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Radical Kent

We put up loads of Kent miners at Essex University during the strike as Wivenhoe was a major port for importation of Polish coal. Some of those miners stayed a long time and didn’t really want to leave once they’d had a taste of ‘university life’. Good days.
 
mural.jpg

Gary Drostle's mural on the Industrial Heritage of Dartford....not necessarily radical in itself but an interesting patchwork on working class cultures, commissioned around the Millennium.

Poignantly the mural's siting is above a "Paddy Power" in the middle of town. :(

More details here
 
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ska invita said:
nice, yeah i know that spot really well - imoften up and down that hill (Ringers Road)

talking Bromley Kropotkin lived here for a while...Darwin lived in Downe..I cant find any mention that the two met, but certainly Mutual Aid is inspired by Origin of Species and IIRC was originally dedicated to Darwin.

Another Bromely-born, HG Wells was a socialist, though IIRC Wells said Bromley was a shit hole and couldnt wait to be out of there (paraphrase ;) )
===============
From an old post


Kropotkin’s house, 6 Crescent Road, Bromley

In summer 1894, he and his wife moved to 6 Crescent Road, Bromley (again, the garden was important, and at least it had the advantage of being a remote suburb in South London, rather than North), commemorated with a blue plaque.

This became an open house for anarchist exiles, and British socialists such as Keir Hardie (Morris, p. 69). Life was not easy, though; Fishman notes that it was practically a hand-to-mouth existence, and there was never any money in the house – when Stepniak visited Bromley from Hammersmith, Sophie had to borrow money from the neighbours for his return ticket (p. 222). Nevertheless, he gave financial support to anarchist causes, including donating money to the Arbeter Fraint so that it could continue publishing (Graur, p. 94). Perhaps the most notable incident of his life in Bromley happened in January 1905, when news of the Bloody Sunday massacre in St Petersburg reached Britain. According to his nephew, who was staying with him at the time, the cottage was besieged by reporters who wanted to interview Kropotkin. He was ill at the time, and just sent out a note with ‘Down with the Romanovs!’ written on it (Woodcock and Avakumovic, p. 365), which conjures up a rather marvellous picture.


Sources
William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875-1914 (London: Duckworth, 1975)
Mina Graur, An Anarchist ‘Rabbi’: The Life and Teaching of Rudolf Rocker (New York: St Martin’s Press; Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1997)
James W. Hulse, Revolutionists in London: A Study of Five Unorthodox Socialists(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970)
George Kennan, Siberia and the Exile System (New York: Century, 1891), 2 vols
P. Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1899), vol. 2
Brian Morris, The Anarchist Geographer: An Introduction to the Life of Peter Kropotkin (Minehead: Genge Press, 2007)
John Quail, The Slow Burning Fuse: The Lost History of British Anarchists (London: Flamingo, 1978)
Stan Shipley, Club Life and Socialism in Mid-Victorian London (London: Journeyman/London History Workshop Centre, 1983)
G. M. Stekloff, History of the First International (London: Martin Lawrence, 1928)
George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, The Anarchist Prince: A Biographical Study of Peter Kropotkin (London: Boardman & Co., 1950)
George Woodcock, Anarchism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963)
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Just a shame that the plaque says Prince Peter Kropotkin. He would have hated being referred to as a Prince.

He renounced that title and refused to be called it as a child.
 
Was finally catching up with this thread this morning and really enjoyed reading that pamphlet posted by Serge Forward on anti-Fascist activity in the Medway towns in the thirties. I was chortling at this excerpt:

Screenshot 2022-05-20 at 12.49.45.png

Even nearly 100 years ago Fascist organisations had a butterfly life before splitting up into squabbling groupuscules and pathetic urine-stained irrelevance. If she was around today Rotha would by now be in a troubled relationship with Paul Golding.
 
On e of my favourite books / ongoing projects in the last few years was Radical Essex. Admittedly the focus of this is much more cultural / psychogeographical than the discussion on this thread. If you were to try and co-ordinate a "Radical Kent" project where would you start? So far Wat Tyler, miners' militancy and anti-fascist activity all thched on as well as cultural reference points such as Uwe Johnson. There's something on campus radicalism in Canterbury here. What else are we missing?
 
