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Telling it how it was

A century since the publication of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, conditions have improved for some but the system of exploitation Robert Tressell described is as entrenched as ever. TREVOR HOPPER on the man and his work

"The Golden light that will be diffused throughout all the happy world from the rays of the risen sun of Socialism."

Well, Robert Tressell (real name Noonan), we are still waiting. The final sentence of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is not the only line from the socialist polemic that can seem at best ironic 100 years after its publication.

The penultimate paragraph refers to "the Nemesis which was overtaking the capitalist system... was now fast crumbling into ruin... its memory universally excoriated and abhored."

Star readers do not need reminding that not only has the utopia not arrived but the capitalist system is still rampant across the globe.

So, is the Marxist determinist model correct? Does the inevitable triumph of capitalism have to be followed by the inevitable reaction by the exploited to rise against the growing inequality and bring down the system?

I will leave you to ponder that. What is also interesting is that the novel has increasingly been used as a source of history. The narrative and the man himself have been appropriated by many - the fascination not only being with "who was Robert Tressell?" But also "whose Robert Tressell?"

The author himself did not live to see his work published. He died in 1911 of tuberculosis after having seen it rejected by three publishers. It was only his daughter Kathleen who stopped her father burning the manuscript and, after his death, showed it to writer Jesse Pope, who recommended it to her publisher.

Anyone who has studied social conditions in Edwardian Britain will feel they are looking at a first-hand account when reading Tressell's tale, subtitled Twelve Months in Hell. The reader is taken on a tour of the misery of pre-welfare state Britain for the workers in the precarious trade of painting and decorating.

The reader is given a lesson in the problems of existing on a wage of roughly a pound a week and the constant fear of losing that meagre amount and ending up in debt and possibly the workhouse.

The homes of the painters and labourers are described in detail, cold and cheerless, with understanding for those who seek refuge in the warmth and cheer of the pub. Their meagre diets of cold tea, dry bread, cheese and scraps of meat coupled with poor clothing and grinding toil lead to early ageing, sickness and death. The sweated labour of the women, an Edwardian scandal, is also covered.

As with many socialists in novels the hero Frank Owen is a cut above the rest. A teetotaller, reader, painter, sign writer, designer and debater, characteristics we know about Robert Noonan (although not teetotal), the Irishman who lived in Hastings and penned the book while working a 56-to-60-hour week.

Owen pours scorn not only on the employers and the system, but also the attitude of his fellow workers, whom he derides for their apathy and hostility towards socialism.

Shadow education minister and historian Tristram Hunt sparked a debate some years back, suggesting that the appropriation of the novel by socialists, trade unions and the labour movement in general was slightly contradictory given Owen's condemnation of the workers who strove for no better for "the likes of us" and were derided by him for their limited political and cultural horizons.

 

But as some have countered, anyone who has been active in any organised form of politics or trade unionism will know that fighting apathy among one's comrades is the bugbear of the activist.

This frustration is well described: "Usually after one of these arguments Owen would wander off by himself, with his head throbbing and a feeling of unutterable desperation and misery at his heart; weighed down by the growing conviction of the hopelessness of everything, of the folly of expecting that his fellow workmen would ever be willing to try to understand for themselves the causes that produced their sufferings."

Hence the novel's popularity among the left and more generally the labour movement for a century now.

Tressell's comment in the preface, "the book is not without its humorous side," is a little-appreciated quality of the novel. The observations of petty rivalry among the workers, the ignorance of the bosses, the scenes of alcohol-induced bravado and hypocrisy are especially poignant to trade unionist readers as the men brag of their solidarity with one another against the bosses, despite evidence to the contrary.

Religion also takes a severe lampooning throughout, particularly the overfed reverends and disciples with their unchristian behaviour and pious charity.

But what is the book's legacy? Will it go down in history as just another novel highlighting poverty and the struggle of working people? The author's background is slowly but continually being revealed.

In my book Robert Tressell's Hastings, I like to think I continued the work of Fred Ball in highlighting the relationship of the town to the book, and refer to Tressell's words in the preface: "I have invented nothing. The scenes and characters are typical of every town in the south of England."

Obviously, the appeal is for an international audience with an international message. Inevitably, the Irish have taken the book as by one of their own and Bryan MacMahon's work on Noonan's origins in Dublin and
his early years in South Africa has helped us understand the author.

The Liverpool connection where he lived briefly and also died is also still strong. The handwritten manuscript has a natural home at the TUC library in London.

In Hastings, we not only have the physical sights of the novel but the one remaining piece of artwork by Tressell in the form of a stained glass mural in the Hastings Museum.

The Robert Tressell Family Papers have been left to the University of Brighton in Hastings, enabling the many interpretations of the novel on stage and screen as well as the various editions and languages it has been translated into to be archived.

Would Robert Noonan be happy that his work has sold millions of copies and never been out of print? No doubt. Would he be happy that the
co-operative commonwealth has not arrived? Of course not. But there is still a fine legacy left to discuss at the symposium at the University of Brighton in Hastings tonight.

 

Trevor Hopper is the author of Robert Tressell's Hastings

 

To book your free place at the symposium please email [email protected]. University of Brighton in Hastings, Priory Square, TN34 1AE Telephone 01273644642

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