Formation | 26 October 1945 |
---|---|
Founder | Friends and members of Peace Pledge Union and Peace News |
Type | Nonprofit |
Registration no. | 01024773 [1] |
Purpose | Retail bookshop for Peace News |
Location |
|
Products | Books, magazines, stationery, badges, gifts |
Owner | Peace News Trustees [2] |
Key people | Laurence Housman (co-founder) |
Website | housmans |
Housmans is a bookshop in London, England, and is one of the longest-running radical bookshops in the United Kingdom. The shop was founded by a collective of pacifists in 1945 and has been based in Kings Cross, since 1959. Various grassroots organisations have operated from its address, including the Gay Liberation Front, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and London Greenpeace. Housmans shares its building with its sister organisation Peace News .
Housmans' not-for-profit shop specialises in books on feminism, anarchism, anti-racism, anti-fascism, LGBTQIA+ politics, socialism, and nonviolence. It also stocks radical and socially engaged fiction, children's books, graphic novels, magazines, zines, and poetry alongside new and second-hand books, Housmans stocks cards, calendars, [3] White Poppies, [4] and merchandise from Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (including the "Pits and Perverts" T-shirt). [5] An online store was launched in March 2010. [6] [7]
Housmans is managed by a trust and is a National Living Wage employer. [8] [9]
Current book groups include Housmans' Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club, Housmans' Queer Book Club, the Fuse Book Club, and Self-care as an act of warfare: a Black women's reading group. [10] [11]
Housmans launched its first Peace Diary in 1953. [12] The diaries are published annually and include an international peace directory listing more than 1,400 organisations around the world. [13]
Regular live events are hosted at Housmans including panels, book readings, and musical performances. These are streamed on Housmans' YouTube channel [14] and include appearances from Naomi Klein, [15] Emma Dabiri, and John Sinclair. [16] Guests from the performing arts include Maxine Peake [17] and Christopher Eccleston. [18]
Housmans' origins began in the 1930s with key players in the British peace movement connected to the pacifist organisation Peace Pledge Union and one of its projects: the pacifist magazine Peace News.
Temporary bookshops affiliated with the Peace Pledge Union existed as early as 1936 with one at 36 Ludgate Hill, London. By 1946 a bookshop was operating within the Peace Pledge Union headquarters at Dick Shepherd House, 6 Endsleigh Street in Bloomsbury, London, but its business lacked a shop window. [19]
A plan for a permanent bookshop was envisioned by a key sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union, the pacifist author and playwright Laurence Housman. After World War II, Housman proposed a shop that would promote "ideas of peace, [...] human rights and a more equitable economy by which future wars, and all their inherent suffering, might be avoided." [19]
The name of Housmans was given to the bookshop in Laurence Housman's honour and its cofounders include staff and sponsors of the Peace Pledge Union and Peace News. Directors appointed to the original company limited guarantee include the pacifist writer Vera Brittain, London bookseller Llewelyn Kiek, and literary critic Hugh I'Anson Fausset. Further cofounders include Peace Pledge Union staffers John Barclay and Trefor Rendall Davies, and the business manager of Peace News, Harry Mister. [20] Mister would go on to work as Housman's business manager until 1976. [12] [21]
Housmans is an anarchist bookshop. [22]
The original Housmans bookshop was located at 124 Shaftesbury Avenue, London and opened for business on 26 October 1945. [23] The building had been repaired after bomb damage. [24]
Attendees of the shop's opening ceremony included Laurence Housman, the anarchist author Herbert Read, editor of The New Statesman Kingsley Martin, the campaigner Irene Barclay, Howard Whitten, Patrick Figgis, Doris Figgis, Trefor Rendall Davies, Llewelyn Kiek, Hugh I’Anson Fausset, Harry Mister, Eileen Ager, Geoffrey Gilbert, Henry Rutland, Duncan Christie and John Barclay. [20] [25]
In 1948, business manager Harry Mister launched Endsleigh Cards, named after the original street location of the Peace Pledge Union offices. Endsleigh Cards was a trading brand of Peace News and its greeting cards were stocked in Housmans. [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
In 1948, an increase in lease renewal costs prompted the Peace Pledge Union to close the physical shop and pass ownership of its trading name to the Peace News company. [26] Housmans continued to trade as a mail-order bookselling business and lacked physical premises until 1958.
