J.F. Horrabin
Encyclopedia
James Francis Horrabin, (1 November 1884 – 2 March 1962) was an English socialist, (sometime Communist), radical writer and cartoonist. He was briefly Labour Party
Member of Parliament for Peterborough
. He attempted to construct a socialist geography and was an associate of David Low
and George Orwell
.
Born in Peterborough
and educated at Stamford School
, Horrabin was a prolific illustrator. He drew his first maps for The Daily News
during the Balkan War
of 1912-13. After the First World War, having started as a newspaper strip cartoonist on the Sheffield Telegraph
, he went to London to work as art director for The Daily News; he also lectured on geography at the Central Labour College in London. He drew the illustrations for H. G. Wells
' The Outline of History
. In 1919 he began his daily panel The Adventures of the Noah Family in The Daily News. The family strip cartoon was collected into several hard back books, most notably the Japhet and Happy
Annuals and Summer Books between 1932 and 1952. The Noah Family moved to The News Chronicle
in 1930, and was continued into the 1940s. In 1922, Horrabin created the Dot and Carrie strip for The Star
which was taken over by The Evening Post, continuing until 1962.
He was an active socialist in the Labour Party, Fabian Society
, and other leftwing groups and very involved in working class
education through the Plebs' League
and National Council of Labour Colleges. His 1923 text An Outline of Economic Geography, which sold in large numbers and was translated into nine other languages, attempted to provide workers with an account of economic (and political and historical) geography that used bourgeois “pure geography”, but put it within a socialist and historical–materialist framework. Unlike Germany and some other countries, England did not have a strong Marxist theoretical tradition, and Horrabin's approach does not develop theory (though it did attract the admiration of the German Marxist Karl Wittfogel). Rather, it set out to be engaged in practical political education. Horrabin's work was developed within a particular context, but his geographical writings (and pioneering political cartography) exemplify one way of linking geography with political practice. Many of his concerns find echoes in current radical geography, and his work deserves belated recognition and a place in the history of geography.
He was elected MP for Peterborough in 1929 under the premiership of the first Labour Prime Minister
, James Ramsay MacDonald, but lost his seat two years later at the General Election of 1931
occasioned by the split in the party consequent on MacDonald forming a National Government. He was succeeded by David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter
, then Lord Burghley, another resident of Stamford.
In 1937, only a few months after its institution, an occasional political discussion programme appeared in the television schedules of the BBC
. This was 'News Map' which was usually presented by the former MP, who had taken up print journalism. 'News Map' did not leave the studio and it was mainly interested in foreign affairs stories. World events provided quite a few such stories for it to discuss.
His published works include The Workers History of the Great Strike (1927), written together with Ellen Wilkinson
MP and Raymond Postgate
, Working-Class Education (1924), written with his wife Winifred, and several editions of An Atlas of Current Affairs (1934 onwards) for which he also drew the maps.
, the fourth of the six children (three died in infancy) of Arthur John Batho (1855/6–1891), postal telegraph clerk, and his wife, Lilian Outram (1858/9–1938). Her parents came from artisan families and were members of the Wicker Congregational Church. Her father sailed to South Africa
on the SS Durban in 1890 hoping to cure his tuberculosis, but, shortly after being joined by his family, he died and was buried in Graaff-Reinet in May 1891.
Batho returned to Sheffield and attended the Central School, then the Sheffield School of Art from 1907 where she met James. Her political awakening reflected the legacy of her father's death; she became anti-Boer and felt a close affinity with the South African feminist and socialist Olive Schreiner
, whose biography she began to write. Batho joined the Women's Social and Political Union
and disrupted a speech by Winston Churchill
in 1909 with the suffragettes' cry ‘votes for women’. She ‘converted’ to guild socialism "via William Morris
's art" and wrote a play, ‘Victorian Love Story: Beloved Good’, about Thomas Carlyle
and his wife, Jane.
Winifred Batho and James Horrabin were married on 11 August 1911 and moved to London. Together they worked in the labour college movement: they favoured independent workers' education and published their views in Working Class Education in 1924. She acted as honorary secretary of the Plebs' League
, which was set up in 1908 to promote independent working class education and which was behind the creation of a Central Labour College
in 1909 (designed to rival Ruskin College). The Central Labour College moved to London in 1911 and Horrabin organised a Women's League in 1913 to focus on the education of women workers. Both she and her husband wrote regularly for the journal, The Plebs, which Frank Horrabin edited.
