Arthur C. Fifield - Godfrey Blount's friend and publisher

When Godfrey Blount died in July 1937, he divided his estate of £9,904 12s 11d between his nephew Charles Hubert Boulby Blount, MC Air Commodore RAF and Arthur Charles Fifield, a retired publisher.  This seems slightly strange because whilst having no children, Godfrey’s wife Ethel Blount did not die until 1942, I can only assume that by leaving some of his estate to his nephew, Godfrey was in fact providing for Ethel.  Godfrey’s good friends Joseph King and Greville MacDonald did not die until 1943 and 1944 respectively.

Arthur C. Fifield, publisher of Godfrey Blount's Arbor Vitae

So who was Arthur Fifield?  Blount had been publishing works with Arthur Fifield since 1899’s Arbor Vitae, so as a minimum they would have known each other for 45 years.

Fifield was a follower of Tolstoy, and had worked for the Free Age Press.  This was set up in 1900 by Vladimir Chertkov, a wealthy aristocrat from St Petersburg, and perhaps the most prolific follower of Tolstoy, and his most devoted disciple.  "Since the autocracy considered Tolstoyism an enemy, Chertkov left for England in 1896." (Wikipedia) But it also seems that Chertkov created problems in the Tolstoy family, some of which was dramaticized in the 2009 film 'The Last Station', a few clips of which are here on The Guardian's website.

Vladimir Chertkov with Tolstoy
from Wikipedia

"Chertkov had a troubled relationship with most of the Tolstoy family, and tried actively to destroy the relationship between Tolstoy and his wife Sophia. Tolstoy's final flight, for example, is described as having been greatly influenced by Chertkov. Sophia was especially troubled by what she felt was his hypocritical philosophy: he decried wealth, but had his own fancy estate. His associates lay about her house and ate free and paid no rent and criticized her materialism, while she raised several children and ran the entire business side of Tolstoy's writing (at Tolstoy's wish), which provided a major source of income for Yasnaya Polyana and enabled their lifestyle.

"Additionally, Chertkov convinced Tolstoy to sign a secret will and give control of his works to Chertkov instead of Sophia. He then used this control to publish versions of Tolstoy's collected works as he wanted. He also criticized Sophia, discredited her diaries and her own writing, and played up his own relationship with the Count. Chertkov also fostered a positive relationship with the newly formed Soviet state, which he used to suppress Sophia's version of Tolstoy's life story and his relationship with her." (Wikipedia, ibid.)

Chertkov arrived in Croydon in 1897 at the beginning of his eleven-year exile.  He immediately began publishing banned Tolstoyan materials in Russian, and also established the Free Age Press as an outlet for cheap, uncopyrighted English translations of Tolstoy’s newer works, on the model of his Posrednik publishing operation in Russia. 

Free Age Press Tolstoyian publication,
published by Arthur C. Fifield

Early in 1900 he asked Arthur C. Fifield, a Brotherhood Church member with whom he had frequently discussed the publication and distribution of books, to manage the latter.  The Free Age Press at the time has 'Maldon Essex' as it's address, this is 4 miles away from Purleigh, where Chertkov was living in the Purleigh Colony, and Fifield was reported to be living 'just down the road'.  The Free Age Press then consisted of Arthur Fifield and Chertkov, and a few translators such as Aylmer Maude.  Fifield was an ‘assistant translator’, improving the English of Chertkov and other Russians.  He also did all the office work and made arrangements with printers.  ‘I was publisher, manager, joint editor, joint translator, publicity agent, advertising expert, warehouseman, porter, packer, clerk, book-keeper, office boy and stamp licker, all in one,’ Fifield wrote.   

