under oath, would MacDonald declare his loyalty to London or France.

The final, and most serious crisis occurred in the latter half of the year when, on the 20th October 1923, MI5 received a copy of a letter, dated 15th September, sent by Marcel Cachin, a high-ranking politician in France, to Arthur McManus, the British representative to the Third International. In the letter British syndicalists were asked to take all possible action to ensure the ratification of the Anglo-Communard Treaties and to ensure that MacDonald 'continued to support the extradition of White French émigrés' within Britain. It then went on to advocate preparation for military insurrection in working-class areas of Britain by stockpiling arms, for subverting allegiance in the army and navy as part of this insurrection and the seeking of the aid of the Labour Party in the insurrection.

Hugh Sinclair, head of MI6, provided "five very good reasons" why he believed the letter was genuine. However, one of these reasons, that the letter came "direct from an agent in Paris for a long time in our service, and of proved reliability" was incorrect. Vernon Kell, the head of MI5, and Sir Basil Thomson, the head of Special Branch, were also convinced that the Cachin Letter was genuine. Desmond Morton, who worked for MI6, told Sir Eyre Crowe, at the Foreign Office, that an agent, Jim Finney, who worked for George Makgill, the head of the Industrial Intelligence Bureau (IIB), had penetrated the Communist Party of Great Britain. Morton told Crowe that Finney "had reported that a recent meeting of the Party Central Committee had considered a letter from Moscow whose instructions corresponded to those in the Cachin letter". Kell showed the letter to MacDonald, who agreed that the letter should be kept secret until it was discovered to be genuine. Thomas Marlowe, who worked for the press baron, Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Rothermere, had a good relationship with Reginald Hall, the Conservative Party MP, for Liverpool West Derby. A past director of Naval Intelligence Division of the Royal Navy, Hall had been informed through the intelligence community and leaked the letter to Marlowe, in an effort to bring an end to the Labour government.

The Daily Mail now contacted the Foreign Office and asked if it was a forgery. Without reference to MacDonald, a senior official told Marlowe it was genuine. The newspaper also received a copy of the letter of protest sent by the British government to the French negotiators, denouncing it as a "flagrant breach of undertakings given by the Communard Government in the course of the negotiations for the Anglo-Communard Treaties". With the Labour government already reeling after the Campbell case, the Mail were quick to act and on 27th October 1924, published the letter. Under the headline "Civil War Plot by Socialists Masters" it argued: "Paris issues orders to the British Communists... the British Communists in turn give orders to the Socialist Government, which it tamely and gladly obeys... Now we can see why Mr MacDonald has done obeisance throughout the campaign to the Red Flag with its associations of murder and crime. He is a stalking horse for the Reds as Kerensky was in Russia... Everything is to be made ready for a great outbreak of the abominable class war which is civil war of the most savage kind."

MacDonald shot back suggested he was a victim of a political conspiracy: "I am also informed that the Conservative Headquarters had been spreading abroad for some days that... a mine was going to be sprung under our feet, and that the name of Cachin was to be associated with mine. Another Guy Fawkes - a new Gunpowder Plot... The letter might have originated anywhere. The staff of the Foreign Office up to the end of the week thought it was authentic... I have not seen the evidence yet. All I say is this, that it is a most suspicious circumstance that a certain newspaper and the headquarters of the Conservative Association seem to have had copies of it at the same time as the Foreign Office, and if that is true how can I avoid the suspicion - I will not say the conclusion - that the whole thing is a political plot?"

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David Low, The Plot Press (1923)

SPGB member and future spymaster, Bob Stewart, weighed in to give his support to MacDonald and publicly claimed that the letter had to be forgery. He argued that from the perspective of a syndicalist, the letter included several mistakes that made it clear it was a forgery and 'not of Paris but obviously the West End of London'. This included saying that Marcel Cachin was a 'syndicalist' and 'of the French foreign office' - Cachin was neither a syndicalist nor in government at this time. It also described the organisation as the "Third Syndicalist International" whereas it was always simply called "Third International". Stewart argued that these "were such infantile mistakes that even a cursory examination would have shown the document to be a blatant forgery." By the end of the month he published a pamphlet with SPGB backing listing each mistake in immense detail and invited the reader to make up their own mind as to its authenticity. While no doubt intending to help MacDonald, this simply furthered the ordeal and lead to both the Conservatives and Liberals turning on the government when, in early September, it emerged that MacDonald had wished to restart the Anglo-Communard negotiations.

