George E. Harris (1819-1890)
George Edwin Harris was one of the more active and independent-minded of the O'Brienites, noted particularly for his involvement alongside Karl Marx in the International Working Men's Association, but also a contributor to O'Brienite-minded journals and a committed internationalist. At various times in his life he was a tailor, a bookseller and a clerk. Unlike his good friend and political ally Martin Boon, he was not a pamphleteer - and perhaps because of that, he has attracted little detailed attention.
In 2015, I bought second-hand a bound copy of The Working Man for 1862-3, with Harris's ownership signature and various markings in the margins indicating his authorship of articles written anonymously or pseudonymously. I blogged about that - and particularly Harris's account of welcoming the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin to London. Eighteen months later, that prompted Harris's great-great-granddaughter to get in touch - and I have now acquired Harris's personal papers. There are perhaps sixty or so letters or draft articles - including copies of a few letters from writers and politicians of distinction (Garibaldi, Mazzini, O'Brien, Hugo, Blanc) which had been sold at auction.
The manuscripts include letters or notes from John Stuart Mill, Robert Owen, Ernest Jones, Charles Bradlaugh, Eleanor Boon and Josiah Warren among others. There are notes which refer both to Carl [sic] Marx and to Engels, and letters from the US which tend to bear out Marx's suspicion that Harris was in touch with a libertarian-minded section of the IWMA in New York.
My intention is to list, annotate and research these letters, and I will post a fuller account of Harris's life and political activity - all I can do here is to give some idea of the gems among these papers.
And how remarkable that in 2016, the papers of a leading radical political figure of 150 years earlier have come to light for the first time. As far as I am aware, they have never been consulted or cited by any historian or researcher.
The portraits below, still in the family, are believed to be of George Edwin Harris and his wife Frances.
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The sepia photograph depicts a daughter of George and Frances Harris, Augusta Jane, with two of her daughters. Augusta (1849-1915) was one of the couple's four children. She married James de Grey, and they had six children. The two women shown in the photo are the oldest of the siblings, Charlotte Eva Augusta (1882-1959) and May Frances (1886-1974).
Delyse, who sent me this photograph and from whom I obtained the archive, is Charlotte's grand-daughter. (Charlotte is the woman holding the book). Delyse says: 'James de Grey married Augusta Jane Harris in 1881 when he was 52 and she was 32. He was a widower at the time. They went on to have six children in rapid succession, between 1882 and 1891. My Grandmother, Charlotte Eva Augusta was born in 1882, and my Great Aunt, May Frances (the other lady standing) was born in 1886. James de Grey died at the beginning of 1902, aged 72.' |
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An indication of how central G.E. Harris was to the O'Brienite movement can be found in the announcement in the National Reformer (the issue dated 1 January 1865) of O'Brien's death - contributed by Harris:
... a letter from John Stuart Mill
Harris has apparently written to Mill to ask him to attend an event to celebrate the life and political career of the French revolutionary, Robespierre - whose admiring biography O' Brien had written -
Mill replies: 'I beg you to make my acknowledgements to the Council of the National Reform League for the honour of the invitation; but though there is reason to believe that Robespierre was better than his reputation, that many acts in which he had no share have been imputed to him in order to screen others, and that the men by whom he was overthrown were many of them worse men than himself, he yet participated in, and justified, too many atrocities and his name is the symbol of too much that disgraced and ruined the French Revolution to allow of my joining in any demonstration in honour of him.'
Ouch!
Ouch!
... a letter from Victor Le Lubez
Harris sent what appears to have been a similar invitation to honour Robespierre to Victor Le Lubez, a young French emigre who persuaded Karl Marx to get involved in the IWMA. Le Lubez's reply stands in marked contrast to that of Mill:
Le Lubez writes: 'I regret exceedingly that I hadn't your letter in time to enable me to attend at your Soiree, last Friday. I thank you for your kind invitation and I thank the Council of "the National Reform League" for their cosmopolitan ideas which prompt them to do homage to a countryman of mine whom I greatly admire for his ardent love of Liberty and his incorruptibility. / As it happened, last Sunday I was engaged at a meeting in honour of the services rendered to humanity by Thomas Paine, which caused my absence at the "Hall of Science" so that I only received your kind invitation this day. / In the hope of having the pleasure to meet you, Gentlemen, at some such demonstration.'
