The Goalie and the Nazi

by Christopher Draper

CHANCES are you’ve never heard of Jack Kirby but he deserves public recognition as a bona fide Northern Hero.  The North was never short of footballers with scoring ability and popular appeal but Kirby had neither.Jack was a quiet, modest goalkeeper who in 1934 defied the concerted might of his Derby County Management, the British Government and his Nazi hosts and alone refused to salute fascism.

(insert amended Derby County Shield here)

Nazi Football

Hitler hated football but saw the game’s potential for showing off Nazi physical prowess.  When he assumed power in 1933 Germany was a weak footballing nation that hadn’t participated in the 1930 World Cup but Hitler was determined to remedy that.  The head of the German Football Association, Dr Otto Nerz, the man who brought Jack to Germany, shared Hitler’s view and not just on football. Nerz was a devoted member of the Nazi Party long before Hitler’s accession and was as determined as the Fuhrer to make the national team a model of Nazi success.  To this end he travelled extensively studying successful foreign teams, including periods 'living-in' with Aston Villa, Glasgow Rangers and Arsenal.
Nerz similarly shared the Fuhrer’s rabidly anti-semitic prejudices and subsequently detailed his struggles,  'Jews and their bondsmen continually made the lives of the leadership (of the football association) very difficult, particularly with regard to the issue of professional players. During the crisis before 1933, there was a great danger that football would also become Judaized. The major clubs were always deeply in debt and the creditors frequently were Jews.  The drive towards professional football was very strong and the state at that time could not give the leadership of the sport any support because the state itself was dependent on the Jews.'
With Hitler running the state and Nerz running the F.A., German football was swiftly 'cleansed' of racially unacceptable players and managers but this didn’t concern the English F.A .

New Best Friends

The leaders of English football admired Hitler’s commitment to the game and were keen to cooperate in raising Nazi Germany’s international profile.  Within a year of Hitler’s take-over Dr Otto Nerz had secured the agreement of the English FA for top team Derby County to tour Germany playing exhibition matches against a German FA XI.  The British Government and almost all elements of the English Establishment were delighted at this public demonstration of our two nations’ shared values.
In February 1934 Dr Otto Nerz announced details of the Derby County tour to the international press telling reprorters,  'They play very attractive football and their style of play is likely to make a big appeal to Germany.'  The tour awaited the English close season when Derby would play successive matches at Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Dortmund with the first kicking-off on 10 May.

Rams on Tour

Jack Kirby along with sixteen team mates and half-a dozen officials, including a photographer from the Derby Telegraph left Derby station late on Sunday evening, 6 May 1934.  Sailing from Dover at noon the following day the party didn’t finally arrive at their hotel until the early hours of Tuesday. Everyone was in good spirits although, as the Derby Telegraph reported from Frankfurt, everything hadn’t entirely gone to plan,  'The Derby County party arrived here this morning in very happy mood in spite of a lengthy hold-up at one a.m. at the German frontier.  We were requested to produce all moneys in our possession.  This is an innovation since Herr Hitler’s regime.  The same procedure takes place when the traveller leaves Germany.  The German authorities thus have a check on one’s purse, the motive being to make sure that travellers do not leave Germany with more money than they had in their possession on arriving in that country.'
As soon as were met at their Frankfurt hotel by Otto Nerz they experienced no further obstructions as he chaperoned them around Germany ensuring that everywhere they were enthusiastically received. Specially translated English language menus were provided at eating places, dedicated guides provided and relaxing river trips on the Rhine organised.

A Rum Do

By May 1934 German football had already been thoroughly Nazified with both teams expected to stand and deliver a formal 'Hitler salute' before kick-off.  The Derby County men weren’t keen to comply and made this clear to club officials well before the Frankfurt match, as George Collins much later recalled, 'We told the manager, George Jobey, that we didn’t want to do it.  He spoke with the directors, but they said that the British Ambassador insisted we must.  He said the Foreign Office were afraid of causing an international incident if we refused. It would be a snub to Hitler…'
Despite Herr Nerz’s cosseting the players were beginning to realise that they were pawns in a wider political game and the Germans were determined to win.  As the Telegraph reported, 'The German pivot was playing very unorthodox football…he repeatedly played the man instead of the ball…
Bowers was badly fouled and injured…he came around after about three minutes (although) still appeared dazed…Kirby was the next to receive an injury.'  Even the referee seemed to be under orders from Nerz, 'It is interesting to note that the second half lasted 55 minutes and Herr Otto Nerz had to send a message to the referee by a linesman to remind him that it was much past time.'
The jubilant Germans won 5-2 although the Telegraph reporter claimed, 'Even the German authorities doubted two of the side’s goals.'  What he didn’t report was the Derby team’s instructions to salute.(pic of Derby team giving Nazi salute – except Jack!)

The Quiet Man and the Nazi

Jack Kirby was a Derby man through and through. Born at Overdean in South Derbyshire in 1910 there were Kirby’s all over the area and for generations they’d worked down the pit. Jack’s grandad was a miner, his dad was a miner and he never forgot his roots,  When instructed to salute fascism Jack adamantly refused.  As the photo shows, whilst the rest of the team followed orders, defying 35,000 chanting German football supporters Jack Kirby stood his ground and kept his arms by his sides.  It was a gesture every bit as brave and powerful as the iconic Black Power salutes of the 1968 Olympics although in 1934 nobody mentioned it.  This picture, taken by the accompanying Derby Telegraph photographer wasn’t published in the paper, nor was the incident reported.  There was no protest from the Nazis, no apology from the British F.A. and simply no mention of Jack’s defiant gesture in any media outlet.  It was fake Non-News, a conspiracy to keep quiet about an astonishingly brave public act of opposition to Hitler. Only after Jack Kirby’s death in Derby in 1960 did his old team mate George Jobey reveal Jack’s astonishing bravery, 'We did what we were told. All except our goalkeeper, Jack Kirby'.
Jack died as he had lived, a quiet unassuming hero. Satisfyingly, his 1934 bete noire Dr Otto Nerz eventually received his come-uppance.  Much admired by fawning English sports reporters as the, 'virtual dictator of German Football,' in 1945 Nerz was captured by the invading Red Army. Identified as an irredeemable Nazi,  Dr Otto Nerz was interned in Sachsenhausen where he died of meningitis on 19 April 1949.

Christopher Draper (February 2018)

War on the Home Front (part two)

 by Christopher Draper

PART one of this story explained that 13 anarchists in the North-West region were active conscientious objectors to WWI.  As soon as conscription was introduced in February 1916 two comrades, Arthur Helsby and William Greaves, applied for absolute exemption but to no avail.  A third anarchist, Walter Barlow was arrested for ignoring the draft and fined before disappearing for the duration of hostilities.  Herbert Holt, William Hopkins, William Jackson and Charles Warwick were nabbed as “absentees” at Stockport anarchist club, along with Helsby (again!).  The police then rounded up and arrested a further 4 Stockport Anarcho-Conchies (A-C’s) and by the end of the year all but 2 of our 13 (one was still under age and the other elusive) had been collared but that didn’t end their protests.

Happy Christmas Conchies!

Christmas 1916 found 10 of our 13 anarchist conchies in captivity, 7 incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs, 1 in Leeds Prison and 2 (Greaves and Holt) teetering on the edge of imprisonment. William Greaves hadn’t yet exhausted his escalating appeals for absolute exemption after he’d been automatically enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers whilst Herbert Holt initially accepted alternative work on a Wakefield “Home Office Scheme” (HOS). Soon both attracted the wrath of the authorities and they were reunited with their imprisoned comrades.

Predictably Pointless Appeals

Herbert Holt was the man who’d argued in court for return of the pamphlets the police seized on their first raid on the Stockport anarchist club only to be arrested as an absentee on their second visit. Holt’s appeal ended with “alternative work” at a new HOS at Platt Hall Fields, Manchester. The scheme aimed to cultivate unused land to increase home food production. Twenty-five or so conchies were billeted in Platt Hall whilst they worked the adjacent fields. As usual, the authorities started taking liberties and when Herbert was ordered to maintain Manchester’s other parks and cemeteries he objected and spent the rest of the war in Strangeways. William Greaves’ sequence of appeals concluded with a court-martial at Oswestry followed by serial imprisonment; Shrewsbury, Wormwood Scrubs and finally Walton.

'Lion Taming'

Arrested at the Stockport 'Workers’ Freedom Group' (WFG) Club both William Jackson and William Hopkins were compulsorily enlisted in the Third Cheshire Regiment and posted to Birkenhead Barracks whose infamous unofficial motto was 'We tame lions here!'  The regiment systematically brutalised and humiliated conchies at their Birkenhead HQ but Jackson and Hopkins remained resolute even after the shit hit the fan.  Slapped, kicked and thrown over eight foot high walls in full public view at Birkenhead Park, along with 3 fellow conchies they were then court-martialled for non-compliance.  Their case became a cause celebre after the national press learned of their outrageous mistreatment.  Despite the officers’ brutality it was the conchies who were subsequently sentenced to two years imprisonment (with Hard Labour) in Wormwood Scrubs.