The Free Age Press had two branches “the production of Russian language Tolstoyan materials and secondly the production of Tolstoy’s writing in cheap additions for an international English readership.  These cheap pamphlets had considerable international reach and could be purchased as far afield as Shanghai and New York City.  Tolstoy praised the publications price, presentation and accessibility to ‘English speaking working people; and through Chertkov maintained a ‘special relationship’ with the publishing enterprise.   The Free Age Press was the best known and likely the most profitable Tolstoyan publishing enterprise, arguably due to the numerous members of the Tolstoyan movement who worked for the enterprise.  Notably Arthur Fifield, a member of the Croydon Brotherhood Church, ensured the popularity of the publications in its initial years.  Despite its success, Chertkov’s leadership alienated many of his Tolstoyan coworkers and publishing output diminished.”  (https://tolstoyans.wordpress.com/tolstoyan-enterprises/publishing-enterprises/)

Free Age Press publications, 1900

“…Fifield worked with Free Age for only three years, from early 1900 to the middle of 1902, in that time bringing out forty-three publications.  He left after a dispute with Chertkov (the aristocrat quarrelled with practically all his associates) and soon thereafter started his own publishing house, the Simple Life Press, later using his own name, A.C.Fifield, Publisher.  In this new form he produced many volumes of Tolstoyan themes, including a few by Tolstoy himself.  His books spanned the concerns of the London Tolstoyans: works by and on Tolstoy himself, simplicity in living (the Simple Life Series seems to have been his first set of publications, with over twenty volumes), vegetarianism, protest against exploitation, and affirmations of the hope of human brotherhood….Five of the twenty titles cited by Gandhi in his Hind Swaraj were from Fifield.  There were two essays by Thoreau, ‘On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’ and ‘Life Without Principle’ and Godfrey Blount’s A New Crusade, calling for simplicity in lifestyle, the revival of traditional crafts, and the renewing of country life.  The fourth was The Fallacy of Speed by Thomas Taylor, a sweeping critique of modern civilization, questioning the presumed benefits of improved transportation. …Eleven Fifield titles were found in Gandhi’s ashram library, including Sayings of Tolstoy (1911), Crosby’s Tolstoy as a Schoolmaster (1904), and Percy Reffern’s Tolstoy – a Study (1907).  Salome Hocking (Mrs Fifield) was represented by her novel of Tolstoyan communities, Belinda the Backward; A Romance of Modern Idealism (1905).  Three were by the vegetarian Henry D.Salt, including Animals’ Rights (1905).”  ( Hunt, James D., An American Looks at Gandhi: Essays in Satyagraha, Civil Rights, and Peace, Bibliophile, South East Asia, 2005)

"...Charles W. Daniel (1871 – 1955) became the principal organizer of the London Tolstoyan Society, in 1902, he began his own publishing business and also distributed Free Age books, eventually supplanting Fifield as the leading publisher of unorthodox books with a Tolstoyan ambience.” (ibid.)

From reading about Daniel it appears that my modern understanding of the term ‘crank’ (my previous posts The Haslemere Cranks)  and it’s meaning at the time are not in alignment: “In 1904, he stated a monthly, first called The Crank, and later The Open Road.  The first name was suggested by Mary Everest Boole, one of its regular contributors.  ‘A crank’, she said, ‘is a little thing that makes revolutions’. 

Arthur C. Fifield's wife, Salome Hocking,
published by Arthur C. Fifield

Fifield married Salome Hocking.  Alston (Alston, Charlotte, Tolstoy and his Disciples: The History of a Radical International Movement, I.B. Tauris, 2013) refers to her as “sometime manager of the Free Age Press”.   Fifield and Hocking married in 1894.  Hocking’s novel Belinda the Backward: A Romance of Modern Idealism appears to have been heavily influenced by her time at the Free Age Press and is based on working in a publishers printing Russian literature for a Mr Kovelevsky (Chertkov) and other identifiable characters.  Alston states that “Fifield believed that his wife genuinely feared Chertkov, but she insisted that her portrait of him was not malicious.”  The Hockings appear to have been a literary family from Brannel, Cornwall, Salome’s brother Joseph Hocking (1860-1937) was a Methodist minister who used fiction as a means of conveying his Christian beliefs, and her brother Silas K. Hocking is described in a similar fashion.   There is further information on the Hockings in various publications including Pulp Methodism: The Lives and Literature of Silas, Joseph and Salome Hocking, Three Cornish Novelists (Kent, Alan M., Cornish Hillside Publications, 2002).

