Who Was Guy Bowman?

 by Christopher Draper

Fortunately for the rich, World War I transformed Britain’s raging class war into a murderous conflict between Nations.  Pre-war militancy was inspired by Syndicalism, a scheme for workers to organise into one big class-conscious union to run their own industries and revolutionise society and the prime movers were Tom Mann and Guy Bowman.  Curiously, whilst Mann’s story is well known the life of Guy Bowman remains a mystery.

Manchester’s Massed Militants

Britain’s first national syndicalist conference was convened by Bowman at Manchester Coal Exchange on 26th November 1910. Two hundred delegates representing sixty-thousand organised workers gathered with the speakers including Liverpool stonemason Fred Bowers, Huddersfield socialist Fred Shaw, Irish activist Jim Larkin and Spanish anarchist Lorenzo Portet. Tom Mann moved the founding motion; “That whereas the sectionalism that characterises the trade union movement of today is utterly incapable of fighting the capitalist class and securing the economic freedom of the workers, this conference declares that the time is now ripe for the industrial organisation of all workers on the basis of class – not trade or craft – and that we hereby agree to form a Syndicalist Education League to propagate the principles of Syndicalism throughout the British Isles with a view to merging all existing unions into one compact organisation for each industry…”

Don’t Shoot!

The authorities responded to strikes by sending in the army; shooting dead a miner at Tonypandy, killing 2 railwaymen at Llanelli and 2 dockers in Liverpool.  Unbowed, in 1912 Guy Bowman published in”The Syndicalist” a “DON’T SHOOT!” appeal to soldiers to refuse to fire on fellow workers and was sentenced to 9 months with hard labour as a consequence.

International Man of Mystery

Despite more than a decade of high profile activism Bowman revealed little of his personal life and what he did say is difficult to substantiate.  He claimed to have been born in St John’s Wood, London in 1871 to a French mother and Scottish father yet there’s no official record of his birth.  As an anarchist he might well have chosen to dodge officialdom yet at the height of his political activism he duly completed the 1911 census form, which bears his characteristic signature, yet he’s oddly absent from records covering both his pre and post-political years.

Guy Takes a Bow

Guy’s claimed birth year seems about right so he was already in his early thirties before he became known to English activists.  In 1906 he popped up in London as a journalist claiming specialist knowledge of European political movements.  Joining the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) he pursued a journalistic interest in the recent anarchist assassination attempt on the Spanish king. The founder of the International Modern School movement, Francisco Ferrer, had been arrested by Spanish police and charged with complicity in a move widely interpreted as a political frame up. In September 1906 Bowman published an article in the SDF’s newspaper “Justice” defending Ferrer and the following month he travelled to Spain to cover the continuing prosecution.

Expelled

On Tuesday 23rd October Guy Bowman was arrested in Madrid and interrogated by Spanish police for two days before being “conducted over the border” into France.  It was variously speculated that the police had been tipped off by either the Spanish Embassy in London or the British Government that Bowman was an undesirable alien intent on promoting anarchist insurrection.

Meeting of Minds

Thanks to the campaigning of Bowman and other activists around the world in June 1907 Francisco Ferrer was released after a year’s imprisonment. Immediately resuming his promotion of libertarian education Ferrer made an extended visit to England over the springand summer of 1909 (21 April to June 12). Bowman was then employed as General Manager of the SDF’s print & publications department, ”Twentieth Century Press” and was living at 4 Maude Terrace, Walthamstow (outer East London).

During his time in England Ferrer met the respected anarchist Peter Kropotkin and was reacquainted with his old Spanish comrade Lorenzo Portet. Ferrer entrusted Portet to continue his educational work (LP founded a “Modern School” in Liverpool) in the likely the event that the Spanish authorities would ultimately succeed in silencing him.  A few weeks later Ferrer was duly silenced.

On his return to Spain he was arrested, subjected to a show trial and shot dead by firing squad.

The French Connection

Bowman supported Ferrer’s educational ideas but was ultimately more interested in French Syndicalism. Guy was particularly impressed by the approach of the French Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT) trade union. So much so that when leading labour activist Tom Mann landed at London’s Victoria Dock on May 16th 1910 (having returned from 8 years organising overseas) Guy persuaded Tom to accompany him to Paris, “to meet the men of direct action”. On their return to the UK the pair commenced publication of The Industrial Syndicalist (with Bowman as publisher, Mann as editor) and set about organising a national conference in Manchester.

