Career
Like many other Red Clydesiders, he was a conscientious objector in the First World War. He greatly influenced Manny Shinwell. An organiser for the Scottish Company-operative Wholesale Society, in the 1918 General Election Maclean was elected to the House of Commons to represent the Govan seat in Glasgow.
When many of his fellow ILP Clydesiders left the Labour Party, Maclean remained a Labour Member of Parliament, associating for a time with the Scottish Socialist Party.
He retired from Parliament in 1950 when he could not secure his renomination. He was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
