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 William Randal Cremer
(March 18, 18281-July 22, 1908) was born in the small town
of Fareham in Hampshire, England, not far from Portsmouth, into a working class
family at a time when intense misery was the workingman's lot. His
father, a coach painter, deserted the family while the boy was still an
infant. His mother was an indomitable woman, raised her son and two
daughters despite stringent poverty and even sent her son to school - a
church school, for she was a strong Methodist. At fifteen he was
apprenticed to an uncle in the building trades, eventually becoming a
full-fledged carpenter. During this time he supplemented his meager
formal education by attending lectures. On one occasion he heard a
lecture on peace in which the speaker suggested that international
disputes be settled by arbitration, an idea that Cremer never forgot. At the age of
twenty-four he came to London to seek
his fortune. This he found in the trade-union movement, where his leadership
qualities were soon recognized. At the age of thirty he was helping organize the
campaign for a nine-hour day, and he went on to become a national leader of the
carpenters' union and a member of the London Trades Council. With other
working-class leaders Cremer was drawn into campaigns on
international questions of the day. These activities
led to the establishment in 1864 of the International Working Men's Association,
in which Karl Marx and other socialists from the continent took part. Cremer was
elected general secretary in 1865, but resigned after two years, later
maintaining that the organization had come under the direction of "men who
cared more for their isms than for the cause of real progress." In such
pursuit, he tried again in 1874 to win a seat in Parliament, but failed. After the reform bill of 1885 broadened the
franchise, however, he won
the election to represent Haggerston in London's East End and entered Parliament
at the age of fifty-seven as a Liberal along with ten other working-class
representatives. Cremer used his power as a member of Parliament and his prestige as a
labor leader to advance his passionate belief that peace was the only
acceptable state for mankind and arbitration the method by which it
could be achieved. A committee of workingmen which he formed in 1870 to
promote England's neutrality during the Franco-Prussian conflict became
the Workmen's Peace Association in 1871 and it, in turn, provided the
keystone for the International Arbitration League, an association to
which he thereafter contributed both his time and his money. For his efforts
in the cause of international arbitration Cremer was awarded the 1903 Nobel
Peace Prize. He gave most of the stipend in trust to the International
Arbitration League. He was knighted in 1907. Cremer was a
lonely man: his first wife died in 1876, his second in 1884; there were
no children. He lived simply, enjoyed nature, worked long hours. He was
also a generous man. The cash value of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1903 was
about £8,000. He immediately gave £7,000 to the League of
which he was secretary and later an additional £1,000. Stricken by
pneumonia, he died on July 22, 1908.
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