SPGB Meetings (1948)

Party News from the August 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

• The SPGBer speaker for the debate with the IWW was Bill Waters. There was a report of the debate in the October 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard. It'd be interesting to know how big the IWW was in Britain in the late 1940s.
• I'm intrigued about the notice for the special meeting of Party members on the subject of "Socialism and Violence". I wonder what prompted the meeting? I cannot see any report of the meeting in later issues of the Standard from that period,
• I included details of the Dublin Socialist Group 'cos it gives me another excuse to post a link to the obituary for Mick Cullen from the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard. Another stalwart from our tradition. Sounds like an incredible bloke.

SPGB Meetings (1946)

Party News from the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Obituary: Michael Gill (2001)

Obituary from the August 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with much regret that we record the death from cancer in June, at the age of 70, of Michael Gill who will be familiar to readers as our theatre critic. Michael originated from Manchester but moved to London as a young boy. He joined Edgware branch in 1950. Later his jobs took him to different parts of the country and then back to the South East, to Braintree. He was a founder member and secretary of the Colchester Branch and one of the driving forces behind the East Anglian group.

Michael was trained as an industrial chemist and worked in the chemical industry before leaving to teach in further education. For a while he was an inspector in this field from which he eventually resigned in protest. Retirement allowed him more time to devote to socialist activity and since the early 1990s he was one of the Party's most devoted and active members. He was several times an Executive Committee member, and was always willing to lend his educational expertise and diplomatic skills to various committee tasks. Among other pieces, he wrote regular theatre reviews for the Socialist Standard, the last one appearing as recently as January. A good play from a socialist point of view would earn his lyrical praise — a bad one his measured wrath.

Kind, considerate and helpful, Michael was a keen advocate, and personal exemplar, of the ways in which socialists should treat each other. As he put it in a message dictated shortly before his died and read at his non-religious cremation:

"My life has been concerned with staff development, education, socialism and change for the better in human lives. Increasingly there seems to me to be a unity between fraternity, equality, and the full flowering of human potential. And in respect of my professional concerns and political convictions, I aspire to a transformation of society to allow for the growth of fulfilled and rounded people, able to be creative, fraternal and empathetic in meeting one another's needs. I hope there is a visible coincidence between my personal, professional life and the nature of socialism. I want people who have known me in different capacities to understand the connections between my aspirations and behaviors and ways of knowing — a gestalt view across all these perspectives . . . go well."

We offer our condolences to his wife, Jan, and children.

Blogger's Note:

A further obituary for Michael appeared in the Guardian. According to the Guardian website, it was published on the 10th July, 2001.

Party News Briefs (1951)

Party News from the July 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bloomsbury Branch which is meeting on July 13th and 27th (Fridays) is arranging a series of discussions after branch business when the Autumn session commences. These discussions will be held every Thursday at the Branch room (North Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square) on and after September 6th. The discussions which will all be opened by Branch members, are dealing with subjects of political and social interest over the last hundred years.

Ealing Branch trip to Southsea on June 3rd was a success both from the social and (more important) propaganda viewpoints. In brilliant sunshine, Comrades Thorburn and Bryan held forth to a large crowd for over two. hours. There were some excellent questions and discussion, and literature sales were most encouraging. What a pity there is no group or branch in this area to carry out regular activity. Two more trips to the same spot are planned for July 15th and August 26th.

Bad weather has hampered the usual outdoor propaganda at Ealing and Richmond. Those meetings which have been held, however, have been generally good, with a marked improvement in the standard of questions and discussions over previous years. Audiences are somewhat smaller but show much greater interest than in the past.

Edgware Branch has changed its Branch meeting place to “The Blue Danube Cafe,” 153, Finchley Road, Hampstead. (Between Swiss Cottage and Finchley Road, Met. Station). The name of the Branch is being altered to “Hampstead” and members and sympathisers are invited to attend the Branch meetings which are held every Thursday evening at 7.30 p.m. Outdoor meetings are held every Sunday morning at 11.30 at Whitestone Pond, Hampstead Heath.

Hackney Branch would like members and sympathisers to note that their branch meeting on July 12th will be held at 8 p.m. at Bethnal Green Library instead of Bethnal Green Town Hall.

High Wycombe Branch report that good meetings are being held at their new station, Frogmore, High Wycombe. Literature is selling well, and the speakers sent by the Propaganda Committee have created lively local interest in the Party’s case.