282195277_576836267115706_5346995450206352722_n.jpg

Has anyone else read this? It's a psychogeographical / offbeat wander around Kent's coastline, so far stopping in at Margate, Broadstairs, Rochester and Chatham. There's quite a bit of discussion of Mosley / BUF in 30s Kent as well as esoterica on Dickens, John Buchan, Richard Dadd.

I get that for some psychogeography involves an irritating middle class person wandering around a windswept marshland in search of memories and half truths everyone else has rightly forgotten, pulling back the docken leaves on little visited crumbling gravestones, but this is a cracker of the genre. Fascinating stories and high levels of paranoia garnished with a little Bukowski.
 
steeplejack said:
View attachment 324279

Has anyone else read this? It's a psychogeographical / offbeat wander around Kent's coastline, so far stopping in at Margate, Broadstairs, Rochester and Chatham. There's quite a bit of discussion of Mosley / BUF in 30s Kent as well as esoterica on Dickens, John Buchan, Richard Dadd.

I get that for some psychogeography involves an irritating middle class person wandering around a windswept marshland in search of memories and half truths everyone else has rightly forgotten, pulling back the docken leaves on little visited crumbling gravestones, but this is a cracker of the genre. Fascinating stories and high levels of paranoia garnished with a little Bukowski.
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Recommended by Magnus Mills, I love that guy, looks great
 
ska invita said:
lets us know what you make of it...it looks a bit remoaner journalism to me, but thats a guess based on the blurb reviews...ive just ordered All The Devils - there was a new edition (2008)
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The author is a prof of urban studies. Doesn't seem too much whinging thus far. The quotes of support I;ve seen are from Gareth E. Rees (author of the psychogeographical Unofficial Britain) and Corbynite Alex Niven who wrote the oddball New Model Island for Repeater
 
steeplejack said:
Has anyone else read this? It's a psychogeographical / offbeat wander around Kent's coastline, so far stopping in at Margate, Broadstairs, Rochester and Chatham. There's quite a bit of discussion of Mosley / BUF in 30s Kent as well as esoterica on Dickens, John Buchan, Richard Dadd.

I get that for some psychogeography involves an irritating middle class person wandering around a windswept marshland in search of memories and half truths everyone else has rightly forgotten, pulling back the docken leaves on little visited crumbling gravestones, but this is a cracker of the genre. Fascinating stories and high levels of paranoia garnished with a little Bukowski.
Click to expand...
I thought I'd mentioned this on here already, turned out to be on the thread that spawned this one... anyway, I might as well tell my All the Devils Are Here story, which is that a few years back an ex of mine was thinking about moving to Hastings but then didn't in the end. When I told my mum that this Hastings move wasn't going to happen, she was very relieved (I think the phrase "rotting away in Hastings" may have been used), and when I asked why my mum was so negative about Hastings, she said that it sounded like a horrible place from what she'd read about it in All the Devils Are Here. A few years later I got around to reading it and found out that, for some reason, this book about Kent towns does not actually mention Hastings at all. A strong sense of geography obviously runs in the hitmouse family.
 
On this day, 24th August 1943, French philosopher and anti-fascist Simone Weil died in Ashford, Kent. Previously she had opposed French colonialism in Asia and North Africa, taken part in the factory occupations during the popular front government in 1936, then travelled to Spain to fight against the right-wing military rising of general Francisco Franco. Weil fought in the Durruti column until she was injured in an accident and left the country. In collaborationist Vichy France, she got a job as an agricultural labourer and worked with the resistance, until she travelled to London with her Jewish parents to keep them safe. There she continued writing on behalf of the resistance, sleeping only around three hours per night. Her cause of death was officially designated a suicide from self-starvation and tuberculosis, but biographers state that while people in occupied France lived on minimal food rations, Weil did the same, which severely worsened her illness.


300565570_2064973077021165_6256064474350268853_n.jpg
 
ska invita said:
william-jpg.211909



William Morris speaking at the Crooked Billet, Penge.
WM is the seated figure with beard, supposedly.

Im loving the carriage. Seems to be a Clarion Van it is suggested
The Clarion Movement
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Well that's pretty rad. I was a regular at the crooked billet at the age of 5, one of those kids with half a pint of shandy and a bag of crisps whilst my dad talked union business.

And I went to school in Chislehurst, and the school was protected by the V&A museum because it had been decorated by William Morris.

Some pretty radical stuff happening in Chislehurst caves if the stories of pagan rituals are true.

