After statutes, is it book burning next?

Statue of Edward Colston Toppled by Protestors in Bristol

I well understand why some people in Bristol wanted to pull down the statue of the Tory slave trader, Edward Colston, and I won't lose any sleep over that . But where does the toppling of statues lead to?  Certainly, it will lead to counter protests from the far right defending the statues, and the far right demanding the removal of monuments connected with the left, such as that of Karl Marx, in Highgate Cemetery.  I believe it already gets regularly vandalised.

And are we going to have ritual book burnings next, of books that contain racist, sexist, imperialist, colonialist, transphobic, homophobic, themes?  If we do, authors like Dickens, Trollope, Orwell, Conrad, and Waugh, had better watch out.

This trying to turn the clock back in order to transplant modern views onto the past to rewrite history, can set a dangerous precedent.  Are we trying to bury the past, hide it, and sanitize it?   It's not just the English imperialist Cecil Rhodes that they want to remove after taking his scholarships for donkeys years, but there is also a campaign by feminists to remove a bust of Arthur Koestler, from Edinburgh University, because they've accused him of being a 'rapist'.  I gather that vegans and vegetarians are also trying  to get a statue of 'Cow Pie' Desperate Dan, removed in Dundee.

There are also demands to remove a statue of the journalist, explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, (real name John Rowlands), which was unveiled in Denbigh in March 2011. Robert Aldrich, his biographer, says Stanley's birth certificate describes him as a 'bastard' who was abandoned by his mother and family and dumped in the St Asaph Union Workhouse, for ten years from the aged of six to sixteen.  He emigrated to the US in 1859 aged 18, arriving in New Orleans, and after working in various jobs and having fought in the civil war, he became a journalist working for the New York Herald.

I watched the unveiling of his statue on youtube, and there was a delegation of black people from the Congo.  One of them said that they realised that the name of Stanley was controversial (he was accused of being a slave trader and of using indiscriminate cruelty against Africans, including shooting them, which is all true), but they came and spoke at the unveiling ceremony.  I also know that William Morris and members of the Socialist League wrote pamphlets against Stanley and demonstrated at meetings.

Stanley is best known for finding Dr Livingstone and the source of the Nile.  But he also worked as an agent for King Leopold II of Belgium.  It was the Afro-Arab slave trader Tippu Tip, that helped Stanley to find Livingstone.  It is said that on one occasion, Tippu Tip, raided 118 villages, killed 4,000 Africans, and had 2,300 slaves, mostly women and children, bound in chains and transported to the markets of Zanzibar.

As regards the question of slavery, it's not just whites like Colston who were slave traders.  We must not forget the Muslim Barbary pirates who abducted people to sell them in slave markets all the time and who felt it was their religious duty to do this to the infidel.  This went on for centuries and in 1631, they abducted 107 people from the little village of Baltimore, in West Cork, Ireland, for a life of slavery in Algiers.  Today, this is known as the 'Sack of Baltimore'.

And should we start a campaign to remove the plaque in Ashton to the famous travel writer, H.V. Morton, who was born in the town?  It is alleged that he was a Nazi sympathizer and an antisemite.  In a diary entry from February 1941, he confessed:

'I must say Nazi-ism has some fine qualities', and, 'I am appalled to discover how many of Hitler's theories appeal to me.'  Another diary entry describes the US as 'that craven nation of Jews and foreigners.'

Let me know what you think.

**************************************

Jigsaw II by Louis Macneice

IN April 2004, someone had posted a request on a blog asking

for poems on the Influences of Technology.  I already knew 

about the Louis Macneice Jigsaw II from A level in the 1960.

It strikes me that this is relevant to our time now with Greta  

 Thunberg addressing the UK today.  People are so easily dazzled

by technology.   In the 19th century, John Ruskin and William 
Morris wanted us to bring nature into our homes.  
And yet, people today prefer to inflict technology upon themselves. 

**************

Posted by: Johnny (---.nasd.k12.pa.us)

Date: April 22, 2004  Hi,
I'm looking for poems reflecting on the influences of technology on culture.
 *****************
How about Jigsaw II by Louis Macneice?

