H. M. Hyndman

Henry Mayers Hyndman (7 March 1842 – 22 November 1921) was an English writer, politician and socialist.

Originally a conservative, he was converted to socialism by Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto and launched Britain's first socialist political party, the Democratic Federation, later known as the Social Democratic Federation, in 1881.

Although this body attracted radicals such as William Morris and George Lansbury, Hyndman was generally disliked as an authoritarian who could not unite his party. Nonetheless, Hyndman was the first author to popularise Marx's works in English.

Early life

The son of a wealthy businessman, Hyndman was born on 7 March 1842 in London. After being educated at home, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. Hyndman later recalled:

I had the ordinary education of a well-to-do boy and young man. I read mathematics hard until I went to Cambridge, where I ought, of course, to have read them harder, and then I gave them up altogether and devoted myself to amusement and general literature.... Trinity or, for that matter, any other college, is practically a hot-bed of reaction from the social point of view. The young men regard all who are not technically "gentlemen" as "cads," just as the Athenians counted all who were not Greeks as barbarians.

I was a thorough-going Radical and Republican in those days—theoretically... with a great admiration for John Stuart Mill, and later, I remember, I regarded John Morley as the coming man.

After his graduation in 1865, Hyndman studied law for two years before deciding to become a journalist. As a first-class cricketer, he represented Cambridge University, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and Sussex in thirteen matches as a right-handed batsman between 1864 and 1865.