LABOUR PARTY, THE, was founded by a conference of trade union and socialist bodies held in the Memorial hall, Lon don, on Feb. 27, 290o, in consequence of a resolution passed by the Trades Union Congress in the previous September. The organisa tion, named the Labour Representation Committee (L.R.C.), and not known as the Labour Party until 1906, was a federation of trade unions and socialist bodies, and had no individual members until 1918. The purpose of the party was declared by the London conference to be "to establish a distinct Labour Group in Parlia ment, who shall have their own whips and agree upon their own policy which must embrace a readiness to co-operate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legis lation in the direct interest of labour." Origins and History.—The roots of the party are dug deep down in our national politics. The Chartists and Owenites were precursors, so were the working-class wings of the Radicals and their intellectual supporters like John Stuart Mill and the Positiv ists. The first definite attempt to nominate a Labour candidate for the House of Commons was made in 1857 when George Jacob Holyoake issued an address to the Tower Hamlets' electors, but he subsequently withdrew. In 1866, in order to advance the agita tion for the new Reform bill, the London Working-men's Associa tion was formed, and by the end of the next year it committed it self to working-class representation and can therefore be regarded as the pioneer organisation for that purpose. When the election of 1868 came, however, the society had neither money nor ma chinery, and the half-dozen Labour candidates were being run as Radicals. Three went to the poll (their aggregate vote was 4,012) and all were defeated. They too were pioneers—W. R. Cremer, George Howell (both afterwards M.P.'s) and E. 0. Greening. Undeterred by these failures the Labour Representation League was formed in 1869, and it was responsible for George Odger be ing run as candidate in the Southwark by-election in 1870. It was a period of hesitation, of running candidates and withdrawing them, of negotiation with Liberals, of contesting local elections, and of agitations for democratic changes in parliamentary polls.
In the election of 1874, 12 working-men candidates appeared, and Alexander Macdonald and Thomas Burt were elected. There after the movement gradually merged into the Liberal Party.
The 20 years between 1886 and 1906 were marked by a bitter struggle between independent Labour and Labour-Liberalism, the nine workmen M.P.'s being supporters of the latter, as was the once influential Labour Electoral Association (1886-96). The new factor was the Socialist movement which, though coming immediately from the Continent, was in this country but a revival of the English Socialist movement of the early years of the 19th century. The Social Democratic Federation was founded in 1881, but as its inspiration was Marxian and continental, it failed to be the rallying point of British Labour. In 1883 the Fabian Society appeared; in 1889 the Scottish Labour Party was started as the result of Keir Hardie's candidature for Mid-Lanark the previous year; in various places local Labour parties were formed and, in the election of 1892, eight Labour candidates were run in Scotland and others in England and Ireland. Two independent Labour men were returned (John Burns and Keir Hardie) and 13, including J. Havelock Wilson, who were in the Liberal and Nationalist ranks. Hardie, however, failed to get the others to co-operate with him. He then initiated the conference held in Bradford in 1893 which originated the Independent Labour Party by uniting the scattered societies in the country, and it began to work for the trade union alliance from which sprang the Memorial hall confer ence of 'goo. Defeated in 1895, Hardie was one of the first team of candidates (15 in all) run by the L.R.C. in i9oo. He was re turned with Richard Bell. By-elections added to their numbers and in 1906, 5o candidates were run, and 29 returned. The adhe sion of the miners in 1908 ended the Liberal-Labour phase, and since then the party has been quite independent. The Osborne judg ment (1908) temporarily debarred trade unions from subscribing to political purposes, and the party's 78 candidates at the January election of I9I0 had to be reduced to 56 at the December election that year. Successes, however, increased from 40 to 42.