Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Hyndman, Henry Mayers
HYNDMAN, HENRY MAYERS (1842–1921), socialist leader, the eldest son of John Beckles Hyndman, barrister, by his wife, Caroline Seyliard Mayers, was born in London 7 March 1842. His grandfather made a large fortune in the West Indies, and though his father was a liberal benefactor to the East End churches, Henry Hyndman inherited considerable wealth, most of which he devoted to the socialist cause. Educated privately and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he just failed to get his ‘blue’ at cricket, he spent the following years mainly in travelling and sport, playing cricket for the Sussex county eleven between 1863 and 1868. Going to Italy in 1866, he became war correspondent for the Pall Mall Gazette, accompanying Garibaldi's force in its advance to the Trentino. From 1869 to 1871 he was in Australasia and America, and he frequently revisited the United States on business in later years. Returning to England in 1871, he joined the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette, with which he remained, under Frederick Greenwood, till 1880, doing other journalistic work as well, especially on Indian and Russo-Turkish questions. From this time until the end of his life he made a special study of Indian questions, and was a prominent advocate of Indian self-government and financial and social reform. In 1876 he married Matilda Ware, of Newick, Sussex, who died in 1913.
In 1880 Hyndman became acquainted with the works of Karl Marx, reading Das Kapital on board ship during a business journey to America. These studies made him a socialist, and in the following year he took the lead in forming, mainly on the basis of London radical clubs, the Democratic Federation, which in 1884 became the Social Democratic Federation—the first important socialist body in England. In 1881 he also published his first socialist book, England for All, putting his social ideas in popular form. In the Federation he was associated with William Morris, and wrote with him A Summary of the Principles of Socialism (1884). This was just before the split which led Morris and his friends to form the anti-political Socialist League. In the same year (1884) the Federation started a weekly paper, Justice, of which Hyndman became editor. During these years he was very active in leading the agitation among the unemployed, and in 1886 he was put on trial and acquitted, with John Burns, H. H. Champion, and Jack Williams, for his part in the so-called West End riots, arising out of a meeting in Trafalgar Square. His whole remaining life was spent in socialist writing and agitation. He was a vigorous opponent of the South African War and of British imperialist policy. Among the best known of British socialists, he became the chief English exponent of political Marxism, writing several books in its support, e.g. The Historical Basis of Socialism (1883), Commercial Crises of the Nineteenth Century (1892), and Economics of Socialism (1896). He was the recognized leader of the Social Democratic Federation, which at that time remained aloof from the Labour Party, but had a diminishing influence after the rise of the Independent Labour Party in the 'nineties. In 1911 it was merged in the British Socialist Party. This body, since merged in the Communist Party, took up an anti-war attitude in 1914, and Hyndman and his friends, who supported the War, left it in order to form the National Socialist Party (1916), which has since resumed the old name of the Social Democratic Federation, and is now attached to the Labour Party. Hyndman stood for parliament at Burnley at several elections from 1895 onwards, but was never elected, though in 1906 he came near to success. During the War he was active as a labour representative on the consumers' council at the Ministry of Food, and in other social services. In 1914 he married again. His second wife was Rosalind Travers, a poetess, the only daughter of Major Travers, of Arundel. Hyndman died at Hampstead 22 November 1921. He had no children.
The full story of Hyndman's life, up to 1912, can be found in his two fascinating and provocative books, The Record of an Adventurous Life (1911) and Further Reminiscences (1912). After his death, his second wife, who died in 1923, wrote The last Years of H. M. Hyndman (1923), carrying out the plan which her husband had entertained of a third volume of reminiscences. This book is marred by an undiscriminating hero-worship which largely destroys its historical value. In his own writings Hyndman was not always accurate and seldom impartial; but he wrote very well, and the books are invaluable as a record of his important share in the growth of British socialism. He remained always something of an aristocrat among the socialists, in temper as well as in manner, impatient of differences, but always ready to make any sacrifice for the cause. His quarrels with his fellow-socialists were many, and he described them all with lively humour in his books.
There is a bronze bust of Hyndman by E. H. Lacey in the National Portrait Gallery.
[Besides the books mentioned above, see Max Beer, History of British Socialism, 1919–1920; Sidney Webb, Socialism in England, 1890; Reports, &c., of the Social Democratic Federation; J. W. Mackail, Life of William Morris, 1899; private information. ]