Bowman’s French connection is intriguing. He spoke fluent French as well as English and German and it was frequently noted that Bowman didn’t look or sound English. Newspapers repeatedly questioned his claimed origins with the Globe typically asserting, “Bowman, of olive complexion and with pointed grey beard and hair brushed back has the appearance of a foreigner. In fact he speaks with a pronounced foreign accent, but is stated by his friends to be an Englishman.”  The Pall Mall Gazette observed,  “Guy Bowman is an Englishman who looks like a Frenchman”.

Bowman was certainly in Paris in 1905, where he attended the International Freethought Congress. After meeting Gustave Herve at the Congress he agreed to translate his “Leur Patrie” for an English edition published as, “My Country, Right or Wrong”, but was Bowman there as a French resident or merely a roving English reporter?  Everyone recognised that Bowman was a highly educated and fluent linguist so how did he acquire this learning?  Where was he educated and who were his parents?

Don’t Shoot!

When a DON’T SHOOT appeal to strike-breaking soldiers appeared in the January 1912 Syndicalist, Guy Bowman as the publisher was arrested.  Charged with, “Feloniously endeavouring by publication of a certain article…to seduce persons serving in His Majesty’s land forces from their duty and allegiance to His said Majesty and to incite them to commit divers mutinous acts and traitorous practices”, Bowman was sentenced to serve 9 months in prison with hard labour.

Tom Mann was subsequently prosecuted for reading out the DON’T SHOOT appeal at a demonstration.  Two printers of The Syndicalist were also prosecuted although Bowman received the severest sentence.  Fortunately public protests forced the authorities to relent and Bowman was out after two months.  Curiously Guy was back in court within weeks and fined £1 for two counts of travelling in a first class train carriage with a third class ticket.

Organiser or Disorganiser?

With 41 million strike days in 1912 industrial militancy eclipsed parliamentary politics as syndicalists prepared to organise internationally. Several continental groups offered to host an international conference but Bowman insisted it was held in England.  The FIRST INTERNATIONAL SYNDICALIST CONGRESS was duly held in London, in September 1913 but Bowman’s unreliable behaviour cast doubt on his integrity.  He was accused of dragging his feet in arranging the event and questions were raised about his inability to account for monies he’d been entrusted with. Regarded as divisive by both local and international comrades Bowman subsequently failed to furnish the Bureau set-up by the Congress with promised minutes, delegate addresses and other essential documents.

The International Bureau was left with little alternative but to appeal over Bowman’s head direct to English comrades , “to assist us to remind Guy Bowman of his duty of conforming to the decision of the Congress. By his conduct he renders the functioning of the Bureau particularly difficult.”

Class War or World War?

Meanwhile continental comrades confidently pronounced that if national governments declared war then organised workers would simply down tools and refuse to take up arms against fellow workers, regardless of nationality.  Throughout 1914 Bowman continued to tour Britain promoting syndicalism. In January he brought the gospel to the Pioneers Hall, Rochdale and over following weeks he spoke in Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham and London.  On Sunday 8th February Guy publicly advised, “SABOTAGE” at the Co-operative Hall, Charing Cross whilst on Friday 13th March he informed an audience at Sheffield’s Temperance Hall that his advice wasn’t really DON’T SHOOT but DO SHOOT!  “When they (soldiers) were asked to shoot the working class they would turn and shoot those who gave the order...”

Bowman’s Misdirected Arrow

As World War approached, rifts developed between Bowman and Mann.  Both agreed organising industrially was the way to go but Mann was less willing to completely abandon parliamentary politicking.  Bowman was sympathetic to the idea of “dual unionism”, creating parallel anarchist style unions alongside existing organisations whereas Mann insisted on revolutionising established unions from within.  Just as ISEL began losing influence in March 1914 Bowman sued the National Labour Press over its publication of, “From Single Tax to Syndicalism” (Tom Mann wrote the text and Bowman supplied the introduction).  As publisher of the book, Bowman had the previous year contracted with the printers to produce 2,000 copies but then failed to pay the bill so to recoup their costs the printers published the book themselves and kept the proceeds.  Whilst accepting that the printers had technically violated Bowman’s copyright the court offered him no recompense and Guy was left having to pay his own costs and with his reputation in tatters.