The Week-End Summer School was held at “Treetops,” Farley Green, Surrey, on Saturday and Sunday, June 9th and 10th. Eighty members and friends and eight children attended and had a very enjoyable time. A lecture on “Production and Overproduction” was given on the Sunday morning and on Sunday afternoon an open discussion on Trade Unions was held. This time the attendance was amply sufficient to cover the cost of the week-end, without calling upon Party Funds. It is hoped that arrangements will be made for another visit to “Treetops” in September.

Phyllis Howard

Party News Briefs (1948)

Party News from the October 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrade Groves is temporarily unable to compile the Party News Briefs and until he resumes they will be carried on by the member whose signature is at the end.

The newly-formed St. Pancras Branch is wasting no time in making itself felt in an area until now barren of a working-class Political Party. A very convenient Meeting Room has been secured at the Fred Tallant Hall in Drummond Street, just off the Euston Road end of Hampstead Road, and a large hall has been booked there for a series of Winter Lectures to be held at 7.30 p.m. on the first Friday of each month. The first Lecture will be on Friday, October 1st, introducing the S.P.G.B. to St. Pancras. Well attended Outdoor Meetings have resulted from the Branch’s establishment of a Sunday evening Station at Islip Street, Kentish Town. Questions and discussion from the audience have shown the pressing need for Socialist Propaganda in this area of St. Pancras.

Edgware Branch’s debate with the I.W.W. on 12th August was attended by about 60 people; J. M. Hutchinson, putting the I.W.W.’s point of view gave a good indictment of the capitalist system, but in putting the I.W.W.’s case left the way open for Waters’ rebuttal for the party. Briefly, Hutchinson advocated that the workers should “organize and educate” themselves on a basis of class-consciousness for the purpose of “organizing their industry at the point of production and distribution.” The futility of the industrial unionism of the I.W.W. as an instrument for working class emancipation was amply explained by Waters who demonstrated the inseparability of the means from the end which the I.W.W. failed to face up to, and instanced another "non-political” trade-union that had concluded its activities by urging its members to join the Conservative Party! The activities favoured by the I.W.W. were shown by Waters to be abortive and disillusioning to workers, whose task of emancipation is political in character.

Kingston Branch commenced its outdoor meetings at "The Fountain,” New Malden, Surrey, on Saturday, September 18th. It is hoped that the weather will allow these meetings to be continued for six weeks, by which time a programme of indoor meetings will have been arranged and advertised to be held at the New Malden public library on Saturday evenings, commencing in November.

The meetings at Castle Street, Kingston, on Friday and Saturday evenings will continue until winter weather makes outdoor activities impossible. After September, speakers for the Friday evening meetings will be drawn exclusively from the branch.

In co-operation with Ealing Branch, a coach outing has been arranged for October 3rd to Southsea. Thirty-three members and friends of both branches, including four or five speakers, will journey to Southsea and hold a continuous afternoon and evening meeting on or near, the Marine Parade. Members living on the south coast within travelling distance of Southsea have been invited to join the party at the meeting place.

Door to door canvassing with a distribution of literature in the Twickenham district was conducted by two members of the branch during the early months of the year and resulted in collections for branch funds totalling £7 18s. 5d. This averages 5s. per hour of canvassing from each of the two members.

The Overseas Secretary reports that the response to his appeal for assistants to help with the overseas correspondence has been far beyond his expectations. The number of volunteers exceeds the amount of work to be done. As the amount of overseas correspondence increases a job will be found for everyone who has offered to help.

To the request that branches send in the overseas addresses of ex-members who have gone abroad, the response has not been so good. Where such an address is passed to the overseas department an attempt is made to link up the ex-member with comrades who may reside near and to keep in touch with him as well.

When the "Racial Problem” pamphlet first appeared a number of copies were sent to native trade unions, newspapers and journals, and to individuals in Africa, India, America, Ceylon, Malaya and British West Indies. A few encouraging replies have been received. Here are extracts from one or two such replies:

From Trinidad: ". . . [it] is a masterpiece. Since reading same I have lent it to no fewer than twenty- five persons . . . I am now beginning to know the why and the answer to many problems. I would really like a catalogue of Socialist works . . .”

From the Gold Coast: ". . . I hope to review [The Racial Problem] as soon as the present censorship of the Gold Coast Press is lifted. I am keenly interested in Socialism, personally, and would be most grateful for any literature on the subject that you could forward to me.”

From Madras: "Please be good.enough to send regularly every month a copy of your monthly 'The Socialist Standard’.”

There are other similar letters.

From the All-India Trade Union Congress we learn that " . . . in the last week in March, office bearers and organisers of a very large number of affiliated unions of the AITUC all over the country were arrested and detained without trial, and warrants were issued against many others, on the ground that they were Communists.” They tell us that offices were sealed and registers and papers were confiscated. From Assam we learn that "In the course of the last month [June] more Trade Unionists have been put behind the prison bars in Assam than even within a year of the worst days of direct British rule.”