Winifred joined the Communist Party and delivered a paper in 1912 to the Fabian Society
in which she argued that only the destruction of private property would release women from economic slavery (Is Woman's Place the Home?, published 1933). During the First World War she began writing an autobiographical novel about a wartime love affair.
In the 1920s she became more internationalist and pacifist in her outlook. She visited Russia in 1926, meeting N. K. Krupskaya and making a pilgrimage to Lenin's tomb. In Poland she observed a mass trial of political dissidents. When her younger brother, Harold Batho, died from First World War injuries in 1932, she told the National Conference of Labour Women that the international working classes should resist war, choosing starvation over employment in munitions factories.
In 1937 she began reviewing films and books for The Tribune
(she continued until 1948), beginning a long career in journalism which included travel writing, social commentary, and short stories for journals such as Time and Tide. She had a weekly column in the Manchester Evening News
from 1944 under the nom de plume of Freda Wynne. In 1938 Horrabin's mother died, Horrabin's novel was rejected by publishers, and she was diagnosed as having an ovarian cyst
. She underwent a hysterectomy
in February 1939. She moved to Oxford
at the outbreak of war and in March 1942 her husband, who was immersed in his second extramarital affair, asked for a separation. Despite knowledge of his adultery, she was devastated and sought psychoanalytical treatment. On 13 October 1947 the marriage was dissolved. Horrabin lived and worked for six months in Jamaica
before moving to Blackheath in 1950.
Horrabin's final years were marred by loneliness and a deep sense of failure. In 1951 her elder brother, Arthur (Artie) Denton Batho, died, leaving her without family, and she never fully recovered from the dissolution of her marriage. She compiled (but did not publish) The Summer of a Dormouse, a series of autobiographical essays. Their significance lies in her recollection of suffragist work with Adela Pankhurst
in 1909 and socialist contacts in the 1920s and 1930s such as Harold Laski
and H. G. Wells
. She polished her novel and gave it the title After which War?, but, like her play and the Schreiner biography, it remained unpublished. She died at her home, Sandycross, Ridgeway Road, Dorking
, Surrey, on 24 June 1971 and was cremated at Randall's Park crematorium, Leatherhead
, on 30 June.
Her papers are at the University of Hull
.http://www.hull.ac.uk/women-of-conviction/women_of_conviction/winifred-horrabin.html
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
Member of Parliament for Peterborough
Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency)
Peterborough is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, formally styled The Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past...
. He attempted to construct a socialist geography and was an associate of David Low
David Low
Sir David Alexander Cecil Low was a New Zealand political cartoonist and caricaturist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom for many years. Low was a self-taught cartoonist...
and George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
.
Born in Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
and educated at Stamford School
Stamford School
Stamford School is an English independent school situated in the market town of Stamford, Lincolnshire, England. It has been a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference since 1920.-History:...
, Horrabin was a prolific illustrator. He drew his first maps for The Daily News
News Chronicle
The News Chronicle was a British daily newspaper. It ceased publication on 17 October 1960, being absorbed into the Daily Mail. Its offices were in Bouverie Street, off Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 8DP, England.-Daily Chronicle:...
during the Balkan War
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, pitted the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success...
of 1912-13. After the First World War, having started as a newspaper strip cartoonist on the Sheffield Telegraph
Sheffield Telegraph
The Sheffield Telegraph is a weekly newspaper published in Sheffield, England.-History:Founded in 1855 as the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, it was the city's first daily newspaper, published at 08:00 each morning. The newspaper struggled until W. C...
, he went to London to work as art director for The Daily News; he also lectured on geography at the Central Labour College in London. He drew the illustrations for H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
' The Outline of History
The Outline of History
The Outline of History, subtitled either "The Whole Story of Man" or "Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind", is a book by H. G. Wells published in 1919...
. In 1919 he began his daily panel The Adventures of the Noah Family in The Daily News. The family strip cartoon was collected into several hard back books, most notably the Japhet and Happy
Japhet and Happy
Japhet and Happy was a British newspaper cartoon strip originally appeared as 'The Adventures of the Noah Family' initially in the Daily News during 1919 and transferred in 1930 to the News Chronicle. It was originated and drawn by J. F...
