Robert Blatchford

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Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford, (March 17, 1851 – December 17, 1943), was a socialist campaigner, journalist and author in the United Kingdom.

Contents

[edit] Early life

The second son of John Glanville Blatchford a strolling comedian and Georgina Louisa Corri Blatchford an actress. He was born in Maidstone, England. His early Life was mostly spent around a stage, his father died when he was very young in 1853. However his mother continued to act for the following nine years. To help support the family the two sons, Montagu and Robert would perform with their mother doing comedic renditions and dances for extra income which mostly was insufficient. In 1862 the family settled in Halifax to attempt to start a better life by allowing the sons to learn a trade. Roberts first job being an odd job boy in a lithographic printing works; his salary being only eighteen pence a week. As a child he did attend school, only occasionally though, firstly in Halifax and then Portsmouth for only a few weeks. These brief experiances though did provide him with enough insight to be able to label the education system as a 'cram' method.

To gain an education he self taught himself from the age of eight, he read the Bible, Pilgrims Progress, Dickens. His poor health provided him with this time, throughout his childhood he was frail and sickly and in fact Doctors stated he would not reach adulthood. Around 1864 his mother secured full time employment as a dressmaker and immediately apprenticed both her sons, Montagu as a Lithogrphic Printer and Robert as a Brushmaker. It was at this factory that he met the girl he would later marry, 'Within a few weeks... I told myself I would marry Sarah Crossley.' They would eventually marry in 1880.

By 1871 Blatchford left Halifax, as to why there is debate. Laurance Thomson argues that it is because of a quarrel with his mother. His daughter Dorothea stated it was on May Day he decided to leave because of his hard life. On this day he decided to leave for Hull by foot then on to London via Yarmouth

[edit] Life in the Army and Early Journalistic Career

He joined the army at an early age and rose to become a sergeant major by 1874 and had also achieved the army's second class certificate of education. To reach this level it took Seven years, he served with the Irish regiment 103rd Dublin Fusilears and the 96th Regiment of foot. The enjoyment of the army stimulated in Robert some of his best writing. In 1877 he left the army to become a clerk in the Weaver Navigation Company earning a guinea per week. Although he had left the army in 1878 he served a few months with the reserve army due to the scare that Russia posed to England. During this time as a clerk he carefully used his spare time to learn, he learnt grammer, syntax and shorthand. By 1880 he was married to his sweetheart Sarah Crossley, they were married at the Zion chapel Halifax and settled in Norwich, she was the daughter of a domestic servant and machanic. It was around this time that Robert was becoming frustrated with his job, he had the desire to become an artist. Unfortunately in Norwich the facilities to become an artist were not at Roberts disposal so instead settled to become a writer. His career began in 1882 on the Yorkshireman Newspaper, he had merely had a sketch published. He achieved obtaining a job full time through his friend Alexander Muttock Thompson who worked for the Manchester Sporting Chronicle, Thompson advised him to a friend who ran the newspaper Bells life in London. He started at this paper a year later and he also began writing for the Leeds Toby. This new job sparked a new life for the family and also a move to South London.

In 1885 he began to write for the Manchester Sunday Chronicle, when Bells Life failed he moved to this full time in 1887 via a short holiday on the Isle Of Wight due to the death of his two children. He was not yet a socialist, although back in the North there was much more to influence him much more towards it. in the North there was huge reaction to the competitiveness of industrial society. The largest influnce on Blatchford was the South Salford Social Democratic Federation. In 1889 he was fully converted for the Chronicle he wrote a series of article denouncing the conditions of the housing in Manchester and he organised two working mens Sanitary Organisations.

[edit] Move to Socialism

In 1890 based in Manchester he became actively involved in the Labour Movement, Blatchford founded the Manchester branch of the Fabian Society, and then he launched a weekly newspaper, The Clarion in 1891. In 1893 he published some of his articles on socialism as the book, Merrie England. This influential work was largely inspired by William Morris.

In 1891 through his column announced that he had accpted the invitation of the Bradford Labour Union to become the indepenant labour candidate to East Bradford. Due to his socialist stance he had to leave the Sunday Chronicle which in turn left him with a severe cut back in income as he had been paid a 1000 a year.

Having left the newspaper on the 12th December 1891 Blatchford set up the Clarion Newspaper, unfortunately due to a printing error the first edition of it was almost completely illegible. Fortunately it still sold 40,000 plus copies due to the amount of ILP members. It continued to sell this amount and much more for the following years. By 1910 the paper was selling around the 83,000 mark.

By 1892 Blatchford removed himself from the candidature of East Bradford and began siding with the SDF against the Fabians permeation policy. The outcome of this joining of Clarion and SDF was the Manchester ILP party in 1892, together they devised the Manchester Fourth Clause, however the ILP refused to adopt this. By 1893 Blatchford was the leader of his own Clique within the ILP, the Clarionettes and in 1894 he published Merrie England in order to educate Socialism; this sold over 2 million copies, many at football matches and other public events. The book’s sales reflect the extraordinary dynamism of Blatchford’s ‘Clarion Movement’. Its numerous choirs and cycling clubs, socialist scouts and Glee Clubs are a reminder that British socialism at the start of the last century placed a distinctive emphasis on convivial organisation.