... a note from Charles Bradlaugh
A brief handwritten note from Charles Bradlaugh, a leading figure in Victorian radicalism, the most prominent freethinker and Republican, and from 1880 until his death in 1891 an MP for Northampton
Bradlaugh appears to be arranging to buy from Harris bound volumes of The Reasoner, a freethought journal established by George Jacob Holyoake in the mid-1840s which continued publication into the 1870s
... a letter from Robert Owen
One more indication of the wealth of Harris's political contacts - a letter from Robert Owen in 1852:
Owen's letter was written from Cox's Hotel, Jermyn Street, on 20th January 1852:
'Having left Spring Grove + been much from home + occupied in public measures that leave me no time to attend to other business. I have been prevented replying to your letter, + I regret today that I have so many similar communications that it is painful to me to reply to them.
'It is impossible for me to attend to individual applications such as yours for all my time and means are expended in unceasing endeavour to terminate the system + remove the causes which continually produces the distress of which you + millions complain + suffer.
'And suffer from the ignorance of society; for there is no other cause that anyone should be unemployed who is willing to work + this ignorance must be overcome before you + other sufferers be relieved. As soon as this ignorance can be overcome it will be discovered that there is, or may be immediately provided an abundance of production beneficial to all + for a much greater population than the world can have for many hundreds years. And this subject I hope to have brought before parliament early the coming session, in order that speedy relief may be given to those like yourself + many others who now so unjustly + unwisely are made to suffer poverty from unwilling idleness.
'Regretting that I cannot assist those individuals who apply to me.'
'Having left Spring Grove + been much from home + occupied in public measures that leave me no time to attend to other business. I have been prevented replying to your letter, + I regret today that I have so many similar communications that it is painful to me to reply to them.
'It is impossible for me to attend to individual applications such as yours for all my time and means are expended in unceasing endeavour to terminate the system + remove the causes which continually produces the distress of which you + millions complain + suffer.
'And suffer from the ignorance of society; for there is no other cause that anyone should be unemployed who is willing to work + this ignorance must be overcome before you + other sufferers be relieved. As soon as this ignorance can be overcome it will be discovered that there is, or may be immediately provided an abundance of production beneficial to all + for a much greater population than the world can have for many hundreds years. And this subject I hope to have brought before parliament early the coming session, in order that speedy relief may be given to those like yourself + many others who now so unjustly + unwisely are made to suffer poverty from unwilling idleness.
'Regretting that I cannot assist those individuals who apply to me.'
... notes from Ernest Jones
The Harris papers included three signed notes from Ernest Jones (1819-1869), one of the most prominent of the later leaders of the Chartist movement whose political influence persisted after the decline of Chartism. He was also a political journalist, a poet and a novelist.
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The notes from 1852 and 1862 - above - are fairly cursory. That from January (I think) 1865 is more interesting - Jones appears to be declining Harris's request to subscribe to a fund in memory of Bronterre O'Brien, who had died the previous month:
'I am truly sorry I cannot meet your views either by subscribing, or by writing an appeal - + for the following reasons; the first, because I really cannot afford to subscribe, or I would with pleasure; the second, also because I do not know enough of the history of Mr O'Brien's latter years to make the appeal an effective one. The appeal, I know, could not be in better hands than your own.'
'I am truly sorry I cannot meet your views either by subscribing, or by writing an appeal - + for the following reasons; the first, because I really cannot afford to subscribe, or I would with pleasure; the second, also because I do not know enough of the history of Mr O'Brien's latter years to make the appeal an effective one. The appeal, I know, could not be in better hands than your own.'
