Guy Alfred Aldred (5 November 1886 – 16 October 1963) - often
Guy A. Aldred - was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
anarchist communist and a prominent member of the
Anti-Parliamentary Communist FederationThe Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation was a communist group in Britain. It was founded by the group around Guy Aldred's Spur newspaper - mostly former Communist League members - in 1921...
(APCF). He founded The
BakuninMikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism.Born in the Russian Empire to a family of Russian nobles, Bakunin spent his youth as a junior officer in the Russian army but resigned his commission in 1835...
Press publishing house and edited five
GlasgowGlasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
-based anarchist periodicals:
The Herald of Revolt,
The Spur,
The Commune,
The Council, and
The Word, where he was closely working with
Ethel MacDonaldEthel MacDonald was a Glasgow-based Scottish anarchist and activist and, in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, a propagandist on Barcelona Loyalist radio.-Early years:...
.
Early life
Aldred was born in
ClerkenwellClerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. Clerkenwell was once known as London's "Little Italy" because of the large number of Italians living in the area between the 1850s and the 1960s.-Clerks' Well:...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
. His father was a 22-year-old lieutenant in the
Royal NavyThe Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of HM Armed Forces . From the beginning of the 18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early...
, and his mother was Ada Caroline Holdsworth, a 19-year-old parasol maker. Although Ada was socially unacceptable to the young naval officer, he married her shortly before Guy's birth. After the wedding, he left her at the church to return to his mother.
Guy FawkesGuy Fawkes , also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries, belonged to a group of Roman Catholic restorationists from England who planned the Gunpowder Plot of 1605...
night, 5 November, gave Guy his forename. Guy was brought up in the home of Ada’s father, Charles Holdsworth, a
VictorianThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
radicalThe term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
. He attended the Iron Infant's School in
Farringdon RoadFarringdon Road is a road in Clerkenwell, Central London. Its construction, which took almost 20 years between the 1840s and the 1860s, is considered one of the greatest urban engineering achievements of the nineteenth century...
, later moving to the Hugh Middleton Higher Grade School, where he was presented to the Prince of Wales because he was the youngest pupil. One of his fellow pupils was the son of Hermann Jung, the Swiss watchmaker and one-time activist in the First International. His first adventures in
propagandaPropaganda is communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience...
were with the Anti-Nicotine League, the Band of Hope, and the total abstinence movement, and he remained an abstainer in these respects all his life.
His grandfather, an Anglican, encouraged him to attend the church of St Anne and St Agnes, where he took communion in 1894. However, he soon developed a critical attitude to the church, even though he was close to his cousin, a curate at
Holloway-Place names:United Kingdom*Holloway, London, inner-city district in the London Borough of Islington**Holloway , originally a mixed population prison, but now a female-only prison...
.
At the age of 15 (1902), he was made aware of his London provincialism when Sir Madlio Singh, the
MaharajaThe word Mahārāja is Sanskrit for "great king" or "high king" . Due to Sanskrit's major influence on the vocabulary of most languages in India and Asia, the term 'maharaja' is common to many modern languages, such as Oriya, Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi, Gujrati, etc...
of
JeyporeJeypore, also spelled Jeypur and Jaypur, is the largest town in the Koraput District of Orissa, India. Along with Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Sambalpur, Rourkela, Balasore, Puri and Berhampur, Jeypore is one of the prominent places of Orissa...
, visited the city. He became fascinated by the newspaper accounts of the Maharaja moving around with his "travelling god".:
- The Rajah's god was a substantial fact. It had invaded my petty little world. It had brought home to me the realities of other cities and of other religions. It had made known to me,as no mere study could have done, the fact that Christianity was not the religion of the world. It had brought home to my understanding the fact that tehse was an Oriental theology beyond the pale of Christian orthodoxy."
Later that year he gained a reputation as a “Boy Preacher”, printing and handing out his own leaflets, which were often received with ridicule and disdain. He found employment as an office boy with the National Press Agency in Whitefriars House, where he was promoted to sub-editor. Working with an evangelist named McMasters, he co-founded the “Christian Social Mission”, opening shortly after his 16th birthday as the
Holloway-Place names:United Kingdom*Holloway, London, inner-city district in the London Borough of Islington**Holloway , originally a mixed population prison, but now a female-only prison...
Boy Preacher. His non-conformist approach aroused concern following his first sermon.
