The Rise o f Ethical Anarchism in Britain,

1885-1900
Abstract In the nineteenth century, anarchists were strict individualists favouring clandestine organization and violent revolution: in the twentieth century, they have been romantic communalists favouring moral experiments and sexual liberation. This article examines the growth o f this ethical anarchism in Britain in the late nine teenth century, as exemplified by the Freedom Group and the Tolstoyans. These anarchists adopted the moral and even religious concerns o f groups such as the Fellowship o f the New Life. Their anarchist theory resembled the beliefs o f countercultural groups such as the aesthetes more closely than it did earlier forms o f anarch ism. And this theory led them into the movements for sex reform and communal living.

Art for arts sake had come to its logical conclusion in decadence.. . More recent devotees have adopted the expressive phrase: art for lifes sake. It is probable that the decadents meant much the same thing, but they saw life as intensive and individual, whereas the later view is universal in scope. It roams extensively over humanity, realising the collective soul.1 To
th e

ic t o r ia n s ,

anarchism was an individualist doctrine found in clandestine

organizations o f violent revolutionaries. B y the outbreak o f the First W o rld W ar, another very different type o f anarchism was becom ing equally well recognized. The new anarchists still opposed the very idea o f the state, but they were com munalists not individualists, and they sought to realize their ideal peacefully through personal example and m oral education, not violently through acts o f terror and a general uprising. T h e turn o f the century witnessed the rise o f peaceful, communal varieties o f anarchism inspired by Prince K ropotkin and Leo Tolstoy. W hat brought about this change in the anarchist movement? W h y did the new anarchism com e into being? W e w ill explore these questions w ith reference to the British experience. It is no coincidence that the turn o f the century also witnessed the disintegration o f European culture into w hat w e call m odernisma collection o f fragmented pieces lacking secure, accepted principles. M any people interpreted the demise o f the established order as a destructive process culm inating in decadence, but for others, particularly the decadents themselves, it represented a new start prom ising a cultural renaissance. Contem poraries teetered on a parapet uncertain whether jum ping w ould plunge them dow n to a vile abyss and social catastrophe or propel them upward to a higher life and new social order. The fin de sicle was a janus-faced
1 H. Jackson, The Eighteen-Nineties (1913), p 196
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culture o f decadence and optim ism , and the new anarchism emerged as an expres sion o f the optim ism . T h e new anarchists saw themselves as the peaceful and con structive harbingers o f a harm onious society based on a higher morality. T h e y were part o f a broad bohem ia trying to liberate art, the individual and society from the perceived shackles o f Victorianism . T h ey had less in com m on w ith their anarchist predecessors than w ith sex reform ers and utopian communalists. Anarchism grew out o f nineteenth-century radicalism, w ith Proudhon and B akunin hoping to liberate the individual from the oppression and exploitation they associated w ith the state.2 T h e anarchists wanted individuals to be free from obtrusive authority, and, in particular, free to do as they saw fit w ith the product o f their ow n labour. It was this sort o f anarchism that inspired H enry Seym our, a secularist from T un bridge W ells, to begin publishing The Anarchist in 1885 Seym our was a classical anarchist o f the old school. Like Bakunin, he m oved from a secularist hostility to the chu rch im posing God on the individual to an iconoclastic denunciation o f society im posing its values on the individual. His anarchist vision fused Proudhonian m utualism w ith the m ore extreme individualism o f various A m erican anarchists to envisage small proprietors co-operating w ith one another in voluntary schemes. His ideal was a free-trade utopia, w ith absolutely free com peti tion m aking cost the ju st lim it o f price, thereby ensuring individuals reaped the full benefit o f their labour w ith ou t monopolists or the state extracting a tithe.3 M ost o f Seym ours contributors regarded themselves vaguely as socialists o f a libertarian persuasion, n ot specifically as anarchists. Sympathizers included Fabians such as G eorge Bernard Shaw and new lifers such as Edward Carpenter, but many o f them later w ith drew entirely from anarchist groups, and some even w rote tracts condem ning anarchism.4 In the eighteen-eighties, socialists became increasingly theoretically sophisticated, and, as their ideas matured, some turned to anarchism as an alternative to the statism o f the Marxists and Fabians, w hilst others came to view anarchism as naive and utopian. It was in this w ay that anarchism came to dominate the Socialist League after it had split away from the Marxist Social Dem ocratic Federation. T h e anarchists o f the League also belonged squarely in the radical tradi tion o f Proudhon and Bakunin. Bism arcks anti-socialist legislation o f 1878 led to an influx o f refugees into Britain, including people such as V ictor Dave and Johann Most, w h o join ed earlier refugees such as Herman Jung and Andreas Scheu as well as survivors o f the Paris C o m m u n e such as Richard D eck and A lbert Reynard. Most
2 Although some scholars give anarchy a more ancient lineage, the fact is Proudhon was the first to use the word to describe a political outlook, and it became associated with a historical movement only when Marx used it to describe the views o f Bakunin and his followers. Even Bakunin preferred to describe himself as a collectivist so as to distance him self from Proudhon O nly in the 1880s did a self-styled anarchist move ment emerge For a general study see J. Joll, The Anarchists (2nd edn., 1979) On British anarchism sec H. Oliver, The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian London (1983); and J. Quail, The Slow Burning Fuse (1978) On Victorian reactions to anarchism see B. A. Melchion, Terrorism in the Late Victorian Novel (1885); and H. Shpayer, British anarchism, 1881-1914: reality and appearance (unpublished University of London Ph.D. thesis, 1981) 3 O n Seymour see The Labour Annual (1899), p. 162; The Anarchist, March 1885 4 E.g. G. Shaw, The impossibilities o f anarchism, Fabian Tract no. 45 (1893).
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o f these refugees w ere not anarchists, but they were social revolutionaries w ho dis approved o f M arxs political views, and they did introduce a number o f young Britons to the view s o f anarchists. It was these Britons, notably Frank K itz and Joseph Lane, w h o led the League to anarchism.5 A nother part o f the British anarchist m ovem ent consisted largely o f people w ho had been associated w ith m ore ethical forms o f socialism, and w ho correspondingly rejected Marxism not only as statist, but also as an im m oral doctrine preaching violence and a selfish and sectional ethic o f class interest.6 It is these latter, n ew anarchists on w hom w e w ill focus. W h en K ropotkin came out o f Clairvaux gaol, he took refuge in Britain, where, w ith some followers, he join ed Seym our to form an editorial collective to run The Anarchist.7 K ropotkin was an anarcho-com m unist, not a Proudhonian mutualist, and he and his followers soon clashed w ith Seym our on a range o f issues. In June 1 886, Seymour com plained about the practice, introduced by the editorial col lective, o f publishing only unsigned articles.8 This dispute was a long-standing one. Even before the first issue o f The Anarchist appeared, Seymour told Shaw he preferred signed articles, at the same time as the leading K ropotkinite told Shaw articles should be unsigned.9 N o w Seym our p ublicly complained that under editorial collectives individuality gets extinguished to maintain a general tone, w hich may for all I know be true Com m unism , but isnt true Anarchism.10 T o the Kropotkinites, true com m unism ju st was true anarchism. W hereas Seym our thought anonym ity undermined individual responsibility, they regarded anony mous articles as an expression o f a com m unist ethic. B efore long, Seym our also began to complain that Kropotkin and his followers demanded an equality w hich sacrificed the rights o f labour to the idle.11 Because he rejected their social ethic, he could see no w ay o f defending the hard-w orking against the lazy, so he could not accept their com m unism . In O ctober 1886, K ropotkin and his followers broke w ith Seymour to start their ow n newspaper, Freedom. K ropotkins followers espoused a new anarchism w hich resembled other bohemian beliefs o f the romantic nineties more closely than it did the radical individualism o f Seym our and the Socialist League. Kropotkin appealed to them not because they wanted to assert the rights o f the autonomous individual, but because they believed a new life was em erging from the decay o f the old order, and they identified this new life w ith anarcho-com m unism . As Richard Le Gallienne,
5 Kitz published his autobiographical reflections in Freedom, Jan.-July 1912. 6 This ethical critique o f Marxism was common amongst new lifers and their Fabian sympathizers (see P Chubb, T h e two alternatives*, To-day, viii (1887), 69-77; ]. Ramsay MacDonald, A rock ahead, To-day, vii (1887), 66-70; and S Olivier, Perverse Socialism', To-day, vi (1886), 47-55, 109-14). 7 His autobiography is P. Kropotkin, Memoirs o f a Revolutionist (2 v o ls, 1899) On his London years also see J W . Hulse, Revolutionists in London a Study o f Five Unorthodox Socialists (Oxford, 1970), pp 53-76 . 8 Originally Seymour said each writer must be alone responsible for his or her views (The Anarchist, March 1885) But later he had acquiesced in the collectives decision to publish only anonymous articles (The Anarchist, 20 Apr. 1886). 9 Seymour to Shaw, 5 and 6 Jan. 1885, British Library, Shaw Papers, BM 50511, and Mrs. W ilson to Shaw 10 Dec. 1884., BM 50510. Numbers in the Shaw Papers are provisional. 10 The Anarchist, 1 June 1886. 11 Ibid, May 1887.
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him self an aesthete, described the drawings o f A ubrey Beardsley, the criticism o f Arthur Symons, the paintings o f James W histler and the plays o f Oscar W ild e, so w e can describe the anarchism o f D r. John Burns-Gibson, J. C . K enw orthy, J. Bruce W allace and Charlotte W ilson: they tried to escape from the deadening thraldom o f materialism and outw orn conventions, and to live life significantlykeenly and beautifully, personally and, i f need be, daringly.12 T he new anarchism emerged principally from the Fellowship o f the N e w Life, a discussion circle form ed around Thom as Davidson, a m uch-travelled philosopher. T h e Fellow ship broke w ith the founders o f the Fabian Society in order to con centrate on spiritual and m oral issues, not econom ic and political ones. Those associated w ith the Fellowship, including Ernest Rhys, a m em ber o f the Rhym ers Club, typically thought Darw inism had undermined traditional religious and moral assumptions, thereby raising the spectre o f a deadening materialism . 13 Nonetheless, they remained optimistic, believing they could steer a course between the Scylla o f the rigid doctrines o f old and the Charybdis o f a meaningless technocracy. T h ey looked to a new m orality and a new aesthetic to inspire a new society and a new life. It is here w e find the basis o f the sympathy between the new anarchists and other bohemians. T h e y all wanted to break w ith the past by prom oting a new ethic based on a new sensibility, not by introducing econom ic and administrative reforms such as those associated w ith the Fabians. T h e fin de sicle was a rebellion against Victorian mores. T h e Victorian era was characterized by incessant theological controversy and periods o f intense social disturbance, but someone looking back at it legitim ately could characterize its culture as a stable com posite o f Protestantism and Liberalism. Debates over things such as the means o f grace occurred against the background o f a broad agreement on the nature and implications o f Christianity: the creeds expressed the essentials, the Bible was a trusty guide, and the main religious duties were B ible reading, daily prayer and attendance to matters pertaining to the hereafter. Victorian Liberalism was a political expression o f this faith: although the main concern was the hereafter, this concern required the quiet, proficient performance o f fam ilial and civic dut ies cleanliness, the moral education o f the young, charity to deserving cases and social service. It is possible to exaggerate the extent to w hich people broke w ith this culture in the eighteen-nineties, but some sort o f decisive shift did take place. It was not com m on for people to lose their faith altogether, but it was com m on for the content o f their faith to change decisively.14 O ften they turned from a literalist approach to the Bible, a transcendental view o f God and an austere individualist concept o f social duty, to a pluralist approach to theological speculation, an immanentist view o f G od and a concept o f duty infused by an ideal o f fellowship T his change paralleled developments in late Victorian society making for a less stable religious and moral culture. T h e grow ing scale o f places o f work, widespread
12 R. Le Gallienne, The Romantic 90s (1951), p. 157 13 On Davidson see T . Davidson, Autobiographical sketch, ed A. Lataner. Jour Hist Ideas, xviii ( 1 9 57)
5 31-6, and Memorials of Thomas Davidson, ed W . Knight (1907). On the Fellowship see its journal Seedtime Rhyss autobiography is E. Rhys, Everyman Remembers (1931)