Fifield met Chertkov through the Brotherhood Church, but what was this?  "The Croydon Brotherhood Church’s charismatic leader, John C. Kenworthy, underwent a Tolstoyan conversion and thereafter preached a blend of Christian Socialism and Tolstoyan anarchism.  (It is still active today, see their website here)  By 1897, several followers had settled on a lot of land in Purleigh, Essex; the agricultural commune underwent fast expansion.  Among the sympathizers who settled locally, Tolstoy’s disciple, the political exile Vladimir Chertkov…Although they donned Norfolk jackets, flannel shorts, and smocks like Ashbee’s men, early Purleigh and Whiteway settlers, rather than pursue silversmithing and cabinetry, worked the land like Tolstoy among his peasantry at Yasnaya Polyana…At the height of its popularity, Purleigh Colony inspired similar experiments outside Blackburn, Sheffield, and Leeds.  But the colonists’ decision to pledge nearly half of Purleigh’s capital to the transport to Canada of a refugee Russian pacificst sect, the Doukhobors,  precipitated the ultimate financial collapse of Purleigh in 1900.  Internal dissension had already spurred a splinter group to break away and found Whiteway Colony in the Cotswolds in 1898…

"The English Tolstoyan life vividly recounted in one novel produced by an ally and associate, Salome Hocking, who, with her spouse, Arthur C. Fifield, had deliberately settled down the road from Purleigh Colony. 

“One hesitates to call the novel a satire, because it does not parody crankish behaviour. …Belinda enumerates her physical discomforts there.  The fire from the insufficient wood stove leaves everything they eat and drink tasting of smoke, and the floor and ceiling beams of the cottage are black with it.  The windows are badly fitted, so she tries to stifle the drafts by placing her comb and brush against the gaps around the window frames.  There is a shortage of linen and space, so she sleeps on a mattress on the floor of the front room with a carriage rug and her coat as additional blankets.  As the cottage is without cupboards or wardrobes, she is promised a few nails on which to hang her dresses.  Most of all, it is the dark bread, baked from the grain that they have grown and harvest, that offends her, it is inedible, hard, saltless, and dry; and it constitutes much of the two-meal-a-day diet at the colony. 

Salome Hocking,
from Salome Hocking: A Cornish Woman Writer, Goodman, Gemma,
Women of Cornwall Monograph Series, The Hypatia Trust, 2004

“What is interesting is that long after she has settled in and experienced a winter in the colony, Belinda reflects on the necessity of crafts as a means of sustaining both happiness and the fabric of the commune.  Most of those who remain at the colony are, like, her, bookish and city-bred.  But she observes that “genuine” country people excel at skills of carpentry and shoe mending and that the winter is when farmers repair gates and doors and harnesses and replace hinges and fastenings.  She argues that the colonist has to be as handy as a sailor and “be able to knock up a shed, make a table and bench, and, if possible, a chair for himself”.  “For a colony to be successful some handicraft should be allied to agriculture”  Notice, however, that while she uses the term handicraft, there is no goal here of selling one’s work or converting others’ tastes to more Aesthetic designs.  In this Tolstoyian environment, one aims for self-sufficiency rather than market success.” (Maltz, Diana, Living by Design: C.R. Ashbee’s Build of Handicraft and Two English Tolstoyan Communities, 1897-1907, Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 39, No.2 (2011) pp.409-426)

Sadly, the most famous mention of Arthur C. Fifield is his rejection letter to Gertrude Stein in 1912.  The best explanation of this event (online) states “In 1912, Gerturude Stein sent a manuscript to London-based publisher Arthur C. Fifield.  The modernist author, known for her avant-garde and at times impenetrable prose, had sent what would later be The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family’s Progress, published in 1925.  The novel is one of Stein’s more challenging works, using present particple, limited vocabulary, and a lot of repitition.  It was this last feature that Fifield drew upon to craft his rejection letter (19 April 1912):

“Dear Madam

I am only one, only one, only one.  Only one being, one at the same time.  Not two, not three, only one.  Only one life to live, only sixty minutes in one hour.  Only one pair of eyes.  Only one brain.  Only one being.  Being only one, having only one pair of eyes, having only one time, having only one life, I cannot read your M.S. three or four times.  Not even one time.  Only one look, only one look is enough.  Hardly one copy would sell here.  Hardly one.  Hardly one.

