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” 

Sheffield Anarchist on Trial

by Christopher Draper

“At the Yorkshire Winter Assize, before Mr Justice Grantham, Robert Sykes Bingham, 40 years of age, provision merchant, a respectably-dressed and intelligent looking man, was indicted for having at Sheffield, on December 22, 1889, encouraged and persuaded divers persons to murder one James M’Loughlin.”

Nobbling the Nobsticks

BINGHAM was an anarchist whilst M’Loughlin, his alleged target, was a 'nobstick', the local term for a blackleg. Sheffield had a tradition of deterring blacklegging by violent direct action, frequently involving the use of explosives. Although 1889 was two decades since the end of the 'Sheffield Outrages' the authorities were determined to prevent a resurgence of militant unionism.

Robert’s Story

Born in 1849, Robert Bingham’s birthplace of Norton was still very rural although just five miles south-east of the smoke blackened centre of Sheffield. Small scale workshops had sprung up in the area, powered by the rivers and streams flowing down from the Peak District and this unique blend of small-scale workshops amidst sublime natural beauty persuaded John Ruskin to back a cooperative scheme enabling skilled craftsmen to continue to work the land.

Established in 1877, Ruskin’s 'St George’s Farm' colony attracted practical socialists. Although living nearby, the youthful Robert Sykes Bingham was initially more impressed by the republican ideas of the radical Liberal MP, Charles Dilkes.  In 1871, Bingham organised Dilkes’ security for a huge public meeting held at Leeds’ Victoria Hall.  When determined royalists tried to disrupt and wreck the meeting, in the words of the Sheffield Independent, 'He called on the Stewards to follow him into the crowd but they did not. He went alone. He was seriously manhandled.'  It was Robert Bingham’s baptism of fire.

No Hammer or Sickle

As a scythemaker, Robert’s dad was exactly the sort of skilled craft worker that Ruskin hoped to attract to his 'Guild of St George' social reform movement but Ruskin’s ideas proved more attractive to Robert and his siblings for both his brother John and sister Louisa, also became anarchists. Although all three shared advanced social ideas none was attracted to either making or wielding scythes, and all three settled for retailing groceries.

Robert was most entrepreneurial and at various times all three worked together at branches of a chain of grocery stores that he owned and managed.  Of course it wasn’t all plain sailing and in 1873 Robert was in trouble with the law and fined £10 and costs for selling adulterated lard. In 1876 he was back in court and forced to hand over another tenner, this time in damages to labourer William Ollerenshaw whom he’d carelessly run over in his horse drawn delivery cart.

In 1881 Robert’s grocery empire was in dire financial straits and he was pursued by creditors. Fortunately he found suitable backers, continued in business and remained a grocer for the rest of his life.

The Grocer and the Carpenter

Edward Carpenter, the pioneering gay libertarian, who lived nearby was a friend of Robert’s.  In 1885, the pair campaigned together for an independent radical candidate, Mervyn Hawkes, who stood for Irish Home Rule, free education and “root and branch land reform”.

The following year the nucleus of this group started the 'Sheffield Socialist Club' with a libertarian manifesto composed by Carpenter but with Robert as one of the original signatories. John and Louisa, by then married to a drunken bully named George Usher, joined soon after. 

Café Society

To promote the cause, Bingham and his comrades persuaded William Morris to visit Sheffield and deliver two lectures in the Secularist Hall, on Sunday 28th February 1886. Morris was pleased with the result though the Sheffield comrades resolved to remain independent and not affiliate to Morris’ 'Socialist League'. In March 1887 club members invited Kropotkin to Sheffield and he lectured, “to a considerable audience, which consisted mainly of the working classes”. 

Initially Robert and his chums met at the Wentworth Café in Holly Street and hired halls for public meetings but with Carpenter’s backing they were able to acquire their own spacious premises, the old debtors’ jail in Scotland Street.  They created a 'Commonwealth Café' on the ground floor and a meeting hall on the floor above.

Carpenter fondly recalled these early SSC years:
'We organized lectures, addresses, pamphlets, with a street-corner propaganda which soon brought us in amusing and exciting incidents in the way of wrangles with the police and the town-crowds… A dozen or twenty at most formed the moving and active element of our society - though its membership may have been a hundred or more; and these disposed themselves to their various functions.  Mrs. Usher, large-bosomed and large-hearted, would move on the outskirts of our open-air meetings, armed with a bundle of literature.  She was an excellent saleswoman and few could resist her hearty appeal "Buy this pamphlet, love, it will do you good!"  Even in the streets or the tramcars the most solemn and substantial old gentlemen fell a prey to her.  Her brothers, the two Binghams, were among our two speakers, and both of them pretty effective, the one in a logical, the other (Robert) in a more oratorical way.  They were provision merchants in the town; and their business suffered at first, but afterwards gained, by the connection.'

Anarchy in the Air

In those halcyon days the Sheffield comrades marched happily together towards common goals but as the decade advanced political paths began to diverge. As late as the summer of 1889 Robert’s own politics were still fluid, as fellow club member, George Hukin frustratedly observed “(Robert) first of all goes in strong on one thing – say the eight hour day – and just when you think the meeting is going to settle about what’s to be done, he suddenly remembers that after all the 8 hours is only a palliative and it’s doubtful whether it’s worth our while to bother about it.” 

Everywhere miltant unionism was advancing, the successful strike action of the London gas-workers was rapidly followed by that of the dockers, lifting the spirit and ambition of the whole working class. In June 1889 it was the turn of the Leeds gas-workers.  When Leeds Council brought in scabs and the military to break the strike, workers fought back attacking both blacklegs and local worthies.

Whilst Carpenter’s closest confidants were chastened by the workers’ militancy, Robert was exhilarated.  All three Binghams, Robert, John and Louisa, along with the majority of club members were moving ever closer to anarchism. As propaganda activities intensified, more strident speakers were invited.  In November 1889 the fiery London anarchist Charles Mowbray came to Sheffield but, as Commonweal reported, William Morris was also invited.

'Comrade Mowbray addressed large meetings on Saturday (16th Nov.) at Penistone Street, West Bar, Gower Street, the Monolith, assisted by Bulas, Bingham, Carpenter and Sketchley.  Mowbray also addressed a meeting at the Hall of Science. At the monolith a police inspector wanted his name and address.  On Sunday evening we had a tea and social meeting, after which Mowbray lectured on “Revolution and Reform”.  On Monday a meeting was held at Gower Street of the workmen at Cammel’s Ironworks and also at the Monolith, Fargate.  No police interruption. At 8pm William Morris lectured to a good audience at the Cambridge Hall.  Commonweal sold out; 7s worth of literature; good collections.'

