Con Lehane (socialist)

[1] Although a graduate in Irish and chemistry from Cork Technical School, by profession Lehane was a clerk (cf.

Lehane eventually left the SDF and was a founding member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904.

He was the first General Secretary of the SPGB (June 1904 to August 1905) and was a prominent public speaker for the Party.

At the 1906 Annual Conference Bexley branch tabled a motion calling on the party to adopt a policy of socialist industrial unionism.

They were eventually expelled but Islington branch, led by Lehane, argued that the question should never have arisen and demanded that the Executive Committee should be removed for not rescinding the Bexley resolution and refusing to alter the record of the resolution.

Cornelius Lehane at "the cottage" in Union Square, New York City speaking during a Socialist anti-war rally against World War I. The sign reads "War is hell, Socialism alone stands for brotherhood, Working men of the world will work for Socialism."