Many thanks.  I am returning the M.S. by registered post.  Only one M.S. by one post.”  (http://mentalfloss.com/article/65717/read-publishers-rejection-letter-gertrude-stein)

Women's Suffrage in Haslemere 1908 - 1913

With increased interest in this subject for 2018, I thought it was useful to outline what I think are the main facts on the suffrage movement in Haslemere.

In 1908 a NUWSS (National Union of Women's Suffrage Society) society was formed at Haslemere.  The first secretary was Mrs Marshall of Tweenways, Hindhead.  In 1910 Miss Rees of ‘By the Way’, Hindhead took over as secretary.  “For the January 1910 election campaign the society opened a shop at The Gables, Haslemere.” (Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey, Routledge, 15 April 2013).  Mrs G.F. Watts of Compton Pottery was the president of the Guildford NUWSS.

The Haslemere Museum holds a photograph of the NUWSS marching down the High Street, the main banner announcing “NUWSS Non-Militant Portsmouth Road”, behind this might be the banner  made by the St Edmundsbury Weavers announcing “Weaving Fair and Weaving Free, England’s Web of Destiny’ as mentioned in my previous post.

NUWSS march, Haslemere High Street c.1908
reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum

The 1911 census shows that Godfrey and Ethel Blount no longer lived at Foundry Cottage, where they were living in 1901, but had moved to St Cross, Weydown Road.  Foundry Cottage, Foundry Lane, in the middle of the Haslemere Peasant Industries, had as the head of the household an Ethel Leeds (aged 46), widow, living on private means.  She is recorded as living their with one of her daughters, Mary Faith Leeds (23) an artist (miniature). 

The signature for the census entry is of interest, as Ethel has a written suffrage protest in the signature: “protest” and “voteless taxpayer”.  Ethel Leeds was the widow of Reverend William Howard Leeds (grandson of Sir George William Leeds, 1^st Baronet).  Her daughter Mary Faith Leeds married Vice-Admiral Sir John Anthony Vere Morse in 1917.

Foundry Cottage, Foundry Lane, Haslemere
1911 census extract

In 1913 it was reported in various newspapers about a bomb in Haslemere:

“A BOMB ON A RAILWAY BRIDGE

At Haslemere Railway Station on Saturday evening a small box containing a clock-work arrangement and gunpowder, with fuse and electric battery, was found on the footbridge.  It has a “Votes for women” label.”(The Yorkshire Post, 21 July 1913)

It has been more recently reported that there was further protest on this bomb in a note addressed to member of the Haslemere Urban District Council “Have we your sympathy?  If not, beware!”.  (Webb, Simon, The Suffrage Bombers, Pen & Sword, 2014) The bomb did not create any damage “a porter at Haslemere Station in Surrey found a box on the stairs leading from one of the platforms.  He had the presence of mind to plunge the box into a pail of water, which was fortunate, because it was, of course, a time bomb.” (ibid.)

Compton, Watts Artists Village - some parallels Part 2

Exhibitions
There are a few references in Studio: International art where the work of the Haslemere Peasant Art movement is reviewed at the Home Arts and Industry Association annual exhibition in the same paragraph as the work of Mary Watts' pottery.  For example in 1898 and 1899:

·        Reporting on the annual exhibition of the Home Arts and Industries Association at the Royal Albert Hall, reference is made to “the admirable embroideries of Mr. Godfrey Blount’s section, the furniture of the Hon. Mabel de Grey, the terra-cottas after designs by Mrs G.F.Watts…” (Studio: International art volume 14 (no. 64, July, 1898, p.129) )

Reporting on the HAIA 1899 exhibition “Those who have visited the exhibition ….year by year will quickly recognise those features of interest which become associated with certain class-holders and the districts they have worked.  We know, for instance… for good textiles and tapestries from Ashridge, Aldeburgh, Windemere, and from the Haslemere industries organised by Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Blount …while the little group of workers inspired by Mr. and Mrs. G.F. Watts at Compton and Limnerslease may be counted on for something worthy in the direction of terra-cotta modelling and the minor decorative branches of church architecture.” (Studio: International art volume 17 (no. 76, July, 1899, p.99)) 

Artistic Subjects
As well as exhibiting at the same events, some of the works of the Haslemere Peasant and the Compton Pottery, and Mary Watts, seem to be closely aligned.  There have been two Compton pottery pieces over the last few years that bear some resemblance to the works of the Haslemere Peasant Arts movement.