A Comrade in Need

When Fred Charles, an unemployed anarchist arrived in Sheffield in the autumn of 1889 Robert offered him a clerking job in one of his grocery shops. Charles enthusiastically joined Bingham’s band of militants and submitted this ominously revealing report to December’s Commonweal: 'Things are moving splendidly in this district. In addition to several meetings held during the week we have good meetings on Sunday – at the Monolith in the morning, Gower Street in the afternoon and the Pump, Westbar, at night. This morning a reporter was specially sent down to report our speeches to the Watch Committee of the Corporation and several rumours are about of various impending prosecutions by the police authorities…'

A speech about a local strike recently delivered at the Monolith by Robert received particularly close attention.  Twenty-eight men had downed tools at 'John Brown and Company’s' Sheffield works and the management replaced them with blacklegs.  The strikers responded by resurrecting Sheffield’s traditional treatment of “nobsticks” and the scabs complained to the police of being beaten up.   The reporter Fred Charles mentioned claimed Bingham had incited the strikers’ violence by his incendiary speech.

Confounding the Constabulary

The following February the reporter’s notes were read out in court and there was no disputing their accuracy;
'There is a little strike going on at Brown’s. These men are making a very just fight…The men who prevent them from winning, who are making the fight a difficult and unequal fight are the “scabs”…They are traitors to the cause . Men who did this sort of thing in war…would be taken and shot…it is not murder, it is killing a traitor.'

Unfortunately for the authorities, the reporter fingered the wrong Bingham brother and the charges against John were formally dismissed after witnesses established that John Bingham did not make the claimed speech nor had he ever delivered any public speech at the Monolith! 

The prosecutors were unabashed. It was conceded that, unlike his brother, Robert Sykes Bingham did regularly speak at the Monolith so the authorities simply substituted his name on an identical charge sheet and proceeded with the prosecution.  The judge gave the jury no doubt that it was their duty to convict, 'Mr Justice Grantham in summing up characterised the speech as strong, clear and positive incentive to murder, observing that if it was not so he did not understand the English language.'  The jury defied the judge and declared Robert, 'Not Guilty!'

1891 –the Year of Living Dangerously

Sheffield was fast gaining a reputation for anarchist militancy and Robert Bingham was encouraged rather than quieted by his failed prosecution. On the 15th of November 1890 William Morris, utterly frustrated by the absurd revolutionary posturing of the anarchist-communist faction, abandoned the Socialist League, warning, 'Men absorbed in a movement are apt to surround themselves with a kind of artificial atmosphere which distorts the proportions of things outside, and prevents them from seeing what is really going on' but Robert Bingham and his anarchist comrades were in no mood to listen.

There had long been ideological tension between Sheffield comrades but the final straw arrived just before Morris’s announcement in the form of roving Irish adventurer and insurrectionary anarchist, Doctor John O’Dwyer Creaghe.  Although Creaghe had only landed in London on 15th October, en voyage from the River Plate, he was immediately installed in the Sheffield anarchist group. Creaghe’s name, alongside Robert Bingham, appears on printed handbills advertising a public commemoration of the Chicago Martyrs held at Hallamshire Hall on 11th November 1890.  His impact on Bingham and Sheffield was immediate. 

By the end of January 1891, exhorted by Creaghe, Robert Bingham’s anarchist faction boycotted their old clubrooms, denounced their former socialist comrades and started their own anarchist club at Creaghe’s Westbar premises. They held their fiery propaganda meetings at the Monolith beneath a banner declaring, 'NO GOD, NO MASTER!'. 

Prior to Creaghe’s arrival, Bingham’s brand of miltant anarchism resonated with local trade union direct action tradition and sustained practical comradely cooperation with fellow Sheffield socialists. Robert, along with his brother and sister, was well known and respected in Yorkshire – which explains why he was acquitted by a jury despite being condemned by a judge. Under the incendiary influence of Creaghe all that went up in smoke.  In 1891 Creaghe initiated a series of campaigns that although nominally anarchist demonstrated contempt for the everyday opinions and underlying political consciousness of local workers

Aided by two other anarchist incomers, Auguste Coulon and Cyril Bell, in 1891 Creaghe published eight editions of 'The Sheffield Anarchist' .  A propaganda sheet that makes 'Class War'  appear moderate and sensible.  Where Bingham’s incitement was focussed, purposeful and rooted in local conditions, Creaghe’s propaganda was sweeping, arrogant and ultimately authoritarian.  Unfortunately Bingham and his otherwise sensible comrades were swept along by Creaghe’s sincere but inappropriate, devil-may-care attitude and ineluctably drawn into an illegalist political net.

Within a year Creaghe was drummed out of town by local workers who in August 1891 physically attacked and besieged the Anarchist Club.  The incumbents embarrassingly relied on police protection to save them from a working class mob who had smashed every single window in the building. 

Creaghe returned to Argentina leaving Bingham to lick his wounds and repair relationships with local workers but Fred Charles was not so lucky. Encouraged by Coulon, now proved to have been a police spy and agent provocateur, he’d been drawn into a bomb plot and jailed for ten years.  My own research leads me to conclude that Cyril Bell was also a state agent who curiously also departed for Argentina before the end of 1891. 

Voice in the Wilderness

From 1885 until 1891 the British anarchist movement had developed and grown until hubris caused anarchist-communists like Robert Bingham to promote tactics devised by the State and served up by agents like Coulon and Bell.  After 1891 British workers distrusted anarchists and direct action and backed labourism and electioneering.

Robert’s immediate task was to liberate Fred Charles and his fellow 'conspirators' from jail.  He energetically campaigned in Walsall and other Midland and Northern towns on behalf of the imprisoned anarchists but despite gaining widespread support from the labour movement the authorities were unmoved.  Shamefully, Robert received little support from local Marxists who told the local paper:  'In our judgement the Walsall prisoners had been properly convicted and we the Sheffield branch of the Social Democratic Federation, have no sympathy with the conduct of the prisoners'!

Fred Charles remained inside for 7½ years before his eventual release.  When Robert travelled down to Portland Prison, Dorset in November 1894 to visit Fred, the authorities refused him admission. 