Protest & Survive

Anarchist club comrades Robert Seaton and Charles Bradlaugh Warwick adopted a contrasting approach to conscientious objection. Seaton confronted conscription head-on whereas Warwick preferred ducking and diving. Initially arrested as an absentee and compulsorily enlisted in the Yorkshire Regiment, Charles Warwick refused to sign his army papers and immediately went AWOL. Posted as a deserter in the Police Gazette he was eventually captured, court-martialled at Blackpool and imprisoned. Subsequently sent to Dartmoor Work Camp he escaped and was again proscribed by the authorities. Arrested inSalford on 24 October 1917 Warwick was charged with forgery, having 'creatively amended' his call-up papers to facilitate his freedom.  Pronounced guilty he was sent back to prison.
Robert Seaton’s straightforward approach was to simply say no to everything, no conscription, no tribunal, no alternative work.  He was the absolutist’s absolutist.  Consequently Seaton is amongst the conchie elite (anarchists form a solid chunk of this group) who endured three courts-martial and three consequent prison sentences; in Wandsworth, Walton and Carlisle.  In July 1917, whilst imprisoned at Walton, Seaton engaged in a mass hunger strike along with around 20 other conchies and Irish Republicans in a solidarity protest against force feeding.  Subsequently transferred to Carlisle Prison, he was incarcerated long after the war ended.  On one occasion, when the authorities feared he might die in gaol, he was “temporarily” allowed out for 28 days under the 'cat and mouse act' but it wasn’t until August 1919 that Robert and the last of Britain’s imprisoned conchies were finally and officially released.
The conchie career of Samuel Brooks, another Stockport comrade, was remarkably similar to Seaton’s.  On occasions they even were court-martialled together and Samuel starved alongside Robert in the 1917 Walton mass hunger strike.
Stockport cotton piercer Alfred Toft endured an extra level of suffering when he went on hunger strike at Lincoln Prison August 1917 in protest against enduring arbitrary punishment.  Twice force-fed through a tube shoved down his throat into his stomach he spent the rest of the war inside Lincoln gaol.
In the inimitable words of Monty Python, 'he was lucky!' - Stockport iron moulder Robert Stuart Williams was force fed more than fifty times in Preston Prison.   Arrested as an absentee in 1916, routinely conscripted into a fighting unit, Robert refused to obey orders and so initiated the usual absurdist cycle of courts-martial, prison, disobedience and then round again.  After joining the A-C elite with 3 CM’s, 3 prison sentences and over 2 years inside to his credit he decided to hunger strike against his continued imprisonment after the 1918 armistice.  As the prison authorities recorded, he was systematically force fed 'to finish or release him'.

Knutsford Welcomes Burnley’s Bakunin

Arthur Riley was a Burnley cotton weaver living at home and supporting his crippled brother and aged mother, who was afflicted with chronic rheumatism. Arthur’s father was already dead, as were four of Arthur’s siblings. It was an impoverished family and the local tribunal initially cut him some slack but in 1917 they demanded his enlistment so Arthur tried to avoid them by sleeping at different addresses. Riley’s opinions on the war were already well known around town as he was an activist who, the previous year, had a long letter published in the local paper defending conchies.  Arrested and tried in September 1917 Arthur informed the court, 'Politically he was an anarchist absolutely and he was an atheist in religious matters. He believed it was morally wrong to take human life or assist in doing so.'  After a spell of imprisonment in Preston Gaol, just before Xmas 1917 Riley was sent to Knutsford Work Camp where, along with 800 other conchies he was housed in the disused prison.  As if that wasn’t bad enough the good townsfolk of Knutsford conducted an unrelenting campaign of violent hostility to the conchies billeted on their doorstep.  An endless stream of stories published in the local press stoked up resentment; 'Milk for Objectors but Not Enough for Babies', 'Proposed Exclusion from Library', 'Freeholders Ban Conchies from Playing Football on Heath' and the cruellest blow of all, 'The Ladies tennis club at Knutsford have decided that any member who associates with a Conchie must resign at once!'
From 7am until 5.30pm Arthur and his comrades were set to work repairing the dilapidated prison building but were then allowed into town as long as they returned by 9pm.  This wasn’t as attractive as it might appear as townsfolk generally refused to serve the conchies in shops and even the local medic, Dr Fennell, boasted, 'He hated them and would like to drown every last one of them…  One was brought to his surgery and he had shown him the door.'   Most nights a hostile reception committee was gathered at the gates awaiting any conchie brave enough to leave the camp.  Violence erupted on numerous occasions and whilst Arthur was at Knutsford one attack was so outrageous that the local authorities were obliged to intervene and prosecute 10 local jingoes.
In Court Superintendant Sutherland explained, 'The attack on the conchies began in Canute Place and ended in front of the prison in something which approached a riot.” Despite damning evidence the culprits were merely bound over and the magistrates expressed their hope that their victims (the conchies) would be removed from the town as soon as possible, and so they were. In the New Year (1918) Arthur and the rest of the Knutsford conchies were transferred to Dartmoor Work camp and as the local paper reported, “There were great rejoicings in the town on their leaving.'

Cheeky Boy!

Conscription continued into 1918 and in March, as the Manchester papers reported, 'An impudent and very empty appeal was made by an 18-year-old conscientious objector at the Salford Appeals Tribunal…the youth said in his application that the British war aims were all wrong.  He did not believe in war'.  The Tribunal merely expressed amusement when the young man, 'admitted he was an anarchist' and most reasonably argued, 'that he did not think it was right that Mesopotamia when captured by the British should go to Lever Bros. the soap manufacturers, as one Cabinet Minister had intimated in a recent speech.'  Our anonymous comrade was ordered to report when called upon but appears to have evaded conscription.

Aftermath

As our comrades claimed, this was no war to end wars, on the contrary. Sadly the war’s deadly toll included the British anarchist movement which never regained its pre-war working class vitality. None of our 13 North-Western anarcho-conchies were anything above skilled workers.  Lithographer Arthur Helsby was probably the most elevated and none typified the middle class intellectuals that now characterise our vestigial movement.  Many of the most politically active workers that survived the war fell under the spell of Bolshevism and joined the Communist Party. Burnley’s Arthur Riley was a founder member but now Communism’s also collapsed.  The lessons of history aren’t obvious but our local anarcho-conchies were motivated by an anarchism that hadn’t yet grown world weary, cynical and sectarian.  Their stories are an inspiration.

(Llandudno, August 2017

War on the Home Front (part one)

by Chris Draper

WHILST British workers concentrated on killing German workers at Passchendaele back home loyal servants of the State used every trick in the book to frighten and torture 16,000 conscientious objectors into uniform. The Church of England assisted as recruiting sergeant and despite their hallowed reputation, a third of Quakers signed up to exterminate their fellow man.

The organised labour movement colluded with the killing but rebel socialists and anarchists refused to bang the jingo drum and here in the North West thirteen brave anarchists confronted the rabid State and refused to bear arms.

Atheists go to Hell Conscription started in 1916 and the only individuals the State considered fit for ‘conscientious objection' (CO) were pacifists obeying orders from GOD. Political objections were derided and dismissed so anarchists were on a hiding to nothing appealing to the authorities.  Once conscription began everyone was deemed to have enlisted so if you didn’t turn yourself in you would be arrested, fined and handed over to the military.  Any refusal to follow orders then led to court martial and imprisonment with hard labour, usually for 112 days for a first offence.

On completion of this sentence you were handed back to the military and the whole cycle recommenced with subsequent sentences extended up to two years and continuing even after hostilities Workers’ Playtime Thirteen anarchists from the North -West of England defied the draft and refused to fight. This was a pretty good contribution, comprising more than a third of the total AC’s (Anarcho-Conchies) from the whole of England. This comparative strength

derived from the influence of the Stockport Workers Freedom Group (WFG)

.

The group started up in 1913 and the following February opened their own clubrooms at 18 Park Street, Hazel Grove, with funds provided by millionaire anarchist and Kodak director, George Davison.  WFG proved a powerhouse of anarchist propaganda and in September 1913 under the auspices of the group, Guy Aldred delivered a series of eight open-air lectures in Stockport’s ‘Armoury & Mersey Squares” on revolutionary topics from, ‘Capitalism and the Child’ to ‘Direct Action, Legislation and the Social War’ .

Once conscription started Aldred was himself imprisoned as a conchie but the Stockport comrades were ready primed to resist

.

Gone Fishing

Legislation enacting Conscription received Royal Assent on 27 January 1916 In Stockport magistrates Court, ‘Inspector Billinge said that on February 1 the Chief Constable took out a warrant under the Defence of the Realm Act to search the premises, 18 Park Street occupied by the Workers Freedom Group or Anarchist Club’. The police failed to arrest anyone on that occasion but seized, ‘a number of documents and pamphlets, many of which were of a revolutionary nature and, no doubt, cry prejudicial to recruiting’

.

The Chief Constable wanted to destroy everything but Herbert Holt , a leading member of WFG, argued their literature should be returned. Although magistrates agreed Holt could retain a few titles for some inexplicable reason they incinerated:  ‘Down With Conscription’, ‘The International Anarchist Manifesto on the War’ and ‘Apes and Patriotism!’ Patriotic Apes.

Hazel Grove police had already removed thousands of similar pamphlets from Langley Cottage, the Hazel Street home of another WFG club member, commercial traveller WilliamJackson. Jackson was grassed up by patriotic member of the local community, John James Warren after William gave him a publication entitled, ‘Unite Against the British Prussians’. Warren testified that in January he’d been a passenger on a train from Manchester to Hazel Grove when Jackson was handing out these pamphlets to passengers. Warren claimed he’d previously seen him giving them out in London Road, Hazel Grove. As a God-fearing jingo he obeyed his patriotic duty and took a copy down to Hazel Grove police station who’d responded with a raid on Jackson’s home. In court, William argued for return of the haul removedfrom his house, which included, “2,000 pamphlets headed, Unite Against the British Prussians–500 pamphlets headed, Fight Against Conscription–100 pamphlets headed, ‘An Appeal to Socialists–and 36 pamphlets headed, A General Strike’.

