Product Code Database
Sir William Randal Cremer (18 March 1828 – 22 July 1908) usually known by his middle name "Randal", was a British Liberal Member of Parliament, a pacifist, and a leading advocate for international arbitration. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1903 for his work with the international arbitration movement.
Moving to London 1852, Cremer became active as a union organiser, swiftly becoming a recognized labour leader. Cremer was elected as the Secretary of the International Workingmen's Association in 1865 but resigned two years later in 1867, when the organization decided to make women eligible for membership. Being strongly opposed to women's suffrage,Views of Anti-Suffrage MP William Cremer, The Times, April 1906 Cremer might have now felt that the organisation was becoming too radical. While heavily involved in campaigning for progressive causes and respected by Karl Marx, Cremer did not agree with a worker-led revolution.
He was elected as Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Haggerston in the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch from 1885 to 1895, and then from 1900 until his death from pneumonia in 1908.
Using his platform as an MP, Cremer cultivated allies on both continental Europe and across the Atlantic, including Frédéric Passy, William Jennings Bryan and Andrew Carnegie. Using his network of contacts and his talent for organisation, Cremer did much to create and expand institutions for international arbitration, which during his lifetime were successful in peacefully resolving numerous international disputes. This work includes co-founding the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the International Arbitration League; gaining acceptance for the 1897 Olney–Pauncefote Treaty between the United States and Britain that would have required arbitration of major disputes as the Essequibo territory (the treaty was rejected by the US Senate and never went into effect); and preparing the ground for the Hague peace conferences of 1899 and 1907.
In recognition of his work in the arbitration movement, Cremer won the Nobel Peace Prize, the first to do so solo, in 1903. Of the £8,000 award he donated £7,000 as an endowment for the International Arbitration League.
He also was named a Chevalier of the France Légion d'honneur,Among the world's peacemakers: an epitome of the Interparliamentary Union edited by Hayne Davis, 1908 won the Norway Knighthood of Saint Olaf and was Knight Bachelor in 1907.
Randal Cremer Primary School, in Haggerston, is named in his honour.
|
|