After contacting
Charles VoyseyCharles Voysey was an English Anglican priest who was condemned by the Privy Council for heresy and went on to found the Theist Church....
, Guy was eventually granted an audience on 20 December 1902. The 74-year-old well-to-do Voysey was surprised to be confronted with a coarse-dressed 16-year-old working class boy. After careful preliminaries on the part of Voysey, the meeting lasted three hours. Their friendship was to continue until Voysey’s death in 1912.
In January 1903 the Reverend George Martin, an Anglican priest, visited Guy with one of his leaflets, asking to meet the Holloway Boy Preacher
. Martin worked in London’s worst slums, and Guy joined him in his work with London’s poorest. His friendship with Martin lasted six years and influenced Guy strongly. He soon gave his last sermon from the pulpit and left the “Christian Social Mission”.
Agnosticism
Guy became a speaker at the Institute of
TheismTheism in the broadest sense is the belief in at least one deity. In a more specific sense, theism refers to a particular doctrine concerning the nature of God and his relationship to the universe. Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal and active in the governance and...
, but soon felt it was time to set up his own organisation. In 1904 he founded the Theistic Mission
, which met every Sunday. With a considerable, though sometimes boisterous, crowd, Guy was gaining a reputation as a forceful young orator. He was also shifting towards atheismAtheism can be either the rejection of theism,or the position that deities do not exist.In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities....
. By August, the meeting banner was changed to read The Clerkenwell
FreethoughtFreethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or any other dogma...
Mission
. Meetings often generated extreme hostility. On one occasion the crowd charged the platform, knocking Guy to the ground and beating him. Police intervention put an end to the meeting. Around this time he became interested in The Agnostic Journal
and became friendly with its editor, "Saladin", a ScotsmanThe Scots people and an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland.An ethnic group, historically they emerged from an amalgamation of Picts, Gaels and Brythons....
. It was at the Journal’s office that he met another Scotsman, John Morrison Davidson, and Guy became more interested in Scottish affairs.
Indian Sedition Trial, 1907
The Indian Sociologist'The Indian Sociologist' was an important Indian nationalist publication in the early twentieth century. Its subtitle was An Organ of Freedom, and Political, Social, and Religious Reform....
was an
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
n
nationalistNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
newspaper edited by
Shyamji KrishnavarmaShyamji Krishna Varma was an Indian scholar, lawyer, nationalist and a journalist who founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and The Indian Sociologist in London. A graduate of Balliol College, Krishna Varma was a noted scholar in Sanskrit and other Indian languages...
. When Krishnavarma left London for Paris, fearing repression by the authorities, the printing of the newspaper was first taken over by Arthur Fletcher Horsley. However, he was arrested and tried for printing the May, June and July issues. (He was tried and sentenced on the same day as
Madan Lal DhingraMadan Lal Dhingra was an Indian freedom fighter, political activist, a revolutionary studying in England. There he killed Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, a British official, hailed as one of the first acts of revolution in the Indian independence movement in the 20th century.-Early life:Madan Lal...
, who was convicted of the assassination of Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie). At Horseley's prominent trial the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Alverstone, indicated that anyone printing that sort of material would be liable for prosecution. Nevertheless, Aldred, as an advocate of the
free pressFreedom of the press consists ofconstitutional or statutory protections pertaining to the media and published materials.With respect to governmental information, any government distinguishes which materials are public or protected from disclosure to the public based on classification of information...
, published it, bearing his own name. The police obtained a warrant and seized 396 copies of the issue. At the trial the prosecution was led by the
Attorney GeneralHer Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales, usually known simply as the Attorney General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown. Along with the subordinate Solicitor General for England and Wales, the Attorney General serves as the chief legal adviser of the Crown and its government in...
, Sir
William RobsonWilliam Snowdon Robson, Baron Robson PC, QC was a British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician.Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he was educated at Caius College, Cambridge. Called to the Bar in 1880, he became a Queen's Counsel in 1892...
, at the
Central Criminal CourtCentral Criminal Court may refer to:*Central Criminal Court, commonly known as the Old Bailey, London, England*Central Criminal Court, name for the High Court when it is hearing a criminal case, in Dublin or elsewhere, Republic of Ireland...