Unfortunately magistrates ordered the destruction of all these classics but on the plus side, they

did return, ‘Tariff Reform Monthly Notes’!

Hard Won Lessons

Anyone intending to claim “Conscientious Objection” was permitted until 24 June 1916 to appeal to a local ‘Military Service Tribunal (MST)’ but ten of our conchies just ignored their call-up papers and waited to be arrested as “absentees”. Of the remaining three, one lad was yet under-age and the two that applied to have their conscience adjudged by MST soon found their trust was misplaced.

Twenty-six year old lithographer Arthur Helsby applied to St Helen’s MST as soon as conscription began, requesting exemption but offering to serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Instead he was conscripted into the army’s ‘Non-Combat Corps (NCC)’ and on 25, March 1916carted off to Kinmel army camp in North Wales for military training.

Helsby soon learned ‘non-combatant’ didn’t exempt him from the war machine. The NCC were obliged to wear khaki, obey military orders, dig trenches, load munitions– ‘soldiers without guns' constantly the butt of insults and abuse from regular troops.  When Arthur objected, on Monday 29 May 1916 he was covertly ‘rendered’ over to the killing fields of France for the army’s cunning plan was to transport CO’s over to the battlefield and terrify them into submission..

Refusing orders under fire would then invite court -martial and death by firing squad . Thirty-four of Arthur’s fellow CO’s in France were formally condemned to death be fore their sentences were commuted to 10 years imprisonment after details of this army deception became public.  So Helsby wasn’t shot but for refusing to go on parade was subjected to 28 days of the notorious 'Field Punishment Number One', which involved being spread -eagled and chained to a field gun wheel, or fixed posts, and was routinely described as 'crucifixion'.

On 10 June Arthur was court martialled at Calais and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour, Initially incarcerated in a military prison at Rouen, on 4 July 1916 Helsby was conveyed, in irons, back to England to serve his time at Winchester civil prison. Public outcry over the army’s ‘extraordinary rendition’ prompted the authorities to commute Arthur’s sentence and he was released from Winchester on the 29 August 1916, having served barely two months of a two year sentence. He was bloodied but unbowed Manchester MST.

Thirty-two year old shipping clerk William Greaves made his application for absolute exemption to Manchester MST on 20 September 1916. Like Helsby, he was nevertheless conscripted into the NCC.  He avoided being sent to France but didn’t accept this NCC role and pressed his absolutist claim through both County and Central Tribunals to no good effect. Formally consigned to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers he was first court-martialled at Oswestry and sentenced to serve 6 months in Shrewsbury Prison.   On his release from Shrewsbury he was returned to Oswestry, court-martialled again and then sentenced to a two-year stretch at Liverpool’s Walton Gaol.

‘I am an Anarchist!’

Oldham-born Walter Barlow, a twenty-one year old “hat leather cutter”, of 2 Stream Terrace, Victoria Road, Stockport put his call-up papers in the bin and was arrested as an absentee. 
 

Unintimidated, on Tuesday 13 June 1916 he told magistrates, ‘I am an anarchist and do not believe in the government of men by men’. Walter went on to expose the cynical function of MST’s in dividing and defusing the peace movement, explaining ‘tribunals were used to smash opposition to the Military Services Act’. Predictably, the magistrates were unpersuaded, fined him 40s. and decreed he be handed over to the military but the military never got their man.

For the duration of WWI Walter Barlow went AWOL.

Collar the Lot

With gaping holes apparent in the conscription net and the last opportunity past to appeal for exemption, the Stockport authorities planned a return to 18 Park Street and this time seize more than just pamphlets.

‘Anarchist Club Raid–Capture of Absentees at Stockport’ yelled the Manchester Evening News of 22 September 1916’.

Herbert Holt, William Hopkins, William Jackson and Charles Warwick arrested for dodging the draft.

‘These four were hauled up before magistrates along with a character the authorities couldn’t then identify but we already know as our recently returned hero from France and Winchester comrade Arthur Helsby!

The Stockport constabulary informed the press that this mysterious character was ‘evidently a man of foreign extraction’, which seems a harsh judgement on a man born in Liverpool.

During ongoing enquiries the other four anarchists were each fined 40s. and handed on to the military.

Once the police resolved Arthur’s identity he was carted of to Leeds Prison before being restored to the farcical conscription treadmill and returned to “his regiment” at Kinmel Camp. Four further anarchists were rapidly rounded up in raids in and in and around the WFG clubrooms but I’ll identify them (a long with the two further AC’s) and unravel the rest of this fascinating tale in part two (coming soon on the NV website).

Peace & Love

Christopher Draper

The Talented Mr Sketchley (1823-1913)

by Christopher Draper

JOHN Sketchley’s name pops up in numerous labour histories but never accompanied by an adequate biography so who was this man – the only anarchist whose activism stretched back to Chartism and forward into the twentieth century?  William Morris appreciated John’s significance, reminding readers in his flattering introduction to Sketchley’s magnum opus of, “his career so important and instructive for us." 

Road to Damascus

Sketchley was born in 1823 in Hinckley, Leicestershire to parents William and Elizabeth. His father was a stocking maker and John followed him into the trade.  Although it was less than a decade since Ned Ludd visited Leicester, John’s dad was no frame-breaker, with a political outlook conditioned by Roman Catholicism. 

When John was 16 he went with his father and friends to hear the Reverend Simmons preach at a nearby village and it changed his life. John recalled, “the Rev. gentleman dwelt at great length on the sufferings of the poor and very ably expounded the principles of Chartism as the one thing needed.  I felt pleased with the sermon and when he announced that he should preach there again the following Sunday I was delighted.”

As a Catholic choirboy John naively expected his own parish priest to also preach the charitable gospel of the Charter but was rapidly disabused:
“Father Proctor on entering the pulpit, took for his text the well known words, 'ALL POWER COMES FROM GOD' etc, etc.  His sermon was a political one. He commenced a violent attack on the French Revolution; condemned the Republicans as atheists, robbers and murderers, declaring that they were the scourge of France, accursed by heaven, and abhorred by every good man.  He next came to Chartism, which he condemned as synonymous with atheism and infidelity and concluded by calling on every member of the congregation not to attend another Chartist meeting.”

John’s dad insisted he attend that afternoon’s Catechism class and forbade further attendance upon the Rev. Simmons but John disobeyed… ”I hastened to Earl Shilton and at 3 o’clock was listening to the Rev. Mr Simmons. A second sermon was given at 6 o’clock, after which a committee was formed for Hinckley and district. I was appointed Secretary of that Committee."

Facts Before Faith

As a Chartist militant, John didn’t immediately abandon the Catholic Church but throughout the following decade carefully compared and contrasted the gospels of each.  “I left the Church only when I was thoroughly convinced that its claims were incompatible with human liberty and human dignity.”

Enduring loyalty, careful study and sombre reflection remained defining characteristics of Sketchley’s libertarian politics throughout his long and active life.

Although John recorded that many feared Chartists were on the verge of violent revolution in truth the movement was inadequately organised.  “The storm of 1842 closed with arrest of large numbers of the leaders; the people became more or less demoralised, the movement collapsed for the time and the people found that something more was needed than resolutions, cheers, petitions and even threats of violence.”

John continued to campaign for the Charter and was warned that his arrest was imminent but he refused to desist. 

The Next Step

Sadly the movement disintegrated around him until John had to admit:
"Chartism is a thing of the past…reaction everywhere triumphant, the people everywhere again in chains…nothing left but to give to Chartism a decent burial in the hope of a more glorious resurrection.

“In 1850-1 I began to study the writings of the immortal Mazzini and the documents sent for by the Central European Democratic Committee and in the latter year I organised a republican group…”

At that stage the twenty-eight year old John Sketchley was living in Chapel Street, Hinckley with his young wife Lucy and their infant son, Julian, named after “Red Republican”, George Julian Harney. Both John and Lucy worked as stocking makers and in 1855 John was called to give evidence on the trade to a Parliamentary committee.

Woollen stockings were made on frames supplied by manufacturers who charged workers “rental” plus other costs and paid for each completed “piece”, minus “expenses”.  Workers complained of onerous charges and unfair distribution of profits. Serving as secretary of the local Stocking Makers Committee, in 1859 Sketchley’s militant opinions of the exploitative nature of the trade prompted one local manufacturer to sue for libel the owner of the Midland Express newspaper in which they were published. Sketchley further accused the manufacturer, a “Mr Homer”, of operating an illegal “truck” system of payment whereby workers received vouchers exchangeable only for goods from his wife’s shop instead of currency.  Despite the detailed, objective evidence Sketchley submitted, the court ruled in favour of the manufacturer against the publisher.  The case cost Sketchley nothing but he had his own problems.

Suspicious Death
On the night of Sunday 13th November 1859, John’s wife, Lucy was suddenly taken ill and died before morning. Sketchley’s obvious distress at being left alone with two young children increased after it was suggested she may have been poisoned.  The Coroner said the symptoms suggested strychnine and ordered an inquest.  A post mortem revealed that, “the brain was affected by chronic disease and the upper part of the spinal marrow injected with blood” but the examining surgeon, “did not consider this sufficient to account for death."   The inquest jury accordingly requested that Lucy’s “stomach and other internal organs were sent to Professor Taylor for analysation."

Mrs Frances Wathers, a neighbour, and little Julian Sketchley were both questioned before the analyst finally pronounced, “That the deceased did not die of poison but the precise cause there is no evidence to show.”