14 On this process and its political implications see M. Bevir, Welfarism, socialism and religion on T. H. Green and others, Rev of Politics, Iv (1993), 639-61

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migration from country to tow n and the em ergence o f the nuclear family, all acted as corrosives on traditional attitudes, w hilst im proved transport and the burgeoning leisure industry drew people away from traditional pastimes. However, the most important source o f the change was perhaps the intellectual difficulties under mining Victorian Protestantism. Geology, historical criticism and the theory o f evolution led people to an immanentist faith; this im m anentism prompted a greater religious pluralism by devaluing creeds and orthodoxies; and it prompted a new concern w ith the ideal o f fellowship by em phasizing the unity o f all. T h e idea o f bringing Kropotkin to England to publish a newspaper emanated from Mrs. Charlotte W ilson w ho corresponded w ith Sophie Kropotkin w hile the latters husband was in jail. Mrs. W ilson (nee Martin) was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and M erton Hall (a precursor o f N ew nham College, Cambridge), after w hich she married A rthur W ilson, a stockbroker, w ith w hom she set up home on the edge o f Hampstead Heath.15 She became a pre-Raphaelite bohemian, fur nishing her cottage w ith the objects, fabrics and prints then being championed by W illiam M orris and his circle. Like many literary radicals, she joined the Society o f Friends o f Russian Freedom w hich flourished on Stepniaks popularity amongst fashionable Londoners.16 She even hoped to found her own literary sort o f society to be called the Russian Society, but in the end settled for a single drawing-room meeting w hen Stepniak told her he saw no role for anything more than this.17 She had a romantic view o f the Russian peasantry, arguing that they retained the democratic and com m unistic spirit o f prim itive socialism, so Russia may yet lead the w ay in social re-organisation.18 This idealization o f Russia led her to Kropotkin and thence anarcho-com m unism . For several years, Mrs. W ilson kept the black flag o f anarchism aloft in the Fabian Society. She was a member o f the executive committee, the host o f the Hampstead H istoric discussion group where the Fabians thrashed out their ideas, and the author o f the section on anarchism in a Fabian T ract describing the main varieties o f socialism.19 In the mid eighteen-eighties, however, the Fabians became increasingly com m itted to parliamentary action. Mrs. W ilson regarded the Fabians as a group com m itted to discussions where socialists o f every shape o f opinion may find a com m on m eeting ground.20 She argued political action was unnecessary and immoral, and anyway the Social Dem ocratic Federation already provided socialists with a suitable vehicle for any political action they m igh t w ant to undertake. As the Fabians turned to politics, she w ithdrew from the Society, effectively founded Freedom, and collected a small group around that paper. Mrs. W ilson s main British associates in the Freedom Group were Dr. Burns15 Mrs. Wilson was the model for Gemma in E. Voynich, The Gadfly (1897) 16 On Stepniak and the Society o f Friends o f Russian Freedom see Hulse, pp 29-52. 17 Mrs. Wilson to Prof. Pearson, 24 Jan 1886, University College London, Bloomsbury Science Library, Pearson Papers (PP) 900. 18 C Wilson, T h e condition o f the Russian peasantry, To-day, iv (1885), 357. 19 C. Wilson and others, W h at socialism is. Fabian Tract no. 4 (1886) 2 Mrs. Wilson to Shaw, 13 Sept. 1886, Bnt. Libr., BM 50511. This was a common view amongst 0 anarchists The Anarchist, July 1885 said although the Fabian Society is as yet bourgeois in constitution and sentiment it is the only meeting ground in London for English Socialists o f all denominations.
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G ibson, a district police surgeon and a m edical officer w ith the Post O ffice, who proposed the resolution founding the Fellowship, and w h o spoke on anarchism to the H am pstead Historic; Mrs. Dryhurst, an Irish Nationalist and early Fabian; and A gn es H enry w h o lived in a com m unal residence o f Fellowship members in B loom sbury, London. 21 O utside this inner circle, there were several sympathizers and contributors, generally socialists w h o acknowledged anarchist leanings. These in cluded Em m a B rooke, a friend o f Mrs. W ilso n from her student days w ho studied econom ics under A lfred Marshall only to leave Cam bridge deeply dissatisfied with orth o d o x econom ics, and w ho later becam e secretary to the Hampstead Historic; and Edw ard Carpenter, a rom antic poet inspired by W a lt W h itm an , w h o resigned a clerical fellow ship in Cam bridge, jo in ed the Fellowship, and m oved north to seek a sim ple life o f m anual labour and com radely love.22 In the early eighteen-nineties, the Fellowship inspired a second wave o f anarchists w hen several prom inent members, led by Bruce W allace and J. C. Ken w orthy, became com m itted Tolstoyans.23 Bruce W allace was b o m in India to a Presbyterian missionary and his w ife, b u t he was educated in Ireland where he graduated fro m D u b lin U niversity in 1874. He studied theology at B onn University b efore becom ing a Congregationalist minister. In the early eighteen-eighties, he heard H enry G eorge speak on land reform , began to think about social problems, and eventually started a newspaper, Brotherhood, to prom ote the social gospel he believed contained the solution to these problems. A few years later, he crossed the Irish Sea to found a non-doctrinaire Brotherhood C h urch in Southgate, London.2 4 K e n w o rth y was born in Liverpool in 1863. In the early eighteen-eighties, he read R uskin and jo in e d the m ovem ent for land reform, eventually becom ing honorary secretary to the English Land Colon ization Society. He spent some time working in M ansfield House Settlem ent, part o f a m ovem ent aim ing to uplift the urban poor b y encouraging m iddle-class folk to live and w ork in deprived parts o f London. In the late eighteen-eighties, he turned to anarchism, contributing regularly to Freedom. In 1892, he read T o lsto ys writings whilst travelling to America and becam e an instant convert.25 W h e n K en w o rth y returned to England, he joined W allace in opening a Brother21 Mrs. W ilsons history o f the Group is in Freedom, D ec. 1900. Also see Freedom, a Hundred Years (1986) O n D r B u rns-Gibsons talk to the Hampstead Historic see Mrs. W ilson to Prof. Pearson, 4 March 1886, U . C . L., PP 900. 22 O n Miss Brooke see The Labour Annual (1895), p. 163 Carpenters autobiography is E. Carpenter, My Days and Dreams (1916). Recent studies o f Carpenters life and thought include S Pierson, Edward Car penter. prophet o f a socialist millennium , Victorian Studies, xiii (1970), 301-18; S. Rowbotham and J. Weeks, Socialism and the New Life, the Personal and Sexual Politics o f Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis (1977), and C. Tsuzuki, Edward Carpenter, 1844-1929 (Cambridge, 1980). 23 For Tolstoys anarchist beliefs see L. Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays, trans. A Maude (1936). N o t all members o f the Fellowship took to Tolstoy. Most were vaguely sympathetic, but critical of his stress on the spiritual and individual at the expense o f the physical and social (see H. Rix, T h e later works of C o u n t Leo Tolstoy, Seedtime, Jan 1893) Kenw orthy captured the situation, saying o f the Fellowship, in economics we are Socialists; in our ideal we are communists, in politics we are, some o f us, Anarchists of Peace (Seedtime, Apr 1895). 2 The Labour Annual (1895), p. 191. 4 2 5 He wrote about part o f his life in J. Kenworthy, My Psychic Experiences (1901). Also see The Labour Annual (1895), p. 177 He wrote a series o f articles on Charity; true and false, Freedom, July-O ct. 1896.
