SDF talk
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Julian Wilson, a member of the Weadlen Progressive Movement and potential member of the SPGB's Kent & Sussex Branch, will be giving a talk on the Social Democratic Federation at the Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells Fabian Society on Friday, 10th October, at the Len Fagg Hall, 71A St.John's Road, Tunbridge Wells, TN4 9TT, starting at 8.00pm.
gnome wrote:Julian Wilson, a member of the Weadlen Progressive Movement and potential member of the SPGB's Kent & Sussex Branch, will be giving a talk on the Social Democratic Federation at the Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells Fabian Society on Friday, 10th October, at the Len Fagg Hall, 71A St.John's Road, Tunbridge Wells, TN4 9TT, starting at 8.00pm.Looks interesting. Do you know if the talk will be available in any format in the future?
Apparently Hyndman, who later set up the SDF, played cricket for Sussex:http://www.sussexcricket.co.uk/blog-article/the-communist-cricketer?A=WebApp&CCID=14985&Page=97&Items=10
imposs1904 wrote:gnome wrote:Julian Wilson, a member of the Weadlen Progressive Movement and potential member of the SPGB's Kent & Sussex Branch, will be giving a talk on the Social Democratic Federation at the Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells Fabian Society on Friday, 10th October, at the Len Fagg Hall, 71A St.John's Road, Tunbridge Wells, TN4 9TT, starting at 8.00pm.Looks interesting. Do you know if the talk will be available in any format in the future?
Hopefully the talk will be recorded. Julian is in the process of writing a book on the SDF; apparently, and somewhat surprisingly perhaps, there was quite a large and active branch of the SDF in Tunbridge Wells.
I knew I had read something about this on the internet and have finally tracked it down (with difficulty). It's from the site of the West Kent Radical History society:
Quote:Social Democratic Federation.The Social Democratic Federation / Social Democratic Party, Tunbridge Wells Branch (1886-1911)The Tunbridge Wells Branch of the Social Democratic Federation was formally established in the summer of 1886 . Many of its earliest members had previously been active in the town’s Tunbridge Wells Secular Society secularist and radical groupings, including David Geer and Tom Jarvis , while William Willis-Harris had been previously associated with secularists in London. The SDF in Tunbridge Wells continued the secularist agitation of the town’s branch of the National Secular Society into the Twentieth Century. During the spring, summer and autumn it held many of its meetings outdoors at the Tunbridge Wells Common, Lime Hill Road and Wood Street (off Camden Road ). The branch grew to be one of the Federation’s strongest. Unsurprisingly it attracted opposition from both Tory and Liberal politicians, and was blamed for a series of arson attacks in 1886 and 1887 , as well as several instances of public disorder, especially in organising marches of unemployed workers. Its members, many of whom were active trade unionists, suffered from blacklisting in retaliation.In the early 1890s the branch’s level of activity fell away as a result of some leading members being forced to leave town. Revival happened in the latter part of the decade. In 1897 David Geer was elected as councillor for the East Ward, one of two socialist councillors (the other being H C Lander of the Fabian Society) elected that year. Two further SDF councillors, William Bournes and James Milstead, were also elected in the next two years, together with other Labour and Fabian councillors. These councillors were strong supporters of municipally owned utilities, including electricity and telephones, and unsuccessfully campaigned for the construction of municipal housing. Trade unionists in the branch took leading roles in the town’s trades’ council and allied Labour Representation Committee and some supported the women’s suffragist movement. The branch’s opposition to the Boer War allowed Conservative opinion to portray the SDF and other local socialists as unpatriotic, and this was largely responsible for Geer and Milstead not being re-elected. However, the branch flourished in the first decade of the Twentieth Century and played a leading role in building the socialist movement throughout Kent and Sussex under the auspices of the South Eastern Counties Federation of Socialist Societies, working closely with branches of the Independent Labour Party. In 1909 the Social Democratic Federation was renamed the Social Democratic Party though this did not affect the organisation.In 1911 the Social Democratic Party joined with dissident branches of the Independent Labour Party and a number of independent socialist societies to form the British Socialist Party and the Tunbridge Wells Branch therefore became a branch of the new organisation.The Social Democratic Federation had a meeting hall capable of holding 200 people from 1886 until 1888 in the area between Quarry Road and the old Central Goods Station and the Social Democratic Party leased rooms in Upper Grosvenor Road from September 1909 until 1911.Note: this short piece is taken from an ongoing substantive piece of research by the author.I hadn't realised that the SDF was that reformists. No wonder the early members of the SPGB broke away from it to form a revolutionary socialist party ! The BSP went on to furnish the bulk of the members of the CPGB in 1920. Which tells us something about the reformism of that party too.
ALB wrote:Apparently Hyndman, who later set up the SDF, played cricket for Sussex:http://www.sussexcricket.co.uk/blog-article/the-communist-cricketer?A=WebApp&CCID=14985&Page=97&Items=10Julian Wilson wrote:Yes, I find that aspect of Hyndman quite telling. I believe he played at the Earl of Sheffield's estate near Haywards Heath.At the time of course Hyndman was still a young man, still in fact an undergraduate at Cambridge, and it wasn't until nearly 20 years later that he read Marx.I found this other reference to him as a cricketer in a biography of the novelist George Meredith by SM Ellis published in 1919 (which I only bought second-hand because a book by Meredith was recommended in an early Socialist Standard and I wanted to know why; apparently it was because he painted his caracters as the product of their circumstances without free will). Meredith and Hyndman were life-long friends. Here's the reference about something that happened in 1863:
Quote:Henry Myers Hyndman, the future leader of Socialism, was at this date as a young man of twenty-one, an undergraduate of Trinity College, and a member of the Sussex County Eleven.Hyndman was basically a Tory and it was strange that he ever wanted to be associated with socialism but he did and was intrumental in introducing Marx's economic ideas to workers in Britain (as our obituary of him in 1922 recognised).
Ah, the wisdom of the BLF speaks…http://kmflett.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/john-wisden-karl-marx-h-m-hyndman-and-brighton-beyond-a-boundary/
Quote:It would of course be pure historical speculation to argue that Marx, John Wisden and H M Hyndman could have bumped into each other on Brighton seafront in the 1860s, and Marx certainly knew nothing of cricket.Indeed, what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?
Eee, ecky thump, at death Hyndman was worthWealth at death £237 10s. 0d.(Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)(Marx had about the same amount, Engels and William Morris had much more).
Young Master Smeet wrote:Indeed, what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?So Keith Flett has already looked into this. Is he still in the SWP? But there's something in his blog I don't understand (and lets hope the Moderator isn't following this thread too closely but Kent do play at Tunbridge Wells). He says that overarm bowling was only legalised in 1864 but that Wisden started as a fast bowler for Sussex in 1845. But how can you bowl fast underarm?
Reminder: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts. P.s. This moderator follows all posts "closely", especially those which go way off-topic over several posts.
Plus any more boring talk about cricket will risk another breakaway from the Party by some Scottish members.
Was there ever a transcript made available of this talk? I recently read a Tom Mann biography so I've currently got a passing interest in the SDF.
imposs1904 wrote:Was there ever a transcript made available of this talk? I recently read a Tom Mann biography so I've currently got a passing interest in the SDF.Julian Wilson wrote:Sadly we did not record it. I have some notes from the meeting which I can forward but in some ways the discussion after was the real highlight. It was well received actually. I could always give it again in Maidstone one day!Or maybe elsewhere?
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