Bingham doggedly continued to argue for anarchism and was grudgingly recognised by the local press as 'Mr Anarchist Bingham'.  When anarchist journalist David Nicoll was released from prison, Robert offered him a home in Sheffield.  Nicoll was incarcerated for accusing the police of framing the 'Walsall Conspirators' and revealing Coulon’s role in the affair.  With Robert’s support David Nicoll was enabled to publish several invaluable anarchist pamphlets during the three years he lived in Sheffield.

Let them Eat Bacon!

As an anarchist grocer, Robert attracted mocking comments from critics who thought anarchists should only survive in the impoverished cracks and crevices of society.  In 1894, a correspondent to the Sheffield Daily Telegraph ridiculed Robert’s anarchist-communism by suggesting, “Mr Bingham, by way of example, begin the sharing-out system by distributing his stock of bacon, hams and other provisions among his comrades.”  The sarcasm was unwarranted as Robert showed when police prosecuted the manager of the Mexborough branch of his grocery chain after he absconded with money out of the till.   Apprehended by Sergeant Forman, the prisoner, who expressed his sorrow for the offence, said, “I have been horse racing and mixing up in bad company”…  As the prisoner admitted his guilt, Mr Bingham did not wish to press the case.”

Pillar of the Community

Robert’s last libertarian campaign came in 1898 when he organised the UK speaking tour of the American libertarian, William Francis Barnard. Reporting on Barnard’s Bradford engagement, at Laycock’s Coffee House Lecture Hall, the anarchist journal Freedom observed that, 'his lecture on Government proved that government per se is exploitation'.  Enquirers were directed to Robert’s shop premises at Lady’s Bridge Buildings, Wicker, Sheffield.

Anarchism in England and Sheffield was by then but a pale shadow of its former self. Fred Charles and David Nicoll had returned to London and Creaghe’s adventurism had alienated Edward Carpenter who’d shifted into the state socialist camp and started a new Sheffield Socialist Club free from of anarchist taint. 

Robert Bingham eschewed the political manoeuvrings of the Sheffield Labourites and instead worked with the 'Young Liberals'.  When Robert died in July 1934 he was granted an accolade given to few other English anarchists, a lengthy positive obituary in his local newspaper, of which this is but an extract;
“The death has occurred of Mr Robert Sykes Bingham, known as the father of the Sheffield provision trade, also known as an ardent enthusiastic and determined political worker.
In his early days he experienced a great deal of the rough and tumble of politics. He regularly stood near the Monolith in Town Hall Square and talked advanced views to the crowds until the Monolith actually became to be known as Bingham’s Monolith…
He was a friend of many prominent people including William Morris, the poet and Prince Kropotkin, the Russian social worker (sic)…”

Christopher Draper – November 2016

(The eleventh in a monthly series of “Northern Anarchist Lives.”)

Review of Anarchist Voices by Les May

Les May
THE current issue of Anarchist Voices was published last Summer,
and the review below was published on the 16th, September 2015.
In the light of recent violent events at Freedom Press we believe it is
worth re-reading.  Particularly in view of the light Harriet Ward sheds
on the views of Colin Ward's idea of what it means to be an anarchist.

IN his forward to the 1993 reprint of  George Sturt's The Wheelright's Shop E.P. Thompson wrote that the theme of his final contribution to the Socialist League's journal Commonweal in 1889 was unlikely to commend itself to 'the excitable anarchists who were then taking over the Socialist League'.

At different times Sturt referred to himself as a 'Revolutionary Socialist', an 'Anarchist' and a 'Communist'.  He earned his living as the owner of a wheelrights workshop employing eight skilled tradesmen and apprentices.  Such is the gulf between political dreams and the daily reality of earning a living.

Few of the essays in the Summer/Autumn 2015 Anarchist Voices are likely to commend themselves to the more 'excitable' brand of anarchist.   With a sub-title of 'A Journal of Evolutionary Anarchism' this is hardly a surprise.

Most of the eight essays are by people who knew Colin Ward or have written about his ideas, so together they form a memoir of Ward who died at the age of 85 in 2010.

Harriet, Colin's wife, paints a picture of someone completely lacking in affectation and whose chosen occupation meant he had to work very hard to make a living.  No wonder her piece is titled 'Colin Ward:  A Resourceful Man'.  As their visit to Orkney was some forty years ago I'll forgive her saying that the Neolithic settlement at Skara Brae was Pictish.

A long article by David Goodway discusses some of the sources which influenced Ward's thinking and includes extracts from some of them and from Ward's own writings.  One of these dealing with the rejection of 'perfectionism, utopian fantasy, conspiratorial romanticism and revolutionary optimism' demonstrates why Ward's ideas will find a such a warm home amongst less excitable anarchists.

Jonathan Simcock's editorial notes that many people would consider anarchist ideas 'extreme, foolish, impractical and ill thought out'.  So how do you get people to listen?  Christopher Draper essay offers one possible solution to this problem and starts from a recognition that most people are not interested in politics and are likely to be put off by an 'in your face' approach. 

'The Mud Girls' is a fascinating essay by Larry Gambone about a group  of Canadian women who construct buildings and walls from 'cob', an old but entirely practical technique of mixing subsoil, straw or other fibrous organic material and water, which is then laid in courses on a high foundation wall. Fascinating it may be but it also points to some of the limitations of Ward's ideas as I shall argue later.

At this point I had better come clean and explain that I get a mention in one of the pieces because the author used an example from my own experience to draw attention to questions about some of Ward's assumptions.  Entitled 'Dig where we stand' the essay by Brian Bamford is a critique rather than outright criticism of Ward's ideas though it does take a swipe at 'excitable' anarchists!

His examples include a ban on growing raspberries on allotments or 'the billy goat problem' and are unexciting, even mundane.  He doesn't use buzz  words like collective or empowerment, but the questions he raises are nonetheless very pertinent to the question of how Ward's ideas work in practice.

By this time I was starting to mildly sympathise with the 'excitable' anarchists and their complaint of Ward's ideas 'reeking of allotments' especially when I spotted the illustrations for the late Rory Bowskill's article 'All in the mind'.  As in 'Dig where we stand' this includes a deceptively simple question 'Can you imagine and describe what you would like to see replace the nation state?'.

And that is the problem.  Having read these essays I could not discern the 'shape', or what birdwatchers would call the 'jizz', of the Wardian world.  I can picture a world full of argumentative syndicalists and a brutish individualist world, but a comprehensive understanding of the Wardian world eludes me.  Is it really just about allotments and womens' collectives?  Are we back in the world of George Sturt's wheelwrights shop?

How do Ward's ideas scale?  What would a Wardian NHS be like (please don't refer me to 'The Peckham Experiment'), a Wardian railway system or a Wardian response to global warming?