1. In December 2017 a "fine & rare Compton Pottery Arts and Crafts Church Wafer Box" was briefly for sale.  The vine leaf and grape design is reminiscent of the repeated vine leaf patterns of the Haslemere Peasant Arts movement.

Compton Pottery, wafer box
sold on eBay here

2.  This Compton Pottery bookend is inscribed with the phrase "Arbor Vitae" or perhaps it says "Arbor Vitat".  This reminds me of the title of Godfrey Blount's seminal design book Arbor Vitae.  It appears that a tree of life might be growing out of the head of the girl reading the book, which again feels like an analogy that the Haslemere Peasants would draw.

'Arbor Vitat'
Compton Pottery bookend

The panel designed by Mary Watts to decorate the Cambridge Military Hospital chapel at Aldershot contains vine leaf and grapes designs that are reminiscent of the Haslemere Peasant Arts designs, and also of Franz Paukert's Die Zimmergotik (written on in this previous post here).

Mary Watts' wall panels for Cambridge Military Hospital chapel, Aldershot,
Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey

Mary Watts' wall panels for Cambridge Military Hospital chapel, Aldershot,
Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey

Mary Watts' wall panels for Cambridge Military Hospital chapel, Aldershot,
Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey

Haslemere & the Spitalfields Weavers Part 3

The last link that I have found with the Spitalfield Weavers is this photograph below of the 'Spitalfields Silk Weaving Works, Haslemere' from Winter & Collyer's Around Haslemere and Hindhead in Old Photographs (Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1991, p.153).  The picture is described as showing "the business of Harry Hedges (left) and operated during the early 1900s from a small wooden building by the stream at the bottom of Wey Hill.  The works produced silk damasks of the highest class, brocades and also velvets both for dressmaking , and domestic and church furnishings...The Spitalfields Works is now used as the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses."

Locations of Spitalfields Silk Weaving, Wey Hill and Haslemere Peasant Industries,
Kings Road, Haslemere c.1900

I have been unable to find any other record of Harry Hedges in Haslemere or the Spitalfields Weaving Works in Haslemere,which makes me wonder if the report of them is entirely accurate.   This photograph also reminds me that Luther Hooper and Edmund Hunter briefly established the Haslemere Silk Weavers in 1901 (see my previous post here) this "produced silk and cotton damasks, brocades, velvets, woven embroideries, tapestries and carpets.  Their aim was to start and develop an industry, in which artistic design  was combined with better craftsmanship than could be obtained by the power-loom.  There was presumably a falling out with Hooper when Edmund declared that Luther was more interested in playing the piano than working on designs.  Dorothea (Edmund's wife) assumed the driving force behind Edmund and by borrowing £500 from her widowed sister, helped him set upon St Edmundsbury Weaving Works on College Hill in 1902."(Meg-Andrews.com)

Could this photograph be of the Haslemere Silk Weavers in 1901?

The Spitalfields Weaving Works, Wey Hill, Haslemere
from Winter & Collyer, Around Haslemere and Hindhead in Old Photographs,
Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1991, p.153

Haslemere & the Spitalfields Weavers Part 2

The dramatic decline of the Spitalfields silk-weaving industry clearly had far-reaching consequences for the large numbers of workers previously employed in silk weaving.  In 1895, two years after Liberty's article announcing the revival of Spitalfield silk-weaving (in my previous post, here), it seems that Spitalfields silk weaving went into receivership: "Daniel Walters and Sons, of Braintree, had ceased operations... The Official Receiver made an offer of their mills, plant and machinery to Warner and Sons.  The offer was accepted, and after the purchase, about sixty families of London silk weavers were at once removed from Spiltalfields to Braintree.  Many, however, refused to leave London, and for some years both factories were kept going: but finally the Hollybush Gardens factory was closed and all the work concentrated at the Braintree mills. " (Warner, Frank, The Silk Industry of the United Kingdom, Dranes, 1921).