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... a long letter from Josiah Warren
Perhaps the most intriguing letter is that from the American individualist and libertarian Josiah Warren (1798-1874) - sometimes described as the first American anarchist. The latter dates from 1863 and indicates a strong personal and political bond with Harris. . In later years - much to Marx's annoyance - Warren was in touch with several London-based O'Brienite members of the First International.
There's a second long letter from Warren among the papers, dating from 1871, but both the address and signature have been snipped out and the words on the other side are, frustratingly, missing.
There's a second long letter from Warren among the papers, dating from 1871, but both the address and signature have been snipped out and the words on the other side are, frustratingly, missing.
This letter from Warren was addressed from Cliftondale Massachusetts on 21 April 1863:
'Dear Harris
No indeed! "the zephyr cord" has not "cracked" nor given any signs of weakness but I have been very much absorbed of late in a certain enterprise necessary to our purposes, that has left me scarcely time to eat, but I got through with it only yesterday at the same time I got your kind contribution of "the Commonwealth of the 28 March. What smart little sheet of the 1st March (having lost the paper I cannot get the name) I am very glad indeed to see such an approach to the tract system, and especially to see that you have another earnest [word indistinct] in the work! We have no such competent writers [words indistinct] in this country on our themes.
No, I have not received any thing even any paper from you since you have from me! On some the papers sent, I saw that you had directed them to Cliftondale, Boston: this may possibly account for it - leave the Boston out and direct as above. It is equally a long time since I have had any thing from friend Cuddon but I suppoe that like me he feels that the talking is pretty much done up between us and that now we want the practical application of our themes.
I am learning something all the time: for the last forty years I have been puzzled to know which was the best end to begin at to get our tangled skein into order - it is so large and has so many / straggling ends I could not select the right one to ensure a smooth regular run, but I have, I think found it now, in individuality itself. That is, as we cannot think of more than one (individual) thing at the same time, our most successful way will be to present only one idea or one element of our proposed revolution to the public or to students at once: but that idea should really be the first one in order - it should be the germination of what ought to follow, this I think, is the Principle of Equivalents. If this idea is once well understood and made familiar, each mind will almost arrive naturally to all those conclusions on other subjects, which, if presented by us before they had arrived at them themselves step by step, would be rejected by them as Utopian visions. So I have concluded to travel among the people and say to them, "I have brought you a new subject, nut it is of such magnitude I shall not attempt to explain t all at once. It requires time and study on your part, but I will say that it strikes at the root of all speculations on land, provisions, fuel, building materials, Labor and everything else It give rise to a new kind of money setting aside the common money by degrees until it shall become worthless. It leads to the investment of every one who desires it, with a home of his or her own, and self employment and pecuniary independence. It leads to laying out new towns and cities where the land shall be bought and sold for it cost adding only pay for the labor of buying and selling as other useful labor is paid for by the day or hour. Many other great results which naturally follow which I cannot now make plain to you: indeed the statement of them would only bewilder you, but I will put into your hands a few tracts explaining the first step or principle which leads to these results and I invite you to take this principle into your keeping and under your special care and criticism; and, with pen or pencil in your hand, and write down your thoughts as you proceed and let me have the privilege of reading them, and perhaps publishing them, and when this principle has become familiar to you I will then present another and then another till the five or six new elements of social life have become familiar and then you will be prepared to regulate your intercourse by your intelligence. The conclusions that I have drawn from these principles after forty years study and experiments would appear very visionary to you if presented now and therefore withhold all opinions; I simply invite your attention to facts in nature which you will find mixed up in every transaction of your lives, but which from the very fact of their constant occurrence, like the inhaling of the atmosphere or the circulation of the blood or the value of water, the value of them as vital elements has been overlooked.
Something like the foregoing I would say to a new audience and then I would distribute among them the tract or tracts explaining the Principles of Equivalents / and would ask them to excuse me from talking any further but again invite them to study and try to understand that principle and let me know what they see in it, if they see any thing, and then I would go to a new place and do the same thing.
