James Macpherson (trade unionist)

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James Macpherson (died 1932) was a British trade unionist. He was born in Bernain, near Dunkeld in Scotland. He trained as a drapers’ apprentice in Glasgow and moved to London in 1879. He worked in various retail jobs and helped found the National Union of Shop Assistants.

In 1891 he joined the Social Democratic Federation and started a Bow branch. He was elected general secretary of the union, which had been renamed the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks, in 1894, and he stayed in that post until 1912. Through this work he attended the Trades Union Congress and became involved with the Labour Representation Committee.

Margaret Bondfield was inspired to join the union after reading a letter from Macpherson in a newspaper. She knew Macpherson’s circle through her brother and, from 1898, served as his assistant general secretary.

Macpherson stood as a Labour candidate in Gravesend at the 1906 general election, but he won only 16.2% of the vote and was not elected.