In 1958, a freehold building at 5 Caledonian Road in Kings Cross was acquired after a £5,000 gift from Reverend Tom Willis of Hull (the equivalent today of £120,000 [31] ) and further donations from other Peace News supporters. Peace News moved into the 100-year-old building's upper floors, while Housmans resumed business on the lower floor.
The renovated premises were opened by bookshop manager Dora Dawtry on 21 November 1959. In attendance were Vera Brittain, editor of Peace News Hugh Brock, British pacifist Myrtle Solomon, George Plume, Peace Pledge Union chairman Stuart Morris, Roy Fry of Pacifist Youth Action Group, Peace News trustee Ian Dixon, pacifist and suffragist Sybil Morrison, Harry Mister, Sue Mister, Val Mister, and Ivy Mister. Also in attendance was Reverend Tom Willis. [26] [32] [33] [34]
In 1961, Peace News and the Peace Pledge Union separated and Housmans remained associated with Peace News . [26] The Peace News office continues to be located at Housmans and operates as a sister organisation. [35] [36]
From the late 1950s and early 1960s, Housmans stocked material from organisations advocating nuclear disarmament including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Committee of 100. [26] [37] [38]
In 1958, artist and designer Gerald Holtom, presented early designs of the nuclear disarmament symbol within the Peace News office at Housmans' address. [39] According to peace campaigner Michael Randle, Housmans business manager Harry Mister saw the peace symbol on Peace News leaflets and said: "What on earth were you, Pat (Arrowsmith) and Hugh (Brock) thinking about when you adopted that symbol? It doesn’t mean a thing and it will never catch on!" Peace News says that, "to his credit, for the rest of his life Harry was never to be seen without a badge bearing the symbol on his lapel." [40] [41] [42]
The Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (formerly known as the Committee for Direct Action Against Nuclear War) were based in a small office in the building. [40]
At 5:50pm on 25 November 1974, an IRA bomb exploded in a pillar box outside Housmans as part of the London pillar box bombings. No injuries were sustained and the shop windows remained intact, but the explosion destroyed the Campaign Against Arms Trade first newsletter, which had been posted ten minutes prior to the incident. [33] [43] [44] Peace News reported that the attack was one of several warning bombs that followed an announcement from then Home Secretary Roy Jenkins of emergency powers under Section 8 of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974. [44]
On 4 July 1978, the Peace News offices received a letter bomb. Housmans worker, Stewart Porte, was hospitalised for burns sustained to his face, hands, and chest. The letter bomb was alleged to have been from the neo-Nazi organisation Column 88. Similar attacks were made on the Socialist Workers Party and Anti-Nazi League offices in the months prior to the attack on Housmans. [45] [26] [46] [21]
Housmans' address had received a threatening letter three months before the explosion. The letter read: "Watch out you're next" and its use of fascist symbols and the figure "88" led to further suspicions that Column 88 were responsible for the letter bomb. Housmans had alerted the police of this threat, but the police did not investigate until after the letter bomb had exploded at the bookshop. [21] [47]
Housmans has a long affiliation with the gay liberation movement whilst its cofounder, Laurence Housman, was openly homosexual. In the 1970s and 1980s Housmans was one of a few bookshops in the UK that permitted gay and lesbian literature on its shelves.