I look forward to reviewing a collection of essays attempting to answer questions like these.  If you cannot imagine it you cannot live it.

__________________________

ANARCHIST VOICES:

For 4 issues £8.00 regular, £5.00 concession.  USA $20. Send cash or UK
cheques payable to :

J. P. Simcock,

47 High Street, Belper,

Derby DE56 1GF.

Total Liberty & Anarchist Voices, back issues available at 50p plus
postage & packing.

Herbert Stockton’s Strangeways

(Northern Anarchist Lives – 6)

Christopher Draper

HERBERT Stockton was one of Victorian Manchester’s most effective preachers and Anarchy was his religion. After converting his sister and brothers to what he called the 'One true faith' all four teenagers led local Salvationists and constabulary a merry dance. Perhaps his dad was inadvertently to blame for he was an embittered old soldier employed as a prison warder at Strangeways where, in 1893, Bert was incarcerated as a reward for his evangelism.  Although Bert’s name occasionally crops up in the biographies of others, until now his fascinating life story has remained untold. 

Bert’s dad, William Stockton (1839-1914) served for seven years on St Helena as a Sapper with the Royal Engineers until, 'He received a severe injury to his hand while employed on the Public Works on the 11^th February 1867.  Having been accidentally caught in the machinery of a crane, three of the fingers of his right hand were permanently injured.'  An army Court of Inquiry concluded he was no longer fit for service and awarded him a non-residential 'Chelsea Pension'.  Although he’d laboured as a bricklayer with the Engineers, William was forced through invalidity to accept security work, initially as a prison warder and subsequently as a 'safe deposit attendant'.  

In 1869, William met Liverpool-born Julia Farrar and the pair set up house together at 14 Armitage Street in the Ardwick district of Manchester where Bert was born on 15^th July 1870.  Eleanor arrived the following year with Ernest (25.5.1874) and William (19.5.1875) completing the family. The children attended Armitage Street School before settling into careers: Herbert, mechanic; Eleanor, tailoress; Ernest, engraver and William, carver-gilder. Aged eighteen Herbert was the first to rebel and was soon assisting seasoned anarchist William Bailie, in June 1889, establish a new speaking station at Harpurhey.  Accompanied by Bailie and Alf Barton, Herbert soon made a name for himself.  At the beginning of August Commonweal newspaper presciently observed, 'Stockton has only lately begun speaking but promises to develop into a good speaker.'

Over the summer of 1889 Bert worked with Manchester comrades in “assisting the cap makers – men, women and girls – to form a union which is very much needed in this industry, where sweating is the order of the day.” In the autumn, the Manchester group supported strikers at “Berry’s Blacking Works.” Bert and his Socialist League (SL) comrades also attended the “Working Men’s Educational Club” at 122 Corporation Street where members assembled every Tuesday at 8pm.  'The branch entertained Kropotkin at the club on November 7^th, when a most enjoyable evening was passed.'  Three weeks later, 'William Morris lectured for the branch on the Class Struggle. The lecture was well received; brisk discussion followed; lecturer replied amid enthusiastic applause.'

At the end of 1889 the lease expired on the old clubrooms but in February 1890 Bert and his mates announced ambitious plans:

'Suitable premises have now been secured for the new Socialist Club.  It is our aim to make it a centre for Socialist propaganda in Lancashire.  A library, reading, recreation and refreshment rooms will be some of its attractions.  Aid is invited from friends who can assist either with fittings, furniture, books or funds. The Club, 60 Grosvenor Street, All Saints, is now open for members every evening. Commonweal and other literature is on sale.' 

The following month, “on Monday 31^st March Edward Carpenter lectured at the Club on the Present and Future Society”, but outdoor propaganda wasn’t forgotten.  Every Sunday the branch lectured on libertarian themes at Phillips Park gates at 11am and in Stevenson Square at 3pm and Herbert usually spoke at each venue. 

On Sunday June 15^th, Herbert Stockton was a key speaker at 'a large and most enthusiastic meeting' in Stevenson Square organised by the Branch 'to protest against the Freedom of the City being conferred on H M Stanley at which the following resolution was unanimously passed:'

'That we, citizens of Manchester, in mass meeting assembled, recognising that H M Stanley’s invasion of Central Africa has brought death and destruction upon the natives and that the object of his mission is to introduce into those regions the system of commercialism which means the economic slavery of the workers of this country, the only benefit of which will be to the speculating capitalists who can no longer make large profits out of British labour hereby indignantly protest against the action of the City Council in offering the freedom of our city and paying honour at our expense to this modern hero of Christianity and Commercialism whose civilising agents have been fire and murder, the elephant-rifle and the gallows…The meeting terminated by singing the Marseillaise and giving three hearty cheers for the Social Revolution and three groans for Stanley.'

This pattern of street corner lectures, occasional large scale events and contact with anarchists both local and national nurtured Bert’s political development.  Branch morale dipped a bit when William Baillie emigrated to America in the Spring of 1891 but Herbert responded positively, expanding his own contribution and in May 1891 crossing the Pennines to lecture for Leeds SL. Everyone’s spirits were lifted on August Bank Holiday Monday when SL members from all across the Midlands and North 'met at Matlock for an outing and social intercourse… No better institution can exist than one or two of these social gatherings for putting fresh life and go into the breast of any daunted propagandist…We climbed, sang and boated till tea,.. merriment being at the climax all through.” The Branch also opened a new social centre, 'the International Club, 25 Bury Road, Strangeways, open every evening'. 

By that time the national Socialist League, Stockton’s Manchester Branch and Bert himself were all converts to the anarchist cause with scant affection for state-socialism. Before the end of the 1891 Bert and his comrades called themselves 'The Manchester Anarchist Group (MAG)'  and regular reports of their activities appeared in the Anarchist-Communist newspaper Freedom. 

When a bunch of anarchists were lured into the Walsall bomb plot by a police agent in 1892 Bert was amongst their most active supporters.  A Handsworth insurance agent, Joseph Cavargua wrongly arrested as a suspect was declared guilty by the press merely on the mistaken basis that “he was a member of Manchester Anarchist Club”.  On Sunday 17^th April 1892, Herbert spoke out alongside David Nicoll, John Bingham and Alf Barton at a huge Walsall defence meeting in Stevenson Square but to no avail.
In 1893, Stockton had converted all his siblings to anarchism and with missionary zeal Bert carried the torch into the heartlands of opponents, lecturing Salford’s Marxist SDF on February 17^th on, “Why I am an Anarchist” and on April 8^th debating with a Temperance Reformer on 'Marriage'.  In June, young William Stockton followed his older brother’s lead with an outdoor lecture in Manchester on, “The Fallacy of Political Methods.”  But, encouraged by the success of their Walsall sting and the subsequent imprisonment of Commonweal editor David Nicoll, police began to crack down on the Manchester anarchists but first there was an opportunity for fun. 