Annuals and Summer Books between 1932 and 1952. The Noah Family moved to The News Chronicle
News Chronicle
The News Chronicle was a British daily newspaper. It ceased publication on 17 October 1960, being absorbed into the Daily Mail. Its offices were in Bouverie Street, off Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 8DP, England.-Daily Chronicle:...
in 1930, and was continued into the 1940s. In 1922, Horrabin created the Dot and Carrie strip for The Star
The Star (London)
The Star was a London evening newspaper founded in 1788.The first edition was printed on 3 May 1788 under the editorship of Peter Stuart. Founding sponsors of the new paper included publisher John Murray and William Lane of the Minerva Press...
which was taken over by The Evening Post, continuing until 1962.
He was an active socialist in the Labour Party, Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
, and other leftwing groups and very involved in working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
education through the Plebs' League
Plebs' League
The Plebs' League was a British educational and political organisation which originated around Marxist ideals.Central to the formation of the League was Noah Ablett, a miner from the Rhondda who was at the core of a group at Ruskin College, Oxford who opposed the lecturers' opposition to Marxism...
and National Council of Labour Colleges. His 1923 text An Outline of Economic Geography, which sold in large numbers and was translated into nine other languages, attempted to provide workers with an account of economic (and political and historical) geography that used bourgeois “pure geography”, but put it within a socialist and historical–materialist framework. Unlike Germany and some other countries, England did not have a strong Marxist theoretical tradition, and Horrabin's approach does not develop theory (though it did attract the admiration of the German Marxist Karl Wittfogel). Rather, it set out to be engaged in practical political education. Horrabin's work was developed within a particular context, but his geographical writings (and pioneering political cartography) exemplify one way of linking geography with political practice. Many of his concerns find echoes in current radical geography, and his work deserves belated recognition and a place in the history of geography.
He was elected MP for Peterborough in 1929 under the premiership of the first Labour Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
, James Ramsay MacDonald, but lost his seat two years later at the General Election of 1931
United Kingdom general election, 1931
The United Kingdom general election on Tuesday 27 October 1931 was the last in the United Kingdom not held on a Thursday. It was also the last election, and the only one under universal suffrage, where one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast.The 1931 general election was the...
occasioned by the split in the party consequent on MacDonald forming a National Government. He was succeeded by David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter
David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter
David George Brownlow Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter KCMG , styled Lord Burghley before 1956 and also known as David Burghley, was an English athlete, sports official and Conservative Party politician...
, then Lord Burghley, another resident of Stamford.
In 1937, only a few months after its institution, an occasional political discussion programme appeared in the television schedules of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. This was 'News Map' which was usually presented by the former MP, who had taken up print journalism. 'News Map' did not leave the studio and it was mainly interested in foreign affairs stories. World events provided quite a few such stories for it to discuss.
His published works include The Workers History of the Great Strike (1927), written together with Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Cicely Wilkinson was the Labour Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough and later for Jarrow on Tyneside. She was one of the first women in Britain to be elected as a Member of Parliament .- History :...
MP and Raymond Postgate
Raymond Postgate
Raymond William Postgate was an English socialist, journalist and editor, social historian, mystery novelist and gourmet.-Early life:...
, Working-Class Education (1924), written with his wife Winifred, and several editions of An Atlas of Current Affairs (1934 onwards) for which he also drew the maps.
Wife Winifred
Horrabin's wife Winifred [née Batho] (1887–1971) used the pseudonym Freda Wynne. She was a socialist and journalist, born on 9 August 1887 in SheffieldSheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, the fourth of the six children (three died in infancy) of Arthur John Batho (1855/6–1891), postal telegraph clerk, and his wife, Lilian Outram (1858/9–1938). Her parents came from artisan families and were members of the Wicker Congregational Church. Her father sailed to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
on the SS Durban in 1890 hoping to cure his tuberculosis, but, shortly after being joined by his family, he died and was buried in Graaff-Reinet in May 1891.
Batho returned to Sheffield and attended the Central School, then the Sheffield School of Art from 1907 where she met James. Her political awakening reflected the legacy of her father's death; she became anti-Boer and felt a close affinity with the South African feminist and socialist Olive Schreiner
Olive Schreiner
Olive Schreiner was a South African author, anti-war campaigner and intellectual. She is best remembered today for her novel The Story of an African Farm which has been highly acclaimed ever since its first publication in 1883 for the bold manner in which it dealt with some of the burning issues...
, whose biography she began to write. Batho joined the Women's Social and Political Union
Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...
and disrupted a speech by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
in 1909 with the suffragettes' cry ‘votes for women’. She ‘converted’ to guild socialism "via William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
's art" and wrote a play, ‘Victorian Love Story: Beloved Good’, about Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
and his wife, Jane.