Puff of Smoke

Once war was declared in August 1914, socialists everywhere abandoned their promises and rallied round their respective national flags whilst Guy Bowman was nowhere to be seen. In his introduction to a reprint collection of Syndicalist newspapers, Geoff Brown observed, “The last references I have found to him (GB) in the labour movement press are in the Labour Leader in January and March 1915…”   But that wasn’t quite Bowman’s last acknowledged outing.  Guy still occasionally visited Kropotkin who was by then similarly isolated from former comrades (because of his un-anarchist support for the war).  I’ve discovered that Bowman also spoke at Hounslow Adult School, Whitton Road on Wednesday 12th April 1916 on, “The Fraud Called Democracy”, under the auspices of the “Syndicalist Education League (SEL)”.

Partners in Crime?

So what did Bowman do next?  If he’d simply opted to dodge the draft that doesn’t explain why he never reappears in records after the war (or why he wasn’t recorded before his 1911 census declaration).  None of Bowman’s erstwhile associates seem any the wiser and there are further mysterious circumstances.  Bowman’s self-completed 1911 census return recorded that he was then living with two French nationals, “39-year-old Jeanne Bonnard and 10-year-old” Jack Bonnard. “Jeanne” was a “Widow” and Jacques presumably her son.  Like Guy, neither of this pair appear in subsequent records except on 17th April 1912 Jeanne, the widow, had another child, Guy L Bowman. So who was this equally mysterious partner of Guy senior?  My theory is that she was none other than the abandoned common law wife of the deceased Francisco Ferrer.  If I am correct her real name was not Jeanne but Leopoldine Bonnard who partnered Ferrer in Paris from 1898 until 1905 when they split acrimoniously.  I think the boy “Jack” was really Regio Bonnard, the son of Leopoldine and Ferrer, born in Paris in 1900.

Unlike his parents, Guy L Bowman does feature in subsequent official records and his middle name appears to substantiate my theory of his parentage for on 13th September 1949 the UK Air Ministry announced that, “The KING has granted unrestricted permission for the wearing of the undermentioned decorations conferred upon personnel indicated in recognition of valuable services rendered in connection with the war – Bronze Star Medal - Sergeant 1376906 Guy Leopold BOWMAN, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve”

So it seems the son of the man sent to jail for publishing “DON’T SHOOT” in WWI was decorated for his contribution to WWII! It is also recorded that in the years 1938-9 Guy Leopold Bowman served at a trio of London’s top hotels (Dorchester, Ritz, Langham respectively) as a “reception clerk”.

Syndicalist or Sinner?

Bowman’s disappearance from the political spotlight is not unusual, many labour activists retire into obscurity but few cover their tracks so effectively.  Research almost always uncovers backgrounds and life stories but I’m not the first to remark on Bowman’s elusive biography.  I might, though be first to suggest that Bowman’s “invisibility” appears artful.   I’m inclined to believe he concealed his curriculum vitae for good reason.  His unexplained high level education suggests his origins and possibly allegiance were not working class.  It is quite possible “Guy Bowman” was in fact raised abroad by a military family bearing an entirely different name and committed to an imperial mission anathema to socialism.  I can’t prove Guy and his family concealed the truth for cynical reasons but it would make sense of otherwise inexplicable evidence.  It is curious that after Bowman’s family disappeared during WWI the sole member to resurface was decorated by the RAF having previously served in the run up to war in a role notoriously employed by secret services to keep tabs on visiting foreign “diplomats”.

Tom Mann, like many fellow labour leaders, published a memoir so why not Guy Bowman?  His widely published expulsion from Spain and high profile imprisonment would surely have guaranteed good sales and his extensive knowledge of labour activism would have ensured historical value yet he kept it all to himself, an odd response for a professional journalist.

The Secret State

Recent events uncovered extensive State infiltration of every level of radical organisation (even NV is currently subject to legal threats from a secret policeman involved in blacklisting) so it’s time to re-examine the credentials of past “activists”.  Guy Bowman’s integrity is questionable.  Kropotkin’s confidante Varlaam Tcherkesov was certainly dubious; “Bowman, half-English, half-French, quite an esprit boulevardier, a despotic man, wanted the entire movement for himself and kept it in his hands. He quarrelled with young syndicalists, scorned them, and stood alone”.