In August 1893 anarchists from Manchester, Sheffield, Derbyshire and Leicester all travelled to Monsal Dale to enjoy fellowship, fresh air and the free exchange of political ideas:

'We roamed through splendid mountain and river scenery and forming in a group close to a waterfall, we sang revolutionary songs amidst the splashing of the water. The effect was enough to arouse the enthusiasm of all hearers. Thus without government, policemen or social democratic would-be political despots everything passed off harmoniously.  There being no authority we went where we liked and rambled in groups along the river banks till we came to some boards which said on them, Trespassers Will be Prosecuted. We held a discussion as to the meaning of the words and finally decided that they were relics of the Antedeluvian period and thought it best to knock the boards down and throw them into the river.”  After afternoon tea the comrades gathered for an al fresco conference “under the hill” where a fund was started to provide for Nicoll on his release, arrangements were agreed to “get the released Chicago Anarchists over here and to hold a big demonstration in the North…We then proceeded to the station and liberally posted it all over with little notices, such as Anarchy no Master; Revolution not Reform; Read COMMONWEAL; Read FREEDOM; etc. Then we went home after giving our comrades a hearty cheer for Anarchy and the Social Revolution.' 

On Sunday October 1^st, the arrests started as soon as the anarchists gathered at Ardwick Green and Bert’s brother, Ernest Stockton was amongst the four anarchists fined 21s each the following day.  Barton also had to pay for a replacement umbrella for Inspector Caminada after the copper wrecked the original in assaulting him!  Despite many more arrests the anarchists’ free speech campaign was maintained into the new year and the umbrella incident exploited for comedic purposes.  

To the tune of “Monte Carlo” the anarchists composed a twelve verse ditty entitled, “The Scamp Who Broke the Gamp at Ardwick Green, O

'Caminada showed his valour by knocking people down,

And using his gamp well,

Good citizens to fell,

He collared all the Anarchists and marched them through the town,

And put them in the Fairfield station cell.' 

'And he walks along the street with an independent air,

The people all declare,

He is a scoundrel rare,

His head is Wood,

And is no good,

Except to provide the pigs with food,

The scamp who broke his gamp at Ardwick Green, O.' 

Bert’s sister, Eleanor participated in the 1893 campaign and was arrested. Bert was arrested twice at Ardwick Green, on Sunday 29^th October and again on Sunday 12^th November. The first time he paid the 40s fine but the comrades couldn’t afford to keep paying out so on the second occasion Bert spent a month in Strangeways Prison where his dad was a warder.  The authorities won the war of attrition and diverted the anarchists elsewhere although they gained support from a few independent-minded individuals.   Dr Sinclair, a member of Manchester City Council, denounced the Watch Committee’s prejudice:

'The Anarchists seemed to have been treated more as Scuttlers than what they really were – a party of misguided young men airing their opinions.'

Fellow Councillor Canon Nunn defended prejudice and added his own bizarre recommendation that Manchester Anarchists 'substitute cricket or football for firing pistols at a target in a Deansgate slum'.  Bert exposed this calumny with a letter in the Manchester Advertiser. 

A few grassroots socialists supported MAG, but at the February Independent Labour Party National Conference in Manchester, 'several motions were submitted declaring in effect that the party had no sympathy with the Anarchists.'  Labour was already on the electoral march and desperate for respectability.  In March 1894 Ernest lectured at Walsall in support of the continuing campaign and Bert’s activism continued.  His weekly meetings at Philip’s Park and New Cross generally attracted audiences of 500 to 800, but his attention was temporarily distracted by 22 year-old, Salford born, Emily Bradney, who in the summer, he married at Chorlton register office. Eleanor, Ernest and William weren’t far behind in getting married, with Nellie teaming up with Alf Barton and Ernie keeping his relationship secret. 

In July 1894, Bert was involved in a deadly 'molehunt' with David Nicoll denouncing, in print, the prominent anarchist Henry Benjamin Samuels as a police spy.  Nicoll’s accusations met with a conspiracy of silence. Herbert Stockton’s efforts to convene a formal anarchist tribunal were also rebuffed.  Bert didn’t press the point and rather left Nicoll hanging out to dry.  It wasn’t Bert’s finest hour but it didn’t shake his commitment to the cause and besides his regular Manchester lectures in 1896 he travelled to Liverpool where he delivered 'interesting lectures to large and attentive audiences, with very good results'.  By then Herbert was recognised by the movement as a popular speaker who could draw in large audiences, and towards the end of 1896 he was lured down to London where he immediately made a distinctive contribution to the November, 'Chicago Martyrs Commemoration'; “Men of science, fame and workers have already spoken but I am going to speak on behalf of the nobodies…”  

Word soon spread that Bert was in town and when the Stratford Grove anarchists appealed in the pages of FREEDOM for “some help with speakers” they specified – 'if possible (John) Turner or (Herbert) Stockton'.  'On Monday February 5^th (1897) Comrade Herbert Stockton delivered a lecture on Anarchism v. Commercialism' at Christchurch Hall, Spitalfields which defined his brand of anarchy.  Bert claimed Individualist Anarchism, Social Democracy and Capitalism amounted to the same thing – “based on making people work and be good through material reward – Anarchist Communism alone striving for a system of society where man would act well to his fellows for the pleasure he would derive by it and he would work through his being interested in it.' 

In April, Bert and Anarchist-Communist comrades organised a 'Commemoration of the 26^th Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Commune of Paris' that, for once, included a great deal of constructive debate. Charles Quin emphasised that, 'The Communards were the first body of Workingmen to fight against governmentalism and the first who were not merely nationalist. It was not possible for any government to bamboozle all the people all the time… Government was but the shadow of their own fears thrown upon the mist of ignorance.” “Touzeau Parris said that some very striking reasons had been given for the failure of the Commune. One was that the country people did not understand what the Parisians were about. That might not be the trouble in England…but even here in London they must not forget that…the mass of the people were not with them…till the mass of the people knew what they were going in for revolt would only bring trouble and perhaps disgrace.'  'Herbert Stockton, while agreeing in the main with Touzeau Parris, deprecated the Social Democratic idea that they must not do anything till they were all in line and got the word to move. When men had got the spirit of revolt within them they could not wait for the millions of lazy devils behind but would act as their nature dictated.' 

