Career
Welsh worked in mines from the age of 12, an experience which informed his first novels and He later became a full-time official for the mining union. He unsuccessfully contested the 1918 general election in the Lanark constituency.
At the 1922 general election, he was elected as Member of Parliament for Coatbridge constituency, where he was re-elected in 1923, 1924 and 1929, but was defeated at the 1931 general election by the Conservative Party candidate William Paterson Templeton.
He was returned to the House of Commons at the 1935 general election as Member of Parliament for Bothwell, and held the seat until he stepped down at the 1945 general election.
