The collection was formed by John McDiarmid Airlie (1885-1965). Airlie stood unsuccessfully for the Ayr Burghs parliamentary seat in 1924 as Labour Party candidate. He also served as Scottish officer the National Union of Public Employees. He was later a Labour councillor and Justice of the Peace in Edinburgh. The collection consists of 376 items, mainly pamphlets, leaflets, ephemera, books and periodicals primarily from the first quarter of the 20th century. The bulk of it deals with the history of the labour movement throughout Britain. There is also material on struggles for independence in Ireland and India, and on the Russian Revolution and also contains election ephemera from Westminster and local elections.

Organisation

The books have been catalogued individually and have the shelfmark 'Airlie.'.

Acquisition

The collection was presented to the Library in 1966 by Miss EM Airlie, daughter of John McDiarmid Airlie.

Related collections

Airlie's personal and political papers were also deposited at the same time, with a further group of papers being presented in 2010. The manuscripts are held at Acc.11566 and Acc.13203.