I'm also thinking again about the smugglers. My ex's family owned a 16th century farm house, a pub, a Greyhound track and a bowling green in a village about 3 miles from the Medway. Lots of stories about stills up on the Darland banks, smugglers tunnels from the house to the river etc. Then there were the smugglers at Upnor too.

I lived in Cliffe for a long time, and that had a big history with the dynamite factory etc. Lots of smuggler stories too. We squatted the old bakery in Cliffe on and off, our friend squatted it for 12 years, it was actually about to become his when Thatcher changed the rules, he suicided there just after that

Plus of course the closing of Chatham dock yard and the militancy around that. And tonysingh would know about Fort Amherst, historically holding the area against Napolionic invasion. But way more dubious in later years, with gangsters holed up down in the tunnels. A pretty freaky place to find oneself.

Back to the Medway river, I remember tripping one early misty morning down there once, I'd lived on Wattling street previously, but didn't know about the history of the British fighting back the Romans by the river. But anyway, I tripppingly saw, heard, smelt it all... Like being transported back in time. Very strange, but I can remember it like it was yesterday.

I really miss east Kent tbh
 
Smangus said:
Not to forget Anarcho punk stalwarts Conflict who where originally from Eltham
Conflict (band) - Wikipedia

Some great chaotic gigs back in the 80s and 90s.

Great thread btw.
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That whole area was predominantly NF and column 88 when I lived around there. The green man at welling, Nicky crane... Jeez there were some massive brawls. Everything not nailed down in the pubs would get thrown. Like something out of a wild west film. I remember we all hired a coach to go see a punk band in Folkstone about 1979ish, and the NF were waiting for us. All the plate glass windows in the venue went down and it was bloody mayhem
 
From reading EP Thompson, just learned about Courtenay and Blean/Bossenden Wood. Wondered if it'd been covered in this thread, turns out it's mentioned in the OP, nevermind. Fascinating bit of history, though.
 
hitmouse said:
From reading EP Thompson, just learned about Courtenay and Blean/Bossenden Wood. Wondered if it'd been covered in this thread, turns out it's mentioned in the OP, nevermind. Fascinating bit of history, though.
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If you're interested in the Battle of Bossenden Wood, I found this book really absorbing:

Barry Reay – The Last Rising of the Agricultural Labourers – Breviary Stuff

I may be a little biased in my assessment as it relates to events and folk connected with my fam. :)
 
A nice bit of background on the Battle of Bossenden from Midnight Notes:

"He told us that all the country would be up, for the great jubilee was to come, and we must go with 'em." These were the words of a woebegone Kentish woman whose husband was imprisoned in Canterbury for his part in the disastrous Battle of Bossenden Wood in May 1838. At the time the agricultural workers of Kent were called "white slaves." Diptheria was rampant among them; they lived in dwellings called "birdcages" — bedrooms measured 8' x 5' x 6'. Eight years earlier in the "Swing Riots" they attempted to prevent the introduction of steam-powered threshing machines. Mutinous discontent smouldered fiercely to awaken briefly in the 1838 jubilee.



Thirty or forty poor people of Kent — vagabonds, small-holders, farm laborers — led by the extraordinary Sir William Courtenay faced soldiers of the Royal Army amid the osier-beds of Bossenden Wood in a battle resulting in several casualties and utter, lamentable defeat for the Kentish rebels. The episode is treated as an example of pathetic derangement. It is true that Sir William Courtenay had been committed to a lunatic asylum and that he was an impostor (he was born John Nichols the son of a Cornish inn-keeper). He was more than six foot. He had long black hair. He was immensely strong. In 1821 he visited London and secretly joined a Spencean Society.



In 1832 he disappeared from his wife and business, and reappeared on the other side of the country in outlandish dress posing as Sir William Courtenay, Knight of Malta, King of the Gypsies, King of Jerusalem. He became a darling of the Canterbury mob, he allied himself with the smuggling community of north Kent, he stood for Parliament, and edited a newspaper. He asserted the rights of the poor against the New Poor Law, against tithes, against flogging, against the Rich. Despite his crazed grandeur, flamboyant pretensions, and mental breaks, he appealed deeply to the Kentish peasantry who were willing to risk and lose their lives for this jubilee.



