Modern History Review: 2010

Wednesday 29 December 2010

Ethel Mannin and Charles Frederick Higham

After leaving school Ethel Mannin found employment as a typist for the advertising agency, Charles F. Higham Ltd. Soon afterwards, Charles Frederick Higham promoted her to the post of copywriter. She also edited two in-house publications. This included The Pelican, a theatrical newspaper Higham acquired in 1917.

On 28th November, 1919, Mannin married fellow writer John Alexander Porteus (1885–1956), who was the general manager at Highams. Soon after her marriage she gave birth to her only child, Jean. She now turned to novel writing and published Martha in 1923. According to one critic, the novel "elaborately plots the life of the lovechild of an unmarried woman and the price the child has to pay for the sins of the parents." This was followed by the Hunger for the Sea (1924), Sounding Brass (1925) and Pilgrims (1927). The author of The Feminist Companion to Literature in English has argued that "these are socially and politically conscious works, alert to women's oppression".

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wmannin.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRhighamC.htm

Friday 24 December 2010

Julia Strachey's Cheerful Weather for the Wedding

Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf established the Hogarth Press. Over the next few years they published the work of Virginia, Flora Mayor, Katherine Mansfield, E. M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Robert Graves, T. S. Eliot and Edith Sitwell. In 1932 they published Julia Strachey's Cheerful Weather for the Wedding. Virginia Woolf's biographer, Hermione Lee, has argued that the novel was "an eccentric and witty story of a single difficult day at a wedding in Dorset, shows us what Virginia Woolf's tastes were in contemporary women's fiction."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTstracheyJ.htm

Stephen Tomlin: Dual Personality

Frances Marshall described Stephen Tomlin: "The two sides of his personality were fused together as it were by an excellent brain inherited from his father the judge (Lord Tomlin), shown in his enjoyment of arguments with a distinctly legal flavour.... Tommy (Tomlin) was on the short side, squarely built, with a large head set on a short neck. He had the striking profile of a Roman emperor on a coin, fair straight hair brushed back from a fine forehead, a pale face and grey eyes."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTtomlinS.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTstracheyJ.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTcarrington.htm

Friday 26 November 2010

Dora Carrington

In 1911 Dora Carrington cut her long hair to a "short, boyish bob". Two of her friends at the Slade Art School, Dorothy Brett and Barbara Hiles, copied her. They became known as the "Slade Cropheads" and "set a trend for young female art students".

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTcarrington.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTbrett.htm

Wednesday 29 September 2010

The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Conspiracy of Silence?

In an article that appeared in The Observer on 11th June 2000, the historian, Martin Pugh, argued that there has been a conspiracy of silence about the lesbian leadership of the WSPU. Is it possible that women historians have kept quiet about this subject because it might raise questions about sexual harassment in the women’s movement? It is no doubt that this sort of thing has gone on with heterosexual men in male dominated political parties.

In 1907 some leading members of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) began to question the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst. These women objected to the way that the Pankhursts were making decisions without consulting members. They also felt that a small group of wealthy women like Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Mary Blathwayt and Clare Mordan were having too much influence over the organisation. In the autumn of 1907, about seventy members of the WSPU left to form the Women's Freedom League (WFL).

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wwspu.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WpankhurstE.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WpankhurstC.htm

After women’s suffrage was achieved, some members of the breakaway group began to argue that there were other factors in this decision. For example, Teresa Billington-Greig, spoke of how some leaders of the WSPU had unhealthy emotional attachments with other members. She named Christabel Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Annie Kenny as members who suffered from this tendency. It is assumed that Billington-Greig was referring to the fact that these three women were lesbians. Although she does not mention it, the other two main financial supporters of the WSPU, Mary Blathwayt and Clare Mordan, were also lesbians.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wpethick.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wbillington.htm

Emmeline Pankhurst was also involved in a lesbian relationship with Ethel Smythe, at the time of the breakaway (her husband had died in 1898). Throughout her life Christabel Pankhurst never had a sexual relationship with a man. According to her biographer, Martin Pugh, Christabel first became involved in the struggle for women’s suffrage after becoming very close to the lesbian lovers, Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper, while studying at Manchester University in 1901.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jsmythe.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WroperE.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IREgorebooth.htm

The WSPU was not formed until 1903. Two years later Annie Kenney, a factory worker from Oldham, heard Christabel Pankhurst speak on the subject of women's rights. They fell in love almost immediately and Christabel arranged for Annie to live with her in London. Over the next couple of years they were inseparable. In 1905 they became the first members of the WSPU to go to prison.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wkenney.htm

Annie Kenney appears to have an amazing impact on other women. Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Mary Blathwayt and Clare Mordan all spoke of falling in love with her the first time they met her. Teresa Billington-Greig claimed that Annie was "emotionally possessed by Christabel". However, Mary Blathwayt, who spent a lot of time with Annie during this period argued that it was Annie who was the dominating personality as she had a "wonderful influence over people".

