Spanish Civil War Sculpture

More than £11,000 has been raised to honour the eight men from Hull who fought against General Franco.  (sent by Jayne Clenmentson)

A plan to erect a memorial to eight men from Hull who joined the International Brigade to fight in the Spanish Civil War has commissioned a sculptor.

Thousands of people from Britain and Ireland fought against General Franco's forces between 1936 and 1939.
Dan Jones, a sculptor from South Yorkshire, said: "I want to make it inspirational to the mens' families."
The memorial is planned for the city centre close to Queens Gardens but the actual site has not been revealed.

Four of the Hull men, Jack Atkinson, Jim Bentley, Morris Miller and Robert Wardle, died.
Joe Latus, Richard Mortimer, Sam Walters and Bert Wilson all returned from the conflict.
There is already a commemorative plaque in the city's Guildhall to honour the eight men.
Andrew Young of Hull International Brigades Memorial Group said the new structure would be a "more fitting memorial".
More than £11,000 has already been raised by the group and it plans to unveil the memorial next October, he said.
Mr Jones is looking to source Spanish materials for his work that will have the names of the men embedded in it.
The design of the memorial is not being disclosed until it is unveiled, he said.
Mr Jones said he wanted the design to be "inspirational to the present generation" and it would "commemorate ordinary working man who fought fascism".

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‘Down and Out in Paris ..,and Rochdale!'

by Andrew Wastling

'The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.' 
Henry David Thoreau , On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1849  

_____________________________

INSTEAD of being a progressive driver of positive social change Rochdale council still seems intent on moving our civil liberties back almost four hundred years to the time when beggars or those without visible means were forcibly taken to the Parish boundary and unceremoniously thrown over it onto the mercy of the neighbouring Parish for poor relief giving to the rise to the expression ‘From Hell, Hull and Halifax, may the Good Lord deliver us!'
These words form part of the infamous Thieves’ Litany, uttered in Mediaeval Yorkshire as a leave-taking ‘prayer’ between two thieves as they parted. Hell was to be feared, of course, as was Hull Gaol with its evil reputation. Halifax was one of those towns granted the right to a ‘gibbet’, (still visible at the end of Gibbet Street , in Halifax to this day ), a particular savage form of early guillotine, which  was notorious for its quick use against suspected villains. In the seventh century paupers were sometimes branded on the forehead with a letter 'V' for vagrant. 
Whilst in  the 1930's, local Socialist writer Jack Hilton was truncheoned into near temporary paralysis at the Town Hall Poor Relief Assizes simply for speaking out in support of the poor & needy of Rochdale in the Great Depression. In the preceding eighty odd years we have thankfully made considerable progress.  Or at least some of us have.

Hilton knew he was a link in a long chain going back to the Middle Ages and beyond of those who'd chronicled the lived experience of the poor and marginalised in this country when he described the treatment of vagrants in the late 1500's in Caliban Shrieks ,written 1935 ,he vividly described the medieval lived experience the poor:

'Vagabonds were sentenced to be branded, five to be hanged , and eight set to service .  Service was unvarnished slavery .And it was from the stress of such times that humanity set up it's workhouses. We still have them with us.'

We also have first hand descriptive evidence by Jack Hilton of the scene in the Rochdale  Means tests for Public Assistance  in the middle 1930's when he noted brutality to the poor remained , just in a different form:

'What sort of civilised action in such callousness. When you take away the last straw off the poor blighter, it's a punishment that eats into his bone ? '

What sort of 'civilised actions' indeed comrade?

Proving that history does indeed have an uncanny knack of repeating itself we read that in the twenty first century Rochdale Council seems to be again intent on a course of action that insure that far from being feared that they are widely ridiculed & locally despised.
Human rights are human rights.  We can not decide that some human rights are more important than others or cherry pick those we wish to preserve & those we wish to ignore. For that way lies Animal Farms proclamation by the pigs and the rank hypocrisy of governments that proclaim the absolute equality of their citizens but give power and privileges to a small elite : ' All animals are equal but some are more equal than others,' is the well known political phrase.
Or perhaps in Rochdale Councils  case : 'some human rights abuses less important than other human rights abuses' ?
Maybe our council could take us further backwards  still and bring back the use of St. Chads stocks , reintroduce the 'rack', public floggings with the birch ,put the building of a shiny new privately run Rochdale Workhouse up for tender to the highest bidder and while they are at it have the poor of our Borough sew a letter 'P' for Pauper on their clothing so they can be easily identified for ridicule by their fellow citizens & aid their imminent arrest by the Goon Squads of the State apparatus ?
As to imposing one thousand pound fines for begging just refer R v Ealing Justices ex p Cloves (CO/16/10/89) where the Court said:
'If the defendant cannot pay the fine within a reasonable time, it is an indication that the fine is too high.'
Owing money is of itself not a criminal act.'
Amongst the widely ridiculed ' swearing ban' we also have the deeply undemocratic : 'Unauthorised distribution of printed material/leaflets' - having to get each and every leaflet authorised before it's handed out smacks of the Stasi, the Police State & Orwell's Thought Police. 
Who exactly decides what is to  be authorised and approved and what passes or fails to pass the official State sanctioned Censor I wonder ?
In the Manifesto Clubs booklet, 'Leafleting: A Liberty Lost?',  it is argued that:  '27% of councils now restrict public leafleting.'
Prompting their call for 'a review of local authorities’ no-tolerance policies, and for a more liberal regime that recognises leafleting as part of a free and vibrant civic life.'