I am thoroughly satisfied that it is entirely useless or at least inexpedient to enter into any controversies whatever about this matter. We always reason from what we already know or think and what people already know or think is of no use in this great matter. They must get new data - new premises to reason from, before their conclusions can be trusted or listened to with any benefit.
The "polytechnicon" works entirely to my satisfaction: I look at it as the true starting point from which all else will radiate in the right times, places and proportions. Friend Cuddon, I should think, would be just the right one to commence a branch and we could immediately interchange valuable services.
The Voice will not be heard after this week. It is going down. We are going into the tract system. Tracts distributed gratuitously are not poisoned by the mercenary taint.
The enterprise I alluded to in the beginning of this letter is printing from writing, instead of setting and owning type. The first work (except my music work) is a system of shorthand or phonography that is to be put to press today. I send a page proof.
The Investigator I consider behind the age and think it worth little trouble to write for it. I am taking notes which may be published some time but I don't know: but we must begin with the practical and let theories follow facts.
I shall send a tract now and then, as they may come out. Please show this to friend Cuddon so that he may know that I am still alive notwithstanding so long an interval of dead silence.
I should like to see all the products of Mr. Jones in your admirable little paper. Could you send me a few more of that number of the 1st of March? I should like to distribute them.'
'Dear Harris
No indeed! "the zephyr cord" has not "cracked" nor given any signs of weakness but I have been very much absorbed of late in a certain enterprise necessary to our purposes, that has left me scarcely time to eat, but I got through with it only yesterday at the same time I got your kind contribution of "the Commonwealth of the 28 March. What smart little sheet of the 1st March (having lost the paper I cannot get the name) I am very glad indeed to see such an approach to the tract system, and especially to see that you have another earnest [word indistinct] in the work! We have no such competent writers [words indistinct] in this country on our themes.
No, I have not received any thing even any paper from you since you have from me! On some the papers sent, I saw that you had directed them to Cliftondale, Boston: this may possibly account for it - leave the Boston out and direct as above. It is equally a long time since I have had any thing from friend Cuddon but I suppoe that like me he feels that the talking is pretty much done up between us and that now we want the practical application of our themes.
I am learning something all the time: for the last forty years I have been puzzled to know which was the best end to begin at to get our tangled skein into order - it is so large and has so many / straggling ends I could not select the right one to ensure a smooth regular run, but I have, I think found it now, in individuality itself. That is, as we cannot think of more than one (individual) thing at the same time, our most successful way will be to present only one idea or one element of our proposed revolution to the public or to students at once: but that idea should really be the first one in order - it should be the germination of what ought to follow, this I think, is the Principle of Equivalents. If this idea is once well understood and made familiar, each mind will almost arrive naturally to all those conclusions on other subjects, which, if presented by us before they had arrived at them themselves step by step, would be rejected by them as Utopian visions. So I have concluded to travel among the people and say to them, "I have brought you a new subject, nut it is of such magnitude I shall not attempt to explain t all at once. It requires time and study on your part, but I will say that it strikes at the root of all speculations on land, provisions, fuel, building materials, Labor and everything else It give rise to a new kind of money setting aside the common money by degrees until it shall become worthless. It leads to the investment of every one who desires it, with a home of his or her own, and self employment and pecuniary independence. It leads to laying out new towns and cities where the land shall be bought and sold for it cost adding only pay for the labor of buying and selling as other useful labor is paid for by the day or hour. Many other great results which naturally follow which I cannot now make plain to you: indeed the statement of them would only bewilder you, but I will put into your hands a few tracts explaining the first step or principle which leads to these results and I invite you to take this principle into your keeping and under your special care and criticism; and, with pen or pencil in your hand, and write down your thoughts as you proceed and let me have the privilege of reading them, and perhaps publishing them, and when this principle has become familiar to you I will then present another and then another till the five or six new elements of social life have become familiar and then you will be prepared to regulate your intercourse by your intelligence. The conclusions that I have drawn from these principles after forty years study and experiments would appear very visionary to you if presented now and therefore withhold all opinions; I simply invite your attention to facts in nature which you will find mixed up in every transaction of your lives, but which from the very fact of their constant occurrence, like the inhaling of the atmosphere or the circulation of the blood or the value of water, the value of them as vital elements has been overlooked.