The Gay Liberation Front's offices were located at 5 Caledonian Road in the 1970s. [33] [48] [49] Graffiti from this era was discovered in Housmans' basement in 2020. Messages include: "Run your own Life", "Homosexuals Unite", and "Gay is good so don’t be scared to tell anybody". [48] [44]
From 1974, The London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard was based on the premises for nearly 20 years. [33] [49] [50] Switchboard volunteers on the premises included Mark Ashton and Mike Jackson, co-founders of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, and Switchboard's director Diana James, the first transgender person to join Switchboard. [51] In her interview with the 5 Cally Road research project Diana James recalled a feminist protest outside Housmans against the bookshop's decision to stock On Our Backs , the first women-run erotica magazine and the first magazine to feature lesbian erotica for a lesbian audience in the United States. [44]
The majority of Housman's gay literature had to be shipped in from the United States. In May 1984, a missing order from Giovanni's Room, a gay bookshop based in Philadelphia was confiscated by HM Customs and Excise who deemed the LGBT books indecent under the 1876 Customs Consolidation Act. The Act permitted courts to judge homosexual material as obscene or indecent, despite the decriminalisation of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. The large-scale raid effected other radical and LGBT booksellers, including Gay's the Word and seized works included titles by Christopher Isherwood, Tennessee Williams, and Jean Genet. [52] [44] Housmans did not take legal action, but joined a campaign of resistance launched by the Federation of Radical Booksellers to resist the raids and prosecution of booksellers. [44] [52]
In the 1980s, a partial demolishment of Caledonian Road was proposed, but the trustees of Housmans refused to sell the building to developers. [33] [53]
In 1985, trustees of Peace News established a retail store named Peacemeal Wholefoods opposite Housmans. Its founders and staff included Housmans' employees, Nigel Kemp and Alexander Donaldson, who would go on to found Judd Books together in 1992. [44] [54]
In the 1990s, the 'McLibel' defence campaign was based in Housmans when members of London Greenpeace were sued by McDonalds for libel in 1990. [33]
In 2016, Housmans expanded its premises with a basement area dubbed 'The Vaults'. Thee space was partly funded by an online crowdfunding campaign and a launch party was held 3 December of the same year. The Vaults include an expanded selection of fiction, graphic novels, poetry, art and art theory, children's books and more. Newly expanded sections in the original upstairs area of Housmans include titles on anti-racism, health and disability politics, and Irish history. This expansion coincided with the shop's 70th anniversary. [55]
In 2019, the English all-female DIY punk/riot grrrl band Dream Nails released a live album Take Up Space - a recording of an acoustic performance at Housmans. [56]
5 Cally Road: 60 Years of Books and Activism is an oral history project exploring and celebrating the history of the building. From 2020 to 2021 a team of volunteers (aged 18–25) researched and archived the history of Housmans' premises. Volunteers recorded oral history interviews and recorded archive material whilst producing fictional queer monologues, original songs, poems, and verbatim radio plays. [27] [57] [58]
A 5 Cally Road volunteer told Peace News, "We wanted to relate the building’s history to the present day and demonstrate that the ideas and struggles we’ve documented are still thriving and making waves." [53]
Interviewees included, Goeff Hardy who spoke to researchers in 2021. His father was involved in the Committee of 100 and Hardy was involved in anarchist groups and the Gay Liberation Front. In his interview he said:
"Housmans wasn't only a bookshop in a building. Housmans was part of a whole liberation, anarcho-pacifist socialist movement. It was the centre of activism for many people. It's amazing it's survived.
The project was managed by Rosa Schling and was organised by the oral history NGO On The Record. The project was supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. [33] [27]
From July to September 2021, the British artist Wajid Yaseen used Housmans to stage an immersive sound installation. It combined oral history interviews recorded during the 5 Cally Road project with sound design and music by the anarcho-punk band Crass. Reverberations was composed by Christina Radukic, Connie Hatt, Keir Chauhan, Laura Toms, Naoise Murphy, Tania Aubeelack, and Will Hecker. [59] [27] [60] [61]
Various grassroots organisations have shared the premises or a postal address with Housmans and Peace News . They include (but are not restricted to):
On 7 September 1974, peace campaigner and co-founder of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Pat Arrowsmith, was arrested in the Peace News office. Arrowsmith had escaped from Askham Grange open prison where she was serving an 18-month sentence for offences against the Incitement to Disaffection Act 1934 after distributing leaflets at a British army base urging soldiers to refuse to serve in Northern Ireland. [33] [79] [80]