In November, Bert chaired the November Chicago Commemoration but it produced more heat than light.  'Comrade Leggatt vowed eternal war against the present system of Society' whilst Frank Kitz reminded the audience 'how much better it would be if the Highlanders of Danghai instead of climbing the heights of the frontier of India and murdering men with whom they had no quarrel were to make a stand for their own homes in the hills of Scotland.'  French revolutionary, Georges Etievant, newly arrived after five years imprisonment for supplying explosives to Ravachol, then added his own pearls of insurrectionary encouragement (two months later he returned to France, stabbed 2 policemen, shot another and was imprisoned for life). 

Bert and his fellow Anarchists-Communists frustrated by the yawning gap between their revolutionary ardour and the slow, compromising reality of the English working class organised a London Conference for the 26^th and 27^th December to review and reorganise their activities.  Frank Kitz chaired the first day, Bert the second and the problem of print propaganda was a hot topic.  'Frank Kitz insisted on the usefulness of a leaflet propaganda by which the modern Socialist movement in England was begun…it reaches those who cannot buy a paper and might be started at any moment without causing the constant anxiety and hard work connection with the production of a paper.' 

Bert and a band of his associates weren’t to be quieted by new initiatives, which in any case were never carried out, and spiritedly laid into the one anarchist initiative that had endured. 'FREEDOM was described as a philosophical middle-class organ, not intelligible to the working classes, not up to date in late information and…less revolutionary than Comic Cuts, Ally Sloper and Sam Weller. It was edited and managed by an inaccessible group of arrogant persons, worse than the Pope and his seventy cardinals and written by fossilised old quill-drivers.'  

Throughout 1898, Herbert Stockton was living in London and headlining at revolutionary events like the Paris Commune Celebration and Chicago Martyrs Commemoration. Returning to Manchester on a short visit in July, 'our old and much-missed comrade Stockton' was feted as a celebrity.  Whilst relishing the revolutionary comradeship Bert was losing touch with the tragically moderate aspirations of ordinary workers. Perhaps Ernest Stockton was also unduly influenced by the metropolitan atmosphere when he visited Bert with his young wife, Louisa, and even younger sister-in-law, Esther. The newspapers relished Ernest’s resulting divorce, 'on the grounds of his incestuous adultery with petitioner’s sister…While in London petitioner thought her husband and sister were too free and on their return to Manchester petitioner’s mother shared that opinion and boxed Esther’s ears.'

Ernest’s infatuation with Esther proved as short-lived as his love for anarchy and he emigrated to New York without either and aged thirty-nine married another teenager. 

In 1899 Bert and his family returned North and settled in Sheffield with his sister who’d married Alf Barton. Together, the trio revived the local libertarian cause and in July 1899 FREEDOM reported that “the Sheffield Monolith once more resounded with the hum of successful Anarchist meetings.” Ignoring national policies, grassroots state-socialists could be comradely and when, in September, Bert embarked on a “ground-breaking” mission to Mexborough “they had a very successful meeting and received good help from the local ILP.”  Bert and Alf concentrated on anti-war activism in 1900 but the jingo’s were out in force and Herbert Stockton’s last recorded letter to FREEDOM reveals feelings of melancholy and defeat:

'Yes our propaganda has fallen on evil times. Who could have foreseen this ten years ago? Anarchists, Socialists are nothing nowadays…We must watch and wait and drift a bit perhaps…I send heartiest wishes that you may all long be spared to keep a “good heart” in the “one true faith” the hope of the ultimate

triumph of which alone makes life at present endurable viz: human liberty and happiness – Yours rebelliously, H STOCKTON.' 

When Billy MacQueen, an old comrade from his early Manchester days was arrested in America in 1902, Bert solicited money for his defence fund from his home at 39, Hammerton Road, Sheffield but in truth he’d lost hope.  Alf and Nellie remained iconoclasts but joined the ranks of State Socialists.  Nellie was big in the Coop movement and pioneered the white poppy as a peace symbol. After flirting with Communism, Alf became a Labourite and backed Britain’s involvement in WWI. 

In 1905 Bert moved back to Manchester and forgot all about the “one true faith”. His youngest brother William had abandoned hope decades before but after Britain declared war on Germany Herbert Stockton turned heretic and volunteered to kill for his country. Bert sailed from Southampton to Le Havre on 15^th August 1915 and served with the army in France until May 1919. He was never again politically active and died in Levenshulme on Thursday 18^th February 1937, aged 66.   

For Peace, Love & Anarchy

Christopher Draper

(nb This is the 6^th in a monthly series of “Northern Anarchist Lives”. 

Next month, “Everton’s Tolstoy”)

A Liverpool Nut Case

The third in a continuing series by Chris Draper of, 'Lives of Northern Anarchists'.

Thanks to everyone who responded to the story of John Oldman and

feel free to add comments, info or criticism below.

by Chris Draper

IT was easy to spot a Victorian anarchist, he wore a black cloak with a tall hat and carried a fizzing bomb shaped like a bowling ball but William Hensby Chapman didn’t match the stereotype. He was better known for his nut pies, rational dress, bees and chess but was no slouch in the anarchy department. Chapman was a pioneer of William Morris’s 'Socialist League', founder and host of Liverpool Socialist club, anarchist street agitator, newspaper correspondent and recruiter of his son Edward to the cause. William Hensby Chapman was an anarchist practitioner of the “New Life”, a fascinating character who’s been ignored by historians ever since he disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

Born in Norwich in 1833 William moved around the country performing minor clerking and retail roles until in the 1860’s he settled down in Warrington as a live-in draper’s assistant. As soon as he secured suitable accommodation at 27 Golborough Street, Chapman was joined by his wife, Emily and their three boys, James, Edward and William. James, the eldest (born 1863) was employed as a clerk at a wireworks but died in the winter of 1884. This tragedy prompted William to fulfil a couple of long-held aspirations, signing up to Socialism and starting a food-reform business.

In 1886 William and his twenty-year-old second son, Edward Crook Chapman, joined the newly established Socialist League (SL). Chapman senior also donated a generous ten shillings to the SL newspaper, Commonweal, printing fund. William also opened, “Chapman’s Vegetarian Restaurant” at 1 Stanley Street (on the corner with Dale Street), Liverpool. In May 1887 the Vegetarian Society selected his restaurant as the venue for a 'banquet' to follow their national conference which was addressed by wholemeal enthusiast 'Dr T R Allinson'.