Female silk-weavers at work in Spitalfields, 1893,
reproduced from Getty Images

Luther Hooper was wood engraving and designing wallpapers for Messrs Carlisle and Clegg, when in 1884 he moved with his family from Stoke Newington to Bentley, near Ipswich.  Hooper's mother originated from Long Melford, Suffolk so this move may have brought him nearer family.  It was whilst at Bentley that Hooper, then aged 35 "studied the history, principles and technique of weaving and assisted in the formation and development of The Ipswich Silk Weaving Company, a hand-loom silk-weaving firm". (Suffolk Painters.co.uk)  I expect that Hooper was learning silk-weaving from Spitalfield silk weavers in Ipswich, or Huguenot weavers, as Ipswich was the first Huguenot settlement.  Hooper says in his autobiography "I throughly mastered the techniques of weaving rich silk damasks, brocatelles, velvets, etc. and the preparation of designs for the loom.  This study of the craft enabled me to be of some use to the Art and Craft movement, in which I became interested about that time." (Luther Hooper biography online).

Spitalfield weaver's workshop, June 1885,
Tower Hamlets Local History Collection,
reproduced from Spitalfieldslife.com

It seems that Edmund Hunter brought some Spitalfield silk weavers to Haslemere.  Meg Andrews writes that Hunter "employed four or five men including a master weaver, who had probably been trained in silk weaving at Spitalfields, London." (Meg-Andrews.com)  Although Spitalfield weavers might also have been amongst the "three skilled weavers who had been with me (Luther Hooper) at Ipswich" (Luther Hooper online biography) that Hooper brought to Haslemere.

Various references can be found to the work of Spitalfields Weavers in Haslemere in the early 1900s. In 1924 Studio: International art (vol. 88, no.379, October 1924, p.221) wrote that “The St. Edmundsbury Weaving Works were started at Haslemere in 1901 for the weaving of rich damasks and brocades, in the Spitalfields tradition, by Edmund Hunter, then a designer of wallpapers, fabrics, etc.”

In 1904 the Luton Times and Advertiser (5 February 1904) reported that "In acknowledging the gift of a piece of silk woven at Haslemere Mr. Chamberlain expresses hopes for a revival of the British silk-weaving industry under Freer Trade."  This appears to be a reference to Joseph Chamberlain MP, Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Providing a fuller account of this event, the Leamington Spa Courier (5 February 1904) reported on

“A Vanished Industry

Mr. Chamberlain has sent the following letter to Mr. Edmund Hunter, Bury St. Edmunds, who recently represented to him a piece of silk designed by himself and woven at the St Edmondsbury Weaving Works, Haslemere, Surrey. : Highbury, Moor Green, Birmingham, January 25th, 1904.  

Dear Sir – I have had the honour to receive through Lady Dorothy Nevill a piece of silk which I understand was woven by a descendant of the original Spitalfields weavers, and have much pleasure in accepting the compliment.  I have long regretted the almost entire disappearance of this once great and successful industry, and I sincerely hope that some change may yet be made in our fiscal system which will help to restore it.  I know of no special reason why English weavers should not be able to compete with foreigners on fair terms, and the silk industry has appeared to me to be one of those which should receive early consideration.  I hope every means will be taken to bring the circumstances and conditions of the trade to the knowledge of the Tariff Comission now sitting, and that it may be possible to work out a scheme which will give back to our English weavers some of the opportunites they have lost owing to our fiscal system.  

I am, yours faithfully, J. Chamberlain."

The Dove Cross, designed by Edmund Hunter and Hand-woven in Silk
by the St Edmundsbury Weaving Industry, Studio International (1906,p.246)

In 1906 Studio International (p.246) reported on ""The “Dove Cross” in Mr. Edmund Hunter’s fine design, which we reproduce on this page, forms the central ornament in an altar frontal chosen from his work by Queen Alexandra for the private chapel at Windsor Castle.  It was executed for Her Majesty in white and gold silk brocade by the St. Edmundsbury Weaving Industry, established by Mr. Hunter some three years ago at Haslemere, in Surrey.  The work was woven on hand-looms by some of the historic Spitalfields silk weavers, brought to Haslemere by Mr. Hunter to start and develop his industry, in which he aims at uniting artistic design with better craftsmanship than can be obtained by the use of the power loom."