The Kentish rural proletariat though close to London was in many ways exceptional — it was godless and lawless in the sense that the Established Church had made few inroads and that its customary agrarian relations largely descended from the forest economy of ancient times rather than the "Improving" enclosed agriculture. Moreoever, it was pious in strictly non-conformist meanings. Indeed, there was little singing at the parish church following the battle because most of the Hunhill Church choir was either dead or in jail. Spencean ideas "led to his hopeless attempt to overthrow the established order in Kent." The defeat in battle of this jubilee was the last time that the English Army was used in combat against the English proletariat on English soil.
 
Fozzie Bear said:
A nice bit of background on the Battle of Bossenden from Midnight Notes:

"He told us that all the country would be up, for the great jubilee was to come, and we must go with 'em." These were the words of a woebegone Kentish woman whose husband was imprisoned in Canterbury for his part in the disastrous Battle of Bossenden Wood in May 1838. At the time the agricultural workers of Kent were called "white slaves." Diptheria was rampant among them; they lived in dwellings called "birdcages" — bedrooms measured 8' x 5' x 6'. Eight years earlier in the "Swing Riots" they attempted to prevent the introduction of steam-powered threshing machines. Mutinous discontent smouldered fiercely to awaken briefly in the 1838 jubilee.



Thirty or forty poor people of Kent — vagabonds, small-holders, farm laborers — led by the extraordinary Sir William Courtenay faced soldiers of the Royal Army amid the osier-beds of Bossenden Wood in a battle resulting in several casualties and utter, lamentable defeat for the Kentish rebels. The episode is treated as an example of pathetic derangement. It is true that Sir William Courtenay had been committed to a lunatic asylum and that he was an impostor (he was born John Nichols the son of a Cornish inn-keeper). He was more than six foot. He had long black hair. He was immensely strong. In 1821 he visited London and secretly joined a Spencean Society.



In 1832 he disappeared from his wife and business, and reappeared on the other side of the country in outlandish dress posing as Sir William Courtenay, Knight of Malta, King of the Gypsies, King of Jerusalem. He became a darling of the Canterbury mob, he allied himself with the smuggling community of north Kent, he stood for Parliament, and edited a newspaper. He asserted the rights of the poor against the New Poor Law, against tithes, against flogging, against the Rich. Despite his crazed grandeur, flamboyant pretensions, and mental breaks, he appealed deeply to the Kentish peasantry who were willing to risk and lose their lives for this jubilee.



The Kentish rural proletariat though close to London was in many ways exceptional — it was godless and lawless in the sense that the Established Church had made few inroads and that its customary agrarian relations largely descended from the forest economy of ancient times rather than the "Improving" enclosed agriculture. Moreoever, it was pious in strictly non-conformist meanings. Indeed, there was little singing at the parish church following the battle because most of the Hunhill Church choir was either dead or in jail. Spencean ideas "led to his hopeless attempt to overthrow the established order in Kent." The defeat in battle of this jubilee was the last time that the English Army was used in combat against the English proletariat on English soil.
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Having been born and brought up just a couple of miles away from Hernhill & Bossenden wood, it's interesting that, until I was old enough to research/read around the subject, all I knew about the battle was that a bad/mad man (outsider) led our forebears astray. So it's always good to see analysis that attempts to set the events in the socio-economic context of poverty, malnutrition, poor/tied housing and no security of employment. Courtenay may have been a messianic fantasist, but his popularity and following derived from the agrarian proletariat's desire for revolutionary change.

As I posted earlier, upthread, for anyone wanting good contextual depth on this topic, I'd highly recommend this book:
Barry Reay – The Last Rising of the Agricultural Labourers – Breviary Stuff

Worth remembering that, just 8 years before Bossenden, the black flag had been flown in anger in the local villages during the Swing riots:

1690487265041.png
 
ska invita said:
i know its not radical but this is the only kent thread

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That swathe of rural, dyed in the wool, vermin constituencies in West Kent and the Weald 🙁 Predicted to stay true blue whatever the swing.

If this does approximate to the outcome, I do feel sorry again for Fav. Although the constituency retains the town name, the geography encompasses huge tracts of well-to-do villages as far west as Maidstone and Medway. The town itself now returns no vermin councillors and, in a more logically drawn constituency would revert to its former Labour representation.
 
On reflection, if the GE does produce that sort of swing for the LP, it's good to see real Kent, (EK), distinguish itself as quite different from the commuter/'stockbroker belts of suburban West, central Kent. And Medway and the Thames corridor reverting to type.
 
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