Something like the foregoing I would say to a new audience and then I would distribute among them the tract or tracts explaining the Principles of Equivalents / and would ask them to excuse me from talking any further but again invite them to study and try to understand that principle and let me know what they see in it, if they see any thing, and then I would go to a new place and do the same thing.
I am thoroughly satisfied that it is entirely useless or at least inexpedient to enter into any controversies whatever about this matter. We always reason from what we already know or think and what people already know or think is of no use in this great matter. They must get new data - new premises to reason from, before their conclusions can be trusted or listened to with any benefit.
The "polytechnicon" works entirely to my satisfaction: I look at it as the true starting point from which all else will radiate in the right times, places and proportions. Friend Cuddon, I should think, would be just the right one to commence a branch and we could immediately interchange valuable services.
The Voice will not be heard after this week. It is going down. We are going into the tract system. Tracts distributed gratuitously are not poisoned by the mercenary taint.
The enterprise I alluded to in the beginning of this letter is printing from writing, instead of setting and owning type. The first work (except my music work) is a system of shorthand or phonography that is to be put to press today. I send a page proof.
The Investigator I consider behind the age and think it worth little trouble to write for it. I am taking notes which may be published some time but I don't know: but we must begin with the practical and let theories follow facts.
I shall send a tract now and then, as they may come out. Please show this to friend Cuddon so that he may know that I am still alive notwithstanding so long an interval of dead silence.
I should like to see all the products of Mr. Jones in your admirable little paper. Could you send me a few more of that number of the 1st of March? I should like to distribute them.'
... a letter from Harriet Burton
Harriet Burton appears to have been active in a dissident New York branch of the First International along with Victoria Woodhull. Again, this is evidence of the links between American members of the International and London-based O'Brienites:
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This letter was written from Paris on 22 August 1872:
'Please excuse the temerity which a stranger in a strange land must sometimes use, and which I trust may not be amiss on the present occasion that of writing to you without an introduction - or of introducing myself to you. I am secretary of the I.W.A. of Section 12 of N.Y. and was appointed delegate from the first general congress that met in Philadelphia in July to that which is to meet in London in September.
'Mrs. Woodhull has given me a letter of introduction to you and as I cannot visit London until the time of the meeting of the Congress, I write to ask definitely in regard to the time of the assembly and where it would be best for me to stop on my arrival, also if the friends of the I.W.A. societies entertain foreign delegates +c. +c. during the session of the meeting. I left N.Y. in company with my sister and have now been ten days in Paris hoping to meet Paulina Wright Davis from whom I was expecting to learn everything necessary in regard to the Communists here and also in regard to the General Congress. Any information in regard to the Congress, or to the persons in Paris, or London interested in the great cause of progress for the masses of working men and women will be most thankfully received by one whose life is devoted to the cause of human progress. Please write immediately. ...'
'Please excuse the temerity which a stranger in a strange land must sometimes use, and which I trust may not be amiss on the present occasion that of writing to you without an introduction - or of introducing myself to you. I am secretary of the I.W.A. of Section 12 of N.Y. and was appointed delegate from the first general congress that met in Philadelphia in July to that which is to meet in London in September.
'Mrs. Woodhull has given me a letter of introduction to you and as I cannot visit London until the time of the meeting of the Congress, I write to ask definitely in regard to the time of the assembly and where it would be best for me to stop on my arrival, also if the friends of the I.W.A. societies entertain foreign delegates +c. +c. during the session of the meeting. I left N.Y. in company with my sister and have now been ten days in Paris hoping to meet Paulina Wright Davis from whom I was expecting to learn everything necessary in regard to the Communists here and also in regard to the General Congress. Any information in regard to the Congress, or to the persons in Paris, or London interested in the great cause of progress for the masses of working men and women will be most thankfully received by one whose life is devoted to the cause of human progress. Please write immediately. ...'
