BAILIE JAMES
SHAW MAXWELL
BORN near the Saltmarket in the later fifties, Bailie Shaw
Maxwell has filled many parts in his time. In his youth, it is whispered, he
wrote an epic, which remains unpublished, and at the present hour the "Lament
for Captain Paton" is recognised as peculiarly his property on after-dinner
occasions in the city. He has been a lecturer and a journalist, was one of the
first in Glasgow to adopt the doctrines of Henry George, has headed
demonstrations of the unemployed on Tower Hill, and was first national secretary
to the Independent Labour Party. He has twice endeavoured to enter Parliament,
contesting Blackfriars and Hutchesontown Division in 1885 and in 1895. It was
largely through his efforts that Glasgow adopted the Free Libraries Act, and he
was the moving spirit of the Sunday Society which brought some notable lecturers
to the city, and ultimately succeeded in having the picture galleries and
museums opened on the Day of Rest. He was, in 1896, one of the first of the
"stalwarts" and Socialists to gain admission to the Town Council, although one
might suppose all the difference in the world between his immaculate satin hat
and the rough cloth cap of Mr. Keir Hardie. In 1908 he succeeded Mr. R. M.
Mitchell as convener of the Parks Committee. In business life he is a printer.
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Index of Glasgow Men (1909)