. Robson highlighted parts of TIS which Aldred had himself written, particularly focussing on a passage which touched on the execution of Dhingra:
- "In the execution of Dhingra that cloak will be publicly worn, that secret language spoken, that solemn veil employed to conceal the sword of Imperialism by which we are sacrificed to the insatiable idol of modern despotism, whose ministers are Cromer
Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, GCB, OM, GCMG, KCSI, CIE, PC, FRS , was a British statesman, diplomat and colonial administrator....
, CurzonGeorge Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC was a British Conservative statesman who was Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary.-Early life:...
and MorleyJohn Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn OM, PC was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor.-Early life:...
& Co. Murder - which they would represent to us as a horrible crime, when the murdered is a government flunkey - we see practised by them without repugnance or remorse when the murdered is a working man, a Nationalist patriot, an EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
ian fellaheen or half-starved victim of despotic society's bloodlust. It was so at FeatherstoneFeatherstone is a town and civil parish in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England. It lies south-west of Pontefract and has a population of 14,175.Featherstone railway station is on the Pontefract Line....
and Denshawai; it has often been so at NewgateNewgate at the west end of Newgate Street was one of the historic seven gates of London Wall round the City of London and one of the six which date back to Roman times. From it a Roman road led west to Silchester...
: and it was so with Robert Emmett, the Paris communardsThe Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris, from March 28 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and socialists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class...
, and the Chicago martyrs. Who is more reprehensible than the murderers of these martyrs? The police spies who threw the bomb at ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
; the ad-hoc tribunal which murdered innocent Egyptians at Denshawai; the AsquithHerbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...
who assumed full responsibility for the murder of the workers at Feathersone; the assassins of Robert Emmett? Yet these murderers have not been executed! Why then should Dhingra be executed? Because he is not a time-serving executioner, but a Nationalist patriot, who, though his ideals are not their ideals, is worthy of the admiration of those workers at home, who have as little to gain from the lick-spittle crew of Imperialistic blood-sucking, capitalist parasites at as what the Nationalists have in India."
Aldred also remarked that the Sepoy Mutiny, or Indian Mutiny, would be described as The Indian War of Independence. Aldred received a sentence of twelve months hard labour. His involvement with The Indian Sociologist brought him into contact with
Har DayalLala Har Dayal was an Indian revolutionary and founder of the Ghadar Party.-Early years:...
, who combined anarchism with his
Indian NationalismIndian nationalism refers to the many underlying forces that molded the Indian independence movement, and strongly continue to influence the politics of India, as well as being the heart of many contrasting ideologies that have caused ethnic and religious conflict in Indian society...
, based on his view of ancient
AryanAryan is an English language loanword denoting variously*in historical or dated usage,**the Indo-Iranian languages and their speakers, viz. the Iranian and Indo-Aryan peoples**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers,...
culture and
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
.
Socialism and anarchism
Aldred joined the
Social Democratic FederationThe Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...
, but left in 1906. He was a political
conscientious objectorA conscientious objector is an individual who, on religious, moral or ethical grounds, refuses to participate as a combatant in war or, in some cases, to take any role that would support a combatant organization armed forces. In the first case, conscientious objectors may be willing to accept...
during the First World War and also a founder of the Glasgow Anarchist Group. He initiated the Communist Propaganda Groups, in support of the
October RevolutionTheOctober Revolution , also known as the Soviet Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution. It began with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Julian calendar...
, which subsequently became a component of the
Communist LeagueThe Communist League was a small organisation of the far left in the United Kingdom. It was founded in March 1919 by the London District Council of the Socialist Labour Party and various anarchist groups in London and Scotland. These included Guy Aldred's Glasgow Anarchist Group...
in 1919. Following its collapse, he founded the
Anti-Parliamentary Communist FederationThe Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation was a communist group in Britain. It was founded by the group around Guy Aldred's Spur newspaper - mostly former Communist League members - in 1921...
(APCF) in 1921, and gradually moved towards opposing the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. His links with left communists across Europe brought him close to
council communismCouncil communism is a far-left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. Its primary organization was the Communist Workers Party of Germany...
.
In 1932 he split with the APCF and later founded the Workers Open Forum, which eventually became the
United Socialist MovementThe United Socialist Movement was a anarcho-communist political organisation based in Glasgow. It published a journal, The Word.The group's roots lay in the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation. Guy Aldred, a leading figure in the group, came to believe that Parliamentarianism was essentially...
