![]() Cover of The Commonweal, January 1886 | |
Founded | 1885 |
---|---|
Political alignment | Socialism |
Ceased publication | 1894 |
Commonweal was a British socialist newspaper founded in 1885 by the newborn Socialist League. Its aims were to spread socialist views and to win over new recruits.
William Morris, founder of the League, was its chief writer, money finder and "responsible head". Edward Aveling was the sub-editor. [1] Before the last meeting of the Social Democratic Federation Morris and Aveling visited Frederick Engels to discuss their proposed paper. The first number appeared at the beginning of February 1885.John Turner, Ernest Belfort Bax and Eleanor Marx also regularly contributed articles. Its publishing office was at Great Queen Street, London. At first it appeared as a monthly (with supplements) from February, 1885 to May 1, 1886. It then commenced as a weekly. Aveling was unable to devote the necessary time on a weekly basis and Bax replaced him as sub-editor. As E. P. Thompson writes: "Almost every issue included at least one major contribution from Morris. During 1885 "The Pilgrims of Hope" appeared in monthly instalments: during 1886 and 1887 his series of articles with Bax, "Socialism from the Root Up", appeared side by side with "A Dream of John Ball"." [2] Aveling's "Lessons in Socialism", a series of lessons on Marx's "Das Kapital", that had not yet appeared in English translation, were published in nine instalments from April 1885 until March 1886. [3]
In 1890, Morris resigned as editor and was replaced by the anarchist David Nicoll (Morris went on to publish the Hammersmith Socialist Record, the paper of the Hammersmith Socialist Society). With the dissolution of the Socialist League, the paper continued as the independent publication of the Commonweal Group. Nicoll published an article on the Walsall Anarchists, for which he was sentenced to eighteen months' hard labour in May 1892; H. B. Samuels then became acting editor.
Soon after Nicoll's release, the paper was closed and replaced by his own periodical The Anarchist. [4] Nicoll later resurrected the name The Commonweal for this publication, under which name it continued sporadically from 1898 to 1907. [5]
Historian Alex Butterworth believes that the staff of Commonweal "may have consisted entirely of informants, unbeknownst to each other", although "[e]ven today, with unprecedented access to police files, Butterworth is often unsure who was reporting back to the cops." [6]
William Morris was a British textile designer, poet, artist, fantasy writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he helped win acceptance of socialism in fin de siècle Great Britain.
Ernest Belfort Bax was an English barrister, journalist, philosopher, men's rights advocate, socialist, and historian.
Jenny Julia Eleanor Marx, sometimes called Eleanor Aveling and known to her family as Tussy, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a socialist activist who sometimes worked as a literary translator. In March 1898, after discovering that her partner Edward Aveling had secretly married the previous year, she poisoned herself at the age of 43.
Ernest William Radford (1857–1919) was an English poet, critic and socialist. He was a follower of William Morris, and one of the organisers in the Arts and Crafts Movement; he acted as secretary to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.
Edward Bibbins Aveling was an English comparative anatomist and popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution, atheism and socialism. He was also a playwright and actor.
Charlotte Mary Wilson was an English Fabian and anarchist who co-founded Freedom newspaper in 1886 with Peter Kropotkin, and edited, published, and largely financed it during its first decade. She remained editor of Freedom until 1895.
Justice was the weekly newspaper of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in the United Kingdom.
Samuel Mainwaring was a Welsh machinist and socialist political activist who was a founding member and key leader of the Socialist League, one of the first socialist political parties in Britain. In his later years, he turned from Marxist socialism to the libertarian socialist doctrine of anarcho-communism. He is best remembered as the father of the term "anarcho-syndicalism".
The Socialist League was an early revolutionary socialist organisation in the United Kingdom. The organisation began as a dissident offshoot of the Social Democratic Federation of Henry Hyndman at the end of 1884. Never an ideologically harmonious group, by the 1890s the group had turned from socialism to anarchism, and disbanded in 1901.
James Frederick Henderson was an English socialist writer and journalist, and a Labour Party politician.
The Socialist Labor Party (SLP) is a political party in the United States. It was established in 1876, and was the first socialist party formed in the country.
Henry Mayers Hyndman was an English writer, politician and socialist.
The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury, James Connolly and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term collaborator, refused to support Hyndman's venture. Many of its early leading members had previously been active in the Manhood Suffrage League.
Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal societies, with positive ideals being the main reason for moving society in such a direction. Later socialists and critics of utopian socialism viewed utopian socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of existing society. These visions of ideal societies competed with revolutionary and social democratic movements.
Frank Kitz was an English anarchist.
Thomas Edward Cantwell was a British anarchist activist.
Henry Benjamin Samuels, known as Henry Benjamin and Harry Samuels, was a British anarchist who came under suspicion of being a police spy. Samuels was known for his incendiary rhetoric.
Charles Wilfred Mowbray was an English anarcho-communist agitator, tailor, trade unionist and public speaker. Mowbray was an active orator and agitator in the Labour Emancipation League, and then the Socialist League, becoming the publisher of the Socialist League's newspaper Commonweal in 1890. At this time he began describing himself as an anarcho-communist. He was arrested in 1892 and charged with conspiracy to murder in a high profile trial but was acquitted. At this time he reportedly worked as a police informant. From 1894 he lived and worked in the United States where he went on speaker tours before being deported in the wake of the assassination of President McKinley. Back in England he moved away from anarchism and began lecturing on tariff reform (protectionism) and was funded by the National Union of Conservative Associations.
David John Nicoll was a British anarchist newspaper editor, writer, poet and public speaker. Nicoll replaced William Morris as the editor of the Socialist League's newspaper Commonweal in 1890 until 1892 when Nicoll was imprisoned for incitement to murder a police inspector, a judge and the Home Secretary. Nicoll produced a series of pamphlets critical of the police and singling out those in the anarchist movement he believed to be police spies. Following his imprisonment Nicoll's mental health deteriorated and he died in poverty.
James Tochatti, was a Scottish anarchist agitator, merchant tailor, trade unionist, newspaper editor and public speaker. From 1894 to 1896 he was editor of the monthly anarcho-communist paper Liberty.