In contrast to the subject of my next article in this series there’s no smoking gun. Bowman might yet be innocent but I submit he has a prima facie case to answer.  Perhaps modern day advocates might care to submit snippets of new evidence in Bowman’s defence.  Meanwhile, I invite readers to adjudicate for themselves.

Christopher Draper (May 2017)

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)

Chesterfield’s 'Anarchist of the Abyss'

by Christopher Draper

FOR seven weeks in 1903 Jack London dossed down with drifters and derelicts in East End lodging houses.  On returning to America, Jack famously published his account of these exploits as the hugely influential, 'People of the Abyss'.  Three years earlier, a Chesterfield anarchist published an account of life in common lodging houses drawn from a lifetime’s experience tramping around the North as a militant navvy.  Andrew Hall’s historic account has been completely ignored and his activism unappreciated, until now.

Hall was defiantly bottom drawer, a navvy who looked, lived and spoke the part and no intellectual slouch. According to the local paper, at a Hull 'Paris Commune Commemoration' in 1893, Andrew 'traced back the history of the fight now pending for more bread and more pleasures of life for the toilers…He held that it was better to die fighting than starve like a rat in a hole.'  Andrew Hall was a navvy with attitude.

Born in Coatbridge in 1851, as a teenager Andrew laboured in coal mines until, aged 17, a protracted strike forced him to leave home and seek work south of the border.  On the tramp around Newcastle, Bishop Auckland and Durham, Andrew slept in common lodging houses until he found employment navvying on the railways. After a period in the early eighties employed on the 'Hull to Barnsley', Hall followed the line south to London. 

Years wielding a pick in cold, wet, dangerous conditions meant “Navvy Hall” didn’t need lectures from metropolitan soap box agitators to hate bosses but he lapped up their ideas of an organised fight back. In 1886 Andy joined the Hampstead branch of Britain’s first Marxist party, the Social Democratic Federation (SDF).

To militants of the SDF Andrew certainly looked the business. In complete contrast to frock-coated, top-hatted stockbroker Henry Mayhew Hyndman, the party’s self-appointed leader. Hall’s fustian jacket, flat cap and twisted muffler shouted “navvy”. Both cap and jacket were flamboyantly discarded as Andy invariably introduced himself to audiences with the words, “I’m Andrew Hall the navvy!” Crowds loved him but the authorities despised the rabble-rousing “Navvy Hall”. 

Hall’s agitational ability was immediately exploited by the party elite who allotted him a prime spot on the “Number 2 platform” at the NW corner of Trafalgar Square for their Sunday 29th August 1886 demo. The rambling resolution put to the crowd concluded by urging the SDF, “to secure for the producing classes collective control over the railways, shipping, mines, factories, machinery and land…and to recommence at once their vigorous agitation in favour of the organization of the labour of the unemployed.”

The press denounced the rhetoric but praised the attire of most platform performers, 'Nearly all the orators wore red ties, scarf, rosette, ribbon or red flowers. Not a few were well dressed and wore top hats'. Sartorial standards were maintained by the socialists at the evening’s celebratory dinner, 'The company might have been one entire and perfect bourgeoisie in the predominance of black coat and the hat of civilisation…one of the few exceptions was the navvy Hall, who literally came in his working clothes, though they were very clean ones and who sat at meal with his shirt sleeves tucked up and showing the brown arms as high as the elbows and in his belcher twisted with nautical freedom round his sinewy throat.'

In September Hall was arrested for “obstruction”, along with comrade Ernest Rossiter, for speaking from a chair in Bell Street, London. According to police, “He was surrounded by about 500 people, entirely blocking the roadway and footway…During the meeting three cabs passed along Bell Street and had to pull up and stop, while the speakers got off their stand and a way was made through the crowd for them to pass. The cabmen and the fares were booed by the crowd and one cab and fare was followed and chased into Edgeware Road.”
Religionists and temperance soap-boxers who caused similar obstruction were ignored by public authorities who confined their efforts to driving socialist agitators off the streets.

A month later, the Sussex Courier, suggested the SDF’s new roving agitator was guilty of more than obstruction and dress-code faux pas, intimating that, “Navvy Andrew Hall whose outrageous threats and language towards the upper and trading classes” had incited Tunbridge Wells’ socialists to embark on an incendiary spree causing considerable damage to three commercial premises. 