... two letters from Eleanor Boon
Martin Boon - there's a full biographical note here and blogs including photos here - was a fellow O'Brienite and a collegue of Harris on the General Council of the International Working Men's Association. Early in 1874, Boon emigrated to South Africa, leaving behind his wife, Eleanor, and their children. One assumes he wanted to make his way in his adopted country and then send money for his family to join him - which eventually they did. These two letters from Eleanor to George Harris demonstrate how difficult she found life without her husband's support and income.
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The earlier of Eleanor's letters was written from her home in Croydon on 30th January 1874, very shortly after her husband's departure:
'I was glad to hear from you + Mrs Harris + daughter. Many thanks for all your good wishes - I dare say you felt the parting with my dear husband very much. I assure you my life at present is one of loneliness and great anxiety. I do not expect any news from Martin for another five or six weeks. I will let you know immediately I hear from him.
'I thank you much for conveying the letter to Mr Mottershed he replied and sent me £1- It just came in time for I am dreadfully pinched for means. A few pounds have been subscribed by friends and forwarded by Messrs Rogers & [mark unclear] and really had it not been for this I do not know how I should have got on for poor Martin only left me a few shilling, and all the taxes have come in but with a little pinching I have managed so far.
'Mr Mottershed wrote a rather peculiar letter, he informed me that "I had no occasion to have reminded him of the small debt, as he was troubled with a conscience and always payed [sic] just debts, but as I pleaded (here came in some Latin) which I do not pretend to) however I suppose he meant to say as I pleaded misery + poverty so strong he felt compelled to send something which his troubled conscience would have made rather later had he not heard from me so soon. - Do you know I should rather like to see this gentleman. I fancy he is rather comical or else very thin-skinned but I hope for the sake of his own feelings that he is not the latter for he may not relish my letter in reply - as you know I always speak my mind - Evidently he is very busy putting every thing in good order at Preston - I hope our Nation will not forget to put monuments to the memory of these industrious gentlemen - Oh by the by he stated in his letter he well knew what it was to leave a wife and young children - I told him I hoped he always left her provided for - However, you will excuse my little fun about this gentleman. You and I understand each other on these points, but to be serious - The Bread + Butter question once more arises, my means are nothing, I have a beautiful Rocking Horse worth £2 - 5 - now could it be raffled for do you think? How degraded I feel myself asking these things, to think I should ever come to this - I wonder if there are any more troubled consciences who might put down a shilling each in chance for this beautiful horse Write and tell me what you tink - You know once there was a "Blanket" to be raffled for a much grander scheme + purpose.
'Adieu - Love to Mrs. Harris + daughter'
'I was glad to hear from you + Mrs Harris + daughter. Many thanks for all your good wishes - I dare say you felt the parting with my dear husband very much. I assure you my life at present is one of loneliness and great anxiety. I do not expect any news from Martin for another five or six weeks. I will let you know immediately I hear from him.
'I thank you much for conveying the letter to Mr Mottershed he replied and sent me £1- It just came in time for I am dreadfully pinched for means. A few pounds have been subscribed by friends and forwarded by Messrs Rogers & [mark unclear] and really had it not been for this I do not know how I should have got on for poor Martin only left me a few shilling, and all the taxes have come in but with a little pinching I have managed so far.
