Researching Edward Hunter

Hunter became a socialist writer using the pen-name Billy Banjo, articulating miners' concerns in verse and prose. Hunter was convinced that the miners could become politically educated to the extent where they would be ready to lead the working class to some form of socialist emancipation. He would regularly articulate these ideas and more in his writings.

In 1909 he married Mary Wards Cutt in Wellington, with whom he had four children.

As a member of the New Zealand Socialist Party, he had by 1911 become secretary of his local party branch. Around this time there was a wave of trade union militancy in New Zealand, and during this period Hunter became more politically assertive. In 'A song of freedom' Hunter called on the miners to 'stand and fight', and after the death of Fred Evans in a skirmish between police and striking miners at Waihi in November 1912, he called for a general strike which was proclaimed in 1913. Hunter welcomed this strike as a 'peoples' revolt' and was heavily involved in its organisation. His activities resulted in his arrest and he was charged with sedition. The authorities alleged that he incited revolution in response to the government's violent reaction. Hunter received a period of probation.

After the New Zealand Social Democratic Party was formed in 1913 in an attempt to unify various groups within the labour movement, Hunter represented the miners on the party's executive committee.

For his trade union organising activities and socialist beliefs, Hunter was blacklisted on the coalfields, so he instead worked as an organiser for the shearers' union and the Wellington Rural Workers' Union, and in various other jobs. His attempts to promote the cause of industrial unionism among rural workers were not as successful as they had been among the miners as his ideas fell on less receptive ears. It was in this period that Hunter turned more to his writing and away from active political organisation. He wrote many socialist poems and other works, much of which was published. In his writing there are similarities with the work of his brother-in-law James Welsh.

His wife Mary died in March 1915, leaving him to raise four young children alone. Hunter returned to Scotland with his family around 1919, when there was intense labour activity around the city of Glasgow which was commonly referred to as Red Clydeside. He immediately involved himself in the socialist agitation in Clydeside. Hunter wrote a play The Disinherited which was performed by people drawn from the mining community of Douglas Water in Lanarkshire. Thereafter Hunter worked as a journalist, writing for labour newspapers.

In 1937 he was elected on a Labour Party ticket to the Glasgow City Council. He represented Cowcaddens for 22 years and became deputy chairman of the council as well as serving as the city's police commissioner. He died shortly after his retirement from active politics.

Born to Edward Hunter and Hannah Maris in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, Hunter was engaged in the mercantile business near Philadelphia from 1816 to 1822 and was married to Ann Standley in 1830. Hunter served in the United States Cavalry for seven years, and as Delaware County commissioner for three years. During this time, Hunter identified as a Swedenborgian.

Hunter converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1840, served as bishop of the Nauvoo 5th Ward from 1844 to 1846, and made significant financial contributions to the early church. He migrated to the Salt Lake Valley in 1846–47 and served as the bishop of the Salt Lake City 13th Ward from 1849 to 1854. Hunter was elected to the Utah Territorial Assembly on November 15, 1851, and served one term.

Hunter was called as Presiding Bishop by LDS Church president Brigham Young in 1851. Young and Heber C. Kimball served as Hunter's informal counselors for more than five years until Hunter formally called Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse Carter Little to these positions.

As ex officio president of the church's Aaronic priesthood, Hunter laid the southwest cornerstone of the Salt Lake Temple on April 6, 1853.

Hunter died at Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, and was buried at the Salt Lake City Cemetery.