Keir Hardie - Legacy

Legacy

On 2 December 2006 a memorial bust of Keir Hardie was unveiled by Cynon Valley MP Ann Clwyd outside council offices in Aberdare (in his former constituency). The ceremony marked a centenary since the party's birth.

Also he is still held in high esteem in his old home town of Holytown, where his childhood home is preserved for people to view, whilst the local sports centre was named in his own honour "The Keir Hardie Sports Centre". There are now 40 streets throughout the UK named after him. Alan Morrison has, in turn, used the title Keir Hardie Street fior his 2010 novel in which a fictitious, turn-of-the-century, working-class poet discovers a Socialist Utopia off the dreamt-up Sea-Green Line of the London Underground.

One of the buildings at Swansea University is also named after him, while a main distributor road in Sunderland is named the Keir Hardie Way.

The Keir Hardie Estate in Newham (East London) is named after him as a legacy to his tenure as MP for West Ham South, Newham. Keir Hardie Avenue in the town of Cleator Moor, Cumbria, has been named after him since 1942. Furthermore, an estate in the London Borough of Brent, was also named after him. Keir Hardie Crescent in Kilwinning in Scotland is also named after him.

Ty Keir Hardie, in his constituency town of Merthyr Tydfil, houses offices for Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and adjoins the Civic Centre on Castle Street.

In recognition of his work as a lay preacher, the Keir Hardie Methodist Church in London bears his name.

Labour founder Keir Hardie has been voted the party's "greatest hero" in a straw poll of delegates at the 2008 Labour Conference in Manchester. Labour peer Lord Morgan, Ed Balls, David Blunkett and Fiona Mactaggart argued the case for four Labour figures at a Guardian fringe meeting at the Labour conference 2008 in Manchester, September 23, 2008

Keir Hardie's younger half-brothers David Hardie and George Hardie and sister-in-law Agnes Hardie all became Labour Party Members of Parliament after his death.