Property! Property! Let us extend
Soul and body without end:
A box to live in, with airs and graces,
A box on wheels that shows its paces,
A box that talks or that makes faces,
And curtains and fences as good as the neighbours'
To keep out the neighbours and keep us immured
Enjoying the cold canned fruit of our labours
In a sterilised cell, unshaved, insured.

Property! Property! When will it end
When will the poltergeist ascend
Out of the sewer with chopper and squib
To burn the mink and the baby's bib
And cut the tattling wire to town
And smash all the plastics, clowning and clouting
And stop all the boxes shouting and pouting
And wreck the house from the aerial down
And give these ingrown souls an outing?

*********

BREXIT – an anarchist guide

 by Christopher Draper

1 The EU is a bad thing

• Only Guardian readers regard the EU as a kindly club linking the lives of European citizens. In reality the EU is a profoundly undemocratic instrument of multinational corporations organised to overwhelm the defences of local communities against predation by untrammelled capitalism.
• Like all advanced capitalist enterprises the EU offers an array of “incentives” to complicit politicians, lecturers, news agencies and other assorted pipers who play their tune.
• It is not a federation as EU laws do not pass UPWARDS to Brussels from local or national assemblies but DOWN from Brussels to be rubber-stamped into UK law.
• EU policies redeploy workers around Europe in service of a single multinational market with no concern to create or maintain sustainable local communities.  Post-Communist Romanian industry and agriculture was considered “overmanned” by the EU so Romania was invited in and a third of its workforce lured abroad, driving down local wages elsewhere and leaving behind “lean” farms and factories as rich pickings for EU “investors”.
• Politics shouldn’t be run by remote bodies and individuals living lives far removed from those they adversely affect.  The EU is anathema to anyone who values localism. “EU Regional Policy” is a fig leaf, a distraction from the glaring effects of EU economics – cash galore for capitalist hubs like London, Paris,  Brussels, Frankfurt etc and the transport links between – whilst most of our local economies and communities are devastated.

2 Brexit or Betrayal?

• Parliament claims to represents the people.  Anarchists believe Parliament is a mere distraction device, diverting fundamental opposition down harmless channels.
• To contain increasing opposition to the EU, on 9^th June 2015 Parliament voted by 544 to 53 to hold a National Referendum.
• Government spent £9,300,000 publishing a glossy 16-page pro-EU propaganda booklet delivered to every household in the UK. This gave dire warnings against voting for Brexit; “Voting to leave the EU would create years of uncertainty and potential economic disruption. This would reduce investment and cost jobs. The Government judges it could result in 10 years or more of uncertainty…” (pg. 8).
• The booklet advised voters, “The EU referendum is a once in a generation decision” (pg.16) and assured us, “This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide” (pg.14).
• The referendum held on 23^rd June 2016 offered a simple, stark alternative, either – “Remain a member of the European Union” ( ) or “Leave the European Union” ( )
• Thirty-three and a half million people took part, the largest ever vote and more than double the usual turnout for UK Euro elections. Most voted “Leave the European Union” (16m stay, 17.5m leave).
• On the 29^th March 2017 Parliament voted by 498 to 114 to trigger “Article 50” and exit the EU by 29^th March 2019. It was a dishonest act of utter hypocrisy.
• MP’s are almost without exception wedded to the Corporate Capitalist system of which the EU is a cornerstone, a system rejected by voters yet most MP’s are determined to subvert the referendum result and continue business as usual.
• It truly is the “Hotel California” syndrome. At best, Theresa May’s pitiful “Agreement” means we nominally check out but can never leave without the permission of the EU!

3 Fooling all the People all the Time?

• Back in 1884 William Morris and his anarchist chums parted company with erstwhile comrades who insisted there really is a Parliamentary road to socialism. Morris and his newly founded Socialist League warned that Parliament offers nothing more than a career ladder for fake socialists and a smokescreen for the rich and powerful. Plus ca change.