'Mr Mottershed wrote a rather peculiar letter, he informed me that "I had no occasion to have reminded him of the small debt, as he was troubled with a conscience and always payed [sic] just debts, but as I pleaded (here came in some Latin) which I do not pretend to) however I suppose he meant to say as I pleaded misery + poverty so strong he felt compelled to send something which his troubled conscience would have made rather later had he not heard from me so soon. - Do you know I should rather like to see this gentleman. I fancy he is rather comical or else very thin-skinned but I hope for the sake of his own feelings that he is not the latter for he may not relish my letter in reply - as you know I always speak my mind - Evidently he is very busy putting every thing in good order at Preston - I hope our Nation will not forget to put monuments to the memory of these industrious gentlemen - Oh by the by he stated in his letter he well knew what it was to leave a wife and young children - I told him I hoped he always left her provided for - However, you will excuse my little fun about this gentleman. You and I understand each other on these points, but to be serious - The Bread + Butter question once more arises, my means are nothing, I have a beautiful Rocking Horse worth £2 - 5 - now could it be raffled for do you think? How degraded I feel myself asking these things, to think I should ever come to this - I wonder if there are any more troubled consciences who might put down a shilling each in chance for this beautiful horse Write and tell me what you tink - You know once there was a "Blanket" to be raffled for a much grander scheme + purpose.
'Adieu - Love to Mrs. Harris + daughter'
The second letter from Eleanor was written five or six weeks later, by which time she had heard from Martin, newly arrived in Cape Town
'I heard from Mr. Boon yesterday morn[in]g- he had been very ill and obliged to keep his bed the first week of the voyage - The letter was posted at Cape Town and they stayed there long enough to allow him to see something of the place. He says everything looked so sunny + promising more than he anticipated, but he was bound for Port Elizabeth Algoa Bay and from there would write again which I may expect on the 13th of this month
'If you have any message to him let me know by the 13th as I shall write for the mail on the 15th of this month
'I hope you are all well - I have struggled on so far and anxiously hope to get out in April. ...
'PS Convey the news to as many as you can and send me all messages for him by the 13th of this month
'Mr Boon desires his best regards to all enquiring friends'
'I heard from Mr. Boon yesterday morn[in]g- he had been very ill and obliged to keep his bed the first week of the voyage - The letter was posted at Cape Town and they stayed there long enough to allow him to see something of the place. He says everything looked so sunny + promising more than he anticipated, but he was bound for Port Elizabeth Algoa Bay and from there would write again which I may expect on the 13th of this month
'If you have any message to him let me know by the 13th as I shall write for the mail on the 15th of this month
'I hope you are all well - I have struggled on so far and anxiously hope to get out in April. ...
'PS Convey the news to as many as you can and send me all messages for him by the 13th of this month
'Mr Boon desires his best regards to all enquiring friends'
... a note from Alexander Herzen in French
Alexander Herzen (1812-1870) was a Russian philosopher, writer and socialist. He left Russia in 1847 and moved to London in 1852 staying in the city for well over a decade. He was active in the First International
... and a note in French from Felix Pyat
Felix Pyat (1810-1889) was a French socialist who lived in exile in England through the 1850s and '60s. He was prominent in the Paris Commune of 1871. This note appears to date from 1855.
'An Address to the French, and other Exiles' from 1855
This is a wonderful four-page address to London's political emigres offering solidarity but also a prescription for change. In places it reads as a manifesto - anti-statist, libertarian and fiercely egalitarian. It was issued over the name of George E. Harris and appears to be in his hand.
The document is dated 31st December 1855 - and here are some xtracts:
Opens: 'An Address to the French, and other Exiles, - Fugitives from Political Persecution
'The few individuals who, some weeks ago, formed themselves into a Committee to advocate the cause of the Political Exiles from Foreign Countries, and who have now invited those residing in London to this social gathering, take the opportunity of publicly expressing a few words of sympathy, and, perchance of encouragement, to the proscribed of all Nations, many of whom are doubtlessly present with us this evening; and at the same time, they beg to offer a few observations on the present prospects of Democracy.'
Laments 'the gross political Flunkeyism into which the mass of the English people have fallen! Wealth and Power, - no matter how, ir in whom personified, are the only gods worshipped by the Upper and Middle Classes; and we fear, too, that the vast mass of the poor themselves have become infected with the same demoralizing idolatry.' Reference to 'our class - the proletaires - the unprivileged - the unrepresented'. Endorses Italian unity and Polish and Hungarian independence.