The Dublin Socialist Group hope to have their Economics class started sometime during October. Their attempts to get the S.S. and the W.S. in the Dublin libraries have met with no success. "The ordinary channels just don’t exist as far as we are concerned . . . in other words, the bar is up to us.”

The new pamphlet on Russia, to be published by the Socialist Party of Canada, went to the printers in August.

The Johannesburg paper formerly known as Europe To-Morrow is now entitled Socialist Forum. This paper comprises, in the main, a selection of articles from “left” European journals. We thank the Comrades in Rhodesia for their recent generous donations to our party funds.

To readers of the Socialist Standard in all parts of the world. There may possibly be another reader of the S.S. residing near you. There are some parts of the world, very remote from Great Britain, where we have more than one subscriber or contact. If such readers would like to be put in contact with one another it will be arranged when they write to Overseas Secretary.

W. Waters.

Party News Briefs (1947)

Party News from the July 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Manchester Branch reports have now come in. May Day meetings were hindered by bad weather all day, but a good audience came to the Rusholme Public Hall to listen to London and Glasgow speakers. There were about 600 people at the debate with J. Jones (Labour M.P., Bolton) at the Downing Street Co-operative Hall. The Propagandist/Organiser is holding outdoor meetings on blitzed sites in the city during the lunch hour. We are the only political association holding meetings on these sites, and our pioneering work has been mentioned in the Manchester Evening News. Week-end outdoor propaganda meetings at Platt Fields and Alexandra Park Gates continue very successfully. The branch have in mind the publication of a special broadsheet for distribution at a big Labour demonstration at Belle Vue on July 6th, where Dalton and Jennie Lee are to speak.

Attractive Party Badges will be ready in about a month's time. They will cost members 1/6 each, post free. When ordering please say whether brooch or stud style is required.

P. Howard (Bloomsbury Branch) was elected to the vacancy on the Executive Committee.

The New Speakers' Test is constantly being applied at the request of members wishing to become fully fledged outdoor speakers. Most applicants pass satisfactorily. An examining committee is also at work in Glasgow, where four members have already passed the test.

The Communist Council of Holland (Spartacus Group) asked us to send a member to attend a conference of various groups being held in Brussels during Whitsun. The Executive Committee decided not to send a member but instructed the Overseas Secretary to send the conference a statement of the party's position to be read.

Edgware Branch are arranging a debate with Sir Waldron Smithers on Friday, July 11th. Smithers ought soon to know something about the party's policy, though this should not be taken for granted. Two previous debates with party representatives (in London and Manchester) drew very large audiences who were entertained by Smithers’ pitiful efforts to make the Conservative policy palatable to a working-class audience. He is now coming up for the third time; perhaps this venerable Conservative M.P. is punch drunk! The debate is at 7.15 p.m., Friday, July 11th, at Edgeworth British Restaurant, Hale Lane, Edgware.

Glasgow Branch have a debate with the United Nations Organisation in hand. No further details are yet available.

“Socialism and Race Prejudice” is title of a draft pamphlet at present being considered by the Executive Committee. If published it should be a very useful addition to our literature. There are so many false and confusing theories bandied about on the question of “Race" that a scientific Socialist approach to the whole question is badly needed. The Editorial Committee are also working on a centenary edition of the “Communist Manifesto" with a special party preface for publication shortly. Other pamphlets we hope to have soon are a short pamphlet on “War,” and others on "Socialism and Religion,” "Russia” and the “Trade Unions.”

An Old Comrade in Vienna is now in touch with us again. He was greatly stimulated by what he heard of the party’s election campaigns. The result of the North Paddington bye-election was broadcast by the Vienna radio, our candidate being incorrectly described in the first broadcast. A correction was then given. He says that while people in Austria still cling to the old decrepit parties, they are really in the main indifferent and quite apathetic. They are longing for something new but it is not forthcoming.

Bloomsbury Branch discussion meeting at Head Office on Thursday, July 3rd, should be very interesting. E. Kersley will open up on Priestley's ”Socialism and Art.”