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hood C h urch in C roydon to add to those then existing in north and north-east London at Forest Gate, Southgate and W altham stow . These churches sought to apply the principles o f the Sermon on the M ount literally and fully to individual and social conduct, w h ich they interpret into action by efforts to found industries and businesses on w hat m ay be described as Socialist Co-operative lines.26 In 1894, Kenw orthy and W allace founded the Brotherhood Trust, w hich undertook co operative production and retailing, w ith any profits being put aside in order to purchase land for the establishment o f anarchist communes. In this way, mem bers opted out o f the capitalist econom y, and w ith each m em ber supposed to recruit one new m em ber every quarter, the hope was the alternative society o f the com m unes would spread until capitalism and state were no more. W allace described the T ru st as an organisation o f industry and com m erce w h ich should substantially and increasingly benefit an ever-w idening circle o f honest workers, should illustrate the operation o f sound moral and econom ic principles, and should thus serve as an object-lesson and example far more persuasive than m any blasts o f oratory . 7 T h e 2 Trust opened stores at Croydon, Southgate and W altham stow , all o f w hich refused to have any dealings w ith firms not paying a living, or trade-union, wage. Later still, members o f the Trust founded Brotherhood House, a com m unal residence in Croydon. T he bohemianism o f the eighteen-nineties represents an attempt to liberate the human spirit from the restrictions o f Victorian religion and m orality w ith ou t thereby descending into a crude materialism bereft o f values. O n his 1882 lecture tour o f America, Oscar W ild e spoke o f an English Renaissance characterized b y a new birth o f the spirit o f man.28 Similarly, Mrs. W ilso n thought the English had got rid o f their vague dreams about a K ingdom o f G od', and discovered a new ideal o f a kingdom o f m an, com bining science w ith religion, animalism w ith spiritual ity.29 T he new anarchists, the aesthetes and other bohemians opposed all exterior systems o f religious and moral rules, but they found meaning and value in things such as liberty, art and science. True, the new anarchists espoused a political theory, not an aesthetic, so they w ere less interested in defending an art free from V ictorian solemnity than in devising a society free from Victorian prudery. Nonetheless, the overlap between the new anarchists and aesthetes is striking because they reacted against the same values and they hit upon similar alternatives. T he political theory o f the new anarchists parallels the aesthetic o f the aesthetes. True, the aesthetes concern w ith the lim it society places on art often ends in social alienation, whereas the new anarchists concern w ith a future utopia often inspires optimism. N o n eth e less, the overlap again is striking for w hen the new anarchists considered the present, they too were alienated, and w hen the aesthetes pondered the future, they too dreamt o f a quasi-anarchist utopia. In short, the new anarchists, unlike their predecessors, sought to realize their ideal through the spread o f a new sensibility,
2 The Labour Annual (1896), p. 44 6 2 J. B. Wallace, Towards Fraternal Organisation: an Explanation of the Brotherhood Trust (1894), p. 3. 7 2 R . Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (Harmondsworth, 1988), pp 157-8. 8 2 Mrs. Wilson to Prof. Pearson, 11 Nov 1884 and 8 Oct. 1885, U .C .L., PP 900. 9
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and this sensibility had m uch in com m on w ith that purveyed by the aesthetes. O scar W ild e w rote in The Soul o f Man Under Socialism: Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition o f a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being o f each member o f the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper environment. But, for the full development o f Life to its highest mode o f perfection, some thing more is needed. What is needed is individualism.3 0 N o w on der W ild e acknow ledged a debt to Kropotkin, and, in an interview o f 1 894, described him self as som ething o f an anarchist, for here he articulates the central tenet o f the n ew anarchism. T h e n ew anarchists wanted to avoid a dull materialism as w ell as the dogm atic Protestantism o f the Victorians. T h ey insisted that although socialism w ill bring econom ic w ell-being, something more than material satisfac tion is necessary. T h e y cham pioned a new spirituality associated w ith a higher individualism ; n ot the individualism o f the Manchester School, but their ow n social individualism . Mrs. W ilso n said the hopes o f the anarchists rest on the spread o f higher m orality, reconciling absolute personal freedom w ith the grow ing desire for social unity: it is, she explained, a question o f sufficiently enlightened or socialised self-interest.31 K en w o rth y described the com plete Anarchist as the perfect idealist, the man w hose goal is entire freedom o f action for all, know ing this to be the only possible condition in w hich equality and fraternity can exist.32 A narchism w ill resolve the con flict between the individual and the com m unity by allow ing people to do as they w ish w ith in a fram ework o f m utual co-operation and fraternal comradeship. A higher individualism provided the keynote o f the new anarchismthe first issue o f Freedom expressed a com m itm ent to a type o f liberty at one w ith social feel ing.33 T h e n ew anarchists condem ned contemporary social arrangements for sup pressing and distorting social impulses that otherwise w ould blossom into this higher individualism. Mrs. W ilso n called for the eradication o f all forms o f dom ination on the grounds that authority and feelings o f superiority corrupt our fraternal instincts. A lth ough w estern societies have done away w ith such striking form s o f despotism as slavery and serfdom, there remains the spirit o f domination in the concrete form o f Property, guarded by law, upheld by the organised force o f G overnm ent, and backed by the yet undestroyed desire to dom inate in certain individuals.34 Like m any anarchists, she regarded the state as a double evil. For a start, it defends class-interests em bodied in the so-called rights o f property: the law provides a veneer o f legitim acy, but w hen the law fails, the police and army deal w ith threats to property, thereby revealing the force w hich really sustains current inequalities. In addition, it is an evil in its own right because others rule one through
30 O. Wilde, The Soul o f Man Under Socialism (1912), p 6. Mrs W ilson to Prof. Pearson, 30 Oct. 1884 and 19 Dec 1884, U C L , PP 900. 32 J. Kenworthy, Tolstoy His Life and Works (1902), pp 120-1.

