The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Wordsworth Classics)

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Putting his talents to good use, Tressell designed and made the Hastings SDF banner which was later to be adapted for the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Tragically, this banner was taken to Birmingham for safe keeping in the 1930s and has never been recovered since. Only a photograph survives, but it is fitting that Tressell should have contributed in this way. Britain’s labour movement banners are probably the only things which surpass the work of Morris and Crane as aesthetic contributions to the international socialist movement. THEY WERE THE REAL OPPRESSORS--the men who spoke of themselves as 'The likes of us,' who, having lived in poverty and degradation all their lives considered that what had been good enough for them was good enough for the children they had been the cause of bringing into existence."

The story of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is in large part the story of its author, Robert Noonan. Born in 1870 the illegitimate son of an inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary, Noonan ended up as a decorator and lone parent in Hastings. A craftsman who shared Ruskin's belief in the dignity of labour, he was a gifted autodidact familiar with the radical canon from Shakespeare to William Morris. That is fine, I have no objection to learning what Socialists feel about poverty or anything else, I have certainly learned it now. What bothered me is that every time our main character, Frank Owen opened his mouth it was to tell us once again about Socialism. Instead of getting me more and more interested as the book goes on it makes me want to cry out "no, not again"! I would feel the same way if each time I walk out of my house one of my Christian brothers or sisters started telling me about going to church. It also made me wonder if every time someone comes near me do I start telling them about Christmas. I'll have to pay attention to what I'm saying for awhile. Here are some of Owen's beliefs we get to hear over and over again:With surgical skill, and sometimes without the tenderness of foreplay, the reader is sand-blasted. Bleak tales of desperate poverty unfold in minute detail. You are immersed in and become part of the drama in ways that feel immediate and uncomfortabe. As you read, you may occasionally need to set the book aside and compose yourself. This isn't real, it's just a story! ... or is it? What is this Socialism that we hear so much about, but which so few understand? What is it, and what does it mean?’ F. C. Ball, One of the Damned: The Life and Times of Robert Tressell, Author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1979.

In addition to writing two biographies which described his search for the real Robert Tressell — Tressell of Mugsborough (1951) and One of the Damned (1979) — Fred Ball also managed to get the original version of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists published by Lawrence and Wishart. By which time he had established that Tressell was not, in fact, originally from England but was born in Dublin in 1870, and correctly identified the name under which he lived most of his life: Robert Noonan. Irish Roots CONTENTS 1 An Imperial Banquet. A Philosophical Discussion. The Mysterious Stranger. Britons Never shall be Slaves Clarke, Frances (4 April 2018). "The Irishman whose novel stirred the English working class". The Irish Times . Retrieved 10 February 2022.As Owen thought of his child's future there sprung up within him a feeling of hatred and fury against the majority of his fellow workmen." Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.K. Pound Amount, 1270 to present". MeasuringWorth, 2022. 14 December 2022 . Retrieved 14 December 2022. Don't be put of by the density and length, it really works in creating a convincing atmosphere of the times and allows room for a rather surprising ending. I have given this book to many, many people in the course of my life and all the recipients have been as inspired by it as I have been. Every generation has to fight the same battles again and again, and in each case it is the confidence of the campaigners that determines the speed of their success.

The media still tends to warn us not to get carried away by those who campaign for peace and justice, and to spread the idea that such changes cannot be achieved because we should distrust all those who advocate them. I’ve had a long and somewhat strange relationship with this book. My father asked me to read it when I was about 11 and I started it, but must have only read the first couple of chapters. All the same, and that was over 40 years ago, I remembered bits of it as I read it again this time. And the message ...that society's repeated failure to fairly distribute the necessities of human life, and a pathalogical tendency towards corruption and vain consumption are so prevalent, so manifestly routine, that our doom is all but certain. Our very survival as a species may lie in re-organizing our affairs efficiently for the benefit of all, rather than the priviledge of few. Thinking about the developments in the last century that led to the winning of the welfare state, the NHS and many other public services, it is obvious to anybody reading this book today that that pessimism and cynicism slowed down the processes of reform because it denied people the necessary hope that made them possible later.Like I said, this is a book with an unashamed ideological message, it presents, in fictional form, many of the ideas and arguments socialists have put about the nature of money, exploitation, and how the socialisation of production, distribution and exchange might usher in a world for the benefit of all humanity, even including the rich. As such, reading this might save you from having to read what are much harder texts to read, such as Capital. Then, raising his voice till it rang through the air and fell upon the ears of the assembled multitude like the clanging of a funeral bell, he continued: But before we go any further,’ said Owen, interrupting himself, ‘it is most important that you remember that I am not supposed to be merely “a” capitalist. I represent the whole Capitalist Class. You are not supposed to be just three workers – you represent the whole Working Class.’ Robert Tressell was the pen name of Robert Noonan, a house painter. The illegitimate son of Mary Ann Noonan and Samuel Croker (a retired magistrate), he was born in Dublin in 1870 and settled in England in 1901 after a short spell living and working in South Africa. [5] He chose the pen name Tressell in reference to the trestle table, an important part of his kit as a painter and decorator. [6] Hundreds turn out on march through Walton to commemorate working-class writer Robert Tressell". Liverpool Echo. 4 February 2019.

After the Russian Revolution of October 1917, and years of imperialist slaughter, some socialist workers in Britain cottoned on to the propaganda potential of RTP, and just before the war ended in 1918, Richards published a one shilling version - under a day’s pay for a male industrial worker, but twice that for a woman – for the working-class market. What one reader called ‘Pope's bloody mess up' included only 90,000 words, and Owen still contemplated suicide at the end, but it sold well.The Victorian era had been Hastings’ heyday, with rail extended to seaside towns across Britain. Tressell arrived at the very moment this period ended, in 1901; the population was falling, there was little demand for building work and even its more illustrious neighbour, St. Leonard’s, was generally felt to be in a state of decay. Plans to make Hastings into a port city with a grand new harbour were abandoned in 1897, leaving an unfinished harbour arm which offered an enduring symbol of its decline. In 1913, Noonan’s daughter, Kathleen, was a servant in London, and showed her father’s manuscript to her employer. She asked Jessie Pope, the well-known writer for Punch, to read it, and she convinced Grant Richards to publish a shorter version. By spring 1914, Pope had cut around 110,000 words of what she called 'surplus matter' from the 300,000-word manuscript, including much of the socialist propaganda. She also renamed the author as ‘Tressall’ and ended the book with Owen contemplating suicide. On 23 April, Richards published it in London at six shillings - around two days’ pay for a male industrial worker and four days’ pay for a woman – and he had to reprint it in May, when there was also a New York edition; but British sales 'died' in August, as many Western European trade union and reformist socialists abandoned their former internationalist rhetoric and got behind their 'own' ruling classes in the ‘Great War’. What Tressell has demonstrated so entertainingly is nothing less than Karl Marx's labour theory of value, a cornerstone of socialist thinking. Little had been known until then about Tressell’s talents as an artist, but Gower’s testimony helped to illuminate this aspect of his life. It was discovered that he had been a master sign-maker — painting one for another building company, Adams & Jarrett, which lasted until the 1960s — as well as a decorator of fine rooms. The famous Cave from the book is likely an amalgam of a number of jobs in the wealthy upper St. Leonard’s locales of The Green and Hollington Park Road. We now also know that Tressell worked on a Moorish room, as Frank Owen did, in the Val Mascal in Gillsmans Hill between 1903 and 1904.