Biography

An engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 draughtsperson

Technical drawing

Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....

, Yates became an active trade unionist in Leith

Leith

-South Leith v. North Leith:Up until the late 16th century Leith , comprised two separate towns on either side of the river....

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, and joined the Social Democratic Federation

Social Democratic Federation

The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...

 (SDF). By 1898, he was identified as a member of the left wing of the party, and began lecturing alongside James Connolly

James Connolly

James Connolly was an Irish republican and socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents and spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of...

.

In 1900, he was a delegate to the Congress of the Second International

Second International

The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...

, where he was the only British delegate to vote against a motion supporting Alexandre Millerand

Alexandre Millerand

Alexandre Millerand was a French socialist politician. He was President of France from 23 September 1920 to 11 June 1924 and Prime Minister of France 20 January to 23 September 1920...

's decision to join the French government.

Becoming a convinced supporter of industrial unionism

Industrial unionism

Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...

, Yates argued alongside Connolly for the SDF adopting the policies of Daniel De Leon

Daniel De Leon

Daniel DeLeon was an American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather of the idea of revolutionary industrial unionism and was the leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party of America from 1890 until the time of...

. He supported the SDF's withdrawal from the Labour Representation Committee in 1901.

In 1903, he wrote an article in Connolly's paper, The Socialist

The Socialist (SLP newspaper)

The Socialist was the newspaper of the Socialist Labour Party , a De Leonist organisation in Britain founded in 1903.The newspaper was set up by James Connolly in 1901. He was its first editor, after which George Yates took over. During Yates' editorship, it was the focus of the De Leonists...

entitled "The Official SDF", which was critical of the organisation's Executive. He was promptly expelled. This was the trigger which provoked the a group of impossibilist SDF members, mostly in Scotland, to form the Socialist Labour Party

Socialist Labour Party (UK, 1903)

The Socialist Labour Party was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1903 as a splinter from the Social Democratic Federation by James Connolly, Neil Maclean and SDF members impressed with the politics of the American socialist Daniel De Leon, a Marxist...

, within which Yates became a leading figure and editor of The Socialist. In September 1904, Yates resigned his position, claiming that he was unable to edit the paper while holding down a full-time job.

Footnotes