BREXIT – an anarchist guide

 by Christopher Draper

1 THE EU is a bad thing

• Only Guardian readers regard the EU as a kindly club linking the lives of European citizens. In reality the EU is a profoundly undemocratic instrument of multinational corporations organised to overwhelm the defences of local communities against predation by untrammelled capitalism.
• Like all advanced capitalist enterprises the EU offers an array of “incentives” to complicit politicians, lecturers, news agencies and other assorted pipers who play their tune.
• It is not a federation as EU laws do not pass UPWARDS to Brussels from local or national assemblies but DOWN from Brussels to be rubber-stamped into UK law.
• EU policies redeploy workers around Europe in service of a single multinational market with no concern to create or maintain sustainable local communities. Post-Communist Romanian industry and agriculture was considered “overmanned” by the EU so Romania was invited in and a third of its workforce lured abroad, driving down local wages elsewhere and leaving behind “lean” farms and factories as rich pickings for EU “investors”.
• Politics shouldn’t be run by remote bodies and individuals living lives far removed from those they adversely affect. The EU is anathema to anyone who values localism. “EU Regional Policy” is a fig leaf, a distraction from the glaring effects of EU economics – cash galore for capitalist hubs like London, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt etc and the transport links between – whilst most of our local economies and communities are devastated.

2 BREXIT or BETRAYAL?

• Parliament claims to represents the people. Anarchists believe Parliament is a mere distraction device, diverting fundamental opposition down harmless channels.
• To contain increasing opposition to the EU, on 9^th June 2015 Parliament voted by 544 to 53 to hold a National Referendum.
• Government spent £9,300,000 publishing a glossy 16-page pro-EU propaganda booklet delivered to every household in the UK. This gave dire warnings against voting for Brexit; “Voting to leave the EU would create years of uncertainty and potential economic disruption. This would reduce investment and cost jobs. The Government judges it could result in 10 years or more of uncertainty…” (pg. 8).
• The booklet advised voters, “The EU referendum is a once in a generation decision” (pg.16) and assured us, “This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide” (pg.14).
• The referendum held on 23^rd June 2016 offered a simple, stark alternative, either – “Remain a member of the European Union” ( ) or “Leave the European Union” ( )
• Thirty-three and a half million people took part, the largest ever vote and more than double the usual turnout for UK Euro elections. Most voted “Leave the European Union” (16m stay, 17.5m leave).
• On the 29^th March 2017 Parliament voted by 498 to 114 to trigger “Article 50” and exit the EU by 29^th March 2019. It was a dishonest act of utter hypocrisy.
• MP’s are almost without exception wedded to the Corporate Capitalist system of which the EU is a cornerstone, a system rejected by voters yet most MP’s are determined to subvert the referendum result and continue business as usual.
• It truly is the “Hotel California” syndrome. At best, Theresa May’s pitiful “Agreement” means we nominally check out but can never leave without the permission of the EU!

3 Fooling all the People all the Time?

• Back in 1884 William Morris and his anarchist chums parted company with erstwhile comrades who insisted there really is a Parliamentary road to socialism. Morris and his newly founded Socialist League warned that Parliament offers nothing more than a career ladder for fake socialists and a smokescreen for the rich and powerful. Plus ca change.
  

  
  

  *********

Review: 'Slow Burning Fuse' & Anarchist Aspects

by Brian Bamford
Reviews:  'The Slow Burning Fuse: The Lost History of the British 
Anarchists' by John Quail, published by Freedom Press [2014] price £15.,

and 'Aspects of Anarchism' published by the Anarchist Federation price £1.  
 Both available from Freedom Press: 
84b, Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. 

IN concluding his book 'The Slow Burning Fuse; The Lost History of the British Anarchists', John Quail writes: 

'...the anarchists of England have paid for the gap between their day-to-day activities and their utopian aspirations.  This gap consists basically of a lack of strategy, a lack of sense of how various activities fit together to form a whole, a lack of ability to assess a general situation and initiate a general project which is consistent with the anarchist utopia, and which is not only consistent with anarchist tactics but inspires them.' 

Mr. Quail admits that 'Such general Anarchist projects have existed, perhaps the best examples being the anarcho-syndicalist trades unions of Spain and France.' 

