R.B. Cunninghame Graham photo

R.B. Cunninghame Graham

Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham was a Scottish journalist, politician and adventurer who rode with the gauchos on cattle ranches in Argentina before serving as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP). He was the first-ever socialist member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom; was a founder, and the first president, of the Scottish Labour Party; a founder of the National Party of Scotland in 1928; and the first president of the Scottish National Party in 1934.

His books and articles spanned history, biography, poetry, essays, politics, travel and seventeen collections of short stories or literary sketches. He also assisted Joseph Conrad with research for Nostromo.

There is a seat dedicated to Cunninghame Graham in the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh with the inscription: "R B 'Don Roberto' Cunninghame Graham of Gartmore and Ardoch, 1852–1936, A great storyteller".


“God forbid that I should go to a heaven where there are no horses.”
R.B. Cunninghame Graham
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