Beverley Baxter, M.P., missed a very large audience when he dodged out of the debate he had agreed to do with a party representative at White Hart Lane New School, Wood Green, on June 13th. The Palmers Green Branch made every effort to let the local people know that Baxter had backed out of the debate, but that our representative would be there as advertised. Four hundred people turned up and the meeting was lively and stimulating. A considerable amount of literature was sold. Two opponents were given time on the platform to put their points of view. They were not Conservatives. If any Conservatives were present they held their peace. Baxter's lack of ordinary courtesy in not even sending a message of apology to the meeting, and merely cancelling his engagement by means of a telephone communication from his local agent, was something which the local "gentlemen” of the Conservative Party would probably prefer not to defend before a working-class audience of electors in Baxter's constituency. The party representative speculated that Baxter funked the debate after receiving our party literature which showed him that the debate would not be the comfortable joy-ride which he obviously anticipated in the first instance. A Conservative meeting addressed by Baxter a few days earlier at Winchmore Hill nearby was very sparsely attended, only about 60 of the faithful appearing, but Baxter probably prefers 60 admirers to 400 workers anxious to examine his policy critically.

Palmers Green Branch followed up the Wood Green meeting with another at the same hall a week later, when the party speaker challenged the Labour Party to defend their policy. Palmers Green Branch’s next debate is with E. Durbin, Labour M.P. for Edmonton, at Edmonton Town Hall, Fore Street, N.9, on Monday, July 14th, at 8 p.m. We hope he will give Beverley Baxter an example of turning up and facing the music.

Shortage Of Funds will have the effect of slowing down the party’s development. Branches, members and sympathisers are asked to send as much as they can to Head Office to the General, Parliamentary or Provincial Organisers’ Funds. Branches who have more money in hand than is required for current engagements would help by sending the unrequited balances to Head Office.

“We Work and Want" is the title of the meeting being organised by Paddington Branch at Paddington Town Hall, Paddington Green, on Thursday, July 3rd, at 8 p.m. The General Secretary will be the speaker.

C. C. Groves,

General Secretary.

Obituary: George East (1992)

Obituary from the June 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

George East, who died in March at the age of 79, received his introduction to socialist knowledge when he became a temporary agricultural worker at the beginning of World War Two. Associated with the People Pledge Union for some time before the war, he had been registered as a CO on condition that he worked on the land. In the rural areas of Barnet, he had the good fortune to find himself working alongside a number of Party members. Meal times and inclement weather provided opportunities for discussion, and as a result he became a member of the Party in 1942. He was among those who formed the Edgware branch, which for a number of years held very successful indoor and outdoor meetings. George acted as secretary and treasurer at various times during the life of the branch. His early years as a sign-writer made him a useful and valued member of the Party subcommittee advising on design and lay-out for posters and pamphlets. An amiable comrade, he will be remembered with affection by all who knew him. Our condolences go to his family and friends.

A. P.

Obituary: E. Ford (1976)

Obituary from the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ted Ford was the oldest member of the Party and had he lived a few more months he would have been 94 years of age. Ted, till the last, was cheery, full of fun and as optimistic as ever that the day was not far away when the workers of the world would embrace a Socialist system of society.

Born in the village of Thrupp, Gloucestershire, in 1882, he neither lost his accent nor his affection for the county of his birth. He was for years a contributor to the correspondence columns of the Stroud Journal, challenging unsound views on a variety of subjects and putting forward the Socialist message. (Nobody who became acquainted with Ted for long was unaware of the Party and the case for Socialism.)

Just after the turn of the century he came up to London to become an apprentice outfitter, living over the master's shop in Upper Street, Islington (a veritable Mr. Kipps). At that time he was a keen pacifist as were his parents and others in the family. An amateur actor, he joined the local group and there met the women who was to be his life-long partner.

The SPGB had been formed in 1904 and shortly afterwards Ted's burning opposition to the injustice and violence of capitalist society led him to attend the meetings of our Islington Branch and become a member. In 1906 the branch came into head-on collision with the Executive Committee and was finally expelled by the membership, including Ted. One might say a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater! He used to say that had he been more aware of the situation at the time he would have applied for re-admission.

However, he never lost either his concern or support for the Party and always considered himself a member.

During the First World War, when his time came, he stood up to be counted, declaring himself a supporter of the Party, and having no quarrel with other workers that justified their slaughter. Like many others he found himself serving his time in both Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs prisons. Outside these prisons Ted's family — his sisters and young nieces with their parents — would stand singing the 'Red Flag' and the 'International' and other songs to raise the spirits of the political prisoners.

Subsequently he re-joined the Party and during the Second World War was the literature secretary of the Edgware Group — later Branch — and is well remembered as a regular seller at the indoor and outdoor meetings.

Throughout his life he was plagued with deafness which was almost complete in his latter years. Despite this handicap he retained his cheerfulness, his great interest in literature and poetry and his optimism for the future.

His cremation took place on March 2nd, which was attended by relatives and friends, amongst whom were several members. A member spoke on behalf of the family and the Party.

A.H.G.