E. C. Fairchild

Edwin Charles Fairchild (1874–1955) was a socialist activist and conscientious objector during the First World War.

A long-term member of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), Fairchild was a member of its radical Central Hackney branch, alongside Zelda Kahan and Theodore Rothstein. As early as 1909, he was a signatory to a resolution denouncing party leader H. M. Hyndman's anti-German rhetoric. He supported closer links with the Independent Labour Party and other socialists, and worked with Alf Purcell and Victor Grayson on the Provisional Committee for the Promotion of Common Ground Among the Socialists. This was opposed by the right-wing of the SDF, but proved successful, as it constituted the British Socialist Party (BSP), and the SDF merged itself into the new party.

Fairchild was elected to the BSP's first standing orders committee, alongside Duncan Carmichael, Peter Petroff and C. T. Douthwaite. The four worked together to ensure voices in the party opposing British rearmament were heard. He was also elected to the party's executive, representing the party's left-wing.

At the London County Council election, 1913, Fairchild stood for the BSP in Bow and Bromley. He took 1,609 votes, but was not elected. In 1915, the party selected him as its delegate to the Zimmerwald Conference, but he was refused a passport and could not attend. During this period, Fairchild was close to John Maclean. When Maclean's newspaper, Vanguard, was suppressed, Fairchild launched The Call as a replacement.

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