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wblathwayt.htm

Teresa Billington-Greig has argued that Annie was also very close to Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. "It is true that there was an immediate and strong emotional attraction between Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Annie Kenney... indeed so emotional and so openly paraded that it frightened me. I saw it as something unbalanced and primitive and possibly dangerous to the movement."

Fran Abrams the author of Freedom's Cause: Lives of the Suffragettes (2003), has argued that Annie Kenney had a series of romantic attachments with other suffragettes: "The relationship (with Christabel Pankhurst) would be mirrored, though never matched in its intensity, by a number of later relationships between Annie and other suffragettes. The extent of their physical nature has never been revealed, but it is certain that in some sense these were romantic attachments. One historian who argues that Annie must have had sexual feelings for other women adds that lesbianism was barely recognised at the time. Such relationships, even when they involved sharing beds, excited little comment."

However, a recently discovered diary has shown that these were sexual relationship. This unpublished diary belonged to Mary Blathwayt, a leading financial backer of the WSPU and up to now, someone who has been virtually ignored by historians. Blathwayt, used her home, Eagle House near Batheaston, as a retreat for suffragettes recovering from being in prison.

Mary Blathwayt recorded in her diary that Annie Kenney had intimate relationships with at least ten members of the WSPU. Blathwayt records in her diary that she slept with Annie in July 1908. Soon afterwards she exhibits jealousy with the comments that "Miss Browne is sleeping in Annie's room now." The diary suggests that Annie was sexually involved with both Christabel Pankhurst and Clara Codd. Blathwayt wrote on 7th September 1910 that "Miss Codd has come to stay, she is sleeping with Annie." Codd's autobiography, So Rich a Life (1951) confirms this account. The historian, Martin Pugh, points out that "In the diary Kenney appears frequently and with different women. Almost day by day Mary says she is sleeping with someone else."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wclodd.htm

Clare Mordan, who never went to prison, but who was one of the WSPU main financial backers, also spent a lot of time at Eagle House. It seems that some women could buy themselves into what appears to have become a “love nest”. Mary’s father, Colonel Linley Blathwayt, a retired army officer, motivation for allowing these women to live in his house, also raises interesting questions. He built a summer-house in the grounds of the estate that was called the "Suffragette Rest". He was an amateur photographer and took portrait photographs of the women. These were then signed and sold at WSPU bazaars. Maybe he also took some other kinds of photographs. According to historians of pornography, photographs of women together were in great demand and could be sold at a very high price.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wmordan.htm

Annie Kenney admitted in her autobiography that suffragettes developed a different set of values to other women at the time: "The changed life into which most of us entered was a revolution in itself. No home life, no one to say what we should do or what we should not do, no family ties, we were free and alone in a great brilliant city, scores of young women scarcely out of their teens met together in a revolutionary movement, outlaws or breakers of laws, independent of everything and everybody, fearless and self-confident."

The reason why Teresa Billington-Greig complained about these lesbian relationships was that she felt it was damaging the movement. It was argued that women were promoted to the leadership of the WSPU because of their lesbianism. For example, when Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst escaped to France, Annie Kenney was put in charge of operations in England. When Kenney was imprisoned the post went to her lover and flat-mate, Rachael Barrett. She was replaced by Grace Roe, who had been the lover of both Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WbarrettR.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wroe.htm

After the First World War the WSPU women became more open about their sexuality. After the war Rachel Barrett lived with her lover Ida Wylie, a novelist and short story writer. Both women were close friends of Radclyffe Hall and gave her support during the obscenity trial following the publication of her lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness (1928). Hall lost the case and all copies of the novel were destroyed.

