Freedom Press
Encyclopedia
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Founded in 1886, it is the largest anarchist publishing house in the nation and the oldest of its kind in the English speaking world. It is based at 84b Whitechapel High Street
Whitechapel High Street
Whitechapel High Street is a road in Whitechapel in the East End of London, connecting Aldgate High Street with Whitechapel Road. Now part of the A11 it was anciently part of the Roman road from London to Colchester...
in the East End of London
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
. Alongside its many books and pamphlets, the group also publish a fortnightly newspaper, Freedom
Freedom newspaper
Freedom is a London-based anarchist newspaper published fortnightly by Freedom Press.The paper was started in 1886 by volunteers including Peter Kropotkin and Charlotte Wilson and continues to this day as an unpaid project. Originally, the subtitle was "A Journal of Anarchist Socialism." The title...
, which is the only regular national anarchist newspaper in the UK. Other titles published by Freedom Press have included Freedom Bulletin, Spain and the World, Revolt! and War Commentary.
The Press was founded in 1886 by a group of friends, including Charlotte Wilson
Charlotte Wilson
Charlotte M. Wilson was an English anarchist who co-founded Freedom newspaper in 1886 with Peter Kropotkin, and edited, published, and largely financed it during its first decade...
and Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
, who were already publishing Freedom newspaper, and has operated, with short breaks, ever since. Much of the bookshop's recent history was tied up with Vernon Richards
Vernon Richards
Vernon Richards was an Anglo-Italian anarchist, editor, author and companion of Marie-Louise Berneri.He was born Vero Recchioni in London in 1915. He was educated at Emanuel School, and King's College London, where he trained as a civil engineer...
, who was the driving force behind both it and Freedom Newspaper from the 1930s until late in the 90s.
When Richards and three other editors were arrested at the beginning of 1945 for attempting "to undermine the affections of members of His Majesty's Forces.", Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
, Augustus John
Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....
, George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
(chairman), Osbert Sitwell
Osbert Sitwell
Sir Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell, 5th Baronet, was an English writer. His elder sister was Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell and his younger brother was Sir Sacheverell Sitwell; like them he devoted his life to art and literature....
and George Woodcock
George Woodcock
George Woodcock was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet, and published several volumes of travel writing. He founded in 1959 the journal Canadian Literature, the first academic journal specifically...
set up the Freedom Defence Committee
Freedom Defence Committee
The Freedom Defence Committee was a UK-based organization set up in 1945 to "uphold the essential liberty of individuals and organizations, and to defend those who are persecuted for exercising their rights to freedom of speech, writing and action."...
to "uphold the essential liberty of individuals and organizations, and to defend those who are persecuted for exercising their rights to freedom of speech, writing and action."
Over the years the Freedom editorial group has included Jack Robinson, Pete Turner, Colin Ward, Nicolas Walter, Alan Albon, Nino Staffa, Dave Mansell, Gillian Fleming, Mary Canipa, Philip Sansom, Arthur Moyse and many others. Clifford Harper maintained a loose association for 30 years.
The bookshop was attacked by neo-fascist group Combat 18
Combat 18
Combat 18 is a violent neo-Nazi organisation associated with Blood and Honour. It originated in the United Kingdom, but has since spread to other countries. Members of Combat 18 have been suspected in numerous deaths of immigrants, non-whites, and other C18 members...
in March 1993, and eventually firebombed. The building still bears some visible damage from the attacks, and metal guards have been installed on the ground floor windows and doors, intended to ward against any further violence.
Today Freedom Press remains as a functioning publishing house whilst the printing itself is done by Aldgate Press. (A printing co-op set up in 1981 with money raised by Vernon Richards). The Freedom Press collective runs an autonomy club, archive, bookshop and newspaper, while sharing the premises with The London Coalition Against Poverty, the Advisory Service for Squatters
Advisory Service for Squatters
The Advisory Service for Squatters is a non-profit group based in London, UK, run by volunteers which aims to provide practical advice and legal support for squatters. It was founded in 1975, having grown out of the Family Squatters Advisory Service...
and Corporate Watch. The library of the Freedom Press is held at Bishopsgate Library
Bishopsgate Library
Bishopsgate Library is an independent, charity-funded library located within the Bishopsgate Institute in the City of London.The library's particular strengths include printed and archive material on London, freethought and the labour movement, developed by Charles Goss, librarian from 1897 to 1941...
.
Freedom Press have published titles by Clifford Harper
Clifford Harper
Clifford Harper is an illustrator and militant anarchist. He was born in Chiswick, West London on the 13th of July 1949. His father was a postman and his mother a cook. Expelled from school at 13 and placed on 2 years probation at 14, he then worked in a series of "menial jobs" before 'turning on,...
, Vernon Richards
Vernon Richards
Vernon Richards was an Anglo-Italian anarchist, editor, author and companion of Marie-Louise Berneri.He was born Vero Recchioni in London in 1915. He was educated at Emanuel School, and King's College London, where he trained as a civil engineer...
, Dennis Gould, Nicolas Walter
Nicolas Walter
Nicolas Hardy Walter was a British anarchist and atheist writer, speaker and activist.-Career overview:Walter was born in London; his father was the neurophysiologist and pioneer of cybernetics, William Grey Walter...
, Colin Ward
Colin Ward
Colin Ward was a British anarchist writer. He has been called "one of the greatest anarchist thinkers of the past half century, and a pioneering social historian." -Life:...
, Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
, Gaston Leval
Gaston Leval
Gaston Leval was an anarcho-syndicalist, combatant and historian of the Spanish Revolution....
, William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
and many others, including 118 issues of the journals Anarchy
Anarchy
Anarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...
, edited by Colin Ward and 43 issues of The Raven
The Raven (journal)
The Raven was a quarterly anarchist review published by Freedom Press. Each edition usually focused on a specific issue such as food, health, economics, genetic engineering, psychology, land and so on, from an anarchist viewpoint....
. Among its most influential publications have been those by Colin Ward and Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
.
Subjects of recent books include Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution...
, Nestor Makhno
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno or simply Daddy Makhno was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War....
and a reprint of Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
's The ABC of Anarchism
Now and After
Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism is an introduction to the principles of anarchism and anarchist communism written by Alexander Berkman...
.
External links
- Freedom Press website
- Freedom Press documents from the Kate Sharpley LibraryKate Sharpley LibraryThe Kate Sharpley Library is a library dedicated to anarchist texts and history. Started in 1979 and reorganized in 1991, it currently holds around ten thousand English language volumes, pamphlets and periodicals...
- libcom.org British libertarian communist website linked to Freedom Press