New Wife, New Career

A year after Lucy’s demise, on the 23rd December 1860, John walked down the aisle at St Michael’s Parish Church, Coventry with 23 year old, Mary Ann Osborn. Sketchley had given up stocking making and become an “Insurance Agent”, with other sidelines  including acting as sales rep for, “JOHN CASSELL’s COFFEES – Celebrated for their Great Strength and Fine Aromatic Flavour”!

John escaped the factory system but his son ten year old Julian wasn’t so lucky, he was employed as a “winder”. Besides selling coffee and insurance, John occasionally received payment for his journalistic contributions and the punchy tone of his style is evident in a piece submitted to The Midland Workman in 1861, which concludes with this stirring call to arms:  “The interests of employer and employed are said to be identical; yet they are arrayed against each other as antagonists in war. Political economy may sanction this but morality condemns it and it will yet have an end. The just and moral will yet be triumphant.”

Brought to Book

In 1865 morality triumphed against him when he was in trouble for not paying the baker’s bill for refreshments he’d served up to members of his insurance scheme.  “The plaintiff sued for the sum of £1 1s. 8d. as due to him for bread and plum cake, which had been ordered by the defendant to supply a tea party held at the Town hall, in connection with the National Mutual Assurance Society." Judgement was given against John who was ordered to pay off 5s. a week.

The following year he was back in court after refusing to settle an account totalling £4 11s. for stationery supplied to him.  Having ignored the legal deadline for submissions the court let him off lightly and accepted a belated offer to repay 12s. a month.

Adding another string to his bow, John began retailing books and pamphlets but it did nothing for his finances. Sketchley found getting books on account easy but settling the account was impossible. London publishers proved less willing to be fobbed off with hapless promises of future payment, and owing £23 4s. 8d to Messrs. Dean & Sons was the last straw.  After giving the Court the run around for six months, in July 1867 Sketchley was committed to Leicester County Gaol and his wife and children sent to the workhouse.  As no-one came forward to settle his debts, he remained in prison until the end of the year when Deans finally accepted that they weren’t going to get their money and agreed to his release. 

Radical Republican

Throughout the late 1860’s, Sketchley was Secretary of the local branch of the “National Reform League”.  Through the pages of the Leicester Chronicle he rhetorically asked - “working men of Hinckley and district, are you willing to remain political slaves – mere political ciphers in the land of your birth?” 

In 1870 John and his family moved to Birmingham.  A voracious reader he became increasingly aware of and in touch with continental revolutionaries and their political ideas. During 1872-3 John was one of the main contributors to W H Riley’s, “International Herald” where the advanced nature of his politics was obvious, “The term Republicanism in its modern or European sense, embraces the social as well as the political emancipation of the People…  A mere political revolution, leaving the great social questions unsolved leaves the great mass of the People in social degradation, still victims of social tyranny and oppression…."

In 1875 Sketchley founded “Birmingham Republican Association”, and campaigned for the abolition of the Monarchy, House of Lords, State Church and Standing Army as well as the nationalisation of the land and the currency. Two years later he renamed the organisation, “The Midland Social Democratic Association”, which EP Thompson describes as, “The first English society of the modern Socialist movement.”

International Socialist

By 1879 John Sketchley was part of an advanced guard of European socialists anxious to replace workers’ affection for Liberalism with revolutionary ideas.  His 36-page booklet, “The Principles of Social Democracy: an exposition and a vindication” was published and broadcast by the revolutionary internationalists of London’s Social Democratic Club, Rose Steet, Soho.  As English anarchist Frank Kitz later recorded in his memoir, “Many thousands of this pamphlet were sold, the German section bearing the major portion of the cost, in order to aid propaganda among our own working class.”

The following year, with backing from, “The Land Restoration League”, John published a four-page tract entitled, “Land Common Property”. Next came longer, locally published pamphlets on, “The Workman’s Question: why he is poor” and, “The Funding System, or how the people are plundered by the bond holding classes.”

In 1884, Sketchley joined the Marxist “Social Democratic Federation” and was appointed Secretary of the Birmingham Branch, which met at the Bell Street Coffee House. Although
John was happy enough with Marx’s diagnosis of society’s ills he never swallowed Marx’s statist solution.  It’s significant that when Sketchley published a hugely expanded (238pgs), version of his original “Social Democracy” booklet in 1884 he asked libertarian, William Morris, rather than SDF party-leader, H M Hyndman, to write the introduction. When Morris’s anti-parliamentary faction split at the end of the year to found the “Socialist League” Sketchley joined the Birmingham Branch and wrote regularly for the SL’s newspaper, “Commonweal”. 

Lessons from History

Sketchley’s writings were superbly well-informed and his prose crystal clear.  Consider the inspirational clarity and anarchist analysis evident in this short extract from one of his 1885 Commonweal pieces:
"The gullibility of the English is great and their credulity almost unbounded. After centuries of misrule and generations of cruel deceptions they are again becoming the victims of designing politicians.  Ignoring the past they have learnt nothing by experience. They are as thoughtless today as though the facts of history have no lessons for them. It is strange that the working classes should be so easily gulled, so easily deceived for the thousandth time” (this assertion is then copiously illustrated with specific examples drawn from English and European history of the manipulations and cynical duplicities enacted by politicians…), I have said that the whole political life of England is based on expediency and not on principle and that the third Reform Bill will accomplish nothing for the toiling masses.  But it will do one thing.  It will undeceive them to a great extent. It will show them that the vote will not give them political power.”

Sketchley was keen to explain, illustrate with evidence and promote anarchist ideas but preferred to label himself a Socialist and maintain relationships with all progressive elements of the local community and labour movement. 

Rebel Without a Penny

Sketchley’s expertise in political economy wasn’t reflective in his domestic economy and before the year was out John and his family were again penniless.  An “Appeal” was published in November’s “Commonweal”:  “As it is the wish of many friends that comrade Sketchley the veteran Chartist, Republican and Socialist should resume more active work, where his well-known abilities and great experience will be of the greatest services and where he can devote his future years to the furtherance of the Socialist movement, we ask everyone to assist us in making the testimonial a success. All who have received subscription lists etc might kindly remit to the treasurer, William Morris.”

With financial support from comrades John was soon back in action and in 1886 delivered several lectures away from Birmingham, travelling in May and September to Sheffield. In June 1886 John journeyed north to Blackburn to deliver a series of lectures under the auspices of “Darwen Progressive Society”.  What he didn’t do was follow the hackneyed path down to London, despite the blandishments of comrades including George Odger.

Socialism Begins at Home
Despite his concern for humanity Sketchley neglected his wife and children. Mary Ann stuck with him for almost three decades, despite the indignity of the workhouse.  Poverty killed half of their numerous offspring in infancy and her life was a constant struggle to keep the family together.  At the end of 1886 they finally separated and John left Mary Ann to look after the family on her own. Although John’s propaganda spoke eloquently of the rights of women his personal politics appear unconvincing.

Mary Ann stayed in Birmingham, in their old home at 348 Cheapside, with seven of their surviving children. John moved out, first to 8 Arthur Place, Birmingham, then after making several further propaganda trips to Sheffield, at the end of 1888 he settled there, initially at 299 Shalesmoor.

Sojourn in Sheffield

Sheffield had obvious attractions for Sketchley; a Socialist Club, a tradition of labour militancy and an emerging anarchism.  In 1889 John campaigned alongside Edward Carpenter and Fred Charles, in a series of Sheffield street meetings organised to raise support for the striking London dockers.  In July John visited Nottingham to stand on a platform in the Market Place with seven comrades and deliver what the local paper described as, “extravagant tirades against Royalty…round the platform a large crowd of men and boys collected and if they came for the purpose of hearing members of the Royal Family insulted they must have gone away fully satiated."

Having settled in at Sheffield in April 1890 John placed a notice in “Commonweal” seeking comrades to start a Sheffield branch of the Socialist League:  “As the study of Socialism from a revolutionary or international standpoint is absolutely necessary, it is intended by several friends to form a branch of the League. I have therefore to ask all those who are willing to join in forming such branch and who are willing to help in propagating the principles of true Socialism to communicate with me as early as possible – J. Sketchley, 165 Gibraltar Street, Sheffield.”

Hull, Gateway to Anarchy

John’s ad proved unproductive, so he decided to move on.  Hull looked promising as it had long been a key access route for smuggling anarchist and advanced Socialist propaganda between Britain and the continent, especially Germany.  Hull’s socialist club, “Club Liberty” was a haunt of International Anarchist ideas and personalities with the two leading lights anarchists Gustav Smith and Conrad Naewigger.

Now aged 67, John Sketchley, “Bookseller & Stationer”, lodged at 41 Porter Street with 24 year old Emily whom he described as his wife.  Meanwhile, back in Birmingham, his legal wife, Mary Ann Sketchley, described herself as a “widow”.  In Hull, John established, “The People’s Bookstores, 52, Salthouse Lane” where besides selling his own booklets he supplied a range of socialist and other progressive titles.  From Salthouse Lane, in 1896, John published a new title, as the anarchist newspaper “Liberty” announced, “Shall the People Govern Themselves? is full of facts, figures and statements in favour of an affirmative reply to the question… Sketchley always puts his case clearly and generally with considerable force: he has been very successful in this instance and his pamphlet should have a wide circulation.”

In August 1895 “Liberty” published Sketchley‘s own account of, “How and Why I Became a Socialist” which although eschewing the epithet “Anarchist” revealed the libertarian nature of his politics, “What are the elected but gods of the people’s creation, to whom the electors humbly pray and promise ever to pray for some paltry favour… The basic principle of Socialism is the sovereignty of the people, but that sovereignty rests upon the sovereignty of the individual. The individual can never be absorbed in the state…."