3 1

33 Freedom, Oct. 1886. 34 C. Wilson, Social Democracy and anarchism, The Practical Socialist, i (Jan. 1886), I I .
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it: even dem ocratic authority involves the governm ent o f man by m an, reducing the individual to a slave o f the sim ulacrum that now stands for society.35 Socialist collectivism cannot liberate the hum an spirit because the continued existence o f the state entails the perpetuation o f domination. The only w ay to eliminate dom ination is to establish an anarchic com m unity. Mrs. W ilson denounced all legal systems because she believed in the absolute right o f every adult to do exactly w hat he chooses provided only he does not thereby infringe the equivalent right o f others.36 O n ly in a free society can individuals realize that true individuality w h ich entails social feeling but not subordination to society. T h e existence o f the state implies the imposition o f a pattern o f develop m ent on individuals, whereas anarchists w ant to see the individual developing him self to the utm ost by expanding from w ithin outwards until his soul is one w ith hum anity.37 T h e higher individualism has to com e from within, so only an anarchic society w ill do. As Freedom explained, anarchists believe in self-guidance, voluntary association, general action by the direct and unanimous decision o f the persons concerned.38 T he Tolstoyans placed a similar ideal in a loose, Christian framework. T heir inspiration came from the life o f Christ, especially the Sermon on the Mount, not the established C h urch , w hich they condem ned for renouncing Christian morality and taking on the authoritarian garb o f the state. A ccording to Kenw orthy, Tolstoy returned to the principles o f conduct taught by Jesus Christ, sweeping aside the dogmas o f the churches to leave a broad mysticism associated w ith Johns Gospel.39 Although all Christian churches teach such principles, only Tolstoy puts them into practice. Besides, K enw orthy continued, only Tolstoy recognizes that Christian morality rests on passive resistance; the heart o f the teaching o f Jesus lies in an insistence on self-surrender, truth, and perfect love to all, because self-defence and violent resistance can never establish justice among m en.4 0 The Tolstoyans condemned contem porary society for transgressing Christian teachings. T h e capitalist econom y enshrines principles o f self-interest and com peti tion, not love and co-operation, and it persists because o f the illegitim ate power o f the state, and the failure o f the C h u rch to preach the true gospel o f Jesus. Modern society rests on a huge deceit concocted by a false political economy, based upon a perverted philosophy, sanctioned by a venal Church, and enforced by the States power to kill.41 Thus, Tolstoy gave up his possessions because even i f he had used his property to do good, it still w ould have depended on the force o f police and soldiers, thereby im plicating him in an im m oral social system. T o follow Jesus, people must renounce private property and adopt an ethic o f love, and to follow the Sermon on the M ount, society must rid itself o f the state and adopt anarchy.
35 C. Wilson, Anarchism (Leeds, 1900), p 4. 3 Mrs. W ilson to Shaw, 10 Dec 1884, B rit. Libr, BM50510 6 37 Mrs. W ilson to Prof. Pearson, 4 March 1886, U C.L., PP 900 3 Freedom, N ov 1890 8 3 Kenworthy, Tolstoy, p. 29. He wrote a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount in New Order, Dec 9 1897 and Jan. 1898. 4 Kenworthy, Tolstoy, p. 34. 0 41 Ibid, p. 130
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K en w o rth y equated the Christian principle that we should treat others as w e w ould have them treat us w ith the realization o f the revolutionary trinity o f liberty, equality and fraternity. Socialism embodies equality, and com m unism incorporates fraternity, but only anarchism combines these principles w ith liberty. Christian m orality requires anarchy. T h e n ew anarchists believed the higher individualism w ill emerge inevitably as the outcom e o f the evolutionary process. T h e w hole o f history reveals the grow th o f a spirit o f co-operation w h ich ultim ately w ill take the shape o f an anarchic society. T h e key to future developm ent lies in the extension o f this spirit o f co-operation into a n ew sensibility. Thus, changes in institutional arrangements are far less im portant than the grow th o f a new consciousness. Certainly K enw orthy believed the anarchist ideal w ill arise from people subscribing to a new religious sensibility. He said: the U topia w e seek is not a pious hope w ith w h ich to com fort ourselves, but a practicable reality to be brought about by entering into relationship w ith the spirit w orld w hich is part o f the one N atu re to w hich w e all belong'.42 He also distinguished w ayw ard materialists w ho w ant to change the system but in the m eantim e happily profit under it from right-thinking mystics w ho recognize the system is the outw ard manifestation o f an indwelling life and attem pt to change the system by living the new life.43 Similarly, Mrs. W ilson stressed, each individual m ust feel that the responsibility for the realisation o f his share in the advance towards his ideal rests w ith him self alone'.44 T his attitude meant the new anarchists concentrated their energies on transforming their own lives and educating people in the new morality. N o t only did the new anarchists focus on personal regeneration, but many o f them refused to countenance established forms o f political action. T h e majority argued that authoritatively to decree an end to authority is both contradictory and im m oral, and so doom ed to fail. Mrs. W ilso n insisted anarchists cannot con scientiously take part in any sort o f governm ent because they thereby would strengthen the idea that the rule o f man over man is a right and beneficial thing.4 5 T h e Freedom group as a w hole stood by this view, arguing, for example, that expropriation w ill fail i f it is undertaken by an organization em bodying the prin ciple o f authority.46 A m ongst the Tolstoyans, Kenw orthy too opposed political action on the grounds that the stage o f law, o f force, w ill not cease, cannot cease, w hile I and others continue to use it 47 In contrast, W allace defended political action in principle, though he thought such action probably w ould prove to be ineffectual.48 A lth ough the new anarchists differed from one another in some o f their opinions, a few o f w hich w e have m entioned, they clearly shared enough in
42 Kenworthy, Psychic, p. 19. 43 Kenworthy, Tolstoy, p. 42. 44 Mrs. W ilson to Prof. Pearson, 19 Dec. 1884, U . C.L., PP 900. 45 C. W ilson, Anarchism and Outrage (1893), p 4. 46 Labour Leaflet, Freedom, Aug. 1890. 47 New Order, Nov. 1897 48 New Order, Dec. 1897.
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common for us to contrast them w ith traditional anarchists such as Seymour and the members o f the Socialist League. T he latter all belonged to a radical tradition stress ing the liberation o f the individual from the fetters o f the state, and sometimes the capitalist econom y. T h e y thought individuals generally should be free to do as they wish w ithout reference to the community. In contrast, the new anarchists wanted to bring the individual into a proper relationship w ith the com m unity through the spread o f a new sensibility. T h e y thought individuals generally should recognize that their particular good consists in the good o f the com m unity. Kenworthy said T ol stoys great discovery was that mankind is the creation o f a God w h o is love, so lo ve and service to one another are the only relations in w hich man can exist happily.49 These contrasting perspectives inspired lively debates w ithin the anarchist move ment on the nature o f the ideal, and how the ideal can be established. Let us begin by considering the nature o f the anarchist ideal. Proudhon and Bakunin advocated desert-based concepts of justice according to w hich individuals should consum e goods in proportion to the w ork they perform. Proudhon hoped to realize a ju st society by retaining private property but introducing a mutual credit bank to lend m oney free o f interest and thereby remove all possibility o f exploita tion.5 Bakunin believed in criteria o f w ork because society ca n n o t. . . leave itself 0 completely defenceless against vicious and parasitic individuals, but he hoped to realize his ideal by collectivizing the means o f production, and presumably arrang ing distribution through som ething akin to a market econom y. 51 W hen Kropotkin advocated a need-based theory o f justice, he did so for two reasons.52 First, he argued pragmatically that desert-based systems can not work. W e can distinguish neither the means o f production from the means o f consum ption nor the precise contribution o f a particular individual to the process o f production. Second, he argued m orally that a need-based society is preferable to a desert-based one. Private property o f any sort encourages acquisitiveness and a desire to dominate both o f which are detrimental to the ideal o f mutual aid. Thus, he concluded, consumption should be com m unal w ith everyone taking whatever they need from a collective store. Clearly people could become anarcho-communists for either o f these reasons. Proudhonites and Bakuninites sometimes accepted his pragmatic argu ments but not his moral arguments. W e can think o f them as reluctant and pessimistic anarcho-communists: they adopted anarcho-com m unism somewhat reluctantly w hen they realized their more individualistic ideal could not work; and they were pessimistic about the prospects o f anarcho-com m unism because o f their more individualist view o f hum an nature.53 In contrast, Kropotkinites accepted his
4 Kenworthy, Tolstoy, p 28 9 5 P.-J. Proudhon, What is Property?, trans. B. R. Tucker (2 v o ls, 1898-1902). 0 51 M Bakunin, Revolutionary catechism, in Bakunin on Anarchy, ed. S. D olgoff (1973), p. 80 Bakunin did not outline any clear system o f distribution for an anarchic society, probably because his real concern was to defend a federalist principle o f social organization against the statism o f Marx. The problem o f how criteria o f work could be applied, and even o f what such criteria meant, became an issue only when Kropotkin put forward his critique o f Bakunin. 5 P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid (1915); idem, The Conquest of Bread, ed. P A vrich (1972). 2 5 It is significant that erstwhile Bakuninites who became anarcho-communists sometimes criticized 3 Kropotkin for being too optimistic. See E. Malatesta, Peter Kropotkinrecollections and criticisms o f an old friend, in V. Richards, Errico Malatesta His Life and Ideas (1977), pp. 257-68
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moral arguments about the social and co-operative nature o f humanity. T h is is one plausible distinction betw een the old and n ew anarchists. C ertainly Seym our never became anything other than a reluctant and pessimistic anarcho-com m unist. It was a debate w ith K ropotkin w hich led him to adopt an ideal o f voluntary com m unism . He acknowledged com m on ownership o f the means o f production w ith ou t free consum ption requires some sort o f rule to abolish inheritance, thus preventing private accum ulations o f wealth and a con sequent return to inequality. Hence the need for com m unism . B u t he also insisted that because com pulsory com m unism is antithetical to individualism, to compel people to accept com m unism is to violate anarchist principles. Hence com m unism must be voluntary. T hus, although he acknowledged the validity o f K rop otkin s pragmatic argum ent, he remained wedded to an ideal o f autonomous individuals doing as they please and reaping the consequences outside any context o f social relations. T h e problem was that his old individualist sympathies left him opposing a num ber o f positions w h ich follow more or less logically from a com m itm ent t o anarcho-com m unism . For instance, he sought a m echanism to prevent idlers consum ing goods produced by the hard-w orking even though any such m echan ism necessarily underm ines a need-based system o f consumption. 54 W h at is more, his old secularist sympathies prevented his resolving the tension between anarchocom m unism and his individualism by appealing to a social instinct such that free individuals necessarily strive for the com m on good. For instance, he remained im placably opposed to all nonsense know n as "public m orality as set up by a public opinion , affirm ing instead there is no m orality but liberty.55 Even after he became an anarcho-com m unist, he continued to regard the idea o f social solidarity w ith suspicion as a threat to the autonomous individual. In contrast, the n ew anarchists placed an even greater stress on K ropotkin s moral argum ent than he did himself. A ll anarcho-com m unists must explain how a society where an individuals consum ption o f goods bears no relation to his or her production o f goods can guarantee the com m unity w ill produce a sufficient am ount o f goods to m eet the total demand for consumption. K ropotkin held a very Victorian concept o f progress such that the primary solution to this dilem m a lay in science: technological advances w ill enable hum anity to produce sufficient goods to m eet any conceivable demand. T he new anarchists found the primary solution to this dilem m a in the em ergence o f a new sensibility: a n ew ethic w ill inspire people both to w ork for the general good and to consume only w hat they need. O f course, both K ropotkin and the new anarchists used both o f these arguments, but K rop ot kin seems to have rested his view o f hum an nature on the natural sciences, whereas his followers and the Tolstoyans placed more emphasis on m orality understood in terms o f reason or spirit. For example, Mrs. W ilson responded to an objection raised by Shaw by saying the sense o f security people currently obtain from owning property w ill com e in an anarchist society from the moral attitude o f the public to the claim o f the individual. 56 T h e ideal o f the new anarchists was not the
54 The Anarchist, May 1887. 55 Ibid, March 1885. 56 Mrs W ilson to Shaw, 16 Feb 1887, Brit. Libr., BM 50 511

