Title: Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham Letter (VMF066), 1930
Administrative/Biographical History
Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (May 24, 1852 –March 20, 1936) was a Scottish politician, writer, journalist and adventurer. He was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament, the first-ever socialist member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, a founder and first president of the Scottish Labour Party (1888-1893), a founder of the National Party of Scotland in 1928, and the first president of the Scottish National Party in 1934.
Cunninghame Graham spent most of his childhood on the family estate of Finlaystone in Renfrewshire and Ardoch in Dunbartonshire, Scotland where his first language was Spanish. After being educated at Harrow public school in England, Robert finished his education in Brussels, Belgium before moving to Argentina to make his fortune cattle ranching. He became known as a great adventurer and gaucho there, and was affectionately known as Don Roberto. He also travelled in Morocco disguised as a Turkish sheikh, prospected for gold in Spain, befriended Buffalo Bill in Texas, and taught fencing in Mexico City.
During his life Graham had a large number of books and articles published, including Father Archangel of Scotland (1896), Thirteen Stories (1900), Success (1902), Scottish Stories (1914) Brought Forward (1916) and Hope (1917), Mirages (1936), Hernando de Soto (1903), Doughty Deeds (1925), a biography of his great-great-grandfather, Robert Graham of Gartmore and Portrait of a Dictator (1933).