In his Forword to the Freedom Press 2014 edition of Quail's book Nick Heath*[1] writes 'I would take issue, as very much an organisational anarchist, with some of (Quail's) comments on organisation in his conclusion.'    

John Quail's book fundamentally emphasises the reactionary nature of English anarchism:  only capable of responding in a series of fits-and-starts to specifically social and political conditions.  In contrast to Quail, Mr. Heath no doubt believes what is documented in his Anarchist Federation's pamphlet 'Aspects of Anarchism' (2003) that 'The structure (of an anarchist communist organisation) must increase the ability of the organisation to perpetuate itself while its ends remain un-realised'. 

The historical characteristic of the British left in general has been to react to the agenda set by the establishment and initiatives developed by governments.  The Anarchist Federation in Britain is well within this defensive tradition of reactionary responses as is shown in their pamphlet under review 'Aspects of Anarchism' in the closing paragraphs of this booklet under the subheading 'Our Role' the author writes:  'Large demonstrations and strikes can often turn to violence and we should accept the need for self-defence.' 

Or the author writes:  'In non-revolutionary periods anarchist communists will be a conscious minority with “the leadership of ideas”.'  

There is much talk of 'revolution' here, but the writer mentions 'self-defence' because the nature of British politics is so much about reacting to the authorities in a tactical way rather than developing a serious strategy for social change.  And in the very next sentence the writer continues:  'Groups like the hit squads arising from the miners strike (1984-5) are genuine expressions of working class resistance.'  And then the writer goes on to argue 'we will need to defend ourselves against the violence of our enemies.'  This is all about 'defence' and 'resistance'  not about a pro-active program for social transformation, what's so revolutionary about that? 

The fact is that this is typical of the British left over the ages, and of the most memorable struggles in this country from the General Strike of 1926, to the Peace Movement of the 1960s, to the Miner's Strike of 1984-5, have been reactionary in that they have been responses to the actions of governments. 

Much of the rest of the AF's pamphlet in an act of belief in commitment or act of faith and of solving the problem of 'other minds', or as the writer puts it: 

'Determination and Solidarity:  To create effective organisations we must know our own and other's  [sic] minds, therefore there must be a high degree of communication, of sharing. We must set about creating aspiration, setting achievable targets, celebrating success, rededicating ourselves again and again to the reasons why we have formed or participate in organisation.'

When at random I compare this kind of feeble analyse to an interview in 1977, between the Spanish anarchist, Juan Garcia Oliver entitled 'My revolutionary life' the nature of the abstraction of 'Aspects of Anarchism' becomes clear.  When the questioner, Freddy Gomez asks 'What were the circumstances in which you became active in the libertarian movement and the CNT?'

Garcia Oliver answers:  'We need to be precise about this.  The idea of the “libertarian movement” surfaced well after the period we are talking about.  The CNT, on the other hand, was a long-established battle organisation which in those days marshaled revolutionary syndicalists, especially in Catalonia and therefore throughout Spain.  I join as a 17 year old.  I was working in the hospitality trade, as cafe waiter.  We had just seen the “La Canadiense” strike which is still famous because it was handled to perfection and won by the CNT's Light and Power Union.'

For people like Nick Heath they want to create an organisation or anarchist movement before there are anarchists, were as Garcia Oliver realises that it is in the practical life of the social body of the working class that anarchists are formed and from which the political organisation may then arise. I became an anarchist out of my experiences in the national strikes of engineering apprentices in the early 1960s; those experiences showed me first-hand how the bosses operated, and how the trade union officials and the local politicians operated, just as Garcia Oliver learnt through his experiences in the strikes of waiters for the abolition of tipping.

The point is the theory and the ideas evolve out of the shopfloor struggle.   It is this half-baked idea of the struggle developing out of the theory that is wrong with the approach of the Anarchist Federation: theirs is a form of cookbook anarchism in which the chef knows best. 