Two other members of the WSPU, Edith Craig (the daughter of the actress Helen Terry) and Christabel Marshall, had lived together for fifteen years. In 1916 they were joined by Clare Atwood where they formed a permanent ménage à trois. Her biographer, Katharine Cockin, has pointed out that Marshall wrote they "achieved independence within their intimate relationships... working respectively in the theatre, art, and literature, drew creative inspiration and support from each other."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WcraigE.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WmarshallC.htm

Monday 9 August 2010

Carl Sandburg: Poet and Journalist

In 1911 E. W. Scripps decided to publish a newspaper that was completely free of advertising. The tabloid-sized newspaper was called The Day Book, and at a penny a copy, it aimed for a working-class market, crusading for higher wages, more unions, safer factories, lower streetcar fares, and women’s right to vote. It also tackled the important stories ignored by most other dailies. Carl Sandburg was employed by Scripps in 1913. As a socialist, Sandburg enjoyed working for the The Day Book. According to Duane C. S. Stoltzfus, the author of Freedom from Advertising (2007): "The Day Book served as an important ally of workers, a keen watchdog on advertisers, and it redefined news by providing an example of a paper that treated its readers first as citizens with rights rather than simply as consumers." The newspaper ceased publication in 1917.

Sandburg also contributed poems and articles to The Masses, a socialist journal edited by Max Eastman and run by a co-operative of radical writers and artists. Other members of the group included Floyd Dell, John Reed, William Walling, Sherwood Anderson, Upton Sinclair, Michael Gold, Amy Lowell, Louise Bryant, John Sloan, Art Young, Boardman Robinson, Robert Minor, K. R. Chamberlain, Stuart Davis, Lydia Gibson, George Bellows and Maurice Becker.

Sandburg's reputation as a major poet was established in 1916 with the publication of Chicago Poems. The book, with its urban themes and Sandburg's use of colloquialism, heralded a new development in American poetry. Sandburg produced several collections of poems over the next fifteen years including Cornhuskers (1918), Smoke and Steel (1920), Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922) and Good Morning, America (1928).

As well as his poetry, Sandburg is known for series of books on the life of Abraham Lincoln. This included Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1926), a book for children, Abe Lincoln Grows Up (1928), Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow (1932) and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939). This work won a Pulitzer Prize as did his Complete Poems (1950). Other books include the novel, Remembrance Rock (1948) and an autobiography of his early life, Always the Young Strangers (1952).

Sandburg continued to write poetry and some critics believe that Honey and Salt (1963) published when the author was 85, contains some of his best work.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jsandburg.htm

Thursday 22 July 2010

David Cameron and the Second World War

David Cameron has claimed that he wants to make history a compulsory subject because he is concerned about young people's knowledge of the past. It seems he did not get a very good history education at Eton. In this interview yesterday he said that the UK was the "junior partner" under the United States against Germany in 1940.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10727983

Thursday 15 July 2010

1929 and 2010

In the 1929 General Election the Conservatives won 8,664,000 votes, the Labour Party 8,360,000 and the Liberals 5,300,000. However, the bias of the system worked in Labour's favour, and in the House of Commons the party won 287 seats, the Conservatives 261 and the Liberals 59. Ramsay MacDonald became Prime Minister again, but as before, he still had to rely on the support of the Liberals to hold onto power.

Ramsay MacDonald was forced to do a deal with David Lloyd George. This included reforming the way MPs were elected to the House of Commons. After a meeting on 19th May, 1930, MacDonald wrote in his diary: "Told me he (Lloyd George) could not get his party to accept alternative vote: would only have Proportional Representation. I said we would not accept P.R., but would offer alternative vote as a compromise." It seems that this is the same conversation that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been having over the last couple of months.

The other thing that they could not agree on was public spending. During the 1929 election campaign David Lloyd George published a pamphlet, We Can Conquer Unemployment, where he proposed a government scheme where 350,000 men were to be employed on road-building, 60,000 on housing, 60,000 on telephone development and 62,000 on electrical development. The cost would be £250 million, and the money would be raised by loan. John Maynard Keynes also published a pamphlet supporting Lloyd George's scheme.

These views impressed Richard Tawney who wrote a letter to Ramsay MacDonald, the leader of the Labour Party, about the forthcoming election: "If the Labour Election Programme is to be of any use it must have something concrete and definite about unemployment... What is required is a definite statement that (a) Labour Government will initiate productive work on a larger scale, and will raise a loan for the purpose. (b) That it will maintain from national funds all men not absorbed in such work." MacDonald refused to be persuaded by Tawney's ideas and rejected the idea that unemployment could be cured by public works.

During the economic crisis of 1930-31, MacDonald had a series of meetings with Lloyd George and Maynard Keynes about public spending. However, MacDonald refused to change his mind and unemployment continued to grow. When he took power in 1929 the unemployment figure was 1,433,000. By June 1931 it reached 2,735,000.

Most Labour MPs agreed with increased public spending. MacDonald favoured cuts and in July 1931 he formed a National Government with the Conservatives. Lloyd George and the Liberals did not get parliamentary reform or increased public spending. Is history going to be repeated?

