Rolf Gardiner
Encyclopedia
Henry Rolf Gardiner was an English rural revivalist and sympathizer with Nazism
. He was founder of groups significant in the British history of organic farming
, as well being a participant in inter-war far right
politics.
, London and brought up when young mostly in Berlin
. He was educated at West Downs school from 1913, Rugby School
, and then at Bedales School
. He was a student at St John's College, Cambridge
, where he was a member of the Kibbo Kift
.
Initially he was a youth leader, involved in exchanges with Germany. He was heavily influenced in the 1920s by D. H. Lawrence
; he visited Lawrence in Switzerland in 1928, and has been called his first genuine "disciple".
At this period he was also much concerned with English folk dance
, and convinced morris dance
revivalist Mary Neal
that morris was an essentially masculine form. He founded the Travelling Morrice in 1924, with Arthur Heffer, having taken a team of English dancers to Germany in 1922, and in 1923 met a few of the surviving dancers while walking in the Cotswolds
with the poet Christopher Scaife. Gardiner was not, however, a founder of the Morris Ring
, set up in 1934.
, with conifers and beech trees. Here he set up a support group, the Gore Kinship.
He married Marabel Hodgkin in 1932; she was the daughter of the Irish fabric designer Florence Hodgkin. In 1933 he and Marabel bought the estate at Springhead, Dorset. They developed the Springhead Ring as a crafts network, as well as farming the estate. It also hosted much musical activity. On Gardiner's death the Springhead Trust was formed.
The family owned tea-growing estates in Nyasaland
(now in Thyolo District
, Malawi), known as the Nchima Tea and Tung Estate, of which Gardiner became chairman. Gardiner was active in the 1950s in dealing with colonial officials, with a view to conserving the underlying land. He had written about erosion
in Nyasaland and Uganda
already in the 1930s, in the New English Weekly. The Estate became a Trust in 1962.
. In Gardiner's time it became internationally oriented and Germanophile, and his own political interests turned to Social Credit
. He also published articles by John Hargrave
with whom he had associated in the Kibbo Kift.. After its split from the Woodcraft Folk, Kibbo Kift was in transition, en route for the Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
("Green Shirts").
It has been suggested that Gardiner moved from the ideas of guild socialism and social credit, current in the circle of A. R. Orage, towards a search for a masculine brotherhood, through his involvement in the "folk revival". His views of folk music and dance have been called "fundamentalist". In any case he took up with and formed small groups, rather than political organisations.
Gardiner later broke with Hargrave, of whom Lawrence disapproved. In 1929 Gardiner was writing with approval in the Times Literary Supplement of the Jugendbewegung (German Youth Movement
) and its anti-scientific outlook. He debated the German Youth Movement in 1934 with Leslie Paul
, in the pages of The Adelphi.
In a series of publications from 1928 he articulated racial theories (Baltic peoples versus Mediterranean peoples) and the need for national reversals of "impoverishment" of the stock. It has been said that he was an "ecocentric" looking for a united and pagan England and Germany, and a supporter of Nazi pro-ruralist policies. He expressed anti-Semitic views from 1933, writing first in German.
He was a member of the English Mistery
, and then of the English Array, formed in 1936. Writing in the Array's Quarterly Gazette, Gardiner was an apologist for German "leadership" in Central Europe, dictatorships, and "racial regeneration". He later wrote for the periodical New Pioneer set up in December 1938 by Lord Lymington
and John Beckett, as a pro-German and anti-Semitic organ.
After World War II
, he kept in touch with Richard Walther Darré, an SS man and NSDAP agriculture minister of the Nazi era.
and Gerald Wallop, Lord Lymington the Kinship in Husbandry, a group of a dozen men with an interest in rural revival. It was a precursor organisation of the Soil Association
, which was set up in 1946.
Original members were: Adrian Bell
, Edmund Blunden
, Arthur Bryant
, J. E. Hosking, Douglas Kennedy, Philip Mairet
, Lord Northbourne, Robert Payne
, C. Henry Warren.
