New Britain Movement

The New Britain Movement was a short lived political organization in 1930s Britain. It advocated a heterogeneous collection of political ideas including guild socialism, European federalism as a first step to world Federalism, a three way parliament based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and a monetary reform that would abolish banks. By the end of 1933 it grew to 77 branches, and its eponymous weekly newspaper had a circulation of 32,000 copies. However the group soon split into four different factions and dissolved in 1935. ^{[1] [2]}

History

The movement was spun out from periodicals edited by Alfred Orage, and proposed a social state, the conception of which was influenced by Benchara Branford, brother of Victor Branford. ^{[3] [4]} The quarterly New Britain was launched in 1933 with articles by Gerald Heard, Frederick Soddy, and George Scott Williamson, and essays by Samuel George Hobson and Philip Mairet. ^[5] New Britain Weekly was then launched in May 1933. ^[6]

Among those involved as organisers were George Catlin, Hobson and J. T. Murphy. ^[1] W. J. Brown, a Member of Parliament who declared himself an independent, joined the movement as Catlin did, via the New Party. ^[7]

For a time John Macmurray was prominent in the movement, with Williamson and others such as Aubrey Thomas Westlake (1893–1985), like Williamson a physician, who went on to involvement in the early days of British organic farming. ^[8] Membership overlapped with a number of groups of the time with similar aims, in the case of Westlake with Grith Fyrd. ^[9]

Among its successors were the House of Industry League, involving Hobson; ^[10] and the People's Front Propaganda Committee, involving Murphy. ^[11]

References

1. Barberis, Peter; McHugh, John; Tyldesley, Mike (1 January 2000). Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century. A&C Black. p. 355. ISBN   978-0-8264-5814-8.
2. Europe in Love, Love in Europe: Imagination and Politics in Britain Between the Wars London : Tauris, 1999 pp.130-1
3. Scott, John; Bromley, Ray (19 April 2013). Envisioning Sociology: Victor Branford, Patrick Geddes, and the Quest for Social Reconstruction. SUNY Press. p. 205. ISBN   978-1-4384-4732-2.
4. Scott, John. "Branford, Benchara Bertrand Patrick (1867–1944)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/97276.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. "New Britain". Nature. 131 (3306): 358. 1 March 1933. Bibcode:1933Natur.131S.358.. doi: 10.1038/131358c0 . ISSN   1476-4687. S2CID   4075231.
6. Rigby, Andrew (2006). Dimitrije Mitrinović: A Biography. William Sessions Limited. p. 150. ISBN   978-1-85072-334-9.
7. Worley, Matthew (2007). "What Was the New Party? Sir Oswald Mosley and Associated Responses to the 'Crisis', 1931–1932". History. 92 (1 (305)): 57 note 103. doi:10.1111/j.1468-229X.2007.00385.x. JSTOR   24428698.
8. Conford, Philip (2005). "Organic society: agriculture and radical politics in the career of Gerard Wallop, ninth Earl of Portsmouth (1898–1984)" (PDF). bahs.org.uk. p. 81 note 9.
9. Costello, John E. (2002). John Macmurray: A Biography. Floris Books. p. 204. ISBN   978-0-86315-361-7.
10. Barberis, Peter; McHugh, John; Tyldesley, Mike (1 January 2000). Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century. A&C Black. p. 353. ISBN   978-0-8264-5814-8.
11. Barberis, Peter; McHugh, John; Tyldesley, Mike (1 January 2000). Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century. A&C Black. p. 356. ISBN   978-0-8264-5814-8.