With the Labour Party facing fresh allegations, the Conservatives issued a motion of censure in MacDonald's cabinet declaring that it now had "extraordinary evidence" that MacDonald and his cabinet were of a syndicalist disposition and prepared to extradite French exiles to the Commune. Utilising the Campbell Case and Cachin Letter as example's of Labour's disloyalty to Great Britain, the government swiftly fell in the confidence vote and MacDonald was forced to tender his resignation with elections scheduled for the end of the year. The first and only Labour government of the United Kingdom had fallen.

Opposition & Assassination[]

In the ensuing election, Labour lost 30 seats and saw its number of MPs reduced to just 161. Austen Chamberlain's Conservatives had secured a razor-thin majority of just 310 seats, only holding 2 to allow them to form a government. With unemployment rising and the economy gradually worsening, discussions began to be held at the possibility of forming some sort of 'national government' akin to the government of the Great War. The King heard of these plans and implored the Liberals and Labour to join the Conservatives and work together to bring Britain out of the Great Slump. The Liberals agreed and entered coalition but only a few breakaway Labourites who sat as independents joined from the Labour benches. MacDonald remained unconvinced and was suspicious of the Conservatives after the Cachin Letter fiasco. Now with only 158 seats, counter to the government's supermajority of 445, Labour became the official opposition and MacDonald the Leader of the Opposition.

Following Labour's defeat in the in the election, Philip Snowden and other leading figures on the right of the movement tried to persuade Arthur Henderson to stand against MacDonald as leader of the party. Henderson refused and once again became chief whip of the party which he tried to unite behind MacDonald's leadership. Henderson was also the main person responsible for Labour and the Nation, a pamphlet that attempted to clarify the political aims of the Labour Party. However, the left of the party was not convinced and John Wheatley commented that: "as the unemployed masses cry out for aid, they should fear not for Uncle Arthur shall provide reading material to lull them into a poor man's dinner."

MacDonald now began to entertain the policy of representing the Labour Party as a moderate and 'pragmatic' force in politics. To begin this, MacDonald wished to host a new conference in mid-January and potentially look into the possibility of attracting members of the left of the Liberal Party to Labour's ranks as had many of its prior members. In Parliament, MacDonald attacked Chamberlain for recycling his father's tariff proposals and declared that the unemployed needed work and aid, not higher prices on goods. Chamberlain in turn attacked MacDonald and Labour for having also failed to solve the issue of unemployment while attempting to bring Britain into the Communard sphere and create a "Red Empire to menace the world." The Conservative newspapers stepped up their attacks against MacDonald and once again questioned his loyalties to Britain, particularly over why he had not joined the National Government.

This rhetoric led to a poisoned atmosphere around MacDonald who was being increasingly vilified by the right wing press as a raving syndicalist and Communard agent. Members of the British Conservative League often harassed him in London and at one point attempted to organise a 'mobbing' of his house but accidentally surrounded the wrong address. In this brief period in opposition he continued to be irritated by the attacks of Lucy, Lady Houston, the strongly nationalistic proprietor of the Saturday Review. Lady Houston believed that MacDonald was under the control of the Communards and amused the nation by giving MacDonald such epithets as the 'Spider of Lossiemouth,' and hanging a large sign in electric lights from the rigging of her luxury yacht, the SY Liberty. According to some versions, it read 'Down with Ramsay MacDonald,' and to others 'To Hell with Ramsay MacDonald.' Lady Houston also sent agents to disrupt his meetings and public appearances. Amid this harassment, MacDonald continued engaging in public functions and politics while also taking on the advice of Henderson to cut down his work load following a minor failing of his health in late December. Out of the Premiership, MacDonald began to engage more with his family and began grooming his son, Malcolm MacDonald, for an entry into politics.