Sketchley and his local comrades founded, “The Hull and District International Socialistic Association” which held open-air meetings every Sunday at 11am on Drypool Green, where, according to the anarchist journal Freedom, “Comrade Sketchley always lectures on one or other of the great questions of the day.”

Comrade Sketchley was already a grand old man of the movement and as unsectarian as ever. In 1895, according to the “Hull Daily Mail” John gave members of Hull Labour Church, “some personal recollections of the Chartist movement”.  The following year John chaired a public meeting at St George’s Hall where George Lansbury, chief organiser of the SDF, “delivered an interesting address on Social Democracy”. 

A Long and Winding Road

Having put politics before personal well-being it was no surprise that as he approached eighty, John was again penniless and in 1900 a fresh public appeal was launched by his old Birmingham comrades, Emile Copeland and Henry Percy Ward.  A huge range of people contributed from Marxist party hack, Dan Irving (8s) to George Cadbury (of chocolate fame, £1.00).  Solvent and rejuvenated, from his new base in Birmingham in 1901 John once again ventured forth.   He delivered two talks at St James’s Hall Burnley and another at Colne, after which a correspondent in “Justice” declared, “taking into account Sketchley’s age, I think his pronunciation and voice wonderful.”

In the Edwardian era jingo politics eclipsed Socialism and as the First World War approached, John Sketchley was back, living alone in Leicester.  His views hadn’t changed but the audiences had.  He’d never attained a sustainable lifestyle but his politics remained constant; sensible, strong and well informed.  Unlike fellow anarchist militants he was never tempted to over react to either opposition or defeatism, or diverted down the electoral route.  Although his writings have never been assembled they’re worth searching out for information and inspiration.

Sketchley doesn’t easily fit political categorisation.  I claim him for anarchism but he didn’t do so himself.  He sometimes served as paid organiser for the Marxist SDF but rejected that party’s statist objectives.  Worst of all he was never part of the London bubble so seldom reported by “National” newspapers and now he’s overlooked by academics who regurgitate the same anarchist “names” and ignore anarchist activity in the “provinces”.

John Sketchley, perhaps Britlain’s most underrated anarchist, died in 1913 in Billesdon Workhouse.

Christopher Draper - Number 12 in a monthly series of “Northern Anarchist Lives” 

Leedz Anarkyst - Greevz Fysher (1845-1931)

By Chistopher Draper

GREEVZ was one of the North’s most original yet least known pioneering anarchists.  From the economy to the alphabet, if there was a conventional system, Greevz had an alternative!

A Marriage Made in Heaven - and Leeds

Born John Greeves Fisher in Ireland on 9 September 1845, Greevz preferred the phonetic form of his name in line with his scheme for spelling reform.  Initially employed as an ironmongers assistant in Dublin, in 1877 Greevz moved to Wetherby to partner his cousin in his Leeds “Kingfisher” engineering business.  After his first wife died, in 1879, Greevz lived with her widowed sister, Charlotte Rowntree. Although both shared a Quaker upbringing Greevz had since progressed through scepticism to full-blown atheism and Charlotte wasn’t amused.  In 1884 Daniel Pickard told the Leeds Quaker congregation that:
“We much regret to have to inform the Monthly Meeting that John G Fisher has been for some time past an acknowledged disbeliever on the fundamental truths of the Christian religion”. 
Charlotte moved to America and in September 1887 at Leeds Register Office, Greevz married the love of his life, Marie Clapham.

Klever and Kreativ

Marie shared and encouraged Greevz’ iconoclasm and the joyful inventiveness that had already borne fruit. In 1884 Greevz had marketed, “Fisher’s Nonpareil Perpetual Kalendar” and the following year published, “Spelling Reform in Three Stages”.  He then developed an improved device for producing reading material for the blind. Marketed as the “Kingfisher Braille Printer” and adopted by Liverpool blind school it was only a modest success.

By then his cousin had left the engineering business, making Greevz sole proprietor. NGreevz re-focussed the business onto developing lubricants for industry. In 1883 he came up with “ACME” a unique, soap-based grease that proved invaluable.

In 1886 Greevz first mounted the pulpit to rail against religion and April found him at Sheffield’s “Hall of Science” delivering a couple of characteristic sermons.  In the afternoon he spoke on, “Spiritualism a Delusion” and in the evening, rhetorically reassured listeners, “Has a Dying Atheist Anything to Fear?”

Cheeky Lady

Marie Fisher was a secularist freethinker in her own right and according to her son, ”as a young country girl she used to tramp the 12 miles to attend the meetings of Charles Bradlaugh”.  Greevz and Marie first met at one of these secularist meetings and the couple’s selection of names for their 5 children signals their influences and advertises their radicalism;
* Auberon Herbert (1888-1932) - named after the individualist anarchist
* Wordsworth Donisthorpe (1889-1950) – another English anarchist
* Constance Naden (1891-1984) – female poet and philospher
* Spencer Darwin (1893-1968) – libertarian philosopher and discoverer of evolution 
* Hypatia Ingersoll (1899-1977) – philosopher martyred by Church & an American libertarian

Marie didn’t confine her interests to the home and every Wednesday attended educational classes at Leeds’ Mechanics’ Institute.  When local magistrates refused to accept affirmation as an alternative to “swearing on the bible”, she doggedly pursued the issue through the press.  In 1904 she travelled to the Rome International Freethought Congress as a delegate of the British Secular League and relished the perceived insult to Catholicism in the pages of “The Truthseeker”:
“The Pope thinks that the gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church but he sees rationalism forcibly pronouncing itself within earshot of the Vatican. He admits he is grieved; possibly he trembles.”

Marie was an active member of the local Astronomical, Philosophical, Geological and Yorkshire Naturalists’ Societies and, in 1923 was elected as the first female president of the Leeds Philatelic Society.  She was a militant feminist and active suffragette and in 1920 Marie wrote to the press encouraging Leeds ladies to light up in cinemas after seeing notices permitting men to smoke but prohibiting women.

Freethought to FREEDOM

Encouraged by Marie’s own iconoclasm it wasn’t long before Greevz’ Freethought widened out into political activism.  In 1888 he supported the local strike of Jewish tailors and at the Clarendon Buildings denounced, “Starvation in the Midst of Plenty”.   He also began a six year campaign for election onto local School Boards.  Greevz opposed the growing State control of education and was determined to derail the process in Leeds but was never elected.

Even within anarchism, Greevz adopted an advanced position on children. In an article entitled, “Children as Chattels”, he argued against Benjamin Tucker, in Tucker’s journal, “Liberty”, that parents don’t own their children.  They certainly owe them a duty of care but children own themselves and should be respected as individuals from the start.  Greevz had real insight into libertarian learning and as well as generally campaigning against state control of schools he also specifically opposed the abstract curriculum that came with it.  In 1889 he argued in, “The Revolutionary Review”, “Keeping children from manipulating tangible objects and forcing them to occupy themselves almost wholly with symbols is a total reversal of the natural order of intellectual growth.”

Anarchism or Communism

Greevz remained forever sceptical of the millenarial promises of Communists.  Although he subscribed to the Anarchist-Communist journal “Freedom” he objected to Kropotkin’s assurances that history was inevitably moving in the direction of communism. History shows Greevz was right to be sceptical and nowadays individualism rules.  Whilst Kropotkin’s observations on mutual aid were a useful corrective to the excesses of social Darwinism, “Freedom” continued to over-egg the pudding and encourage false hope.  Greevz was one of a small group of English anarchists who fought against State control and argued for voluntary cooperation yet refused to accept that “Anarchist-Communism” could square the circle.  He was presciently aware of the group-think dangers inherent in all forms of Communism.

Natural Order

After anarchism and his family, Greevz loved cycling.  He’d started in Ireland on a boneshaker with wooden wheels and iron tyres but had still managed journeys of over 100 miles.  In later life he rode a variety of fairly modern machines and into his eighties he rode almost every day.  Greevz’ cycling exploits featured regularly in “The Leeds Mercury” where he revealed his recipe for a long and active life, “I consume a fair amount of home-made lemonade” and “I make my own porridge”.

Greevz was also keen on natural history, a respected member of several local societies, in 1930 he was elected President of the Yorkshire Naturalist’s Union.  His non-political lecture repertoire included; 
* “Some Curious Habits of the Indian Wasps”
* “The Sinistral Form of Limnaea Peregra”
* “The Structure and Habits of the Crayfish”

In later years Greevz combined an interest in wildlife with a passion for cycling and indulging his eccentricity he was regularly spotted cycling around Leeds with a pet jackdaw perched on his shoulder!

Yorkshire Anarchy

Greevz was a much loved local character but was also a serious, inventive owner of a small, successful business employing around 30 people.  As a Proudhonian advocate of small scale enterprise he never contemplated converting “Kingfisher” into a workers’ co-op but according to a former employee writing in the “Yorkshire Post”, “We all had a real affection for him”. 

Greevz followed up the great success of his, “Kingfisher Acme Lubricant” with the invention and production of an original,”Screw Plunger Automatic Lubricator” which continues, in modified form, in production today. Interestingly, for many years Greevz employed Leonard Hall, a pioneering Manchester socialist as Kingfisher’s sales agent. Greevz’ monetary theories were then critically examined in one of Hall’s political tracts, “Which Way? Root Remedies & Free Socialism Versus Collectivist Quackery and Glorified Pauperism”.

Whatever folks thought of his politics the business thrived and continues today, still under family ownership.  Greevz updated, patent grease fittings, have over the years been installed in vehicles ranging from Volvo cars through the European Airbus to NASA’s space shuttle transporter.