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autonomous individual o f Seym our but a social individual w h o attains personal freedom through the com m unity: social solidarity is not a threat to the individual but the means o f self-realization for the individual. Thus, they naturally opposed any attempt to divide society into workers and idlers. Let us turn now to debates about anarchist strategy. Bakunin view ed violence as illegitimate in itself but legitim ate as a means o f ensuring the trium ph o f anarchy. Consequently, his strategic concerns centred on the question o f under w hat circumstances intrinsically im m oral violence becomes a m orally acceptable means to a desirable end. H e believed the masses do not establish anarchy because the coercive and unjust nature o f society keeps them ignorant and downtrodden. H o w could anarchists break through this stupor to initiate the revolution? Bakunin argued human instincts are m ore pow erful and trustw orthy than reason: whereas doctrine kills life, all urges, including the destructive urge, are creative. Thus, he concluded violence provides a legitim ate means o f awakening the revolutionary instincts o f the masses. For most o f his life, he took this to mean anarchists should use violence in the course o f an uprising designed to initiate a popular revolution. 57 B ut after he led an ill-fated uprising at Castel del M onte in 1874, a number o f his followers decided insurrectionary acts alone could prom pt the masses to turn an uprising into a popular revolution. It was this faith in insurrectionary acts that gave rise to the doctrine o f propaganda by the deed, and so, in the eighteen-nineties, those isolated and pointless acts o f terror know n as attentats. Kropotkin always believed violence m ight w ell be necessary for the seizure o f property during the revolution, and, for a while, he even advocated something akin to propaganda by the d e e d . Nonetheless, he focused prim arily on w orking for a 58 revolution by appealing to reason through peaceful persuasion, not by appealing to the instincts through action. H e had greater faith in the reason o f the people than did Bakunin. Thus, be wanted anarchists to persuade the people to initiate their own spontaneous revolution. He did not w ant anarchists to use action or putsches to try to propel the people into revolution, a strategy he thought probably w ould prove unsuccessful, and even i f it did prove successful, probably would end in authoritarianism. This is another plausible distinction between the old and new anarchists.5 9 T he anarchists o f the Socialist League emphasized the role o f violent deeds as a form o f propaganda. Indeed, this emphasis on violence was w hat most angered members o f the League w ho did not consider themselves to be anarchistsMorris and his followers finally resigned from the League w hen D avid N icoll published articles on Revolutionary warfare in 1890.6 A t times, the anarchists w ithin the 0
57 For his account o f the revolution, and o f secret societies in advancing it, see Bakunin, T h e Program o f the International Brotherhood, and Letter to Albert Richard, in Bakunin on Anarchy, pp. 148-55, 177-82 5 He gave a detailed account o f the desired revolution in Kropotkin, Conquest o f Bread, chs iv-vii For his 8 early endorsement o f propaganda by the deed see P. Kropotkin, The spirit o f revolt, in Kropotkins Revolu tionary Pamphlets, ed R. N . Baldwin (New York, 1970), pp. 35-43 5P It is significant that erstwhile Bakuninites sometimes criticized Kropotkin for fatalism precisely because they thought his views on the triumph o f reason undermined the revolutionary spirit (see Malatesta, Kropotkin) 6 The articles appeared in Commonweal, Oct. and Nov. 1890. 0
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League seemed alm ost to delight in violence, o r at least the idea o f violence, for its ow n sake. T h e y w ro te jo yo u sly o f workers throw ing stones at the police during a strike in Leeds, com plaining only that no corpses [were] to be seen; they called on people to start a fire that w ould end the w hole damn thing; and they argued an anarchist should take w hat he requires o f the w ealth around him, using violence w henever necessary.61 T his faith in the efficacy o f violent deeds led several m em bers o f the League to toy w ith attentats. W h en , in 1893, a bom b w en t o f f at the opera house in Barcelona killin g thirty people, H enry Samuels wrote: yes, I am really pleased.62 O n 15 February 1894, M artial Bourdin, a brother-in-law o f Samuels, fell over, landed on a bom b he was carrying and blew him self up.63 In contrast, the new anarchists typically eschewed violence as an instrum ent o f propaganda. T h e T o l stoyans rejected all violence as im m oral, cham pioning an ideal and strategy based on passive resistance. T h e Freedom group accepted the revolution probably w ould be violent, b ut they opposed violence as a means o f preparing people for the revolu tion, trusting to the gradual evolution o f a rational morality. A lthough they consid ered attentats to be understandable, they condem ned them as unhelpful. 64 T hese different attitudes to violent deeds were a source o f tension amongst anarchist groups. W h e n Freedom and the League organized a m eeting in 1891 on b eh alf o f the C h icag o Anarchists, a m em ber o f the League sniped at the Freedom speakers, saying w e have heard m uch o f the doctrine o f brotherhood and love tonight, but the doctrine o f hate and vengeance is just as necessary and right.65 A t about the same tim e, another m em ber o f the League complained although C ar penter w rote poem s fu ll o f anarchist sentiment, he disavows all connexion with Anarchists [o f the Socialist League] and has never except in a half-hearted way done anything to support our propaganda 66 T h e issue o f violence reached a climax w ith the W alsall anarchist case. Fred Charles, a m em ber o f the League, m oved to W alsall in Ju ly 1891, and later that year he was joined by V ictor Cailes, a French refugee brought into the League by Auguste Coulon, a m ember o f the North K ensington branch. In January 1892, six W alsall anarchists were arrested and charged, under the explosives act, w ith possession o f materials for making a bomb. T h e y were: Cailes, Charles, a refugee called Battola, and three local men, Deakin, D itchfield and W estley. Battola, Cailes and Charles got ten years imprisonment, D eakin got five years, and D itchfield and W estley were found not guilty. A fter wards N ico ll w rote an article entitled Are these men fit to live? , attacking both C oulon, w h o m he suspected o f being a police agent, and the police officers w ho had conducted the inquiry.67 He was arrested and sentenced to eighteen months for incitem ent to murder. A fter this episode, the League fell apart, leaving a small circle