On 9 November 1886, the day of the London Lord Mayor’s Show, Andrew Hall, Tom Mann and comrades organised an unofficial Trafalgar Square counter-demonstration to draw attention to the plight of the unemployed and the public’s right to free speech. It was promptly banned by the authorities but as a defiant crowd gathered, “Andrew Hall -  who previous to addressing the crowd, took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves – said, amid great cheering, that they meant to show Sir Charles Warren that no unauthorised and irresponsible Chief Constable was to be allowed to proclaim a meeting of British subjects…at no distant date the working men would raise in their strength and sweep away the last vestiges of despotism…The speaker’s gesture bespoke a considerable acquaintance with the art of self-defence – Looks as if he wanted to hit him a clip under the jaw – remarked a critical bearer – and this won him the sympathy of the crowd.”

“The resolutions had scarcely been passed when the police…commenced to clear the Square. The foot police pushed and elbowed the people off as well as they could and were aided by mounted police. A body of Life Guards was sent by Sir Charles Warren and immediately rode up”. Andrew’s politics were too revolutionary for the SDF, not straightforward Marxism nor undiluted anarchy but more an iconoclastic libertarian communism. He was deeply suspicious of constitutional politics and a powerful advocate of insurrection. 

After the Trafalgar Square demo the SDF sent Hall north. According to the Times, “The relief of the unemployed is becoming a serious question in Northampton. Many persons are out of employment and meetings of Socialists and the unemployed are held on Sunday mornings. A London Socialist named Hall appeared at the police-court yesterday with a following of unemployed and Socialists. He asked the magistrates for assistance and on account of his behaviour was ordered out of the place. Hall then harangued the crowd outside the Town-Hall…Hall advised the men to attend the police court in hundreds next morning and show the magistrates they would not be trampled on by the police nor by the upper classes…The following day police arrested two local men assisting Hall’s campaign. They were questioned and following their eventually release an open-air demonstration was held on the large market square, when the navvy Hall made a bitter speech against the Corporation.”

The following Sunday Andrew was recalled to London to speak from the platform at another mass demo in Trafalgar Square. “Sir Charles Warren has at his disposal not less than 4,000 men, nearly a hundred of whom are mounted… and two guns of the Royal Horse Artillery battery will be located in the vicinity of Charing Cross…loose stones and debris, which might be used as missiles were removed from the streets…” but they needn’t have worried, the socialists were well behaved. Not so the following February when Hall played a leading role in disrupting a religious service at St Paul’s Cathedral. The SDF issued the following (abbreviated) statement, “The Archbishop of Canterbury has been asked to preach to the unemployed next Sunday in St Paul’s Cathedral on a text chosen by one of our comrades, Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour…Modern Christianity is essentially a middle-class creed with a capitalist paradise here and hereafter held up before its votaries to cheer them on in their struggle for personal gain on earth and individual glorification in Heaven.” Andrew and chums secreted themselves inside the Cathedral whilst most of the demonstrators stayed outside with banners and flags, “Most of which were red but some were black with white letters…one sentence ran, I was hungry and ye gave me no meat . Another was, I was naked and ye clothed me not. The red flags were
surmounted by caps of Liberty”. “That the purpose of the gathering was to disturb the congregation and to scoff at religion was very early seen…The doors were closed and then there were heard by those under the dome the sounds of speech-making and cheering…from the spot where the disturbance occurred came the navvy Andrew Hall.” No arrests were made and Navvy Hall continued campaigning for revolution without regard for the approval of the authorities or the party hierarchy.

In February 1887, after the authorities banned a torchlit parade Andrew had organised to pass through the West End he held a token demonstration at Clerkenwell Green. Torches were defiantly lit, Hall’s incendiary rhetoric delivered and an hour’s frenzied window smashing and riot ensued before the police finally regained control of the streets. A few weeks later, after one of Andrew’s SDF colleagues was harassed and then arrested by police, Hall organised an “Indignation Meeting” at Marble Arch that thousands attended. “Mr Hall (a navvy who took his coat off to speak though a few snowflakes were falling) said that for the future when one comrade was arrested Sir Charles Warren would find that ten men would jump into the breach (Cheers).”

By 1888 Andrew had already accrued eleven arrests and considered it expedient to go navvying on the “Towcester & Olney”. Revisiting Northampton he supported the SDF election campaign with Hyndman but his help proved a two-edged sword as the local candidate observed, “The press boycotted (his campaign) until the services of Navvy Hall were obtained and no sooner did he use rough language that his remarks were inserted.” Hall’s rough language offended polite society and Mr Hyndman was not amused but this only encouraged Andrew to ditch SDF Marxism and embrace the anti-parliamentary politics of the Socialist League (SL).

