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 Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman.
Kingsley Hall, Bristol headquarters of the ILP in the early 20th century
Cover of a pamphlet by the Left Wing Group of the ILP, published in Glasgow in the summer of 1920
A leaflet from Jimmie Maxton's first campaign for Parliament
James Ramsay MacDonald was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 and again between 1929 and 1931. From 1931 to 1935, he headed a National Government dominated by the Conservative Party and supported by only a few Labour members. MacDonald was expelled from the Labour Party as a result.
Macdonald (third from left) in 1906, with other leading figures in the party
Ramsay MacDonald by Solomon Joseph Solomon, 1911