It’s an inevitability given the fractures with Welsh society over decades and centuries that each of our tribes has their own heroes and heroines who are remembered and celebrated, but as a Nation there are very few people who everyone acknowledges and celebrates for their contributions to Wales and the wider world even though there are many to choose from.
Add that to the fact that we Welsh are notoriously bad at preserving and even remembering our history and the story that a campaign by a Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament wants Robert Owen, Welsh Social Reformer and one of the founders of the Co-operative movement who made his ideas a reality in Glasgow on to Scottish banknotes is no real surprise.
According to the BBC ‘MSPs will debate a motion by Labour MSP Bill Butler calling for Owen to feature on Scottish notes in time for the United Nations Year of Co-operatives in 2012.
Mr Butler said he hoped Scottish banks would listen to public opinion and adopt the New Lanark pioneer on notes.
The member's debate has drawn cross-party support from more than 60 MSP’s and West Lothian and Edinburgh City councils.
Owen pioneered co-operative values during his time as mill manager at New Lanark from the late 18thCentury.
Child labour was abolished and the workers were provided with homes, education and health care.
The article also has a response to the bid from the bank ‘A spokeswoman for the Clydesdale Bank said it had no current plans for a new notes issue, but added that the bank would consider Owen in the future.
She said: "Although Robert Owen was not a Scot, his campaign for a better and fairer society and the influence of his ideas on social cooperation has given New Lanark international recognition, and greatly contributed to New Lanark being given World Heritage Status.
"In fact, New Lanark appears on the reverse of our new £20 note, as part of our World Heritage Sites series."
The New Lanark site is one of five Unesco World Heritage sites in Scotland.
Robert Owen isn’t unique in not being widely acknowledged and known in Wales there are numerous other examples from all Wales’s tribes, Owen’s ideas were radical and forward thinking at the time and they also have a worldwide legacy something that’s worth celebrating, the Scots seem to think so, but it makes you wonder what it would take to change the mindset so that all out heroes and heroines were celebrated equally.Any source
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