Constituency : Stoke-on-Trent Hanley 1912-18
Robert took over from Enoch Edwards at Hanley after one of the bitterest and most subsequently debated by-election results of the Parliament. Edwards had obeyed the instruction of his union to take the Labour whip in 1909 but only with great reluctance. Knowing this, the local Liberals had been happy to let him continue as the local MP in both 1910 elections but when he died in 1912, they re-asserted their right to choose the candidate for the constituency and selected Robert to oppose the Labour choice. He campaigned heavily on Lloyd George's Land Tax proposals. Robert managed to push Labour into third place with just 11 % of the vote. This result is often used to rebut the argument that the Liberals' decline was inevitable before World War One broke out.
Robert was born in Tasmania. where he had a sheep farm . He emigrated to Britain and became a journalist. He was a friend of Josiah Wedgwood and like him, a fervent proponent of Henry George's Single Tax proposals. He stood for Birmingham West ( Joseph Chamberlain's seat ) in 1906 and Horsham in January 1910.
Robert was a pacifist and opposed Britain's entry into the war, believing that Russia -"this semi-cilivised, barbaric and brutal race" would be the ultimate victors. In 1915 he published an antiwar pamphlet, The Ghosts of the Slain. When the Russian Revolution broke out he advocated joining the "universal proletarian revolution." His local Liberal association de-selected him so he had to fight the 1918 election as an Independent Liberal. He came a poor third with an NDP candidate taking the seat but at least had the satisfaction of coming in ahead of the Liberal.
Robert followed Wedgwood into the Labour party and founded the Hanley branch of the I.L.P. He was also a founder of the Commonwealth League.
Robert published The Land or Revolution in 1917.
He died in 1930 aged 62.
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