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William Gallacher (25 December 1881 – 12 August 1965) was a Scottish trade unionist, activist and communist. He was one of the leading figures of the Shop Stewards' Movement in wartime Glasgow (the 'Red Clydeside' period) and a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He served two terms in the House of Commons as the last Communist Member of Parliament (MP). == Early career == Gallacher was born in Paisley, Scotland on 25 December 1881, the son of an Irish father and a Scottish mother. His father died when he was seven, and one of his earliest ambitions was to earn enough that his mother would no longer have to work as a washerwoman. With his sisters, he finally achieved this aim at the age of 19, but his mother died a short time afterwards at the age of 54.〔Gallacher, William (1978) (). pp. 1–4.〕 He began work at ten years old, and left school for good at twelve. After a spell as a delivery boy for a grocer – where he had his first dispute with an employer – he found work in a sanitary engineering workshop. He later had a spell as a steward on some transatlantic crossings, before beginning work at Albion Motor Works, Glasgow, in 1912. After spending 1913 on a visit to his sisters in Chicago he erected scaffolding in Belfast. Returning to Glasgow, he again found work at Albion Motor Works in 1914, just before war broke out.〔Gallacher, William (1978) (). pp. 7–17.〕 The "weakness for alcohol" shown by his father and elder brother, and the suffering this caused his mother, led him to become involved with the Temperance movement in his mid-teens. However, on discovering that colleagues had canvassed support for a director of a Public House Trust in the 1906 General Election, Gallacher ended his association with the organised Temperance movement. He remained a lifelong teetotaller.〔Gallacher, William (1978) (). pp. 4–6.〕 A subsequent period as a member of the Independent Labour Party ended quickly and he joined the Social Democratic Federation, which brought him into contact with John MacLean. In common with many socialists in west-central Scotland, Gallacher was greatly influenced by MacLean, though they were later to have an acrimonious falling out. The Paisley branch of the SDF introduced him to John Ross Campbell, who would also become a prominent British Communist and the editor of the ''Daily Worker'' from 1949 until 1959.〔Gallacher, William (1978) (). pp. 15–16.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Willie Gallacher」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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