Catalogue of Surgical Specialities
Greevz was a keen analyst of the role money and markets play in capitalist society but in contrast to the Anarchist-Communists he wasn’t satisfied that problems of distribution and exchange would evaporate if capitalism were destroyed.  The debates appear abstract and protracted but the problem is real enough. 

Greevz and Marie also enthusiastically attacked traditional constraints on sexual relations and reproduction.  They didn’t merely campaign for women’s right to limit family size but bravely also advertised and supplied contraceptives in an age that was outraged.  In the 1890’s they freely supplied interested parties with their, “Malthusian Catalogue of Domestic & Surgical Specialities”. Greeves also campaigned against the labelling of children as “Bastards” and organised for the repeal of oppressive legislation as President of the “Legitimation League”.

Unlike Kropotkin, Greevz didn’t promise heaven on earth. Although he disagreed with Benjamin Tucker on some of the finer points they shared the same basic practical anarchist approach; “There are some troubles from which mankind can never escape… They (the anarchists) have never claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow from authority…  As a choice of blessings, liberty is the greater; as a choice of evils, liberty is the smaller.  Then liberty always says the Anarchist.  No use of force except against the invader…”

In the 1880’s Greevz campaigned against granting the Post Office a monopoly over telegram delivery.  In the 1890’s he argued against doctors claiming immunity from public scrutiny as he rejected all forms of professional cartel, “Classes based upon special privileges are a danger to the public liberty”.

Throughout his long life Greevz continued to resist authority and speak up for the dispossessed. Through the pages of “Liberty”  he continued to argue for the liberation of Ireland but unlike the Fenians he didn’t want an Independent Irish State, he proposed “No Government for Ireland!”  Aged 83, he wrote to the “Yorkshire Post” criticising the local authority who’d demolished the homes of the Beeston Community of Tolstoyan anarchists because they refused to fully comply with the Council’s petty demands.

Ashes to Ashes

Celebrating Greevz long involvement in civic life, in September 1925 the “Yorkshire Post” observed, “Mr Greevz Fisher, head of the firm of Kingfisher (Ltd) lubricators and oil
merchants, Sackville Street, Leeds, yesterday attained his 80th birthday and in celebration of this and his 50 years in business in the city his employees presented him with a barometer and case. Only last year Mr Fisher rode a push bike from Liverpool to Leeds.”

When Greevz died in May 1931 his cremation ceremony was marked by the “Yorkshire Post”, which also detailed the numerous organisations that attended.  Marie took over the business which on her death in 1950 was in turn run by her surviving children.

Greevz left a published legacy of over a hundred pamphlets, articles and letters that remain uncollected and, nowadays, largely unread. Whilst no single piece may be revelatory, taken together his life and work evidences and illustrates a vital thread of practical, home grown English anarchism that can still amuse and inspire.
 N.V. Editors:

‘Our thanks to Greevz’s great-grandson, Mr. William Hudson, for help with the family background. Mr. Hudson has written a fascinating family history about Greevz, published by and available from AMAZON - ‘Greevz Fisher of Youghal and Leeds: From Quaker to Individualist and Freethinker’ (2013).’

 Christopher Draper  (No. 10 in a monthly series of “Northern Anarchist Lives”, October 2016)

******

Toxteth Teacher Exposed as Anarchist!

Nellie and Jim

by Christopher Draper

(Lives of Northern Anarchists - part 9)

THERE are two versions of education.  One encourages kids to explore the world so that they may in time confidently create their own future.  The other moulds youngsters into adults able to perform predetermined roles in pre-existing society.  The latter authoritarian tradition controls State schools but, as seeds beneath the snow, there have always been individuals fighting for the liberation of learning and practising alternatives.  Jimmy Hugh Dick opened an anarchist school in Liverpool in 1908 and for almost half a century continued to preach, practice and promote “free-education”. 

Early Influences
Born on 15 November 1882 to James, a Scottish policeman, and Barbara, a Cumbrian housewife, James Hugh Dick grew up in Toxteth surrounded by a large bunch of brothers and sisters.  Although Liverpool was a political city, as a youth Jimmy wasn’t interested in politics.  Initially, perhaps influenced by his mother’s Quakerism, he was a mild, teetotal secularist employed as a grocer’s assistant.  With an undemanding job and a yearning for 'self-improvement', in his early twenties Jimmy enrolled at a local Commercial College where he befriended Lorenzo Portet, a young Spanish anarchist employed as a language teacher.

Jimmy was soon won over to Portet’s syndicalist politics and as a friend of Francisco Ferrer, and a teacher himself, Portet was keenly interested in education.  When Ferrer visited Portet in Liverpool in 1907 Jimmy was inspired to drop the groceries and take up teaching.

Anarchy in Action
Supported by enlightened parents of the Liverpool labour movement, in 1908 Jimmy started an Anarchist-Communist Sunday School in the old Toxteth Co-op hall in Smithdown Street.  As the hall was about to be rebuilt, in 1909 James and his 38 students transferred to the ILP (Independent Labour Party) rooms in Tagus Street.  

Jimmy supported Ferrer’s international approach to education and was keen for the school:  
'To break down national prejudices and that patriotic piffle which is inculcated into the children of our present-day schools.'   He believed the kids should exercise initiative in learning but he also laid on overtly political lectures.  The school’s 1909 season included, 'The Paris Commune' by Matt Kavanagh, 'Whiteway Colony' by Chas Keane and, intriguingly, 'Faeries' from local syndicalist stonemason, Fred Bower.

The school developed within a flourishing syndicalist mileu.  Industrial syndicalism appeared increasingly attractive to the labour movement as, according to one observer:
'To many it appeared that the incorporation of union officials within bargaining institutions had succeeded in defusing their earlier radicalism.'
It was time to take up direct action and Jimmy’s 1908 reports for the anarchist newspaper FREEDOM, emphasised the, 'class-conscious and anti-parliamentary viewpoint' of not just fellow syndicalists but also, increasingly, of Liverpool ILP and the SDF comrades.

Liverpool International Club
Jimmy saw learning as liberation, not just something we do to kids but a definitively political process that we’re all involved in, and inherently anarchist.  Besides the school and his labour activism he was a key member of Liverpool’s International Club in Canning Place.  Fellow club members included Fred Bower, Lorenzo Portet and the radical painter Albert Lipczinski.  Through such club contacts Lipczinski came to paint both Tom Mann and Jim Larkin and according to David Bingham the latter portrait came to a dramatic end after it was, 'held as a banner by the Irish strikers in Dublin prior to the Easter Uprising and while being held aloft in this way, it was targeted by the infamous Black and Tans with their weapons and destroyed with gunfire.'

Talkin’ About a Revolution

Jimmy attended the huge, First Conference on Industrial Syndicalism held at the Coal Exchange, Manchester, in November 1910 as one of Liverpool’s two Revolutionary Industrialist delegates, the other was Peter Larkin. Lorenzo Portet attended as a delegate of the International Club whilst Fred Bower represented the Liverpool stonemasons. Although the gathering marked a real syndicalist advance it wasn’t sufficient to satisfy Jim’s revolutionary ardour.  He detected a residual belief in Parliamentary methods amongst delegates and informed FREEDOM that while, “it was obvious that the general feeling of the meeting was to shake off the political element” he still felt most, “were like the slaves of all superstitions, who hate the chains yet cling to them madly.” This insight informed and drove both my own and Jim’s lifelong commitment to liberated learning.

Humans aren’t entirely rational beings driven to act solely by the logic of reasoned argument otherwise we’d long ago have overturned a system that provides Philip Green with a yacht and his workers with the sack.  Our underlying psychology and feelings of empathy and solidarity develop in infancy, or not, and if we’re shaped by authoritarian social structures we grow to crave authority and leadership instead of independence, autonomy and freedom.  Anarchists from Eric Fromm to Colin Ward have since sketched in the details but Jimmy Dick pioneered the liberation of learning in Liverpool in 1908.

Marching Orders

At the end of 1909 the school moved again to another ILP building at 1 Clarendon Terrace, Beaumont Street, though Jim was openly critical of the didactic moralising of the ILP’s own approach to education.  He complained to FREEDOM:
'One thing that seems to mar the socialist Sunday Schools is the repetition of the silly platitudes and a declaration known as the Socialist Ten Commandments. Who had the audacity to draw up such a series of impositions and dare to cram them down the child’s throat, I do not know…Let us have done with this ceremonial business. Stereotyped characters are not for the new era. We want to make men and women not virtuous automatons.'

Jimmy was happy to observe that even national newspapers began to appreciate the unique character of his libertarian venture, “We have it on the authority of the Fortnightly Review that our school is the pioneer school.” Unfortunately, a reactionary storm was unleashed by sensationalist reporting of the “Houndsditch Affair”, when newspaper inaccurately identified murderous robbers as anarchists. Utterly wedded to electoral politics the ILP got cold feet and pulled the plug on Jimmy’s enterprise. There were no votes in accommodating anarchists so in January 1911 Liverpool’s “Independent Labour Party” kicked them out. The school was homeless.

In February 1911 Jimmy finally managed to re-locate the school to Alexander Hall, Islington Square, Liverpool but it was a long way for the kids to travel and attendance began to decline. In May Jimmy reluctantly decided it would have to close and his thoughts began to focus on his own political educational. 

Meeting of Minds

In the autumn of 1911 Jimmy Dick moved down to London and enrolled at the Central Labour College, a syndicalist-inspired breakaway from Oxford’s Ruskin College which had proved useless to militant working class students itching to advance the class-struggle.

