The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Wordsworth Classics)

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It has often been said that The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists was the first working-class novel. This may be wide of the mark in global terms, but it is not far wrong for England. As Fred Ball wrote, ‘it was the first English novel I’d ever seen in which men at work was the basic setting, and the working class the central characters, and treated as real people, the kind of people I had been brought up among, and not as “comic” relief.’ Hundreds turn out on march through Walton to commemorate working-class writer Robert Tressell". Liverpool Echo. 4 February 2019. His working men lead harsh lives at the whim of their bosses, with little praise or pay for their labours, and harsh penalties or dismissal for the slightest of mistakes.

Rose, David; "What MPs Read" LRB.co.uk (Letters, Vol.24 No.6), 21 March 2002 (Retrieved: 8 September 2009) a b Tressell, Robert (1983) [1955]. "Publisher's Foreword". The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. London: Lawrence and Wishart. OCLC 779119068. Declan Kiberd has argued that Pádraic Ó Conaire's seminal novel in Irish, Deoraíocht, has many parallels in its progressive socialism with Tressell's The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. [20] Use of Tressell's name [ edit ] It was after this 1906 election that Tressell came together with leading figures from the local trades council to form the Hastings branch of the Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF). The chairman of the trades council, and early SDF activist, Fred Owen is believed to be the inspiration behind the name of Frank Owen in the book. But Tressell knew other prominent Hastings socialists well, too — Alf Cobbs was at that time a well-established labour leader in the town and organised in support of strikes alongside Tressell.Almost 100 years after it was first published, the relevance of this work, and it's ability to speak to us in the 21st century is surely a stark indictment of our time. Tressell spent his early adult working life in South Africa. It was in Johannesburg that he was drawn into labour organisation and socialist politics. In Johannesburg, he was also involved with some of the leading protagonists of Irish nationalism. It is possible that Noonan acquiesced in a later notorious aspect of the labour movement in Johannesburg at this time: its support for movement towards racially-segregated workplaces, a policy supported by the Transvaal government at the time. [7] 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.

In 2008, an adaptation by Tom Mclennan, was commissioned by the PCS Union as part of its contribution to the 2008 Liverpool Capital of Culture events. It was performed at various venues in Liverpool and later in Hastings at an event organised by the Tressell Society. His workmates in Johannesburg remembered Tressell as a ‘wild Irishman’. This is where we get the first sense of his involvement in politics — not in socialism, as such, but Irish republicanism. He is said to have regularly worn the green sash of the United Irishmen, and served on the committee of the Transvaal ’98 Centenary Association which marked the anniversary of their uprising. His membership card — signed ‘RP Noonan’ and bearing the slogan ‘Live Ireland, Perish Tyranny’ — survives in the archives of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in London.

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Tressell's name has been used over the years by various groups and individuals, mainly in and around Hastings. The correspondence he received set him on many paths at once — sometimes appearing contradictory, other times actually so. He discovered an article written in the Daily Worker in the 1930s identifying Robert Tressell by another name, ‘Robert Newland’. This first introduced the idea that the book had been written under a pen name. A 1920s article in the Painters’ Journal also confirmed that, just as the book’s protagonist Frank Owen, Tressell had been a painter himself. But it didn’t provide a full account of his life either. 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: In 2019, Tressell was commemorated with a march to his graveside led by a brass band. [17] Posthumous publication [ edit ] Their work as hired 'temporary hands' in a painter and decorating firm, is short term and uncertain. Desperately trying to keep themselves and their families out of the workhouse, this vulnerability is fully exploited by their employers. Tressle who worked as a painter and decorator himself, uses his knowledge of this trade, and almost certainly anecdotal experience, to describe their profession, and therefore their 'plight' with a dark realism. He became active in the Irish Nationalist circle in the Transvaal. In 1898 Noonan became a member of the executive committee of the Transvaal '98 Commemoration Committee – established to arrange a celebration of the centenary of the Irish uprising. One of those who helped plan the Johannesburg commemoration was an Irish immigrant called Arthur Griffith, and serving on the committee was an assayer of the mine, John MacBride. The Boer government saw militant Irish Nationalism as a potential ally against the British. Noonan left Johannesburg shortly before the Boer War erupted.

I read the complete, unedited text, after being given it as a rather thoughtful Christmas present. It is rightly heralded as a classic piece of working-class literature, as it takes you into the brutish yet everyday horrors endured by the British working-class, at a time when socialism was beginning to gain ground. While poignant and beautifully written, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a deeply uncomfortable read that, unlike many tales, doesn’t have a happy ever after. An important and powerful book, it’s clear to see why almost a century after its publication it made its way onto a list of the nation’s best loved books. About The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Dave is the author of Tressell: The real story of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (London: Zed Books, 2003. Manila: Ibon Books, 2004).

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] The characters are strongly detailed in vivid technicolour, not from outward apearance, but from their circumstances and the particular ways they each have of dealing with the world in which they find themselves. The drama of their lives is interwoven with a narrative, that arranges each scene, then lets it play out as we voyeuristically watch, like helpless bystanders to one car crash after another.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.’ Tressell’s Irish upbringing was the source of considerable confusion for Ball. He had lived two rather different lives, and even within those there were contradictions. Tressell was born the son of Samuel Croker (whose name he first used) and Mary Noonan at 37 Wexford Street in Dublin, where a plaque today hangs in his honour. Croker, an inspector with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and later a magistrate, was a man of considerable means. ‘What happened to my working-class writer?’, Ball wondered in his works. Robert Tressell’s plaque on Wexford Street, Dublin, where he was born. (Credit: The Tressell Memorial) Tressell’s resting place was only rediscovered in 1968, an overgrown patch of what is now Walton Park Cemetery. In 1977, Liverpool workers marked his resting place — and those of the dozen buried alongside him — with a gravestone and a William Morris poem, ‘The Day Is Coming’. But Tressell’s day may never have come had it not been for the research of Hastings historian Fred Ball, who spent many years on a ‘bewildering’ search uncovering facts about the author’s life. Robert Tressell was the pseudonym adopted by Robert Noonan, born in Dublin in 1870 with six brothers and sisters. Recent research by Bryan MacMahon indicates that he was probably taken to live in London with his mother when he was young for several years, before moving to live in Liverpool. He emigrated to South Africa in the late 1880s as a young adult and worked as a decorator and sign writer, a highly skilled and well paid job. He married Elizabeth Hartel in Cape Town, and lived in Johannesburg. Daughter Kathleen was born a year later, and some years after they separated and Robert took sole responsibility for his daughter. He was a member of a trade union and politically active in the local labour party, trades council, and International Labour Party. He developed tuberculosis around 1900. He moved to Hastings with Kathleen in 1901, which was well known for its good health. Thinking of his fate, I am reminded of Stephen Jay Gould’s quote about Einstein, that his existence was not so remarkable as ‘the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.’ Robert Tressell is proof of this, a truly great writer whose class meant that he died without knowing the appreciation of his work. How many more never even have their novels and their names salvaged by history? If we take one injunction from Tressell’s life, it should be our responsibility to abolish the conditions that made his writing so compelling.