By 1889 the influence of Blatchford was beginning to be fully felt, the Clarion movement was having a profound effect on the Labour movement it was effecting the communities throughout the North and holding the movement together when perhaps its support would have dwindled. 1889 Cinderella Clubs were established for children, 1894 the Clarion Scouts and Vocal Union further the Clarion Song Book was published in 1906. Central to the Clarion movement were the Clarion cycling clubs who, often accompanied by the "Clarion Van", would travel the country distributing socialist literature and holding mass meetings. Robert Tressell's classic socialist novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists contains a detailed account based on a meeting Tressell saw which was organised by the Clarion's cycling scouts.

The Clarion movement also gave support to many of the industrial disputes at this time, including the famous three year lockout of the slateworkers of the Penrhyn slate quarry in North Wales, with the clarion collecting £1500 to support the people of Bethesda.


Revolt appeared in the county federation created by the ILP in 1894, Blatchford urged for the formation of a united socialist party. Also in the same year he resigned from the position as editor of the Clarion due to ill health and developed depression around this time. He started to edit again in 1896 however supported the Boar war which lost him support from the Labour movement, this was perhaps in part due to his military past. After the war he continued to agitate for a United Socialist Party and supported the London Progressive Party who were the accepted Radicals in London.

A further development in Blatchfords thinking cost him further reader, he began denunciating organised religion in such works as ‘God and my Neighbourhood’ in 1903 and ‘Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog’ 1905. Again to antagonise the ILP the Clarion raised funds for Victor Grayson who the ILP declined. Justified his attacks as Labour were too close to the Liberals. In 1909 he began advocating conscription, later in 1912 troops were used for strike breaking and Blatchford turned against it. Clarion Movement disintegrated when Blatchford swung his paper in support of the British Government and the first world war. In 1914 he left the Socialist movement and continued to oppose conscription. He worked on the Sunday chronicle and weekly dispatch, in 1927 he went freelance. His wife had died previously in 1921 at which poin the became a spiritualist and voted conservative in 1924 and continued to antogonise the Labour Party.

He died on the 17th December 1943

[edit] Bibliography

Dictionary of Labour Biography, Vol4, John Savile, Joyce Bellamy
www.oxforddnb.com

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Books by Blatchford

These include:

  • The Nunquam Papers (from the Sunday Chronicle) Edward Hulton and Co., 1891
  • Fantasias John Heywood, Manchester, 1892
  • Merrie England Clarion Office, Walter Scott, 1893 (reprinted New York, N.Y., Monthly Review Press, 1966)
  • The Nunquam Papers (from the The Clarion) Clarion Newspaper, 1895)
  • A Bohemian Girl (McGinnis, P., pseudonym), London, 1898, Clarion Newspapers Co., Walter Scott, Ltd.
  • Dismal England, London, Clarion Press, May 1899
  • My Favourite Books The Clarion Office, (also Chesworth, 1900)
  • God and my Neighbour Clarion Press, 1903, also 1906
  • Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog Clarion Press, 1906
  • The Dolly Ballads (Illustrated by Frank Chesworth) Clarion Press, 1907, also The Utopia Press Limited, (also Odhams Press, 1950)
  • My Life in the Army, London, Clarion Press, 1910
  • As I Lay A-Thinking: Some Memories and Reflections of an Ancient and Quiet Watchman Hodder & Stoughton, London, (1926)
  • A Book About Books, London, Clarion Press, 1903
  • Britain for the British, London, Clarion Press, 1902
  • Essays of To-Day and Yesterday, London, George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd., 1927
  • General Von Sneak, London, Hodder & Stoughton, Publishers, n.d.
  • Julie A Study of a Girl by a Man, London, Clarion Press, n.d.
  • My Eighty Years, Great Britain, Cassell & Company Limited. 1931
  • My Favourite Books, London, Clarion Press, 1901
  • Saki’s Bowl, London, Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, 1928
  • Stunts, London, Clarion Press, n.d.
  • Tales for the Marines, London, Clarion Newspaper Co., Ltd., 1901
  • The Sorcery Shop: An Impossible Romance, London, Clarion Press, 1907
  • The War That Was Foretold: Germany and England, Reprinted from “The Daily Mail” of 1909
  • What’s All This?, London, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1940
  • Where Are the Dead, London, Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1928 [Contains a chapter by Blatchford, “Secrets of Life and Love.”]

[edit] Books about Blatchford

  • Anon The Clarion Van at Norton: Willie Wright's report to Julia Dawson reprinted from The Clarion, Sheffield, 1898
  • Lyons, Neil Robert Blatchford Clarion Press, 1910
  • Jones, Leslie S. A. Robert Blatchford and the Clarion Hyde Park Pamphlets Number Nine, 1986
  • Peacock, Arthur Yours Fraternally Pendulum Publications, 1945
  • Suthers R. B. and Beswick H. The Clarion Birthday Book Clarion Press, 1951
  • Thompson, Alex M. Here I Lie George Routledge & Sons, 1937
  • Thompson, Laurence Robert Blatchford: Portrait of an Englishman Victor Gollancz, London, 1951 238 pp.
  • Williamson, Robert Robert Blatchford Calendar Frank Palmer 1912

[edit] External links