The Curious Case of Kate Sharpley Library ________ by Christopher Draper_____________

“KATE SHARPLEY LIBRARY (KSL)” is an institution “dedicated to researching and restoring the history of the anarchist movement”. Its name commemorates a young woman who “under the influence of anarchist propaganda” in 1917 reacted to the carnage of WWI by flinging her family’s war medals back into the face of Queen Mary - a defiant gesture that earned her a severe beating from the boys in blue. In his book “I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels”, Albert Meltzer recorded extensive details of the incident after meeting Kate shortly before her death in 1978. This dramatic protest was cited by Nigel McCrery in his book recording professional footballers killed in WWI, which linked it to the death on the Somme of Kate’s brother, William. It’s an extraordinary tale but is it true?

THE FOOTBALLER’s TALE

IN April 1912 Sgt William Sharpley of the Essex Regiment made a trial appearance for the Leicester Fosse reserves football team playing against Worksop Town. After winning this match 4-0 he was picked to play left back, for Leicester’s first team the following month, in a second division game against Leeds City. Although Leicester won that game 4-1 William made no further appearances for the club and returned to his unit to serve as a regular soldier. With the outbreak of war he was immediately sent with his regiment to the Western Front where “he served with honour” and was decorated before being killed on 1st July, 1916.

This story has recently been told by Nigel McCrery in his book “The Final Season” (Random House) where the author goes on to reveal that this early casualty of the Somme offensive was none other than the brother of impassioned anarchist protester, Kate Sharpley.

ALBERTS’s ACCOUNT

KATE SHARPLEY LIBRARY acknowledges that, “One of our frequently asked questions is who was Kate Sharpley?” In response KSL publishes two overlapping accounts, both written by Albert Meltzer. The first, originally penned in 1978 was printed in “KSL Bulletin 6, Sept 1996” while the second appears in Meltzer’s “I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels” - both accounts are freely available online. Meltzer, and hence KSL, makes several very specific claims, including:

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“Sixty-five years ago Queen Mary was handing out medals in Greenwich, most of them for fallen heroes being presented to their womenfolk.”

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“One 22-year old girl, said by the local press to be under the influence of anarchist propaganda having collected medals for her dead father, brother and boyfriend then threw them in the Queen’s face”

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“The Queen’s face was scratched and so was that of her attendant ladies.”

·

“The girl was Kate Sharpley.”

CURIOUS and CURIOUSER

MELTZER’s first reference to “sixty-five years ago”, made in 1978, dates Sharpley’s medal protest to 1913. Was it not remarkably prescient of Queen Mary to present commemorative medals for a war and its consequent casualties yet to occur? Is it not curious that such careless inattention to detail was not spotted by either Meltzer or KATE SHARPLEY LIBRARY corrected over the four decades since publication?

Is it not more curious still that despite extensive research there appears to be no report or record of this most dramatic incident in any contemporary newspaper or other documentary archive? No reference to this incident of any kind has been recorded that does not derive from Meltzer’s entirely unreferenced account. Meltzer specifically states that “the local press” claimed she acted under anarchist influence yet there appears to be no reference of any sort to “Kate Sharpley” in the local press for this or any political action. Even if the authorities conspired to effect total censorship of the mainstream press it would certainly have been reported in anarchist, socialist or pacifist papers. As a fearless activist surely Kate would have afterwards informed the radical press of her action and the police’s violent reaction.

Confirmation?

MELTZER’s account might appear to derive a degree of substantiation from McCrery’s description of the death of Kate Sharpley’s brother on the Somme were it not for the fact that Sgt William Sharpley (Reg. No. 9214) of the 2nd Battalion Essex Regiment had no sister called Kate, Kath, Catherine or any other variant. Like Mr Meltzer, who he references and relies upon, McCrery doesn’t seem to have done his homework by insisting on primary evidence. Although I emailed my detailed criticism of this invalid claim to a familial relationship to McCrery’s agent on 7th April 2021, requesting evidence for his assertion, answer was there none.

Dodgy Dogma

I DON'T DOUBT Meltzer met Kate Sharpley sometime in the late 1970’s and she recollected fragmentary tales of a half-remembered anarchist past. There’s usually a germ of truth in every story and it’s not clear who was the more guilty of over egging this particular pudding but Meltzer’s subsequent account is certainly more akin to anecdote than history. Through extensive research into primary evidence I believe I have identified the Kate Sharpley that Meltzer met and whose life he purports to describe but I’ve learned from experience that KSL prefers convenient myth to inconvenient truth.

It’s ironic that Meltzer’s autobiography claims “I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels” for much of what now passes for “anarchist history” is little more than gilding applied to plaster saints. In claiming to chronicle anarchist history “FREEDOM" “Lib Com” and “KSL” all enforce ideological censorship with an absence of self-critical rigour.

ON 15th May 2006 “Lib Com” published Meltzer’s account on its own website. Eleven years later it finally dawned on editor “Steven” that the account lacked evidence if not credibility. On 15th May 2017 “Steven” belatedly, and unsuccessfully, asked “Does anyone know any dates in her life, either when she was born, when she died, or the date of the medal-throwing incident?”

In conventional journalism, which is after all the first draft of history, it’s generally considered good practice to test the evidence before publishing the story but at Lib Com it’s apparently an afterthought and at KSL a revisionist tendency to be defiantly resisted.

Anarchist History or Jesuitical Dogma?

SO dear reader, KSL - “dedicated to researching and restoring the history of the anarchist movement” has had 43 years to come up with evidence to substantiate this tale it began promulgating in 1978. I challenge KSL and its acolytes to now stand this story up with independent evidence or otherwise accept their founding myth is as false and dishonourable as that of the Catholic Church.

Christopher Draper (May 2021)

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