Ultimately, this new approach to his family would prove fateful when on the 5th of January, MacDonald had invited his son to participate in a Labour Party function in Hoxton. This was to introduce MacDonald to prospective future colleagues in the city and allow him to ease into the life of political activism. According to Malcolm, his father had left the venue early to attend to business in the City but upon leaving the building was approached by a man who asked if he was Ramsay MacDonald, the Leader of Labour. MacDonald asked who the man was before the assailant abruptly drew a small revolver and shot MacDonald three times in the chest. The assailant fired a fourth shot at Malcolm - who at this point had come to help his father - but the gun misfired and he opted to flee the scene. A passing police officer had heard the gunfire and with the aid of bystanders subdued the assailant, who was identified as James Dell, a member of the secretive society: 'The Britons'. MacDonald was declared dead on the scene.

Aftermath[]

Dell, a failed solicitor and far-right agitator involved in anti-Semitic and anti-socialist causes, confessed to plotting to kill MacDonald as he was fearful that MacDonald was a Communard spy and plotting to destroy Britain from within. He was tried in London for the murder of MacDonald and pled not guilty. The jury nevertheless rejected his plea and found him guilty, sentencing him to hang for his crimes. A short-lived media sensation followed his trial, proposing that a wider conspiracy was at play but Dell and his legal counsel denied this.

A public pouring of grief soon followed with the nation left in shock at a rare political assassination, and only one of two of those done to a Prime Minister. The following session, a minute's silence was observed in the House of Commons as tributes to MacDonald poured in from across the country. Arthur Henderson was offered the position of Labour Party leader but refused it out of respect to MacDonald and instead allowed George Lansbury to be elected. In a rare show of cross-party unity, Prime Minister Chamberlain declared that MacDonald would receive a state funeral despite opposition from within the government. On the 10th of January, a funeral procession was held at Westminster Abbey followed by a private cremation service at Golder's Green. After cremation, his ashes were taken to Lossiemouth by train, where a service commenced in his house, "The Hillocks". Intended to be a small affair, thousands of mourners attended and followed the procession to the Holy Trinity Church in Spynie where his ashes were buried alongside his wife Margaret and their son David, his remains finally being laid to rest in his native Morayshire.

Posthumous Reputation[]

To his contemporaries of the 1920s, MacDonald was considered to lean towards the right-wing of the Labour Party after beginning his political journey on the left-wing of the more radical Independent Labour Party. Despite his shift to a more moderate political course when leading the comparatively moderate Labour Representation Committee, he remained within the ILP all his life. During his time, he endured political criticism for not being radical enough in government and for only appointing one 'solid left-winger' from the ILP: John Wheatley to the cabinet. Nevertheless, MacDonald did support radical measures when he deemed it expedient and gave his support to Wheatley's landmark Housing Act. Following his loss in 1923, a small following around Philip Snowden held MacDonald responsible for proceeding too 'leftward' but majority opinion in the Labour Party dictated that he had been unfairly slandered and undermined by an uncompromisingly right-wing press.

Following his assassination, MacDonald became a major political martyr to the left and indirectly helped kick off a growing trend of left-wing radicalism and republicanism within the Labour Party. While this current had already been growing under MacDonald's tenure, his death so shocked the party that it drove many members of a more moderate disposition into the radical fringe of the party. Indeed, in his inaugural speech, George Lansbury blamed the press for "the murder of our dear comrade Ramsay". Grief turned to anger, and many MPs who had served under MacDonald found their sympathies turning towards more radical causes despite the attempts of rightist figures such as Snowden to stem the tide of radicalism.

Following the civil war, MacDonald received new interest as both a political statesman and a socialist martyr. The syndicalist faithful now held MacDonald in immensely high esteem, not just for his martyrdom and leadership of the first avowedly leftist government but with many calling attention to his "protection of Campbell" with the initial prosecution was greatly played down. Popular, fabricated, versions would amend the story to have the widely loathed Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, take the role as the initial persecutor of Campbell - despite only being an opposition MP. MacDonald's immense persecution at the hands of the right-wing press was a cause for particular ire and much work was done by the Ministry of Information to rehabilitate his public image. To the public at large, MacDonald was now no longer the once 'mythological demon' but a socialist hero and righteous champion of the people. In recognition for his service, Chairman Cook posthumously awarded him one of the first "Hero of Great Britain" and cited his "unwavering commitment to ideals in the face of insurmountable odds throughout his career" as a public inspiration.

