Keir Hardie (15August 1856– 26September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and was the first parliamentary leader of the Labour Party from 1906 to 1908. Hardie was born in Newhouse, Lanarkshire. He started working at the age of seven, and from the age of ten worked in the Lanarkshire coal mines. With a background in preaching, he became known as a talented public speaker and was chosen as a spokesman for his fellow miners. Hardie initially supported William Ewart Gladstone's Liberal Party, but later concluded that the working class needed its own party. He first stood for election to Parliament in 1888 as an independent, and later that year helped form the Scottish Labour Party. Hardie won the English seat of West Ham South as an independent candidate in 1892, and helped to form the Independent Labour Party the following year. He lost his seat in 1895, but was re-elected to Parliament in 1900 for Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. During the same year, he helped to form the union-based Labour Representation Committee, which was later renamed the Labour Party. This photograph of Hardie was taken by George Grantham Bain in 1909.