Winifred Batho and James Horrabin were married on 11 August 1911 and moved to London. Together they worked in the labour college movement: they favoured independent workers' education and published their views in Working Class Education in 1924. She acted as honorary secretary of the Plebs' League
Plebs' League
The Plebs' League was a British educational and political organisation which originated around Marxist ideals.Central to the formation of the League was Noah Ablett, a miner from the Rhondda who was at the core of a group at Ruskin College, Oxford who opposed the lecturers' opposition to Marxism...
, which was set up in 1908 to promote independent working class education and which was behind the creation of a Central Labour College
Central Labour College
The Central Labour College was a British higher education institution supported by trade unions. It functioned from 1909 to 1929.The college was formed as a result of the Ruskin College strike of 1909. The Plebs' League, which had been formed around a core of Marxist students and former students of...
in 1909 (designed to rival Ruskin College). The Central Labour College moved to London in 1911 and Horrabin organised a Women's League in 1913 to focus on the education of women workers. Both she and her husband wrote regularly for the journal, The Plebs, which Frank Horrabin edited.
Winifred joined the Communist Party and delivered a paper in 1912 to the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
in which she argued that only the destruction of private property would release women from economic slavery (Is Woman's Place the Home?, published 1933). During the First World War she began writing an autobiographical novel about a wartime love affair.
In the 1920s she became more internationalist and pacifist in her outlook. She visited Russia in 1926, meeting N. K. Krupskaya and making a pilgrimage to Lenin's tomb. In Poland she observed a mass trial of political dissidents. When her younger brother, Harold Batho, died from First World War injuries in 1932, she told the National Conference of Labour Women that the international working classes should resist war, choosing starvation over employment in munitions factories.
In 1937 she began reviewing films and books for The Tribune
The Tribune
The Tribune is an Indian English-language daily newspaper published from Chandigarh, New Delhi, Jalandhar, Dehradun and Bathinda. It was founded on 2 February 1881, in Lahore , by Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a public-spirited philanthropist, and is run by a trust comprising five eminent persons as...
(she continued until 1948), beginning a long career in journalism which included travel writing, social commentary, and short stories for journals such as Time and Tide. She had a weekly column in the Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...
from 1944 under the nom de plume of Freda Wynne. In 1938 Horrabin's mother died, Horrabin's novel was rejected by publishers, and she was diagnosed as having an ovarian cyst
Ovarian cyst
An ovarian cyst is any collection of fluid, surrounded by a very thin wall, within an ovary. Any ovarian follicle that is larger than about two centimeters is termed an ovarian cyst. An ovarian cyst can be as small as a pea, or larger than an orange....
. She underwent a hysterectomy
Hysterectomy
A hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus, usually performed by a gynecologist. Hysterectomy may be total or partial...
in February 1939. She moved to Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
at the outbreak of war and in March 1942 her husband, who was immersed in his second extramarital affair, asked for a separation. Despite knowledge of his adultery, she was devastated and sought psychoanalytical treatment. On 13 October 1947 the marriage was dissolved. Horrabin lived and worked for six months in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
before moving to Blackheath in 1950.
Horrabin's final years were marred by loneliness and a deep sense of failure. In 1951 her elder brother, Arthur (Artie) Denton Batho, died, leaving her without family, and she never fully recovered from the dissolution of her marriage. She compiled (but did not publish) The Summer of a Dormouse, a series of autobiographical essays. Their significance lies in her recollection of suffragist work with Adela Pankhurst
Adela Pankhurst
Adela Constantia Mary Pankhurst Walsh was a British-Australian suffragette, political organizer, and co-founder of both the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia First Movement....
in 1909 and socialist contacts in the 1920s and 1930s such as Harold Laski
Harold Laski
Harold Joseph Laski was a British Marxist, political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946, and was a professor at the LSE from 1926 to 1950....
and H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
. She polished her novel and gave it the title After which War?, but, like her play and the Schreiner biography, it remained unpublished. She died at her home, Sandycross, Ridgeway Road, Dorking
Dorking
Dorking is a historic market town at the foot of the North Downs approximately south of London, in Surrey, England.- History and development :...
, Surrey, on 24 June 1971 and was cremated at Randall's Park crematorium, Leatherhead
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...
, on 30 June.
Her papers are at the University of Hull
University of Hull
The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
.http://www.hull.ac.uk/women-of-conviction/women_of_conviction/winifred-horrabin.html