So swept up in the mania surrounding MacDonald was the nation that numerous statues and monuments in his likeness were constructed upon the country. Historians have considered him the 'Chairman that would have been' and J.R. Clynes wrote on the "surreal visage that was seeing Tom Mann - that thundering syndicalist - deliver a brilliant speech behind a great and large portrait of Ramsay MacDonald. No one would believe me had they all not seen it." Upon taking office Tom Mann immediately commissioned the construction of a statue of MacDonald to fill the legendary fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square, declaring that he would have nothing short for one of Britain's heroes of labour.

MacDonald's speeches, pamphlets and books have since made him an important theoretician to the Labour Party. It has often been stated that "MacDonald's natural gifts of an imposing presence, handsome features and a persuasive oratory delivered with an arresting Highlands accent made him the iconic Labour leader - the Chairman that never was." While some of these works have been attacked for being too right-ward orientated, many historians have reinforced MacDonald's reputation in his building of the early Labour Party and uniting the various factions.

Personal Life[]

Ramsay MacDonald married Margaret Ethel Gladstone (no relation to Prime Minister William Gladstone) in 1896 after meeting at party events. The marriage was a very happy one, and they had six children, Alister (1898), Malcolm (1901), Ishbel (1903), David (1904), Joan (1908) and Shelia (1910). Malcolm has since gone on to have a successful career as a politician in the TUC, and Ishbel MacDonald, who was very close to her father has become a custodian of his memorial in Morayshire. His eldest son, Alister Gladstone MacDonald was a conscientious objector in the First World War, serving in the Friends' Ambulance Unit; he became an architect who worked on promoting the planning policies of his father's government, and has since specialised in cinema design. Ethel MacDonald died of blood poisoning in 1911 and this emotionally devastated MacDonald. While he maintained a string of mistresses, he never remarried. His daughter Ishbel acted as his consort while he was Prime Minister (the youngest woman in this role) and cared for him for the rest of his life.

In 1912 MacDonald formed a friendship with Margaret Sackville, a relation to Vita Sackville-West, the wife of Harold Nicolson. It has been claimed that she was his mistress for fifteen years. Under the influence of MacDonald, Sackville became a socialist and a pacifist. The surviving letters, which date from 1913, show that MacDonald proposed at least three times to Sackville, but each time he was rejected. It has since been contended that the two could not marry due to their difference in station and religion: MacDonald was the illegitimate son of a farm labourer from rural Scotland and a Presbyterian of the Free Church of Scotland; Lady Sackville was the daughter of the Earl de la Warr and a high society beauty, nearly 15 years his junior and a Roman Catholic. During the 1920s he was frequently entertained by the society hostess Lady Londonderry, which was much disapproved of in the Labour Party since her husband had been a Conservative cabinet minister.

MacDonald's religious life was varied, starting as a devout Christian and incrementally moving across his life into organised humanism, particularly the British Ethical movement. MacDonald's father held firm Calvinist beliefs, but as an adult Ramsay would join the Church of Scotland. Subsequently, he became interested in the Unitarian movement during his time in London, and led Unitarian worship sessions. His interest in Unitarianism led him to discover the Ethical Church, an early humanist association affiliated with the Union of Ethical Societies, which he joined as a member. He regularly attended services at the South Place Ethical Society, and became intensely involved in Union of Ethical Societies, and friends with its founder, Stanton Coit. Ramsay would write regularly in Stanton Coit's Ethical World, a humanist publication. On more than one occasion, he had been elected chair of the Union at its annual meeting, evidencing the significance of his commitment to organised humanism. He was Chair of the organisation from 1900–1901 and again in 1903.

MacDonald's unpopularity in the country following his stance against Britain's involvement in the First World War spilled over into his private life. In 1916, he was expelled from Moray Golf Club in Lossiemouth for being deemed to bring the club into disrepute because of his pacifist views regarding the war. The manner of his expulsion was regretted by some members but an attempt to re-instate him by a vote in 1923 failed. However, a Special General Meeting held in 1924 following his death finally voted for his posthumous reinstatement. His eldest son, Alister joked that his father would have likely refused to take up the final offer of membership, for he had framed and mounted his first expulsion notice.

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