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUkeynes.htm

A very interesting analysis on the way the assassination of John F. Kennedy is treated at Wikipedia can be found here:

http://www.ctka.net/2010/wiki.html

It includes the following passage:

From here on out to the end of the Wikipedia LHO entry, just about all of its information is in support of the Warren Commission Report's 1964 conclusions. With the exception of a very brief and dismissive mention of the House Select Committee on Assassination's (HSCA) 1979 assertion that there was a " 'high probability that two gunman fired' at Kennedy and that Kennedy 'was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.' " As well as the use of a few very selectively drawn conclusions from the HSCA that duly support the 1964 Commission's conclusions, Gamaliel/Fernandez and those at Wikipedia who are supporting his policy of blanket censorship would have us believe that there have been absolutely no new developments in the ensuing 46+ years that would merit any direct mention in the LHO entry. This is strongly proven by an analysis of the footnotes. In an essay of over 150 references, 11 are from the HSCA – which was the most recent federal inquiry into the case. Two are from Tony Summers' book Not in Your Lifetime, and two references are to the work of Don Thomas on the acoustics evidence that indicates two gunmen. In other words, of the library of several hundred books criticizing the Commission, Gamaliel/Fernandez used exactly one. The crucial work of Sylvia Meagher, Howard Roffman, Philip Melanson, Bill Davy and John Newman do not exist for him or the readers of this essay. Which is bizarre, since it is largely that work that has placed the Warren Commission in disrepute to the point that Gamaliel/Fernnadez is one of the few who still believes it. But further, the work of Davy, Melanson, and Newman revolutionized the way we percieve Oswald. Which is not important to Gamaliel/Fernandez. The rest of the footnotes, about 90%, are to the Commission, and the likes of Gerald Posner, The Dallas Morning News, and Vincent Bugliosi. There is not one footnote to the files of Jim Garrison or the depositions of the Assassination Records and Review Board. In fact, the ARRB does not exist for Gamaliel/Fernandez. Which is stunning, since they enlarged the document base on Oswald and the Kennedy case by 100%. But since much of their work discredited the Commission, it gets the back of Gamaliel's/Fernandez's hand. If that Is not Orwellian, then what is?

Just how bad is Gamaliel's/Fernandez's work here? This is the third paragraph, which appears at the end of the introduction: "In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, a conclusion also reached by prior investigations carried out by the FBI and Dallas Police." He leaves out the following: 1) Oswald never had a trial; 2) the Commission never furnished him with a lawyer posthumously; 3) the FBI report was so bad it was not included in the Commission volumes; and 4) even Burt Griffin of the Commission suspected the Dallas Police helped Jack Ruby enter the jail to kill Oswald. So much for the "investigations" of the FBI and the Dallas Police. This gives us a good idea of what the rest of the essay will be like.

Wednesday 14 July 2010

King George V complained about the singing of the Red Flag

In the 1923 General Election, the Labour Party won 191 seats. Although the Conservative Party had 258 seats, Herbert Asquith announced that the Liberal Party would not keep the Tories in office. If a Labour Government were ever to be tried in Britain, he declared, "it could hardly be tried under safer conditions". On 22nd January, 1924 Stanley Baldwin resigned. At midday, Ramsay MacDonald went to Buckingham Palace to be appointed prime minister. He later recalled how George V complained about the singing of the Red Flag and the La Marseilles, at the Labour Party meeting in the Albert Hall a few days before. MacDonald apologized but claimed that there would have been a riot if he had tried to stop it. Ramsay MacDonald agreed to head a minority government, and therefore became the first member of the party to become Prime Minister.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRmacdonald.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Plabour.htm

Monday 12 July 2010

Vernon Hartshorn and the First World War

During the First World War several Labour Party changed their views on international conflict in order to further their career. One such example was Vernon Hartshorn, a miner's leader in South Wales. Hartshorn supported the war effort and served on the coal trade organization committee, the coal controllers' advisory committee, and the industrial unrest committee in South Wales. His loyal support resulted in him being awarded the OBE in 1918.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUhartshorn.htm

Friday 9 July 2010

Guy Aldred and British Anarchism

Guy Aldred was a socialist who supported the Russian Revolution but disapproved of the way that Lenin and Bolsheviks closed down the Constituent Assembly and began banning political parties such as the Cadets, Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries.

