The underworld: The story of Robert Sinclair, miner

James C. Welsh

James C. Welsh was a miner, trade unionist, novelist and Scottish Labour Party politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1922 to 1931, and from 1935 to 1945. Welsh worked in mines from the age of 12, an experience which informed his first novels The Underworld (1920) and The Morlocks (1924). He later became a full-time official for the mining union. He unsuccessfully contested the 1918 general election in the Lanark constituency. At the 1922 general election, he was elected as MP for Coatbridge constituency, where he was re-elected in 1923, 1924 and 1929, but was defeated at the 1931 general election by the Conservative Party candidate William Paterson Templeton.