On this day in 1936, Scotland lost one of the strangest and most extraordinary men it ever produced, a politician decades ahead of his time.
Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham died in Buenos Aires at the age of 83.
Born into Scottish aristocracy in 1852, he inherited estates, status and every advantage life could offer. At 17, instead of settling down like a sensible laird, he sailed to Argentina to make his fortune in cattle ranching.
There, he became a gaucho, herding cattle across the pampas, sleeping rough, and getting caught up in a civil war before he was even twenty. His ranch failed. He lost money. But he picked up the nickname Don Roberto and built the kind of reputation that later made him seem half politician, half myth. In Argentina, he was remembered so warmly that a place was later named Don Roberto in his honour.
Then he came home and did something even less expected.
In 1886, Cunninghame Graham entered Parliament for North West Lanarkshire and became the first socialist MP at Westminster.
His politics were astonishingly radical for the time. His manifesto included the following:-
∙ Abolish the House of Lords
∙ Universal suffrage (including women)
∙ Nationalise land, mines, and industries
∙ Scottish independence
∙ Eight-hour working day
He became Parliament’s biggest headache.
Within a year, he had become the first MP in history to be suspended for swearing after calling the House of Lords “damned”.
A few months later, at the Bloody Sunday protest in Trafalgar Square, he was beaten unconscious by police and jailed for six weeks in Pentonville Prison. His barrister was the future Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. He still lost.
The following year he was suspended again, this time for protesting the horrific conditions endured by chain makers. When the Speaker demanded he withdraw his remarks, Graham replied, “I never withdraw.”
He was not just a rebel. He helped shape modern Scottish politics. He co-founded the Scottish Labour Party, and decades later became the founding president of the Scottish National Party.
Outside politics, he lived like a fictional character. He wrote more than 30 books. He prospected for gold in Spain. He disguised himself as a Turkish doctor to sneak into a forbidden city in Morocco, only to end up taken hostage by a warlord.
When he died of pneumonia, the President of Argentina and government ministers led a nationwide tribute to the man before he was sent home to Scotland.
One of the most radical, forward-thinking men ever to sit in Parliament was finally laid to rest on a tiny, quiet island in Stirlingshire
