William Randal Cremer Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Sir William Randal Cremer (18 March 1828 – 22 July 1908) usually known by his middle name "Randal", was an English Liberal Member of Parliament and pacifist.

Cremer was elected as the Secretary of the International Workingmen's Association in 1865, but resigned two years later.

He was Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Haggerston in the Shoreditch district of Hackney from 1885 to 1895, and from 1900 until his death.

Cremer won the Nobel Peace Prize, the first to do so solo, in 1903, mainly for his work in international arbitration, and particularly the 1897 Anglo-American arbitration treaty. He co-founded the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the International Arbitration League.

He also won the French Légion d'honneur, the Norwegian Knighthood of Saint Olaf and was knighted in 1907.

Randal Cremer Primary School, in Haggerston, is named in his honour.

William Randal Cremer (March 18, 18281-July 22, 1908) was born in the small town of Fareham, England, not far from Portsmouth, into a working class family at a time when intense misery was the workingman's lot. His father, a coach painter, deserted the family while the boy was still an infant. His mother, an indomitable woman, raised her son and two daughters despite stringent poverty and even sent her son to school - a church school, for she was a strong Methodist. At fifteen he was apprenticed to an uncle in the building trades, eventually becoming a full-fledged carpenter. During this time he supplemented his meager formal education by attending lectures. On one occasion he heard a lecture on peace in which the speaker suggested that international disputes be settled by arbitration, an idea that Cremer never forgot.