Forging Of Unions

Scots soldier James Thompson Bain emigrated to South Africa, but found his life's work in the country's fledgling Labour movement

- KENNY MacASKILL

EXCEPTING missionaries and explorers, tales of Scots in Southern Africa are few and far between.

Perhaps, as a historian once humorously told me, emigration there was rare until the modern period, other than those voyaging to the Antipodes who jumped ship at the Cape, unwilling to sail any further.

But there was one Scot who emigrated to South Africa in the late 19th century, becoming active in the country's Labour movement.

The African National Congress (ANC) is sometimes seen as the face of radicalism in South Africa. But for a while - before Apartheid - there was the "Colonial Left".

It held attitudes towards the majority population that would rightly not be countenanced today. However, it has to be seen in the context of the time and there is a story to be told about a prominent Scot.

James Thompson Bain, the son of Andrew Bain and Eliza Thompson, was born into poverty in Dundee on March 6, 1860. Enlisting in the army at 16, in 1878 he found himself in Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, annexed by the British Empire the year before.

He served in the Zulu War before being posted to India, where he was stationed from 1880 until 1882.

For so many, military life was a route out of poverty and unemployment, aided no doubt by the opportunity for travel - but it was not for him. Returning to Scotland, Bain trained to become a skilled engineer.

Politics and trade unionism, however, were his life's work. Becoming active in the then fledgling Labour movement, he joined the Scottish Land and Labour League, meeting with the likes of William Morris, a doyen of British and European socialism.