Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Searching for Keir Hardie's 'Pioneer'

I've been searching for copies of Keir Hardie's 'Pioneer' - a labour newspaper that he founded in Merthyr Tydfil in 1911, with Thomas Evan Nicholas (Nichlas y Glais) as the Welsh editor. 

Keir Hardie speaking in Trafalgar Square

It is of course online. Part of it, just not the part I need: 1911-1913. Not in the British Library, I tracked down the physical copies to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth in the first days of January. The Library is a majestic old building on top of a steep hill which looks down on the town below and the seafront with its dramatic castle ruins.

The castle ruins, Aberystwyth
Leaving the building at the end of the day, it was already pitch black, the rain lashing the hillside, the lights twinkling below. It was a great place to work and they held the physical copies of the early Pioneer. Some of them.

The ones there are a treasure trove. In these years Sylvia Pankhurst was writing articles for the publication, often under the psuedonym 'S'. They provide a fascinating insight into her engagement with the socialist movement in the years before she founded the East London Federation of Suffragettes. I'll be sharing the exciting results of this research in a chapter of a forthcoming edited collection - and I'll be sure to keep you posted about that.

But the story isn't over because there are issues that are missing from the physical bound copy in Aberystwyth. They too might contain lost articles by Sylvia Pankhurst. So, my question to readers is: do you have, or do you know anyone who might have, copies from 1912 and 1913 of this bilingual socialist publication? If so, I'd love to hear from you. Assistance will of course be acknowledged in the forthcoming chapter.

Many thanks and Happy New Year!