Robin Page Arnot

Robert "Robin" Page Arnot (15 December 1890 – 18 May 1986), best known as R. Page Arnot, was a British Communist journalist and politician.

Robert Page Arnot, known to his friends as "Robin", was born in 1890 at Greenock, the son of a newspaper editor. He attended Glasgow University where he helped to form the University Socialist Federation in 1912, along with G.D.H. Cole and others. He also wrote for the Labour Leader, publication of the Independent Labour Party, using the pseudonym "Jack Cade."

In 1912 the Fabian socialist Beatrice Webb established a Committee of Enquiry into the future control of industry. Out of this sprang the Fabian Research Department, which later evolved into the Labour Research Department. One of the volunteers attracted by the project was Robin Page Arnot, who became its full-time head in 1914 — a position which he retained until 1926.

In 1916 Arnot refused conscription to the British army and was imprisoned as a conscientious objector; he accepted transfer to the Home Office Scheme, and served some two years in the Wakefield Work Centre. When he was freed in 1919, he returned to his post as the Secretary of the Labour Research Department. In 1919, in response to labour unrest in the coal mines, the British government established a Committee of Inquiry. The Miners' Federation sought the aid of the Labour Research Department in marshalling evidence on behalf of the workers' demand for higher wages, shorter hours, and government ownership of the mines.

Arnot was a foundation member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920. Coming as he did from a background as a guild socialist, Arnot favoured close integration of the Communist Party with the broader labour movement, including affiliation as a member organisation under the Labour Party's umbrella.

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