The dispute over what Peter Kropotkin stood for 'anarcho-communism', and what Bakunin believed 'collectivism', according to the anthropologist Gerald Brenan in his 'The Spanish Labyrinth' (1962), divided the Regional Federation of Spanish anarchists in 1888:  the argument was about whether anarchist organisations should consist just of convinced Anarchists or if all workers should be included if they were willing to join.  Brenan writes: 

'...with the introduction of Anarcho-Syndicalism in 1909, it was finally decided in accordance with Bakunin's ideas, the question of the nature of the future form of society became less importance.'

It is necessary to mention that this Spanish experience because the history of anarchism there is significant as a consequence of its success in that country.  Garcia Oliver responding to a question about the time when in about 1920 he joined the anarchist 'Bandera Negra' about 'some sort of understanding between syndicalists and anarchists' said:  'We were still a long way from what came later – anarcho-syndicalism – which overcame this dichotomy.  Anarcho-syndicalism allowed anarchism to become part and parcel of trade unionist groups which were imbued with anarchist thinking'.  Garcia Oliver said that he had joined 'Bandera Negra' by mistake and implies that at that time he ought to have been more syndicalist or 'revolutionary syndicalist', because 'Bandera Negra' (Black Flag) 'spent its time liaising – nationally and internationally – with other groups and its main activity was reading incoming correspondence and replying to it.'  The Spanish 'Bandera Negra', according to Garcia Oliver, like the Anarchist Federation was firmly against trade unionism and the CNT.

John Quail recalls the International Anarchist Congress of 1881 in London thus:

'The International Congress was basically an affair of and for Continental and Russian revolutionaries.  The minutes ... reveal that the English delegates played little part; yet many of the people involved were ... exiles in London and the British socialists that a more sophisticated libertarian philosophy was to develop relevant to British conditions.'  

Brenan has written of the same 1881 Congress:

'The Spanish delegate, when he went back to Madrid, took several new ideas with him.  (But) Spaniards lived then at a great distance from the rest of Europe.  Besides, anarchism had still a large proletarian following.  Under such conditions terrorist action was madness and would not find any encouragement among workers.  The new Regional Federation had in any case no need to appeal for violent methods.  Its progress during the first year or two of its existence was rapid.  A Congresss held in Seville in 1882 represented some 50,000 workers, of whom 30,000 came from Andalusia and most of the rest from Catalonia.'

In England, John Quail has demonstrated in his conclusion:

'The anarchist movement in England has shown itself capable of a progression of initiatives taken according to circumstances.  Take, for example, the beginnings of the squatters movement in London.'

Quail realises that the English anarchists are prisoner's of historical circumstances when he argues 'it is only when anarchist strategies develop [and] move from pin-prick defiance and piecemeal defence to confront and change all this that the anarchist movement will make history instead of being dependent on it.'  But this is true of the British left in general and even the trade unions, nay especially the British trade unions in this country, in so far as they are always reacting to events.  Perhaps it is because he now sees change in this respect as such an hopeless expectation in this country that I understand Mr. Quail is no longer sees himself as an anarchist.  As one northern anarchist once said to me:  'Each new batch of English anarchists have to learn the same old lessons every few decades, until in the end some of them give it up as a bad job.'

Starting in 1881, Quail identifies 'the first systematic propaganda defining itself as anarchist that had any effect within the (English) socialist movement came from America the shape of Benjamin Tucker's paper Liberty'.  It seems that Liberty was a 'lively and far ranging and even (Tucker) was prepared to give space for the Anarchist Communist view', though according to Quail, Tucker had 'a good eye for revolutionary humbug'.  And, on the English left there is so much 'humbug' about.

John Quail then goes on to remind us that '[t]he introduction of specifically anarchist ideas into the working class  movement was thus going on well before the alleged Year One of English anarchism, 1886, which saw the foundation of Freedom.' (p37)  (Freedom was finally closed down in 2014, and since then there has been an ongoing disputes between those who scuttled the ship of Freedom and their critics).