61 Commonweal, 12 July 1890, 16 Aug. 1890, and 29 N ov 1890 6 Ibid., 25 Nov. 1893. 2 6 T he Greenwich explosion provided the inspiration for J. Conrad, The Secret Agent, ed B. Harkness and 3 S. W . Reid (Cambridge, 1990). 64 W ilson, Anarchism and Outrage. 65 Commonweal, 21 Nov. 1891. 66 Ibid., 28 Nov. 1891. T h e poems are collected i n E. Carpenter, Towards Democracy (1985). 67 Commonweal, 9 Apr 1892
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clustered around their newspaper, Commonweal, w h ich lost m oney until publica tion finally ceased in M ay 1894. Also in 1894, M rs W ilso n resigned from Freedom for personal reasons, and w ith out her financial backing the paper folded in January 1895, though it reappeared later that year under the control o f some o f those w ho had belonged to the League. T h e bohemians w ho broke w ith Victorian mores earned the nineties a plethora o f titles such as decadent and naughty. However, those involved, including the new anarchists, saw themselves as the prophets o f a deeper spirituality and a larger morality. T h ey believed their higher individualism showed conventional standards to be rigid and arbitrary: Victorian morality rested on a dogm atic theology already found false. Furthermore, they believed personal and social salvation depended on their success in living in accord w ith the new sensibility. As K enw orthy explained, the part of our programme which differentiates us from others who seek after the ideal society, is the determination that, let the world go in such a way as it pleases, we, each one for his own part, for the salvation o f his soul must live honestly and fraternally.6 8 Here we have the new anarchists alternative to violent deeds. T h ey believed anarchy would com e about as a result o f the spread o f a n ew ethic based on reason or spirit, and one w ay o f peacefully persuading people to adopt this new ethic was by putting it into practice. Besides, they could not be true to themselves w ithout incorporating the n ew ethic into their ow n lives. It was for these reasons they became involved in movements from w hich the old anarchists generally stood aloo f (even when they w ere sympathetic) to devote themselves to liberating the people by insurrectionary deeds and revolutionary action. M any o f the Freedom group became involved in the m ovem ent for sex reform trying to devise personal relationships in accord with the new ethic. A nd although the leading Tolstoyans opposed sexual liberation, they form ed utopian communities to em body the new ethic. T h e con nections between new anarchism and these other bohem ian movements were both personal and intellectual: various new anarchists participated in these movements, and they did so because their theory pointed them in these directions. M oreover, w hen the new anarchists joined the movements for sex reform and communalism, they associated themselves w ith other bohemians to give a new slant to these m ove ments. O f course, although w e w ill focus on the activities o f the new anarchists, they were only a small proportion o f those involved in these movements. T hroughout the eighteen-nineties, various bohemians rejected what they saw as the fixed rules o f the Victorian era for a flexible sensibility enabling people to relate simply and freely to one another and things. Three connected distinctions capture this shift away from the Victorian. T he new anarchists and their associates stood for the control o f individuals over their moral developm ent, not moral conventions; for personalities, not principles; and for sensibility, not morality. As they broke with Victorian mores, they talked o f the virtue o f living in accord with ones ow n feel ings, and developing ones own innate character to the highest possible perfection. Good behaviour became behaviour rooted in ones inner self, and a good life
6 Seedtime, Apr 1895. 8
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became a life expressing ones inner nature in the w ay a w ork o f art expresses the personality o f the artist. People should expand and beautify their own selves, not slavishly fo llo w external codes. T h e m ost controversial aspect o f this fin de siecle m orality was the challenge to sexual mores. I f people are to fo llo w their instincts, their sexual desires cannot be denounced. T h e bohem ians argued pleasure was n ot suspect and natural functions w ere not evil. Sex is there to be enjoyed, perhaps even enjoyed in w hatever manner one wishes. T hus, pater la bourgeoisie became a fashionable sport w ith m any o f the players being m otivated by a genuine conviction that established conventions im prison the hu m an spirit, so to break these conventions is to liberate the soul. As W ild e explained, the higher individualism converts the abolition o f legal restraint into a form o f freedom that w ill help the full developm ent o f personality, and make the love o f m an and w om an m ore w onderful, m ore beautiful, more ennobling.69 T h e m ost noted feature o f the sex reform m ovem ent o f the eighteen-nineties was the prom inence given to the w om an question by the fiction o f the new wom en. T h e y tried to make their fem ale characters m ore realistic and vital than the passive and insipid heroines o f m uch V ictorian literature. Their female characters were in telligent and sexually sophisticated in ways w hich gave them independence and bohem ian glam our. In addition, they used their fiction to raise feminist issues, exploring the sexual and econom ic bases o f the oppression o f women, w ith plots revolving around the restricted opportunities available to w om en in marriage and the labour m arket. 70 A significant num ber o f n ew w om en were active in the burgeoning socialist m ovement, usually as exponents o f an ethical socialism w hich emphasized the m aking o f socialists at a local level as both a means to successful parliam entary action and an end in itself. T h e y thought o f socialism and feminism as expressions o f a single ethic o f hum an em ancipation, and sometimes they further extended this ethic to embrace the concerns o f homosexuals. A few had an interest in the cocktail o f evolutionary mysticism and sexual liberation taught by James Hinton.71 B u t m ost adopted a m ore cautious and conventional outlook, typified by the M en and W o m e n s Club, a group founded in 1885 by Professor Karl Pearson, w ho later becam e a prom inent eugenicist, for the purpose o f free and unreserved discussion o f all matters connected w ith the relations o f the sexes. T he C lu b took heterosexuality as a given and refused to have any dealings with Hintonians, w hom they believed to be advocates o f free love.73 H ow ever, even w ithin these boundaries, the form al discussion o f sexual matters, by w om en as well as men, was a daring enterprise at the time.
69 W ilde, p. 31. 70 For instance, I. Ford, Miss Blake o f Monkshalton (1890), and O Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm (Harmondsworth, 1971). 71 O n Hinton and his views see E. Hopkins, Life and Letters o f James Hinton (1982), and J. Hinton, Life in Nature (1932). 72 Minute B ook o f the Men and W om ens Club 1885-9, U. C. L., PP 101 73 For the hostility o f the Men and W om ens Club, especially Prof. Pearson, to Hintonianism see the letters in U. C . L., PP 10.61. Mrs. W ilson believed Hintonianism and anarchism were incompatible (Mrs W ilson to P ro f Pearson, 21 Feb 1886 and 4 March 1886, ibid, PP 900) Miss Brooke described her negative recollection o f her personal contact with Hinton in Miss Brooke to Prof Pearson, 4 Dec. 1885, ibid, PP 70

