David Lowe (1867 – 18 November 1947) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

socialist activist. Born in

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

, Lowe moved to

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

in his youth, where he worked closely with

Keir Hardie James Keir Hardie (15 August 185626 September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, and was its first Leader of the Labour Party (UK), parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908. ...

, becoming the first assistant editor of the ''

Labour Leader The ''Labour Leader'' was a British socialist newspaper published for almost one hundred years. It was later renamed ''New Leader'' and ''Socialist Leader'', before finally taking the name ''Labour Leader'' again. 19th century The origins of th ...

'' newspaper. He returned to Dundee in 1888, still working for the newspaper, and becoming the leading figure in the

Scottish Labour Party Scottish Labour (), is the part of the UK Labour Party active in Scotland. Ideologically social democratic and unionist, it holds 23 of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 37 of 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons. It is repres ...

in the city. At the 1892 general election, he was the

election agent An election agent is the person legally responsible for the conduct of a candidate's political campaign and to whom election material is sent by those running the election. The term is most used in elections in the United Kingdom, as well as some ...

for James MacDonald's unsuccessful candidacy in

. He subsequently joined the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...

, and through that became a founding activist in the Labour Party. Lowe continued to write in support of the labour movement throughout his life, notably writing ''Souvenirs of Scottish Labour'' in 1919, a history of the Scottish Labour Party. He remained a close lifelong friend of Hardie's. Lowe was an accomplished writer, with many of his works kept at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. He was an acknowledged expert on Robbie Burns, wrote poetry and plays and a biography of Keir Hardie. Works include 'From Pit to Parliament - the story of the early life of James Keir Hardie', 'A Scots Wanderjahre', 'Sonnets of Sweet Sorrow', 'Gift of the Night and Other Poems', 'Ballad of a Great City', 'A Man of Leisure - a play in three acts'. David Lowe married Annie Greig and they had two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowe, David 1867 births 1947 deaths Activists from Dundee Scottish socialists