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In 1886 the passionate sympathy aroused in him for the people of South America was transferred to the miners and steelworkers of North West Lanarkshire. Elected as a Liberal, rapidly worsening economic conditions joined to a distaste for repressive measures designed to control a violently disturbed Ireland, caused him to adopt socialist ideas which – the first MP to do so – he commended to the House of Commons. He was the only MP to join the demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 13 November 1887 in defence of the right of assembly. All such gatherings were prohibited as a result of months of unrest on the streets by the unemployed. Involved in scuffles with the police whose brutal response caused the day to be known as Bloody Sunday, Graham was sentenced to six weeks in Pentonville Gaol, a salutary lesson the government thought for a dangerous young man already becoming known as the Scottish Parnell.
His popularity among working men also stemmed from his campaign for an eight hour day and from speeches supporting the Great Dock Strike. At the 1892 election the influence thus acquired among East Enders secured West Ham for his protégé, Keir Hardie.
After leaving Parliament in 1892 he spent months each year in Morocco, the object of much rivalry among European Powers. Offered a concession to develop the remote areas of Tiris and Adrar, he attempted to involve the Spanish government in a deal. His wanderings south of the Atlas Mountains in the diplomatically sensitive valley of the River Sus produced what Joseph Conrad called ‘ one of the best travel books of the century’
As a writer he had a scholar’s love of knowledge joined to a painter’s eye: several of his sketches are small masterpieces. His editor, Edward Garnett, who chose some to launch the famous ‘ Overseas Library’ ranked him with Guy de Maupassant. His striking good looks and forceful personality inspired artists like William Rothenstein and James Lavery. Writers put him into their works: he is Charles Gould in Conrad’s ‘ Nostromo’, and Sergius in Shaw’s ‘Arms and the Man’ His unconventional marriage to a doctor’s daughter who ran away from Yorkshire to go on the stage may have been in Shaw’s mind when writing ‘Pygmalion’..
Aged 83 in 1936 he died of pneumonia in Buenos Aires. The President of the Argentine Republic attended his lying in state. He is buried in the chancel of the ruined Priory on the island of Inchmahome in the Lake of Menteith in Scotland.
Anne Taylor has written two biographies published by Oxford University Press; ‘ Laurence Oliphant’ and ‘ Annie Besant’. ‘ Visions of Harmony’, an account of the town of New Harmony, Indiana bought by Robert Owen in 1825 is published by the Clarendon Press.
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