Chasing the Wind

This four-volume biography – the work of two decades – is a first account of William Barr Craig (1875-1934), restless Socialist, radical journalist and Labour newspaper editor, rightly described as “a wind-tossed fragment of talented humanity,” It covers Will Craig’s passionate, idealistic and enduring commitment to the Labour Movement expressed in Britain, Australia and New Zealand throughout his career. His earnest Romantic Idealism yearned for an earthly paradise of a just, prosperous and cultured Brotherhood of Man, though independent of its Christian roots and means. While comprising a biography of the central character, Will Craig, and his life of striving on the public stage, there is also the backstage context of his family history, his two families: a wife and four children in New Zealand, then a partner and eight children, mostly in Australia.

Several volumes document and assay the person and life of Will Craig and how he affected the lives of his immediate families and later Craig generations. Much more than a thoroughly illustrated family history, the story engages with the community, geography, history and narrative of the many places encountered in the restless trajectory of the beliefs and experiences of Will Craig and of his cohort: both those who admired him and those who contested his ideals. Since Will was caught up in the great movements and historical crises of his time, we see a perspective of the world stage through the eyes of real flesh and blood. Once, a comment by Will was rebuked with the words, “that there are no ordinary people”. Certainly William Barr Craig was no ordinary man.