After absconding from prison, Arrowsmith spoke at an anti-fascist demonstration in Hyde Park and befriended lesbian and gay attendees. In an interview with the 5 Cally Road research project, Nettie Pollard (a member of the Gay Liberation Front), recalled Arrowsmith saying to LGBT protestors, "Well, why don't we go to Housmans?" Upon arrival, the group contacted The Press Association to say, "there's a fugitive at Housmans, 5 Caledonian Road." Their photographs appeared on the front page of The Sunday Telegraph. When arresting officers appeared at the scene, Arrowsmith refused to walk downstairs and was carried down three flights of stairs. [44] [81] [82] [83]
On 10 September 1974, two days after Arrowsmith arrest, police raided 5 Caledonian Road, the Peace News offices, and the homes of several peace activists. The raids were in response to the British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign (BWNIC) and their 'Information for Discontented Soldiers' leafletting campaign which had led to Arrowsmith's arrest. [80] [84] 5 Caledonian Road was the mailing address for the campaign. [44]
Housmans is one of many radical bookshops that have been a target of police surveillance and the attendance of officers who purchase material to monitor left-wing groups and individuals. [85] [86] [87]
In the 2017, the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance unveiled a plaque above Housmans as part of the grassroots Plaques Project. The project marked the known locations where campaigners and activists were spied on by officers from the Special Demonstration Squad and other undercover units. The plaque above Housmans reads, "Peace, Environmental and Animal Rights Campaigns meeting here were spied on by undercover police officers from the Special Demonstration Squad (established 1968), and other units" [88] [89]
Police officer Bob Lambert was head of the Special Demonstration Squad and posed as a left-wing animal rights activist named [85] Bob Robison from 1983 to 1988. Lambert fathered a child with an activist, who was unaware of his true identity, during his deployment and regularly visited Housmans whilst undercover. [90]
In 2013, it was reported that Lambert had co-authored the 'McLibel leaflet' while undercover with London Greenpeace which resulted in a ten-year defamation lawsuit from the McDonald's Corporation. [90] Both London Greenpeace and the 'McLibel' defence campaign were based at 5 Caledonian Road.
In 2009, private investigator Ian Kerr pleaded guilty to running an unlawful blacklisting service on building workers. Kerr visited Housmans and other radical bookshops to report on individuals and amassed thousands of files on trade unionists and political activists for his work at the Consulting Association. Kerr's blacklist was financed by more than 40 major firms in the construction industry. [91] [85] [92] An investigation by The Guardian suggests that Kerr's investigations began in the 1970s for the Economic League, a right-wing organisation established in 1919. The Economic League had 45,000 files on people considered "extreme left-wing" and received payment from more than 2,000 companies to screen potential employees for trade unionists and "troublemakers." [92]
In 2011, Housmans cofounded the Alliance of Radical Booksellers. [93] The Alliance created two awards:
The Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing was first awarded in 2012 and recognises the best radical books published each year. [94]
The Little Rebels Children's Book Award is a prize for radical fiction aimed at children aged 0–12 and was first awarded in 2013. [95] [9]
Book collections have been donated to Housmans from the estates of authors and activists including Doreen Massey, Mike Marqusse, and the educator Byron Criddle. [96] Donations from living authors include Tariq Ali. [97]
In May 2016, Housmans sold the private library of cultural theorist Professor Stuart Hall. 3,000 books were donated to Housmans by Hall's widow Catherine Hall. [98] [99]
In October 2021, the private library of British journalist, Dawn Foster was donated by her next of kin. Each book was stamped with the imprint 'DAWN FOSTER FOREVER – From the library of Dawn Foster 1986-2021" and all titles were priced at £1, £3 and £5. The sale began 16 October 2021 and included fiction and political titles. [100] [101] [102]
Laurence Housman was an English playwright, writer and illustrator whose career stretched from the 1890s to the 1950s. He studied art in London and worked largely as an illustrator during the first years of his career, before shifting focus to writing. He was a younger brother of the poet A. E. Housman and his sister and fellow activist in the women's suffrage movement was writer/illustrator Clemence Housman.
Waterstones Booksellers Limited, trading as Waterstones, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized Waterstones shop sells a range of approximately 30,000 individual books, as well as stationery and other related products.
Peace News (PN) is a pacifist magazine first published on 6 June 1936 to serve the peace movement in the United Kingdom. From later in 1936 to April 1961 it was the official paper of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), and from 1990 to 2004 was co-published with War Resisters' International.
The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) is a non-governmental organisation that promotes pacifism, based in the United Kingdom. Its members are signatories to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war", and campaign to promote peaceful and nonviolent solutions to conflict. The PPU forms the British section of War Resisters' International.
