ABSTRACT
James Keir Hardies life and career are closely associated with the formation of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) (1893) and the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) (1900), which became the Labour Party in 1906. Indeed, he was the first Member of Parliament to represent the new Independent Labour movement in the House of Commons and acted as the chairman of the Labour parliamentary group from about 1903 onwards, although the position was not formalized until 1906. Along with James Ramsay MacDonald, J. Bruce Glasier and Philip Snowden, he was one of the four leading members of the Labour Party in its pre-First World War years.