In 1889 Navvy Hall moved north to Chesterfield where he helped Raymond Unwin start an SL inspired socialist group and attracted the favourable attention of Edward Carpenter. In June, Edward cycled over from Millthorpe with his friend Jim Shortland, “with a bicycle between us, to Chesterfield for an evening meeting in the market-place. There is a navvy there – Andrew Hall – a regular rough looking chap who lives in a common lodging house, who speaks on Socialism every Sunday evening. He has read a lot of history and all sorts and speaks well. There was an attentive audience of 400 to 500.”

On Sunday 1st June 1890 the pair shared a platform, “In the morning Andrew spoke on Brimmington Common and in the evening a large audience assembled in the Market Place and in spite of the rain kept together and listened attentively to the addresses given by comrades Hall and Carpenter”. In Sheffield, a couple of weeks later, “Our comrade Andrew Hall, from Chesterfield, addressed some very large meetings.” Two weeks after that, in Nottingham, Andrew addressed a conference of socialist clubs. Hall returned to Nottingham in late July where his militant brand of socialism was much appreciated, “Andrew Hall of Chesterfield gave three stirring addresses to very large audiences. He created great interest by the way in which he spoke of gaining our object by any means. He advocated the same methods in defence of our cause as were used against us. We are expecting some lively meetings when our comrade again visits us which he has promised to do in a few weeks time.” When he visited Leicester in early August, “Hall’s evening address was truly eloquent and the audience was much impressed.” The Hull dockers were equally impressed a couple of weeks later, though the unappreciative police arrested him for “obstruction”. Fined five shillings plus costs, Andrew refused to pay and was sent down for seven days. When Tyneside libertarians founded Newcastle Communist Anarchist group in December, Navvy Hall was the man they chose to headline their first public event where he “addressed a large workmen’s meeting on the Quay and in the evening spoke against Parliamentary action.”

Andrew’s fiery spirit struck a chord with Sheffield navvies who begged him to represent them against the bosses. In autumn 1890 the Working Man’s Times reported that, “Mr Andrew
Hall, the Secretary of the Sheffield and District General Labourer’s Union has been actively engaged during the past weeks organising men at various firms in the town and much credit is due to him for the energy he has shown in that direction…We are bound to admit that whilst admiring the ability of the lecturer, we think such statements as ”that if all capitalists went to ---- tomorrow we could do without them”, are calculated to do more harm than good and would counsel moderation on some of these points.” Forty years on one old labourer recalled Andrew’s militancy in the Sheffield Daily Independent, “Navvy Hall’s policy was Strike first and negotiate afterwards!”

It wasn’t long before Andrew’s men exercised their collective muscle as trouble erupted at Messrs Samuel Osborne and Company’s Rutland Works. After a foreman tried to discipline eight labourers the rest came out in sympathy and instructed the management to negotiate through Secretary Hall. “The men have today chalked the walls with the word STRIKE and on the door has been written: Don’t come to work here there is a strike!” 

Invariably labelled “Socialist”, Navvy Hall’s politics were roughly anarchist and he often accompanied well-known libertarian speakers on the most advanced platforms. In November 1890 Andrew commemorated the judicial killing of the Chicago anarchists alongside Cores, Samuels, Charles and Maguire at Leeds. At another Commemoration alongside Cores, Creaghe, Samuels et al at Sheffield Hall was “received with the utmost enthusiasm by the large audience”. By then Andrew’s fiery rhetoric had begun to worry the more pacific Carpenter faction. George Hukin recorded his own anxiety in a letter to Carpenter, “I suppose you’ll have heard how Andrew Hall during his speech dropped to his knees and, well I’ll give you his own words; “With the shadow of the rope hanging over me, I call upon each of you to vow with me that we will never rest till the murder of our Comrade has been avenged, blood for blood and life for life” and etc. There was a good big meeting and nearly everybody held up their hands for the vow. I must say I didn’t like the proceedings much – too much blood and vengeance about it.”

