Welsh Journals

'THE FOCUS OF THE MUTE HOPES OF A WHOLE CLASS'. RAMSAY MACDONALD AND ABERAVON, 1922-29 Chris Howard Few Labour politicians would give up a parliamentary seat as safe as Aberavon. One who did was the first Labour Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald, who represented the constituency between 1922 and 1929. Close examination of MacDonald's relationship with his local party reveals many of the strengths and contradictions of the Labour Party in the decade in which it broke the mould of British politics and formed its first government. Aberavon provided MacDonald with a congenial home after the personal nightmare of the First World War and the Versailles settlement. His criticism of what he saw as an unnec- essary war and a punitive peace had made him notorious and his personal safety was sev- eral times placed in danger as he pursued his opposition from the platforms of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Vilified in the national press as a public enemy, he lost his parliamentary seat at Leicester in the 'khaki' election of 1918 and failed to win the Woolwich by-election in 1921, largely because the jingoistic newspaper proprietor and politician, Horatio Bottomley, published his birth certificate, thereby trailing his illegitimacy through the national press and over the doorsteps.2 For part of the Welsh press he was 'a hot gospeller of social revolution' and a 'sorry demagogue'3 but Aberavon provided him with safer ground and a base from which to re-establish his career. The constituency was a scattered county division of the old Glamorgan, taking in the towns of Aberavon, Port Talbot and Briton Ferry along with Porthcawl, Pyle, Kenfig Hill and the villages of the Afan Valley to Blaengwynfi and Glyncorrwg. Its trade union membership was drawn from the collieries and the steel and tinplate works of the coastal strip. Consequently no one union controlled the nomination. Had there been more miners in the constituency, the Miners' Federation would have claimed Aberavon as the last of its ten allotted parliamentary seats. However, the leading local miners' representative, William Jenkins of Cymmer, was unpopular in parts of the constituency and a split between the local lodges persuaded the miners' executive to sponsor the colliery-dominated Pontypridd division instead.4 MacDonald's own position in the Labour movement had always rested on the ILP which had five branches in a division which had acquired a radical reputation. It was particular- ly well supported in Briton Ferry where its organisers were also trade union officials in the local steelworks.5 The branch there had recruited heavily at the Albion Works, boasted a 1 This revised version of a paper presented to the Llafur/Port Talbot Historical Association Day School at Aberavon in October 1995 has benefited greatly from the suggestions made by members of the audience on that occasion. I am most grateful for their advice and information. 2 David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (London, 1977), gives a detailed and sympathetic treatment of MacDonald's life and political career. 3 Western Mail, (WM) 3 November 1922 4 H. Thomas to MacDonald, 31 August 1919, Public Record Office (P.R.O.),MacDonald Papers (MP), 7/52 5 WM, 28 May 1929