In conclusion Quail [page 333] writes:

'The anarchists have since shown the same astonishing ability to suddenly come from nowhere when everyone had assumed that they were finished...  A new movement emerged out of CND and the Committee of 100 and to dispersed.  The student movement of the 1960s again showed strong libertarian proclivities.   And that too seems to have disappeared.  I do not propose to talk about these movements in this book...  A bare mention, however, is sufficient to bear out the general thesis that has emerged throughout the book that the anarchist movement grows in times of popular self-activity, feeds it and feeds off it, and declines when that self-activity declines.'

In contrast to Quail, Nick Heath wants to keep the anarchist movement alive in the fallow years with what he calls the 'leadership of ideas'.  John Quail's book is very London oriented and it fails to include what the northern anarchist  James Pinkerton sometimes called the 'anarchist fellow travellers':  for in the same way that some say 'Christianity doesn't depend on the Christians', so very often anarchism doesn't depend upon the anarchists, as people like Colin Ward seems to have been aware.  William Morris was close to anarchism politically but his influence was larger than mere politics and people like both Quail and Heath will both tend to overlook the 'Arts and Crafts movement' intellectually dominated by Morris, John Ruskin's ideas and the development of the National Trust, and self-help societies, and other kinds of cultural and intellectual spin-off. 

Colin Ward's ideas developed in around 1960 is a more recent example of this approach, which in those days he described as 'permanent protest' or as some claim 'revisionist anarchism'.   In a soon to be published memoir by the veteran anarchist Laurens Otter writes:  'Colin (while retaining the term Revisionist Anarchism) was by 1961 defining his aim as “widening the sphere of  freedom”.'    Mr. Otter then writes:  'Ward's then desired journal (which became “Anarchy: a journal of anarchist ideas”) would from its beginning reject any belief in progressive fundamental change.'

These ideas of Colin Ward contrast not just with the kind of intellectual bigotry of Nick Heath and the the more refine historical determinism of John Quail, but also with the whole of left-wing ideology in this country.  This rupture which Colin Ward developed in the 1960s can best be understood by considering what George Orwell has to say in his essay 'Writers and Leviathan' (1948):

'The whole of left-wing ideology, scientific and Utopian, was evolved by people who had no immediate prospect of attaining power.  It was therefore, an extremist ideology, utterly contemptuous of kings, governments, laws, prisons, police forces, armies, flags, frontiers, patriotism, religion, conventional morality, and, the whole existing scheme of things.'

Anarchism, like the rest of the British left, inherited a certain evolutionary faith associated with the Whig theory of history, or as George Orwell writes:

'Moreover the Left had inherited from Liberalism certain distinctly questionable beliefs, such as the belief that the truth will prevail and persecution defeats itself, or that man is naturally good and is only corrupted by his environment.'

Elsewhere, Orwell points out in his essay 'Inside the Whale' (1940) that no 'real revolutionary feeling' had not existed for years and that the 'pathetic membership of all extremist parties show this clearly'.  In that situation the British Communist Party became a subservient tool of Russian foreign policy and the rest of the left became for most part insignificant.

It seems to me that it is hard to see how English anarchists can escape the 'fate of history' or what Mr. Quail calls 'its pin-prick defiance and piecemeal defence' anymore than the British left can transform itself from the perpetual reactionary role of resisting changes imposed by the British establishment.  Mr. Heath and his Anarchist Fed. show no sign of capturing the public imagination with his own belief in what Wyndham Lewis once called the 'associational habit' of membership organisations.

The Spanish anarchists, as Garcia Oliver says, benefited from having the trade union 'battle ground' of the CNT, and British anarchism gained vast influence when it had the peace movement to work inside in the 1960s.  Today, anarchism lacks any focus or serious social movement to seriously promote its energies, in that situation some of us have found it more prudent to adopt politics with a regional tinge.

*    Nick Heath leads a small sectarian grouping called variously the Anarchist Federation or A.fed. which grew up in the 1980s.  Unlike John Quail, he does not embrace the broader Church of British anarchism.

[1]  Since this review was first written over a year ago the Anarchist Federation: 'fight[ing] for a world without leaders'  has split in two, with Nick Heath and what was the old class war trend have now formed a group called 'communist anarchism', leaving the more modern trans-tendency inside the A.Fed, with its distinguished international affiliations, to soldier-on under the old AF label.