. During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the USM worked with people from across the political spectrum to oppose military action, in a form of
Popular FrontA popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
, and came to advocate
World GovernmentWorld Government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...
. After Stalin's death, Aldred became increasingly supportive of the Soviet Union.
Free love
Aldred worked closely with his partner
Rose WitcopRose Lilian Witcop Aldred was an anarchist, journalist and pioneer of birth control and sex education. She was born Rachel Vitkopski in Kiev, Ukraine to jewish parents - Simon and Freda - who brought her to London, England when she was five years old.Witcop was a member of the anarchist Jubilee...
(9 April 1890 - 4 July 1932), a pioneer of
birth controlBirth control is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, sexual practices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of pregnancy or childbirth...
and sister of
Milly WitkopMilly Witkop was a Ukrainian-born Jewish anarcho-syndicalist and feminist writer and activist. She was the common-law wife of the better-known Rudolf Rocker...
(who was, in turn, partner of anarchist
Rudolf RockerJohann Rudolf Rocker was an anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist. A self-professed anarchist without adjectives, Rocker believed that anarchist schools of thought represented "only different methods of economy" and that the first objective for anarchists was "to secure the personal and social...
).
Together they published an edition of
Margaret SangerMargaret Higgins Sanger Slee was an American birth control activist and the founder of the American Birth Control League . Although she was initially met with opposition, Sanger gradually won some support for getting women access to contraception...
's Family Limitation, an action which saw them denounced by a London magistrate for "indiscriminate" publication and, despite expert testimony from a consultant to
Guy's HospitalGuy's Hospital is a large NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in south east London, England. It is administratively a part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. It is a large teaching hospital and is home to the King's College London School of Medicine and Dentistry...
and evidence at the appeal that the book had only been sold to those aged over twenty-one, the stock was ordered to be destroyed. Their case had been strongly supported by
Dora RussellDora Black, Lady Russell was a British author, a feminist and socialist campaigner, and the second wife of the eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell....
who, with her husband
Bertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was an English philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. Although he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the...
and
John Maynard KeynesJohn Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, CB was a British economist whose ideas have been a central influence on modern macroeconomics, both in theory and practice...
, paid the legal costs of the appeal.
Aldred and Witcop had a son, Annesley, in 1909. Although they were drifting apart by the time Aldred settled permanently in Glasgow in 1922, finally parting in 1924, they had a legal marriage on 2 February 1926, when it seemed possible Witcop might be deported for her continuing work on
family planningFamily planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...
.
Death & legacy
After initially refusing hospital treatment for a heart condition, Guy Aldred died, almost penniless, in the
Western InfirmaryThe Western Infirmary is a teaching hospital situated in the West End of Glasgow, Scotland. There is also a Maggie's centre at the hospital to help cancer patients, as well as the Glasgow Clinical Research Facility....
, Glasgow, on 16 October 1963, leaving his body to Glasgow University's Department of
AnatomyAnatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy...
. His remains were cremated at the Maryhill Crematorium, Glasgow on 4 May 1964.
Aldred's long-time associate and
literary executorA literary executor is a person with decision-making power in respect of a literary estate.The literary estate of an author who has died will often consist mainly of the copyright and other intellectual property rights of published works, including for example film and translation rights...
,
John Taylor CaldwellJohn Taylor Caldwell was a Glasgow-born anarchist communist, close associate and biographer of Guy Aldred. He wrote two volumes of autobiography which recount his early life growing up in Belfast, his early career as a mariner and his political development, as well as his close involvement with...
, produced a biography Come Dungeon's Dark: The Life and Times of Guy Aldred, Glasgow Anarchist
and ensured that Aldred's work was collated and preserved on microfilm. He was survived by his son, Annesley.
External links
- "The Guy they All Dread," Albert Meltzer
Albert Meltzer was an anarcho-communist activist and writer.-Early life:Meltzer was born in London, and attracted to anarchism at the age of fifteen as a direct result of taking boxing lessons. The Labour MP for Edmonton, Edith Summerskill was virulently anti-boxing and his school governors at The...
's reminiscence of Guy Aldred from his autobiography
I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels,
Class war on the Home Front, articles from the pages of Solidarity, the paper of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation
Anarchist Encyclopedia
A Brief History of the APCF
Anti-Parliamentary Communism the movement for workers' councils in Britain, 1917 - 45