'We believe that the safest course for the People to pursue, when the destiny of nations is once again in their hands, will be, - not to combine different states, but to separate them into distinct nationalities, and to fix the natural line of race and language as their true boundaries, - that being not only just to the peoples themselves, but the only means of putting an end to international strife, and of bringing about the abolition of standing armies ...'
Quotes Victor Hugo: '"the least amount of governing must be the formula of the future"'
'... The land must be made to revert to its rightful inheritors - the people, as public property; never again to be alienated to private individuals'. Money must be made the representative of wealth ... and not as usurers, money-gamblers, and speculators may determine, for their unholy purposes.' Proposes a labour theory of value.
Comments on 'the uselessness, if not folly of any longer attributing national calamities exclusively to Kings, , Emperors, or Cabinet Ministers, who are together with the venal scribes, and the hireling priests and soldiers, little more than the tools of the propertied class.' And critical by name of Louis Napoleon. Ends: 'Vive la Republique sociale & democratique!'
The document is dated 31st December 1855 - and here are some xtracts:
Opens: 'An Address to the French, and other Exiles, - Fugitives from Political Persecution
'The few individuals who, some weeks ago, formed themselves into a Committee to advocate the cause of the Political Exiles from Foreign Countries, and who have now invited those residing in London to this social gathering, take the opportunity of publicly expressing a few words of sympathy, and, perchance of encouragement, to the proscribed of all Nations, many of whom are doubtlessly present with us this evening; and at the same time, they beg to offer a few observations on the present prospects of Democracy.'
Laments 'the gross political Flunkeyism into which the mass of the English people have fallen! Wealth and Power, - no matter how, ir in whom personified, are the only gods worshipped by the Upper and Middle Classes; and we fear, too, that the vast mass of the poor themselves have become infected with the same demoralizing idolatry.' Reference to 'our class - the proletaires - the unprivileged - the unrepresented'. Endorses Italian unity and Polish and Hungarian independence.
'We believe that the safest course for the People to pursue, when the destiny of nations is once again in their hands, will be, - not to combine different states, but to separate them into distinct nationalities, and to fix the natural line of race and language as their true boundaries, - that being not only just to the peoples themselves, but the only means of putting an end to international strife, and of bringing about the abolition of standing armies ...'
Quotes Victor Hugo: '"the least amount of governing must be the formula of the future"'
'... The land must be made to revert to its rightful inheritors - the people, as public property; never again to be alienated to private individuals'. Money must be made the representative of wealth ... and not as usurers, money-gamblers, and speculators may determine, for their unholy purposes.' Proposes a labour theory of value.
Comments on 'the uselessness, if not folly of any longer attributing national calamities exclusively to Kings, , Emperors, or Cabinet Ministers, who are together with the venal scribes, and the hireling priests and soldiers, little more than the tools of the propertied class.' And critical by name of Louis Napoleon. Ends: 'Vive la Republique sociale & democratique!'
Radical leaflets
The are a handful of radical leaflets among the papers - of which those posted here are the most interesting.
The French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) was a hero of Bronterre O'Brien's - one of his followers, John Radford, named a son Maximilien after Robespierre. As you will see above, Harris invited John Stuart Mill to address a gathering in celebration of Robespierre - an invitation which Mill declined.
George Julian Harney (1817-1897) was a Chartist who remained active, particularly as a political journalist, after the eclipse of Chartism. He lived and worked in the United States from 1863 to 1877 but returned to England on his retirement and continue to write and commentate from a radical perspective.
The French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) was a hero of Bronterre O'Brien's - one of his followers, John Radford, named a son Maximilien after Robespierre. As you will see above, Harris invited John Stuart Mill to address a gathering in celebration of Robespierre - an invitation which Mill declined.
George Julian Harney (1817-1897) was a Chartist who remained active, particularly as a political journalist, after the eclipse of Chartism. He lived and worked in the United States from 1863 to 1877 but returned to England on his retirement and continue to write and commentate from a radical perspective.