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T he new anarchists w ere active in all o f these compartments o f the sex reform movement. Em m a B rooke was a new w om en novelist whose heroines rejected the standard Victorian view o f their nature and role. H er novel A Superfluous Woman deals w ith the g u lf betw een the role society imposes on w om en and their natural emotions.74 T h e heroine, Jessamine, is an upper-class girl whose upbringing centres on the goal o f a m aterially successful marriage. She flees from the artificial society o f London to the Scottish Highlands, where she embarks on a simple life amongst local crofters. H er natural emotions return, and she falls in love w ith C olin, a crofter, who stirs w ith in her a sexual passion totally at odds w ith the ideal o f a lady she had been brou ght up to accept A fter a period o f em otional turm oil, she returns to London and marries a Lord, a capitulation to social norms w h ich leads to her nervous breakdown and ultim ate death. Miss Brooke and Mrs. W ilso n were part o f the loose circle o f socialists and sex reformers centred on Carpenter and O live Schriner, a circle including Katherine Conway, Isabella Ford and Enid Stacey all o f w hom turned to socialism partly due to the influence o f Carpenter. T his circle theorized the dilemmas explored in the fiction o f the new w om en by reference to the sexual, social and econom ic inequalities facing women. T hey believed w om en had to break free o f the male stereotype o f their sex and take control o f their ow n lives, something m any o f them associated w ith the actions o f Nora in Ibsens A Doll's House.75 Carpenter argued w om en lack the educa tion and financial independence to be anything other than domestic drudges or pros titutes. Men have reduced w om en to chattels w h o m ight be able to offer sex, but certainly not comradeship; and because men cannot find comradeship w ith w om en, they themselves are perpetual adolescents. U ntil w om en overcom e the social forces keeping them passive and dependent, personal relationships w ill remain unsatis factory. Many o f the circle around Carpenter believed econom ic independence to be a requirement for w om en taking control o f their lives. T his prompted a concern not only w ith the dependent nature o f the marital relation, but also w ith the problems o f female industrial workers. Isabella Ford in particular played a leading role in support ing unionization and strikes amongst the female weavers o f Yorkshire. Moreover, this concern w ith female industrial workers inspired a number o f studies o f their plight: Miss Ford distilled her practical experience in a short treatise on wages and Miss Brooke produced a tabulated comparison o f the relevant legislation across Europe.76 In 1908, some years after resigning from Freedom, Mrs. W ilson returned to the Fabian Society w here she founded the Fabian W o m e n s Group, acting as its secre tary until 1914, w ith Miss Brooke also being a member.T he Group supported the suffragists, w hilst em phasizing social and econom ic questions, and again investigat ing the wages and conditions o f female workers.77
74 E. F. Brooke, A Superfluous Woman (3 v o ls, 1894). 75 O n this circle and their beliefs see R. Brandon, The New Women and the Old Men (1990) For their feeling for Nora, and dislike o f distorted versions o f the play altering her character, see E. Aveling, Nora, and Breaking a Butterfly, To-day, i (1884), 473-80 76 I. Ford, Womens Wages (1893); E Brooke, A Tabulation o f the Factory Laws of European Countries in sof ar as they relate to the Hours of Labour, and to Special Legislationfor Women, Young Persons and Children (1898) 77 For an example o f their investigative work see Women Workers in Seven Professions a Survey o f their Econ omic Conditions and Prospects, ed. E. Morley (1914)
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Carpenter, h im self a homosexual, expressed especially radical views. He argued w hilst eastern mystics approach the n ew sensibility by contem plating the divine w ith in themselves, the W estern w ay w ill remain the path o f love. 78 T he meaning and purpose o f love lies in fusion, n ot procreation; it can be identified with com radeship and divorced from sex. H e view ed hom osexuality as congenital, as did his friend H avelock Ellis, a sex psychologist and m em ber o f the Fellowship, but he did n ot treat hom osexuality as an abnorm ality so m uch as a m odel o f the com rade ship defining the n ew sensibility.79 T h e special, com radely nature o f homosexuals appears in their unique role throughout history. In prim itive societies, w om en did dom estic chores, m en hunted and homosexuals undertook the cohesive and caring w o rk o f teachers, m edicine men and prophets. T h e Spartans form alized the teaching role o f homosexuals, calling the lover inspirer and the youth hearer. N ow , because the love o f homosexuals crosses barriers o f class, homosexuals are acting as the harbingers o f Dem ocracy: the uranian people may be destined to form the advance guard o f that great movement which will one day transform the common life by substituting the bond o f personal affection and compassion for the monetary, legal and other external ties which now control and confine society.8 0 Miss B rooke and Mrs. W ilson w ere involved also in the M en and W o m e n s C lu b , w h ich consciously rejected the evangelical basis o f Victorian m orality by considering personal relations from the historical and scientific as distinguished from the theological standpoint.81 D ebate w ithin the group centred on marriage, the possibility o f equal relationships between the sexes, prostitution and the role o f the state in all such matters. T h e female members o f the C lu b soon began to articulate a critique o f the Victorian concept o f w om anhood and the pattern o f relationships this concept encouraged. For example, Miss B rooke insisted on the reality o f fem ale sexuality, arguing problem s in sexual relations arise because w om en currently have sole responsibility for child-bearing. 8 M en have a false 2 im age o f w om en as typified by the ideal o f the madonna and child. W om en enjoy sex ju st as m uch as men, and men w ant children ju st as m uch as wom en. T he only relevant difference is w om en suffer the torment o f giving birth and m en do not. Thus, whereas w om en desperately try to avoid perpetual child-bearing by means o f chastity, preventive checks and the like, men shun self-control and force w om en to have child after child, thereby denying them control over their own bodies. She recom m ended both sexes exercise self-control to ensure child-bearing occurs o n ly w here there is love sanctioned by duty and only under
78 E. Carpenter, From Adams Peak to Elephanta (1910), pp 178-81. 79 Havelock Elliss autobiography is H. Ellis, My Life (1940). His beliefs are discussed in Rowbotham and W eeks, Socialism and the New Life He married Edith Lees, a member o f the Fellowship who had lived in Bloomsbury House, and followed Carpenter and Hinton (see E. H. Ellis, Three Modem Seers (1910)). 8 E. Carpenter, Selected Writings, i: Sex (1984), p. 238. 0 81 Minute Book o f Men and W om en s Club. Historians o f women have paid some attention to the Men and W om ens C lub (see, in particular, L. Bland, Marriage laid bare: middle-class women and marital sex, c 1880-1914, in Labour andLove Womens Experience o f Home and Family, 1850-1940, ed.J. Lewis (Oxford, 1986), pp. 123-46; and J. W alkowitz, City o f Dreadful Delight (1992), ch. v) 82 E. Brooke, Notes on Karl Pearsons Paper o f 9 July 1885 on The W om ans Question, U.C . L., PP 102
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circumstances that enable w om en to retain the strength necessary to raise the children they do have. T h e new anarchists and their fellow sex reformers significantly altered the nature o f the suffrage m ovem ent. T h e early suffragists drew on a tradition o f enlightenment liberalism dominated by M ary W ollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill.83 This tradition emphasizes the com m on attributes o f men and w om en as an argument for giving them the same legal and political status. A lthough W ollstonecraft and M ill acknowledged m otherhood as an im portant aspect o f m any w om ens lives, they did not recognize it as a structural im pedim ent to equality. T h e early suffragists demanded the vote as a right, but they had little to say about the particular social and econom ic problems facing w om en. T h e sex reformers o f the eighteen-nineties did m uch to initiate a new form o f suffragism. T h ey promoted a concern w ith sexual differences and the w ay these affected relations between m en and wom en; they raised issues relating to marriage, prostitution and venereal disease. T h e suffragists did not develop a uniform approach to sex reform some advocated birth-control and even free love, whilst the m ajority looked for greater abstinence w ithin marriagebut they did start to consider issues neglected by W ollstonecraft and Mill. M oreover, the emergence o f these n ew issues led some o f them to adopt novel arguments for extending the vote to wom en. T h e y argued w om en have particular nurturing characteristics w hich w ill benefit the state, especially in an age w hen welfare legislation is giving it an increasingly caring role.8 4 T h e new anarchists pinned their hopes on a new ethic liberating o ur personal and social lives. T h e new life requires an anarchic social fram ew ork consisting o f a federation o f local communes each o f w hich acts as an autonom ous unit o f production and distribution, w ith individual members giving according to their ability and taking according to their need. B ut this fram ew ork is ju st a frame work. T he im portant thing is the n ew ethic. Thus, many o f the new anarchists, particularly the Tolstoyans, concentrated their energies on building com m unal experiments where people could live in accord w ith this ethic. T h eir activities resembled those o f utopian socialists w ho concentrated on living out their ideal, not those o f anarchists w ho adopted propaganda by the deed. As Hubert Hammond, a Tolstoyan, explained, w e do not desire to press our views upon anyone, but to seek out for ourselves the source o f true life and earnestly to strive to live this life.8 5 T h e most prom inent communalists in Victorian Britain were the O w enite socialists, whose com m unes reflected both an abstract concern to realize a har monious society based on small, local, voluntary associations, and a practical
8 M. Wollstonecraft, A vindication o f the rights o f women, in The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed J. 3 Todd and M. B utler (7 vols., 1989), v: A Vindication o f the Rights o f Men, A Vindication o f the Rights o f Women, Hints (1989), pp. 71-266; and J. S. Mill, T he subjugation o f women, in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed J. Robson (32 vols, 1965-91), xxi: Essays on Equality; Law and Education (1984), pp. 259-340 8 M ill spoke o f a softening influence introduced by women, but he did not relate this to a consideration 4 o f sexual or biological differences (Mill, xxi. 327). 8 New Order, Sept. 1897. 5
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experience o f co-operatives as a m odel for econom ic organizations.86 T h e Owenites w anted to provide w orkin g examples o f m ore equitable, but also m ore efficient, systems o f production and exchange. In the eighteen-seventies, other groups o f com m unalists em erged from the rom antic w ing o f the back-to-the-land m ove ment. Ruskin founded St. G eorges farm at Abbeydale, ju st outside Sheffield, for industrial w orkers to avoid the ills o f industrialism. This rom antic dream o f a pastoral utopia soon m et up w ith grow ing worries about urban unemployment, and, in the eighteen-eighties, a num ber o f Ruskins followers, including Kenw orthy, form ed the English Land Colonization Society to resettle unemployed w orkers and their fam ilies in self-sufficient, agrarian communes. T h e relevance o f the O w enites and the land colonizers to the new anarchists appears in the origins o f the first anarchist commune. T h e Clousden Hill C o m m u n ist and C o-op erative C o lo n y was form ed in 1895 by some o f K ropotkins follow ers w ho w anted to p rovide practical confirm ation o f his theories by running a tw enty-acre farm on anarcho-com m unist lines. T h e main figures behind Clousden H ill, Frank Kapper and W illiam Key, m et at a Co-operative Congress, and they told Le Temps they had been influenced by E. T . C raig w ho had been a m em ber o f the O w en ite C o m m u n e at Ralahine.87 W h en Kapper and K ey wrote a prospectus for the com m une, they deliberately addressed it T o all Friends and Sympathisers o f L and Colonisation. T h eir first six points w ould have been familiar to the O wenites, w hilst the last two em bodied the distinctive contribution o f K ropotkin: OBJECTS 1. The acquisition, o f a common and indivisible capital for the establishment o f an Agricul tural and Industrial Colony. 2. The mutual assurance o f its members against the evils o f poverty, sickness, infirmity, and old age. 3. The attainment o f a greater share o f the comforts o f life than the working classes n o w possess. 4. The mental and moral improvement o f all its members. 5. The education o f the children. 6. To promote or help any organisation to organise similar colonies. 7. To demonstrate the superiority o f Free Communist Association as against the Competitive Production o f to-day. 8. To demonstrate the productivity o f land under intensive culture.8 8 T h e next anarchist com m une to be formed was the N orton Hall C om m u nity just outside Sheffield, the inspiration for w hich was Carpenter, w ho him self lived a selfsufficient life as a m arket-gardener nearby in rural Derbyshire. T h e N orton colon ists specialized in horticulture, growing flowers, fruit and vegetables in five
8 For general studies o f Victorian communalism see W . Armytage, Heavens Below (1961), and D. Hardy, 6 Alternative Communities in 19th-Century England (1979) 87 There is an account o f the commune in Le Temps, 29 Sept. 1897. Its history can be traced through the reports in the Newcastle Daily Chronicle and Freedom For Craigs views see E. Craig, The Irish Land and L a b o u r Question, Illustrated in the History o f Ralahine and Co-operative Farming (1882) 8 Torch, 18 May 1895. 8
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g re e n h o u s e s a n d a la r g e g a rd e n . In 1898, th e y a lso sta rte d to m a k e sa n d a ls, w h ic h C a rp e n te r b e lie v e d lib e r a te d th e fe e t.