Back in Liverpool Jimmy had written a children’s column for The Voice of Labour and one of his devoted readers, Naomi Ploschansky, following Jimmy’s example had in 1912 started her own anarchist school in London’s East End. On May Day 1913 “Nellie” (as Naomi was familiarly known) took her school students along to join the celebrations in Hyde Park (“we carried a banner, Anarchist-Socialist School”) where she spotted the Central Labour College banner. “So I went up to ask for “Uncle Jim”. I saw a young man with grey hair who looked gentler than the rest and I asked him if James Dick was there. He bowed: “I’m James Dick” he said.” It was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship.

Nellie and Jim

Nellie had arrived in London from Kiev as a baby in 1894 with her impoverished Russian family. Both her dad, Solomon and mum, Hanna, had since abandoned the synagogue and embraced anarchism. Attending the Jubilee Street anarchist club with her parents provided Nellie with the contacts to start her own Ferrer School, although she was only a teenager herself.

As Jim and Nellie’s friendship developed he agreed to assist her as co-director of her anarchist school and in 1914 they moved in together. As at Jim’s Liverpool school, the London students controlled their own learning but were encouraged to engage with wider political activities and demonstrations. Rudolf Rocker and his older son assisted at their London school and Rudolf jnr subsequently opened his own libertarian school in Canada.

When war was declared, Rocker was imprisoned and as the kids handed out anti-war leaflets the police were encouraged to raid the premises. After conscription was introduced Jim and Nellie, in 1916, got legally married to avoid the draft but soon that exemption was denied and the couple decided they should emigrate to assist the Free-Schooling movement in America.

Anarchist Education in America

Nellie, 22 and Jim, 34 sailed from Liverpool to New York aboard the St Paul on 30 December 1916. They were welcomed to America by anarchist comrades but Nellie was shocked and disappointed on visiting Emma Goldman to discover that she employed her own personal black maid!

Almost immediately the pair settled into an anarchist community at Stelton where they ran the school on the same libertarian lines they’d developed earlier in England. For the next forty years, including a period running a similar venture at Mohegan, Jim and Nellie pioneered anarchist education along with encouraging, visiting and corresponding with comrades around the world similarly committed to the liberation of learning. 

Eventful Visits

After the 1917 revolution, Nellie’s parents both returned to Russia whilst her sister Dora trained first as a nurse and then as a teacher in America. Nellie and Dick visited Britain together in 1919 and their only son, Jim jnr, was born here on that visit but at the same time Nellie’s brother, Samuel, was caught shop breaking by PC Clarke. He was convicted, sent to prison for a year and then deported back to Russia. 

In 1931 Jimmy came to England to attend a conference on progressive education and visited Summerhill, Britain’s flagship free school, at the invitation of A S Neill. Jimmy also took the opportunity to meet up with old comrades like Will Lawther and Tom Keell.

Having been welcomed to America by exiled Russian anarchist Bill Shatoff in 1917, when Jim, Nellie and Jim visited Russia in 1933 they were keen to meet up with him again. Shatoff had since returned to his homeland to help the Bolshevik revolution without ever abandoning his own anarchist principles. He never turned up at his apartment and was subsequently reported to have been arrested and “liquidated” by Stalin.

Legacy?

Jimmy continued to teach into his seventies before ill health forced retirement.  Despite their age, when the Rosenbergs were executed in 1953 it was Nellie and Jim who stepped in to look after their kids.  Their final anarchist educational venture, Lakewood Modern School which they had founded 25 years earlier, closed its doors in 1958 and Jimmy died seven years later, in 1965 aged 82.  During my own half century in education I met very few teachers in England who’d heard of Jimmy and a tragically diminishing number who practise his approach to schooling.  Hidden away in a few schools there are still anarchist “seeds beneath the snow” but there’s been a very heavy snowfall over the last couple of decades.

HULL: An Anarchist in City of Culture

by Chris Draper (episode 8 of 'Lives of Northern Anarchists')

IN 2017, Hull becomes Britain’s 'City of Culture' but don’t expect exhibitions or events celebrating the city’s anarchist heritage although the Daily Telegraph once claimed, 'Hull occupies a unique position in Anarchist propaganda' (5.6.1906).

Hull’s politics were conditioned by its strong maritime links with Hamburg which in the 1880’s provided a key route for the exchange of anarchist ideas, personnel and publications.  According to 1884 press reports, 'A detective has had the so-called anarchist club at Hull under his observation for some time, and the means adopted on some occasions in smuggling the FREIHEIT (newspaper) into Germany were very ingenious, copies being placed in bamboo canes in some instances.' 

'CLUB FREIHEIT', Hull’s 'so-called anarchist club' was started in 1882 by German-born activists inspired by the ideas of Johann Most.  Unfortunately, for almost a decade, the local socialist movement was divided along language lines with English-speaking Hull activists preferring the Socialist League (SL).  Run by a “soft-left” Fabian socialist, Eugene Teesdale, and inspired by a scheming statist, John Lincoln Mahon, Hull SL proved weak in both theory and practice and failed to stay the course.  Fortunately, in 1890 the language and political gulf was bridged and 'CLUB FREIHEIT' was reborn as 'CLUB LIBERTY'.

Bridge Over Trouble Water

Conrad Naewiger was ideally placed to bridge the rift between the English and German socialist communities.  Born in Berlin in 1861, Conrad had emigrated with his parents, Michael Wilhelm and Louisa Elizabeth Naewiger, to England in 1865.  Settling in Hull, Conrad followed his father into the tailoring trade but his dad wasn’t politically active.  Conrad wasn’t either until he was almost 30. His first appearance in the local paper came in 1888 when he won £2 for writing an essay on 'THRIFT' for a 'Hull Savings Bank' competition.

Gospel of Atheism

Baptised into the Lutheran Church, as 'Gustav Emil Conrad Naewiger' at St Jakob’s, Berlin, as an adult Conrad was a born-again atheist. A systematic study of world religions had caused him to conclude that God is a fiction and religion an organised conspiracy to exploit the ignorant.  An enthusiastic member of the National Secular Society he was active as both speaker and local organiser and was elected Secretary of the Hull group.  Putting his beliefs into practical effect he also supported the local branch of the Sunday Association which campaigned to stop Sunday being kept compulsorily sacred.  The SA wanted museums, galleries and similarly educative institutions open to working people on the one day of the week they weren’t obliged to labour; a modest proposal fiercely resisted by the God-botherers.

Conrad realised that the forces of religious conservatism were strongly woven into a fabric of political reaction and widened the scope of his talks to include overtly political topics.  In December 1890 he lectured at Hull’s Cobden Hall on 'Thomas Paine, His Life and Labours, after which came an animated discussion'.  He followed this up with a talk at Gladstone Hall, Bond Street, on, 'The Life of Ernest Jones', the Chartist, to Hull Labour Church.

'No God, No Master'

Whilst 'Revolutionary Socialism' was the characteristic creed of CLUB LIBERTY the politics of members stretched from Anarchism to Marxism.  Naewiger was content to simply declare himself a 'Socialist' but in reality, although close to anarchism, his approach is probably best described as 'Libertarian Communism'.  Whenever he lectured on socialism though, audiences could be certain a searing indictment of religion wouldn’t be far behind.  It would have surprised no-one that the first piece he published in the Anarchist-Communist journal,
'LIBERTY' was entitled, 'Why I am a Socialist and an Atheist'.  This article sold for years as a pamphlet.  He also penned another couple of pamphlets entitled, 'God is Love: Is it true?' and 'Was Jesus Christ a Socialist, Communist or Wise Teacher?'   Reviewing the latter, the Anarchist-Communist journal FREEDOM wrote:  'In it he exposes some of the absurdities of the teachings attributed to Jesus Christ and shows they are incompatible with a sane view of life…when we hear people referring to him as a Socialist it is time to protest and for that reason comrade Naewiger’s pamphlet may, we hope, do good.'

Conrad’s first article for FREEDOM condemned, 'The Workhouse' and the workers’ apparent indifference:  'how few of our younger generation realise the probability that they may end their days in the workhouse in spite of all the thriftiness and frugality on their part.  Is the thought not galling?' His next piece analysed the 'Vilification of Socialism' before he embarked on a five-part series identifying the 'Enemies of Progress'.  Predictably, foremost amongst these enemies, and the subject of part one was, “The Parson”, followed, successively, by; “The Philanthropist”, “The Parliamentarian”, “The Indifferentist” and, “The Capitalist”. Part three best captured the distinctively anarchist aspect of Naewiger’s “socialism”; “Parliamentarians uphold the present system of society and are the enemies of progress. When the people recognise this they will soon depend upon themselves. They have been too long in leading strings; let them learn to walk”.

Unity is Strength
One of Naewiger’s first political acts, in 1890, was unionising his fellow tailors. Speaking on the platform at the Sailors Institute alongside the President of Hull Trades Council he reminded his audience that despite the skill demanded of a journeyman tailor the wages were as low as a labourer and unemployment was rife. Writing to the local paper, as Secretary of the local Amalgamated Society of Tailors, he pointed out, “the tailor still gets the same wage he received 20 or 30 years ago in spite of the greatly increased price of commodities, higher rents and dearer food”. Characteristically his ingenious libertarian solution wasn’t the legal imposition of a minimum wage or any other statist device; “The AST meet the public by issuing a label which is sewn on every coat by employees supplied to employers who pay fair wages and have sanitary workshops. It is up to trade unionists to look for this label when buying suits…It is up to Hull tailors to join the AST (meeting place Shop Assistants’ Institute, Pryme Street), and take their stand for bettering their conditions”. He never abandoned the struggle and was still actively recruiting to the union in the year he died.