In an 1887 lecture William Chapman introduced his local 'Mutual Improvement Society' to 'Anarchism'.  'He affirmed that the government of man by man was oppression; and defined the ideal of the Anarchist as absolute liberty and economic equality and independence, which meant the substitution in the place of political rivalry and class antagonism, of a society based on voluntary co-operation…Owing to the novelty of the subject, Mr Chapman was allowed to answer each question in rotation.'

Chapman’s anarchism wasn’t the narrow-minded insurrectionary “Smash-the-State” sort but a constructive, holistic politics that promoted positive alternatives as much as opposing exploitation and authority. He was a regular contributor to, and living embodiment of, 'The Dietetic Reformer and Vegetarian Messenger'.  Chapman was a Vice-President of the national Vegetarian Society, alongside pioneering animal-rights activist and libertarian, Henry Salt, and an active Committee Member of his local Liverpool Vegetarian Society (LVS). 

Meetings of the LVS were held at the restaurant and from time to time William gave lectures and cookery demonstrations to members and guests.  As the Liverpool Mercury reported in December 1894, 'the various dishes were handed around and partaken of by the audience and in every instance were most favourably received.  The various recipes used were widely distributed on a printed leaflet…showing people how to prepare nutritious and savoury dishes at a very little cost without the aid of flesh meat…large number attended and a very pleasant evening was spent.'   

Meetings at Chapman’s were invariably fun and the Liverpool Mercury typically observed that an 1896 meeting of the LVS featured 'a programme of music' and 'concluded with an amusing ventriloquial sketch.'  At another visit by the Society in February 1897; “After a sumptuous vegetarian repast, the company was entertained by an exhibition of Mrs Jarley’s Living Waxworks…The figures comprised 17 characters, representative of ancient and modern life and by their action when wound up, combined with the humorous description of their history by Mrs Jarley and her son, Mr Ebenezer Jarley, formed the source of endless merriment”!

The restaurant’s agreeable atmosphere doubtless contributed to the 'Lancashire and Cheshire Beekeepers Association’s' peaceful resolution of the tricky issue of their proposed 'split'.  Having been overwhelmed by their own success, the bee keepers convened at 'Chapmans' and happily agreed to form independent 'Lancashire' and 'Cheshire' County Associations to ensure their respective administrations remained small and friendly.

Chapman’s was also a popular venue with chess-players and the Mercury staged its annual Chess Trophy Competition there, 'Players will oblige by bringing their men with them: boards will be provided…Chess players who wish to win the trophy should try Chapman’s tea and coffee; an excellent 6d afternoon tea is always available.'

In 1894 the newspaper reported on Chapman’s pioneering of, 'Dress Reform in Liverpool'.  'Mr W H Chapman, who occupied the chair was attired in one of the reform dresses sketched by the lecturer, Miss Hope-Hoskins.  It consisted of Irish tweed jacket and knickerbockers, made of pure, undyed wool, Jaegar collar, cellular underclothing, sandals and straw hat of novel construction… Her motto was Fashion without folly and elegance without extravagance… An interesting discussion followed and the lecturer was cordially thanked at the close of the meeting.'

'Rational Dress' sat comfortably alongside more spiritual concerns at Chapman’s and the venue occasionally hosted 'Gatherings' of the 'Liverpool and Birkenhead' apostles of the 'Light and Reason' movement of working class philosopher-poet, James Allen (1864-1912).  Despite his eclecticism William’s personal politics remained irreducibly anarchist, never ossifying into Marxism nor dissolving into Labourism. 

Chapman first tried to attract interest in the idea of starting a Socialist League branch in Liverpool in May 1889 but despite repeated appeals in Commonweal (on sale in the restaurant) it was months before there was enough response to convene a meeting at the restaurant on 17th September. William’s son Edward was appointed Secretary of the group that was constituted as an independent 'Liverpool Socialist Society (LSS)' rather than a branch of the Socialist League.  This suggests some recruits weren’t entirely comfortable with the Socialist League’s anti-parliamentary approach but this didn’t preclude comradely cooperation.  On the evening of October 1st Edward led a discussion which concluded with the members agreeing 'to commence work of a public character early in November'. 

By the end of the year LSS was confident enough to invite 'delegates and friends from societies in Lancashire and adjoining counties to a conference to discuss the desirability of united action.'  On the 11 January 1890 the conference took place at Stanley Street.  'Delegates were present from Sheffield, Salford, Blackburn, Rochdale and Liverpool…Comrade W H Chapman proposed, “That in the opinion of this conference it is desirable to form a Union of the North-Western Counties Socialists".'  This was passed with Edward Chapman appointed acting secretary of the Union.  It was further agreed to draw up a list of willing public speakers to facilitate the organisation of propaganda.  'At a later hour a conversazione was held, at which a number of pieces of vocal and instrumental music were rendered by members and friends and a most enjoyable evening was spent. W H Chapman superintended the arrangements for refreshments. On Sunday we held two open-air meetings.'

The following month both William and Edward debated with members of Liverpool’s Rathbone Literary Club, 'Is Socialism or complete Individualism likely to be the ultimate goal of human development?'  The Chapman’s proposed the former whilst local Tolstoyan anarchist John Coleman Kenworthy (a future biography) demolished the argument of one of their opponents. 

With support from comrades William was able to organise weekly outdoor Sunday morning (11.30am) lectures at the Mersey landing stage as well as indoor Tuesday night meetings at the restaurant.  The LSS maintained its unsectarian approach, including Fabians like the aptly named Hubert Bland in its programme.  In March William addressed a good crowd there, 'Numbers of dock strikers were present and applauded frequently.'  At the end of the month the LSS were proud to unfurl their new flag before a landing stage audience gathered to listen to a lecture from Edward Carpenter on, 'The Breakdown of Our Industrial System'. 

On Sunday 13 April 1890 'afternoon and evening, comrade William Morris lectured to good audiences at Rodney Hall on, The Development of Modern Society and,The Social Outlook'.  Chapman had expected Morris the previous November but he evidently proved worth waiting for as, 'papers and literature to the amount of £2 9s were disposed of.'  Morris’ Liverpool lectures fused the ideas of Ruskin and Marx with a dash of his own interpretation of Medievalism and were subsequently published in that summer’s 'Commonweal'. 