Undeterred, in 1891 Andrew commemorated Chicago at the old Alhambra Palace in Porter Street, Hull alongside anarchists Naewiger (future biog), Gustav Smith, George Cores and Chas Reynolds. His political principals proved more enduring than his union career. Despite adding the endorsement of Tyneside labourers to his appointment by the Sheffield men he soon met opposition from union “moderates”. As local unions merged to create a national organisation a bureaucratic mentality and strike-averse policy developed, which Hall virulently opposed and he didn’t expect any support from Sheffield Trades Council; “The gravamen of the charges was that that body was the tool of the Liberal Party and that it was doing nothing in the interests of the working classes…The working classes did not get a fair share of what they produced and would not do so as long as they had trade union officials who were drawing their £2, £3 and £4 per week for doing nothing. He did not believe in paying such high salaries. They ought to be paid at the same rate as when they were working in the shop and then they would not go among the better classes for he found when they did and they got onto Town councils and other offices they were no good to working men.” In 1892 Hall resigned in disgust from the union he’d help create. 

Throughout the 1890’s Hall was based at the Beehive Common Lodging House, Knifesmith Gate, Chesterfield. The Derbyshire Courier published a brief description, “The rooms on the ground floor are dark and the ceilings low and broken. The walls of the bedrooms on the ground floor are damp and the floor is paved with bricks. The living room for the lodgers is dark, its floor is in bad repair and it is unfit for use. The scullery and pantry are roofed with glass skylights which are in a very bad state of repair. The back yard is small and its surface in bad repair as are the also the floors of the slop-closet privies. Only three of the eight bedrooms on the first floor are fit for use…” but according to Andrew it was preferable to other doss houses. At Alfreton “there’s three men, or if there is a double bed, six men for each bed (or rather bundle of rags, which is a more accurate description) every 24 hours: the moment one man gets out there is another waiting to take his place”.  

In March 1893 Andrew Hall revisited Hull to speak at the Liberty Club Commune Celebration (as referred to in the introduction). Andrew “held that the worker was kept, in a large extent, in ignorance by the parson who sometimes stated that it is God’s will that some people should be poor…it was the will of the profit monger and sweater. He referred to the gallant conduct of the soldiers of ’71 who, when ordered to fire on the people, refused to do so, and fraternised with the people. He held that it was better to die fighting than starve like a rat in a hole; and a bullet at a barricade was more preferable than a crust in a slum. He held that a man who starved was a coward.” 

Andrew spent the summer of 1893 navvying at the Loughborough sewage works. By September he was back at the Beehive when a fellow lodger and his mate were killed navvying in separate incidents at Calow tunnel. Thomas Carrigan was crushed by a fall of dirt in a “shoot hole” following the death just the day before of John Morris who was hit by a runaway wagon. Mr Busby, the coroner made no criticism of safety on site, simply recording both fatalities as “Accidental death”. 

Without abandoning his revolutionary ideas in 1893 Andrew Hall joined the newly founded Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the following July at a huge gathering in Sheffield he spoke from the platform alongside Labour luminaries Keir Hardie, Pete Curran and Emmiline Pankhurst. Ignoring ILP policy, Andrew continued to also speak up for anarchism. As late as November 1896 Hall was billed alongside Louise Michel, Joseph Perry, Alfred Marsh, John Turner, Will Banham and Herbert Stockton (future biog) at what Freedom described as “the largest ever commemoration of the Chicago anarchists” at Holborn Town Hall. 

As the century came to a close so (almost) did the English anarchist movement, eclipsed by Labourism. Andrew Hall was too old for navvying and in September 1900 was glad to accept an offer of employment as live-in manager of the Beehive. As a local personality, the editor of the Derbyshire Times commissioned Andrew to reflect on his lifetime’s experience of common lodging houses across the North. The result was a fascinating series of articles published in the paper as, “Sketches of Lodging House Life”; and then nothing.

In 1905 Chesterfield Council condemned the Beehive as “unfit for human habitation” and it was pulled down without a murmur from Andrew. Where was he? He wasn’t among a handful of anarchists whose activism survived until the 1910 syndicalist revival and he never rose through the ranks of the Labour Party. Did he just retire from activism or perhaps succumb to early death and an unmarked grave? 

Peace & Love
Christopher Draper
(Northern Anarchist Lives – 4)
(NAL: 1 Oldham Anarchism, 2 Lupton from Leeds, 3 A Liverpool Nut Case…next month… NAL 5 – “Frank Kapper’s Cunning Plan”)