Equally in Areopagitica, published in 1644, John Milton argued that licensing laws were a dead hand on the search for understanding, with every creation passing under the licenser’s stamp and pen before  it could enter into the world. The criticisms of fellow citizens were a surer test of truth than friars or crown agents, he argued:
‘Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be  monopolised and traded in by tickets and statutes and standards.’
The pressure of liberal opinion won the day, and the licensing of printing was finally ended in 1695, a century or more before many continental states.
'Why are beggars despised?' , asked George Orwell in 'Down and Out in Paris and London' , 1933 .
'A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.'
In Austerity Britain where the Social Market Foundation (SMF) has just revealed the rich are 64% richer than before the recession, while the poor are 57% poorer .We have witnessed , and sometimes witness daily , since 2010 a year on increase in rough sleepers, a 60% rise in families living in temporary accommodation with 67% of children living in poverty from working families.  It should come as no surprise that at the same time the poor should be more visible on our streets .  Their cardboard pedestals a stark & constant reminder of the abject failure of neo-liberalism for many.  Equally we should not be surprised that those in power wish to demonise & scapegoat these inconvenient reminders that the glitzy consumerist utopia does not work for all.  Or even better sweep them out of sight and out of mind entirely.
Gentrification like urban poverty is nothing new. Just ask the sans-culottes driven out of their Paris quartiers in the 1860's by Barron Haussman in the 1860's , any barrios , favela , or slum dog millionaire dweller from Dickens to Dakar .Or simply ask any of the  29 mothers and expectant mothers from the E15 Campaign who received eviction notices and were told they would have to get out because the council’s funding stream to the mother and baby unit suddenly stopped by Newham Council due to Austerity and are now resisting gentrification across London.
Equally as Mike Davis points out in his excellent 'Planet of the Slums' , the 'brutal tectonics of neoliberal globalisation' have spawned :
'A proletariat without factories, workshops , and work, and without bosses, in the middle of the odd jobs, drowning in survival and leading an existence like a path through embers.'
Simultaneously we stand both despairingly distant from yet tantalisingly close to the post industrialism of Pyotr Kropotkin's 'Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow'.  It does not require much investigation to see that:  
'Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor.'   Especially when we consider that  a massive £250 million pounds regeneration programme for Rochdale Town Centre it is that many of us who comprise the 'precariat' still remain 'drowning in survival' and feel alienated to and disenfranchised from the local democratic decision making process that seeks to map out our sparkling futures in which we are no longer citizens but consumers.  Mere spectators of the Theatre of the Absurd many steps removed from a dysfunctional local 'democratic process' that is neither transparent , inclusive or truly represents or involves the majority of local residents at all.
A neurotic  political climate in which we read dumfounded that a legitimate question about , 'the Labour Group wanting  to adopt a policy promoted by the local Green Party to create an additional 100 allotments in Rochdale.' Was refused on the dubious grounds that the question , 'How many allotments have been created over the 12 months since then?', was deemed too 'politically motivated' by our Big Brother Council ?
Rather than seeing 'reds under the flower beds', conspiracies and shady plots in legitimate questions about innocuous allotments our council should have a thumb through Peter Hall and Colin Ward 'Sociable Cities' since 'the birthplace of cooperation' seems far from sociable at the moment with it's  proposed a Public Space Protection Order.  They should take a lesson from Colin Ward when he pointed out that : 
'The terrifying breakdown of social cohesion in the American city, in spite of intense institutionalized police surveillance equipped with every sophisticated aid to public control, illustrates that social behaviour depends upon mutual responsibility rather than upon the policeman.'

We can not either divorce the issue of urban poverty from the question of private property & public space.  Attempts to marginalise demonise the poor go back to 1824 and further still to medieval times, with attempts to criminalise the urban poor at the height of the industrial revolution.  During this time, land privatisation was being rolled out on a mass scale, and hundreds of thousands of people who lacked the means to purchase property were displaced from their homes and the land some of them had lived on for generations.  The Enclosure Acts equally played their part:

'The law doth punish man or woman
That steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater felon loose
That steals the common from the goose.'

Or my preferred version of this 17th century protest rhyme :

'The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.'

These fundamental issues of land ownership & English liberty that can be traced back to the Putney Debates, & The Levellers when Cromwell's common soldiers took on their generals to argue for greater democracy and provided a platform for 'common people' to make their voices heard. These debates, forced by the Levellers paved the way for many of the civil liberties we rightly cherish and value today.

Fundamental to the birth of English liberty then  was the realisation by Colonel Rainsborough, (the highest ranking officer to support the ordinary solders) that:
“I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he” 

That was in Autumn 1647.  We're of course mindful that in 1649 Cromwell sent his mounted 'iron-sides'  in to brutally supress Winstanley's nascent communistic Digger Community at St. Georges Hill. Reminding us if we need one that where there are the seeds of liberty & dreams of utopia then we will find those willing to scythe such hard won liberty's & trample shared visions of a fairer society and a Better World into the dust simply to impose their own personal dystopia. In the future warns Orwell :   

'There will be no loyalty except loyalty to the Party. But always there will be the intoxication of power.  Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who’s helpless.  If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.  The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one: don’t let it happen.  It depends on you.'

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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” 

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”)