Chapman and Samuel Reeves were regular Sunday lecturers and on Sunday 11 May they were joined on the landing stage by 'celebrity' anarchist Charles Mowbray who was on a speaking tour of Lancashire  at the time. The following Sunday William’s son, Edward, reported that when the LSS group arrived at the landing stage , 'we found it occupied by a party of religionists from the YMCA who coolly told us to find another stand.  We determined to move them' and so whilst our speaker did his best, 'the rest of us made such a noise by selling the Commonweal and Justice and reading from the former that we eventually upset them…Thanks to the Christian intruders we had the largest meeting yet held.'

Significantly, in May 1890 LSS donated 3s 8d to the Commonweal Guarantee Fund suggesting that the group was both financially secure and generally sympathetic to the anti-parliamentary politics of the SL.  Even more significant was the decision to delegate William Chapman to the forthcoming sixth Annual SL Conference in London.  Held at the Communist Club, Tottenham Court Road, Chapman was elected to Chair the conference by the other fourteen delegates that included William Morris as well as anarchists Charles Mowbray, Max Nettlau, David Nicoll, James Tochatti, Frank Kitz, William Wess and Sam Mainwaring.  'When tea was over Mrs Tochatti sang a few revolutionary airs...Comrade Coulon (CD: a police spy!) gave La Carmagnole in French. In the evening the hall was filled with comrades who passed a very agreeable evening. The more enthusiastic carried on the festivities till the dawn of the day.'

The following Sunday found Chapman singing revolutionary songs on the Liverpool landing stage; 'The YMCA people again occupying our usual stand. We, however, took up our position back to back with them. While they sang hymns we sang the Marseillaise …the audience giving three hearty cheers for the social revolution.'  In June both Chapman senior (William) and junior (Edward) actively supported the successful strike of Liverpool tailoresses, addressing and encouraging the women and collecting monies and administering the strike fund. 

When the Trade Union movement held its twenty-third Congress in Hope Hall, Liverpool on September 1, Chapman issued a general invitation to any socialist attending to drop in at Stanley Street for a bit of comradely support for the union movement was generally still saturated with Liberalism.

Around this time William moved his restaurant a little way along Dale Street to occupy the commodious “Percy Buildings, Eberle Street” (now a gay bar with 'Liverpool Artists’ Club' upstairs). The LSS moved with him, subsequently holding its weekly indoor meeting at Eberle Street every Tuesday at 8pm. From these new spacious premises William Chapman also published revolutionary propaganda leaflets (“6d per 100 or 4s 6d per 1,000”). He composed a satirical, “STRIKE! POLICEMAN, STRIKE!”, song, to be sung to the tune of “Wait for the Wagon”.

“O STRIKE! Blue Peelers boldly.

And quit yourself like men;

Protect no more the robber class,

But leave them in their den.”

The song included a repeated four line, 'Strike down the Tyrants!' chorus as well as nine further verses. 

Unfortunately Chapman’s dynamic campaigning for the SL wasn’t replicated down south. As the LSS successfully promoted an inclusive, non-sectarian anti-parliamentary politics the London anarchists around Commonweal went the other way, effectively alienating first William Morris and then most of its other non-insurrectionary supporters.  By the end of 1890 Commonweal was in trouble and the SL was collapsing as a national organisation. LSS continued but as the appeal of the SL shrunk, Chapman’s politics appeared less viable to sympathetic unaligned socialists who began to drift ever closer to state-socialism.

Chapman sought encouragement from anarchist comrades in Sheffield in both 1890 and 1891 and mounted the soap box on both occasions but Sheffield soon followed London and fell under the influence of exaggerated class-war rhetoric. Having created havoc in Sheffield, manically militant anarchist John Creaghe decided to move on in November 1891 and ominously announced, 'I may be able to do something here in Liverpool'!  After writing off William Chapman as 'an academic Anarchist' Creaghe, fortunately, soon moved on again  leaving LSS intact but diminished.

In March 1892 'Mr Chas E Dodd read a paper before the Liverpool Socialist Society at their rooms, Percy Buildings, Eberle Street on The Socialist Way Out of Darkest England'.  It was a depressingly statist presentation. The very same month the Liverpool Mercury informed correspondent 'A.F’.', 'There is no branch of the Fabian Socialist Society in Liverpool, two attempts to start one having failed. For information about the Liverpool Socialist Society apply to Mr Chapman, Eberle Street.' 'A.F.' wouldn’t have long to wait for long-time SLL activist Samuel Reeves was about to take over as Secretary of the LSS and assert himself as an enthusiastically parliamentary Fabian.  The Chapmans didn’t abandon anarchism but their libertarian influence was soon swamped by a rising tide of servile state-socialist Labourism.  In October 1893 Blackburn journalist Jesse Quail reflected on the transformation, 'In Liverpool there was a local independent Socialist Society, but it dissolved itself some eighteen months ago and its members joined the Liverpool Fabian Society, which was then formed.' 

In 1893, both Chapmans made substantial donations to support anarchist Christopher Davis, imprisoned for smashing a Birmingham jeweller’s window and scattering valuables across the pavement as a protest against poverty and unemployment.  Despite the disappointment of the LSS William continued to supply practical as well as political support to the impoverished and in a period of economic depression in February 1895, 'During the past week about 100 free breakfasts have been provided daily at Chapman’s Vegetarian Restaurant but…it is Mr Chapman’s wish to provide two meals per day and he therefore begs to state that assistance, either goods or money, will be gladly received at 6 Percy Buildings, Eberle Street.'

Chapman helped local workers organise and in December 1895 his restaurant hosted a meeting aimed at establishing a branch of the 'National Clerks Association…After a discussion the nucleus of a branch of the NCA was formed and the members arranged to meet in the same room on Friday evening next.'

Cultural and political alternatives continued to flourish at William’s restaurant but it was lean years for Liverpool anarchism that would only reignite in the run-up to World War One and by then Chapman was no more. 

Beneath the headline, 'FERRY-BOAT MYSTERY', in January 1910 newspapers reported that, 'The Wallasey police are endeavouring to solve the mystery connected with the disappearance of Mr William Hensby Chapman of Liverpool, who kept a vegetarian restaurant. He has been missing since Tuesday and was last seen on board a ferry-boat at New Brighton. There were few passengers on the steamer, the night was dark and he was not observed to land either at Egremont or Liverpool. Subsequently a coat was found on the boat. Attached to it was a paper on which was written, Adieu Chapman. Mr Chapman was 75 years of age.'

Christopher Draper (“NORTHERN ANARCHIST LIVES -3”)