Politician. John Ferguson dominated Irish Home Rule politics in Scotland for nearly 40 years from the mid-nineteenth century to the break of the twentieth. In the history books, he is considered the “forgotten Irish Patriot,” even though he was a zealous believer in Home Rule for Ireland. Born into a family of Ulster Presbyterians, his father, Leonard Ferguson, was a conservative tenant farmer in County Antrim, where Roman Catholic Irishman were in the majority. Leonard Ferguson died young, leaving his widow, Charlotte Ferris, and two children. After attending local schools, which did not teach Irish history, he accepted an apprentice position in Belfast to become a printer. He was an adult when he learned Irish history and that his ancestors participated in the 1798 United Irish Rising. Eager to get an education, he studied on his own and took classes at Queens College mastering French, German, mathematics, and English Literature. At this point in his life, he started traveling for the printer's business to England and Scotland. After marrying in 1862 to Mary Ochiltree, he settled in Glasgow and eventually becoming a partner in a well-known printing and publishing company. There was a large Irish community in Glasgow. As a successful business man, he became a major voice in nationalist and labor movements, along with municipal positions. Considered a radical in the Scottish Liberal Party, he was one of the organizers of the Democratic Party, an informal yet radical political group of the mid-1860s, which was strong in the Highlands and western Scotland. He was an effective speaker at the 1874 Irish Home Rule League conference and when Glasgow Home Rule Association was formed, he was elected its president in December of 1874. He was invited to address a huge group at a meeting in Dublin in October of 1878 to make the case for land reform laws, and in 1880 he chaired the new Land League's Dublin convention. After traveling throughout Great Britain, he led in the establishment of Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain. He was close colleagues to John Stuart Mill and Michael Davitt, a one-armed Irishman the Ferguson brought to Scotland and later founded the Irish National Land League in 1882. He was greatly involved with the Crofter's War agitation by Highlands tenant farmers and the landowners, which resulted in the Crofters Holdings Act of 1886 and five more seats in Parliament for the residents of the Highlands. In 1886 he visited Belfast and experienced the Home Rule riots, where 50 men lost their lives for their beliefs. He believed that Ireland would benefit from being under the British Empire, yet should be self governed. In 1888, Ferguson was the leader in the formation of the Scottish Labor Party. At the turn of the century in 1893 as a “freelance nationalist” and Glasgow municipal politician, he was much more zealous with progressive politics, particularly through his advocacy of the American economist Henry George 's “Single Tax” movement. He, George, and Davitt became known as the “Land People.” He had a remarkable career as Glasgow town councilor and magistrate, while still in some measure promoting the Irish cause. After being part of the drafting of a bill for land reform, which was rejected in May of 1905 by the British Parliament, he declared that the “Scotch argument for Home Rule” was strong, identifying with that reasoning verbally and in public. While canvassing for voters for the Liberal-Labor cause, he had a serious fall from a tram car and died suddenly a few days later. Within two weeks of his death, his colleague Davitt died. Besides his widow Mary, he left two daughters and two sons. “John Ferguson 1836-1906: Irish Issues In Scottish Politics” published in England by E. W. McFarland in 2003 gives the details of his colorful political career.