Revolutionary Tributes

In 1891 Naewiger appeared for the first time on a widely advertised revolutionary platform, alongside anarchist comrades, George Cores, Andrew Hall and Gustav Smith. The venue was Hull’s Alhambra Palace, Porter Street and the occasion was a Commemoration of the Chicago Anarchists. Posters proclaimed; “WORKERS OF HULL! You are earnestly invited to commemorate in common with our fellow-workers in every part of the civilized world, the Murder, by Law of five Anarchist Labour Leaders in Chicago, on November 11th 1887 and also to protest against the life-long imprisonment of three others for having taken a leading part in the Eight Hours Agitation in 1886 and for having preached the coming Emancipation of the Workers and the Reign of Freedom.”

Conrad was already an active member of CLUB LIBERTY, organising open air meetings on Hull’s Drypool Green every Sunday morning. Every Sunday afternoon and evening, Conrad and co. hosted indoor lectures at Cobden Hall, School Street. One of his friends, Gustav Smith’s titles neatly encapsulated the group’s ideology, “Anarchism: Order Without Government”.

The local paper gave fair account of many of the club’s activities.  In March 1893, a correspondent writes:   'Under the auspices of the Hull Socialists, the Paris Commune Commemoration was held in CLUB LIBERTY, Princes Street, on Monday evening, a large gathering of people being present and all available standing room occupied. The audience was very interested in the speeches and the hall remained crowded until the close of the various addresses.  The chair was occupied by Mr G E Conrad Naewiger who was pleased to see such a large audience…the question of today was the same as the question of 1871 – the battle of Capital and Labour.'

Personal is Political

Naewiger married Rosina in 1887 and although the naming of their first-born, William Louis Conrad, was conventional in combining elements of his father’s and mother’s names with his own, the names of their next two offspring reflected a growing political awareness. Victor Hugo Naewiger was born in 1888 and his little brother Percy Bysshe Naewiger arrived the following year. Despite their radical names, neither son seems to have followed their father into radical politics. 

Fisherman’s Friend

Agitator, atheist, anarchist, angler! Conrad liked to fish and was secretary of the “Osborne Angling Association”.  He fished competitively and it paid off!  His efforts against 'Abercrombie Angling Club' won him a 'fruit stand', another contest yielded 'a tea set', while a third brought 'a pair of sheets'.

Conrad was also keen on cards and on occasions was able to combine comradeship with competitive whist.  Not long before he died he played cards for a team from the Socialist Club that defeated the “City Club” 274 to 248. 

Naewiger was also no musical slouch and was happy to entertain any of the organisations he supported with a turn on the piano or the banjo! In 1908 he was a prime mover in starting the “Hull Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar Club” and served as the Honorary Secretary. 

Mutual Aid

Naewiger didn’t just preach brotherhood he practiced as an energetic officer of the “Loyal United Order of Oddfellows”.  The LUOOF was one of many Friendly Societies created by working men to provide for themselves and their families primarily in times of hardship, ill-health and bereavement. By paying in regular small sums when in work, the members were enabled to claim support when unemployed.  Of course, there was also a strong social and emotional element and members who thus created sophisticated networks of mutual aid that, later in the twentieth century, became moribund once the State took over many of their more vital functions.  In 1908 though the LUOOF was flourishing when it elected Brother Naewiger as its new Grand Master (illustrated above wearing ceremonial sash).

Class War 

In 1893, just as socialist ideas were taking off, Hull shipowners began a systematic campaign to import thousands of blacklegs to break the docker’s unions. The government sent soldiers and two gunboats, Hearty and Firefly, to protect scabs who were brought in from all over England. A real battle ensued with warehouses fired and pickets attacked by troops. 

Naewiger reported on the strike for FREEDOM:  'The old town of Hull has been awakened into activity by a dispute of gigantic proportions between capital and labour…the scum of the earth had been gathered together by the clever capitalist to outwit honest labour…where once were quiet citizens, now soldiers with drawn swords, policemen with batons in their hands, riot, disturbance, fights, stone-throwing can be seen.'   He was convinced that the stark nature of the dispute had radical effects;  'Many have been converted to Revolutionary Socialism who have up to now been halting between Revolutionary v. Constitutional methods.'  Naewiger reported that, 'One unionist was shot in the thigh by a “free labourer”…The gunsmiths of Hull have been doing a roaring trade; one shop in particular having sold out the whole stock two or three times…This should be a lesson to all workers. If the police allow “free labourers” to carry revolvers the workers should also have some'!

Naewiger and his comrades did all they could to push the class war; 'Thousands of FREEDOMS, COMMONWEALS and tracts have been distributed amongst the strikers. Lectures have been given to the dockers by members of CLUB LIBERTY and our banners ( motto; “IS LIBERTY WORTH FIGHTING FOR?”) have done good service at all meetings and demonstrations….The workers are learning a bitter lesson.'  Indeed they were and after seven weeks the strike ended in their abject defeat.

Bitter Lessons

The role of CLUB LIBERTY hadn’t escaped the attention of the authorities who used every trick in the licensing book to hound the club out of existence.  Meanwhile, far from increasing militancy, after the strike the workers turned towards more constitutional methods and compromise.  As the decade advanced and Britain drifted towards a second Boer War an outbreak of jingoism erupted, further undermining Hull’s working class solidarity.  A prolonged rash of angry letters appeared in the Hull Daily Mail questioning the loyalty of the city’s German residents and in the years immediately before and after 1900 socialism in Hull collapsed.

As a socialist, Naewiger opposed Britain’s role in the Boer War but as Secretary of the Osborne Angling Club he appeared to support it!  The problem arose after the Daily Mail launched a fund to 'Support Our War Effort' and other club members were keen to collect together a donation.  Some anarchists would have resigned but it was typical of Conrad that maintaining his friendship with fellow anglers trumped his personal political philosophy.  As a consequence, on 5th December 1899 he saw his name (alongside that of OAA) published in the newspaper recognising an 11s donation to the Mail’s War Fund.

Shoots of Recovery?

There were hopes for renewed activism in November 1902 when a well publicised gathering decided, 'to work locally along the lines of pure Socialism independently of either of the established parties.'  Nevertheless, evidence of decline over the previous decade was captured by press reports of the 1903 May Day; 'Those present at the May Day Labour meeting at St George’s Hall, yesterday could not help contrasting it with the large crowds which used to surround half-a-dozen platforms from each of which there was a flood of oratory in the palmy days of the trades union movement in Hull.'

It wasn’t until 1906 that Naewiger and comrades effectively restored revolutionary politics to Hull and then under an avowedly Marxist and statist banner. As the 8th October Hull Daily Mail reported: 'Last night the Social Democratic Federation held their first indoor meeting at the Friendly Societies Hall, Albion Street…the lecturer for the evening Mr E G Conrad Naewiger, spoke on the subject of Socialism'.  Conrad had lost none of his political commitment but, pragmatically and emotionally, preferred to campaign alongside local militants than stand out, alone, for undiluted anarchism. Neither had he forgotten his experience of the 1893 dispute. When troops fired on Belfast strikers he assured his SDF audience, 'The soldiers were taken to Belfast not to protect the interests of the working classes but to protect the interests of the capitalist class…as soon as they (the workers) stood on the corn of the employer he was down on them at once' and reminded his comrades that, 'Police batoned onlookers during the Hull dock strike.'

Conrad’s stirring critiques of capitalism put iron into the soul of comrades and one regular attender of his weekly SDF meetings even adopted Conrad’s 1893 speculation about workers carrying firearms. According to the 6th November 1906 Hull Daily Mail:  'On the evening of 25 October, Elsie Batty, a typist, created a sensation at a Socialist (SDF) meeting in Hull…she was one of an audience listening to a lecture and occupied a seat near the door. Soon after proceedings began she left the hall and immediately afterwards a shot was heard. A member of the Federation ran out and found Miss Elsie Batty in the corridor with a revolver lying beside her. She was bleeding from the right temple.' Subsequently accused of attempted suicide Elsie informed Police Constable Cherry, 'I have carried the revolver for a long time as I like to carry one. They are my Socialist views.'

Friends and Enemies

Elsie’s interpretation of socialism wasn’t Conrad’s only concern. The SDF’s own version of socialism was tainted by the peculiarly nationalistic opinions of their founder and leader, Henry Mayers Hyndman. Hyndman insisted that Britain should rule the waves and demanded ever bigger battleships and, in February 1908 wrote, “Germany is in an aggressive mood…When Germany is ready she will strike.” Such xenophobia was hardly likely to endear Conrad to party comrades never mind the general public and so during the course of 1906-7 the “Naewiger” family gradually transformed itself into the “Navier” family.

Conrad continued to campaign for socialism but as the decade advanced nationalism increased. When Zeppelins raided Hull on the night of 6th June 1915 anti-German demonstrations broke out throughout Hull and continued for three days before police restored order. Anything German was considered a fair target by the mob. Four German-owned shops on Hessle Road and a pork butcher on Charles Street were attacked by angry crowds of up to 700 people. Another pork butcher at 22 Princes Avenue was attacked several times. Eventually £258,000 was paid out in compensation but the long-term social damage was more significant. Hull’s German community never recovered its pre-war importance and Conrad’s heart was broken. Two months later, on Monday 16th August 1915, he died, aged just 54, in Hull Workhouse.

In the midst of war, Conrad’s Naewiger’s funeral brought together many otherwise disparate elements of the Hull community. The local paper recorded that, “The coffin was covered with wreaths, prominent amongst them one from the members of the Socialist Club, composed of red blooms, with the inscription, Con, we shall miss you. To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

Christopher Draper (September 2016)