Glasier Papers
The collected papers of John Bruce Glasier (1859-1920) and his wife Katharine St John Conway (1867-1950), which include c.3000 letters, diaries, newscuttings, photographs and printed ephemera.
The Glasiers, pioneers of the British socialist movement, were founder members of the Independent Labour Party (1893) and both served on its National Administrative Council. They married in 1893. John Bruce Glasier, Party chairman from 1900-1903, was an ardent believer in International Socialism, a powerful speaker and a prolific journalist.
He served as editor of The Labour Leader (1904-1909) and The Socialist Review (1913-1916). He also edited a book of Socialist Songs, and The Socialist Year Book (1911-1913) and wrote (during his last illness) William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement (1921) and The Meaning of Socialism (1925). He was remembered as "an apostle of Socialism" and "the greatest of the Socialist evangelists".
Katharine St John Conway was one of the six convenors of the 1893 Bradford conference that brought the Independent Labour Party into being. Throughout her life she campaigned vigorously as an inspirational orator, writer and journalist for the Labour movement. She was editor of The Labour Leader (1917-1921) and helped to set up the Women's Labour League. Amongst the social causes she promoted were the introduction of pithead baths for miners, National Old Age Homes, provision of school meals for children of the poor, and the campaign for municipal nursery schools. She was affectionately referred to as the `grandmother of the British Labour movement'. The papers were presented in 1976 by the Glasiers' son, Malcolm Bruce Glasier.