The white poppy is a flower used as a symbol of peace, worn either in place of or in addition to the red remembrance poppy for Remembrance Day or Anzac Day.
Caledonian Road in the London Borough of Islington, England, connects North London, from Camden Road near its junction with Holloway Road, and central London's Pentonville Road in the south. A mile and a half long, it is known colloquially as the Cally and forms the entirety of the A5203.
Gay's the Word is an independent bookshop in central London, and the oldest LGBT bookshop in the United Kingdom. Inspired by the emergence and growth of lesbian and gay bookstores in the United States, a small group of people from Gay Icebreakers, a gay socialist group, founded the store in 1979. These included Peter Dorey, Ernest Hole and Jonathan Cutbill. Various locations were looked at, including Covent Garden, which was then being regenerated, before they decided to open the store in Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury, an area of the capital with rich academic and literary associations. Initial reluctance from Camden Council to grant a lease was overcome with help from Ken Livingstone, then a local councillor, later Mayor of London. For a period of time, it was the only LGBT bookshop in England.
Margaret P. Arrowsmith was a British author and peace campaigner. She was a co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1957.
Sybil Morrison was a British pacifist and a suffragist who was active with several other radical causes.
Hugh Brock (1914–1985) was a lifelong British pacifist, editor of Peace News between 1955 and 1964, a promoter of nonviolent direct action and a founder of the Direct Action Committee, a forerunner of the Committee of 100.
The Silver Moon Bookshop was a feminist bookstore on Charing Cross Road in London founded in 1984 by Jane Cholmeley, Sue Butterworth, and Jane Anger. They established Silver Moon Bookshop to share intersectional feminist rhetoric with a larger community of readers and encourage open discussion of women’s issues. The shop served both as a safe space for women to participate in literary events and a resource center to learn about local feminist initiatives. The owners of Silver Moon Bookshop eventually expanded into the publishing field through establishing Silver Moon Books, as well as creating the store newsletter Silver Moon Quarterly.
New Beacon Books is a British publishing house, bookshop, and international book service that specializes in Black British, Caribbean, African, African-American and Asian literature. Founded in 1966 by John La Rose and Sarah White, it was the first Caribbean publishing house in England. New Beacon Books is widely recognized as having played an important role in the Caribbean Artists Movement, and in Black British culture more generally. The associated George Padmore Institute (GPI) is located on the upper floors of the same building where the bookshop resides at 76 Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park, London.
The LGBT community in London is one of the largest within Europe. LGBT culture of London, England, is centred on Old Compton Street in Soho. There are also LGBT pubs and restaurants across London in Haggerston, Dalston and Vauxhall.
Tim Gee is the general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, the international organisation of Quakers worldwide. He is also a writer and faith-based activist in the United Kingdom, who popularised the concept of counterpower, and has written about pacifism and the Occupy movement.
The Lavender Menace Bookshop was an independent gay bookshop in Edinburgh from 1982 to 1986. It was the first gay bookshop in Scotland and the second in the United Kingdom.
The LGB Alliance is a British advocacy group and registered charity founded in 2019 in opposition to the policies of LGBT rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues. Its founders are Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott. The LGB Alliance describes its objective as "asserting the right of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men to define themselves as same-sex attracted", and states that such a right is threatened by "attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender". The group has opposed a ban on conversion therapy that includes trans people in the UK, opposed the use of puberty blockers for children, and opposed gender recognition reform.
Wildcat was a monthly anarchist-libertarian newspaper published from London between 1974 and 1975. Wildcat is not connected to the communist newsletter and journal of the same name published in the 1980s and 1990s.
Bookmarks is Britain's largest socialist bookshop. It was founded in 1973 by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and is based in Bloomsbury, London. The company has published books since 1979 and is the official bookseller for the Trades Union Congress.
Publications Distribution Cooperative (PDC) was set up in 1976 to distribute radical, socialist, feminist, green/ecology and community publications in Britain to the book and newsagent trade.
Radical bookshops in the United Kingdom promote radical literature on topics including animal rights, environmentalism, postcolonialism, self-help, and sexual politics.
Housmans is an independent anarchist shop, while Bookmarks belongs to the Socialist Workers Party.