On 31st July, 1920, a group of revolutionary socialists attended a meeting at the Cannon Street Hotel in London. The men and women were members of various political groups including the British Socialist Party (BSP), the Socialist Labour Party (SLP), Prohibition and Reform Party (PRP) and the Workers' Socialist Federation (WSF). It was agreed to form the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

Willie Paul argued strongly against the strategy suggested by Lenin that the CPGB should develop a close-relationship with the Labour Party. "We of the Communist Unity Group feel our defeat on the question of Labour Party affiliation very keenly. But we intend to loyally abide by the decision of the rank and file convention." Aldred agreed:"Lenin's task compels him to compromise with all the elect of bourgeous society, whereas our task demands no compromise. And so we take different paths, and are only on the most distant speaking terms".

Aldred summarised the position in 1920: "I have no objection to an efficient and centralised party so long as the authority rests in the hands of the rank and file, and all officials can be sacked at a moment's notice. But I want the centralism to be wished for and evolved by the local groups, a slow merging of them into one party, from the bottorp upwards, as distinct from this imposition from the top downwards." He added: "It was hoped to create a communist federation out of those remaining groups. The principle of federation - a federation of communist groups developed voluntarily from below, rather than an imposed centralism from above - was always an important and consistent part of the anti-parliamentary movement's proposals for unity."

In 1921 Aldred established the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation (APCF), a breakaway group from the Communist Party of Great Britain. This became the main British anarchist group in Britain. He edited the organisation's newspaper, The Communist. The authorities began to invistigate this group and Aldred, Jenny Patrick, Douglas McLeish and Andrew Fleming were eventually arrested and charged with sedition. After being held in custody for nearly four months they appeared at Glasgow High Court on 21st June 1921. They were all found guilty. The Socialist reported: "Lord Skerrington then passed sentences: Guy Aldred, one year: Douglas McLeish three months: Jane Patrick, three months, Andrew Fleming (the printer), three months and a fine of £50, or another three months."

For more on Guy Aldred see:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPaldredG.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAanarchist.htm

Thursday 8 July 2010

Grace Roe and Christabel Pankhurst

In April 1913 Grace Roe became head of operations in London. Roe was arrested on 23rd May 1914. She went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed and was still in prison when on 4th August, when England declared war on Germany. A few days later the leadership of the WSPU began negotiating with the British government. On the 10th August the government announced it was releasing all suffragettes from prison.

In 1918 Grace Roe went to live with Annie Kenney in St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex. They remained together until Kenney, who was bisexual, fell in love James Taylor. Grace now went to live with Christabel Pankhurst. They eventually settled in Santa Barbara but later moved to Hollywood. They were still together when Christabel died at her home in Santa Monica on 13th February 1958 from a heart attack. Grace was appointed as her literary executor and was responsible for the publication of Christabel's memoirs, Unshackled: the Story of how we Won the Vote.

Grace Roe was interviewed by Anna Raeburn for BBC's Woman's Hour in 1968. This can be found here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wroe.htm

Other interviews can be found here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WpankhurstC.htm

Margaret and Ramsay MacDonald

In May 1895 Margaret Gladstone saw Ramsay MacDonald addressing an audience during his campaign to win the Southampton seat in the 1895 General Election. She noted that his red tie and curly hair made him look "horribly affected". However, she sent him a £1 contribution to his election fund. A few days later she became one of his campaign workers. MacDonald, along with the other twenty-seven Independent Labour Party candidates, was defeated and overall, the party won only 44,325 votes.

The following year they began meeting at the Socialist Club in St. Bride Street and at the British Museum, where they both had readers' tickets. In April 1896 she joined the ILP. In a letter she admitted that before she met him she had been terribly lonely: "But when I think how lonely you have been I want with all my heart to make up to you one tiny little bit for that. I have been lonely too - I have envied the veriest drunken tramps I have seen dragging about the streets if they were man and woman because they had each other... This is truly a love letter: I don't know when I shall show it you: it may be that I never shall. But I shall never forget that I have had the blessing of writing it."

You can read their moving love letters here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRmacdonaldM2.htm

Margaret MacDonald died on 8th September 1911, at her home, Lincoln's Inn Fields, from blood poisoning due to an internal ulcer. Her body was cremated at Golders Green on 12th September and the ashes were buried in Spynie Churchyard, a few miles from Lossiemouth. Her son, Malcolm MacDonald, later recalled: "At the time of my mother's death... my father's grief was absolutely horrifying to see. Her illness and her death had a terrible effect on him of grief; he was distracted; he was in tears a lot of time when he spoke to us... it was almost frightening to a youngster like myself."

An account of how this changed her career can be found here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRmacdonald.htm