It was once said that the old Liberal Party MPs could just about fill a taxi, but now Nick Heath and 'communist anarchism' tribe could just about get by on a tandem made for two:  Battlescarred in London and Serge Forward in the provinces.   

For example, we learn that on Saturday 17th February [2018], 'anarchist communist militants met in Leicester to found a new organisation, the Anarchist Communist Group (ACG).'

Charles Mowbray - anarchist revolutionary &

  Forest Gate-unemployed champion

by John Walker

CHARLES Mowbray (1856 - 1910) can lay claim to fame to be one of Forest Gate's most controversial political figures. He was an anarchist, who mixed with the Who's Who of the British political left in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and married the daughter of a Paris communard. 

He was imprisoned for inciting riots and spent some time politically agitating in America, from where he was deported.  He ended up in Forest Gate, with his third wife and children, working on Tariff Reform for the Tory party. This is his story.

Charles Wilfred Mowbray was born at Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham in  late 1856 and as a young man served in the Durham Light Infantry. He worked most of his life as a tailor. He married Mary, with whom he had five children (Charles, John, Richard, Grace and Frederick) in 1878.  Mary Mowbray turns out to be a minor political celebrity, being the daughter of the French Communist Joseph Benoit, who'd been active in both the 1848 revolution and the 1871 Paris Commune. She ended up with a huge funeral, locally at Manor Park cemetery - see later.

Charles Mowbray  didn't leave much record of his first contacts with revolutionary ideas, although his obituary in the Shoreditch Observer in December 1910 sheds some light. It described him as:

Once a sinewy, athletic black-haired determined man with the blazing eyes of a fanatic and a tempestuous eloquence that stirred many an open-air meeting. He became a socialist nearly thirty years ago, and joined the Socialist League.

He read widely and moved to London, living in the notorious Boundary Street (the Old Nicol) slum in Whitechapel, in the 1880's.  It is there his revolutionary politics began to flourish, as he came into contact with socialists, anarchists and communists living in the area, greatly politicised by many of the Jewish immigrants who had fled the pogroms in Russia and were determined to organise politically - from afar.

 As his obituary mentions, he joined the Socialist League at its foundation in 1884 - the organisation most closely associated with Walthamstow-born William Morris - and he described himself as an "anarchist/communist".  He became a prominent street corner speaker/political agitator, calling for rent strikes and fairer treatment of workers. He was popular with fellow tailors in the area, and has been called: "One of the greatest working class orators who ever spoke in public".

Walthamstow's William Morris, with
 whom Mowbray joined political
 forces with in the 1880's

When the police began to harass open-air meetings in 1885, he was one of those involved in a major agitation in Dod Street and Burdett Road in Limehouse in September of that year. 

On 20 September, following this meeting, he was beaten by the police there and arrested for obstruction along with other speakers.

William Morris felt that Mowbray "had done the most" but he was set free.  The publicity and outrage created by the arrests meant that 50,000 people turned out in support at Dod Street the following Sunday.

A court sketch of Mowbray,
 at one of his trials

He was again arrested at a free speech rally in Trafalgar Square on 14 June 1886 and was fined £1 with costs.

For more go to:   www.E7-NowAndThen.org, @E7_NowAndThen 

www.E7-NowAndThen.org 

www.E7-NowAndThen.org

William Morris at Wakefield Socialist History Group

Comrades

Forwarding the latest  newsletter from the William Morris Society.

The next Wakefield Socialist History Group event, DEMOCRACY UNCHAINED: TOWARDS A REAL DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT, is next Saturday (22 July)1pm at the Red Shed, Vicarage Street, Wakefield WF1.

Fraternally

Alan Stewart

Convenor, Wakefield Socialist History Group

William Morris Society on behalf of William Morris Society

Sent: 15 July 2017 13:02
Subject: Latest news and events from The William Morris Society

Latest news, exhibitions and events from The William Morris Society View this email in your browser

The William Morris Society eBulletin no. 16

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.”)