T he first Tolstoyan colony was founded in 1896 at Purleigh, Essex w here K en worthy him self built a house.89 O th er residents included A ylm er Maude, the leading translator o f Tolstoy, w h o raised 1 , 000 for the Dukhobors w ith the help o f Vladimir T cherthoff, a friend o f T olstoys w ho arrived at Purleigh in the spring o f 18 979 T h e num ber o f colonists rose to over sixty, a quarter o f w hom lived on 0 land owned by the colony, w hilst the remainder resided nearby. In accord w ith the concept o f Bread Labour that T o lsto y had taken over from Bondaref, each colonist had to earn their own livelihood by their ow n labour, although the com m unity guaranteed them the opportunity so to do. The colonists tried to go back to the land by farming ten acres; they had a kitchen garden, apple trees and gooseberry bushes, and they kept cows and hens. T h e y did m uch o f the w ork by hand, although they also used an old horse w hich earlier had pulled a London bus. In 1899, K enw orthy began to print New Order, the m ain Tolstoyan publication, at Purleigh, and for a while the colony offered holidays to sympathizers w h o paid for their board and lodging. O n Sunday evenings, the colonists held meetings at w hich they sang Labour Church hymns and heard readings from w orks such as M orriss A Dream o f John Ball. Individual members also pursued personal crusades: one o f them described h ow some have decided n ot to hold legal titles in property, others endeavour not to use m oney, others not to use stamps, others protest against rail ways.91 However, as w ith m any o f the colonies, the members had some difficulty fitting their experiment into the com m ercial w orld. W h en they advertised their products in New Order, a correspondent complained this smacked o f com petition, and that to be true to their principles they should rely solely on w ord o f m outh and the grace o f God.92 O ther Tolstoyans formed colonies nearby at A shingdon and W ickford, though many o f the latter were C ity m en w ho continued to com m ute to w ork in London.9 In 1898, a dispute over the vetting o f applicant members ended w ith the 3 less restrictive o f the Essex Tolstoyans decamping to found a new com m unity at W hiteway, Gloucestershire 94 A few o f the W h itew ay colonists w orked in small industries linked to those o f the nearby village o f Sheepscombe, but the m ajority again worked the land. T he colony began w ith forty acres o f farmland, later expanding to include a dairy. T ru e to their principles, the colonists burnt the title deed to their land, saying all land was given by the Supreme Being for the use o f man and therefore should be free to everyone 95
8 New Order earned a regular column o f news from Purleigh which provides useful insights into the 9 history o f the colony. For reminiscences by a colonist see P. Redfern, Journey to Understanding (1946) For his views on Tolstoy see idem, Tolstoy (1907) 9 For his comments on Purleigh and Tolstoy see A. Maude, Life of Tolstoy (1930) For his view o f the 0 Dukhobors see idem, A Peculiar People the Dukhobors (1904). 91 9 2 9 3 9 4 New Order, May 1899. Ibid., Apr. 1898 Ibid. March 1898. See ibid, Sept. 1898 For a participants account see N. Shaw, Whiteway a Colony in the Cotswolds (1935)

95 New Order, Sept 1899

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O n ly a fe w o f the new anarchists form ed urban communes. T h e most important o f these was in Leeds, where, in 1897, A lbert Gibson helped workers w h o had suffered in an industrial dispute to form a Brotherhood W orkshop to make bicycles and repair electrical goods w hilst engaging in religious and philosophical dis cussions.96 L ater the colonists started a sideline in publishing under the Leeds Free A narchist G roup imprint. T h e y published pamphlets by K ropotkin and Mrs W ilso n as w ell as a northern newspaper tided The Free Commune. In 1899, an offshoot o f the Leeds group set up a similar com m une in Blackburn, again devoted to the repair o f electrical goods. Finally, the new anarchists promoted the occasional self-help enterprise such as the Swadlicote C o lo n y near Burton-on-T rent. The Swadlicote C o lo n y was begun w ith the aid o f financial loans from W allace and J. T heod ore Harris w hen the local colliery failed under capitalism. T he miners used the loans to keep the colliery going under their ow n management, and for a while they supplied coal to various other anarchist colonies such as Purleigh. Soon, h o w ever, the m iners had to seek further capital by selling shares.97 T h e anarchist com m unes represented attempts to live out an alternative to the prim, narrow -m inded, com m ercial existence o f the Victorian m iddle class. T hey em bodied a n ew sensibility w hich led members to pool their resources, and gener ally, though b y no means always, to w ork hard for the com m on good. M embers also ignored V ictorian conventions in the nam e o f a free and proper relationship to one another and the things around them. M any communes were exclusively vegetarian out o f respect fo r living creatures. Anarchist papers carried adverts for unusual clothes, and several o f the colonists follow ed W ild e in rejecting the absurdly tightfitting fashions o f the time, w hilst a few even follow ed Shaw in rejecting the use o f vegetable materials in favour o f Jaegers woollens. T h e colonists generally looked upon m arriage as an optional com m itm ent, w ith m any couples preferring to live together rather than, as they saw it, m ake the w om an the chattel o f the man. The w om en all w orked alongside the men, though the m en do not seem to have been quite so ready to m uck in w ith the household chores. Eventually most o f the com m unes suffered from the difficulties that so often beset such experiments. T h e colonies attracted idlers, the standard o f living went down, m em bers began to bicker, key figures left, and in the end the communes disbanded or disintegrated. A t Purleigh, various disputes over w ho should do what led to a series o f departures w ith those w ho remained doing less and less work. In the end, health inspectors closed the colony dow n follow ing an outbreak o f small pox am ongst the few undernourished and cold colonists w ho remained. Similarly, the organizers o f the Leeds C olon y decided to allow the workers to w ork as and w hen they pleased, but such generosity did not make for financial viability, so the organizers tried to return to regular hours o f work, only to m eet w ith hostility from the w orkers and finally the collapse o f the workshop. T h e W h itew ay C olon y alone survived far into the twentieth century, and there the members kept things going
9 The latter history o f the commune can be traced in The Free Commune. For the views o f a colonist see 6 D Foster, Socialism and the Christ and the Truth (Leeds, 1921) 97 New Order, Apr. 1898
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only by rejecting com m unism for a Proudhonian system based on individual possession o f particular plots o f land. T he eighteen-nineties witnessed the growth o f a new type o f anarchism, sig nificantly different from the radical, individualist tradition o f Proudhon and Bakunin. T he new anarchists championed a spiritual ethic designed to fuse a higher individualism w ith an open communalism . T h ey wanted a stateless society incor porating a com m unist system o f distribution, and they hoped to realize this society by converting people to their ethic by non-violent means, and especially by the moral power o f the exam ple they offered. Thus, they shunned revolutionary and terrorist activities, concentrating instead on the transformation o f personal rela tionships and the creation o f communes. T h e new anarchism w ith its emphasis on sex reform and com m unalism has become an increasingly prom inent side o f the anarchist m ovem ent during the twentieth century. It originally arose as one facet o f the broad intellectual currents that define fin de sicle bohemianism. Social developments and intellectual dis coveries undermined the Liberal and Protestant culture o f the Victorians, leaving many people searching for an alternative w ay o f life. Thus, whilst there were differences between the new anarchists, aesthetes, sex reformers and communalists, there also were significant overlaps o f both personnel and ideas. T h ey all sought a new sensibility enabling individuality to flourish w ithin a context o f social harmony w ithout coercion or authority. T o extend an im age o f Le Gallienne, w e m ight imagine the bohem ian w orld o f the eighteen-nineties as a series o f booths at a fair, each w ith a lusty crier inviting the crowd into shows covering aestheticism, anarchism, environm entalism, feminism, spiritualism, theosophy, vegetarianism and so on. A m em ber o f W h itew a y described the early meetings o f the colony when every kind o f crank came and aired his views on the open platform : there were Atheists, Spiritualists, Individualists, Communists, Anarchists, ordinary politicians, Vegetarians, Anti-Vivisectionists and Anti-Vaccinationists.98 T h e change in the anarchist ideal was part o f a broader cultural shift from a Liberal and individualist Protestantism to a rom antic and optimistic modernism. University o f Newcastle
M ark B evir

9 Shaw, Whiteway, p. 21. 8

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