The group first met in Edmund Blunden's rooms at Merton College, Oxford
, in September 1941. They drew ideas from agricultural experts: Albert Howard
, Robert McCarrison
, George Stapledon
and G. T. Wrench.
Other members were:
In official eyes, this grouping or think-tank was treated with less suspicion than its correlated far-right political organisations. It had some effect on agricultural policy, particularly in relation to self-sufficiency. It also had an impact on the thinking of the Rural Reconstruction Association
founded in 1935 by Montague Fordham
, and the Biodynamic Association.
, mother of Martin Bernal
, was his sister..
The composer Henry Balfour Gardiner
was his uncle (the folk-song collector George Barnet Gardiner, with whom Balfour Gardiner worked, was however not a relation). The conductor John Eliot Gardiner
is his son.
The artist Howard Hodgkin
is another grandson of Florence Hodgkin. Marabel's father was Stanley Howard Hodgkin, a first cousin of Roger Fry
, through Mariabella Hodgkin who married Edward Fry
.
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
. He was founder of groups significant in the British history of organic farming
Organic farming
Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
, as well being a participant in inter-war far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
politics.
Early life
He was born in FulhamFulham
Fulham is an area of southwest London in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, SW6 located south west of Charing Cross. It lies on the left bank of the Thames, between Putney and Chelsea. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
, London and brought up when young mostly in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He was educated at West Downs school from 1913, Rugby School
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
, and then at Bedales School
Bedales School
Bedales School is a co-educational independent school situated in Hampshire, in the south east of England. Founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventional Victorian schools, today the school is one of the most expensive in the UK, charging £9,985 per term for a...
. He was a student at St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
, where he was a member of the Kibbo Kift
Kibbo Kift
The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift was a youth organisation in England from 1920 to 1951.-Origins:The organisation was founded by the charismatic Englishman John Hargrave , artist, author and Boy Scout Commissioner for Woodcraft and Camping, who had become disenchanted with the increasingly militaristic...
.
Initially he was a youth leader, involved in exchanges with Germany. He was heavily influenced in the 1920s by D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
; he visited Lawrence in Switzerland in 1928, and has been called his first genuine "disciple".
At this period he was also much concerned with English folk dance
Folk dance
The term folk dance describes dances that share some or all of the following attributes:*They are dances performed at social functions by people with little or no professional training, often to traditional music or music based on traditional music....
, and convinced morris dance
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
revivalist Mary Neal
Mary Neal
Mary Neal CBE , born Clara Sophia Neal, was an English social worker and collector of English folk dances....
that morris was an essentially masculine form. He founded the Travelling Morrice in 1924, with Arthur Heffer, having taken a team of English dancers to Germany in 1922, and in 1923 met a few of the surviving dancers while walking in the Cotswolds
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
with the poet Christopher Scaife. Gardiner was not, however, a founder of the Morris Ring
Morris Ring
The Morris Ring is one of three umbrella groups for Morris dance sides in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1934 by 6 sides: Greensleeves, Cambridge, East Surrey, Letchworth, Oxford and Thaxted. They meet several times a year, each Ring Meeting being hosted by a different member side...
, set up in 1934.
Landowner
He took over Gore Farm in Dorset, bought by Henry Balfour Gardiner in 1924, from 1927, and continued what became a large-scale forestation project, based on training he had received at Dartington HallDartington Hall
The Dartington Hall Trust, near Totnes, Devon, United Kingdom is a charity specialising in the arts, social justice and sustainability.The Trust currently runs 16 charitable programmes, including The Dartington International Summer School and Schumacher Environmental College...
, with conifers and beech trees. Here he set up a support group, the Gore Kinship.
He married Marabel Hodgkin in 1932; she was the daughter of the Irish fabric designer Florence Hodgkin. In 1933 he and Marabel bought the estate at Springhead, Dorset. They developed the Springhead Ring as a crafts network, as well as farming the estate. It also hosted much musical activity. On Gardiner's death the Springhead Trust was formed.
The family owned tea-growing estates in Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....
(now in Thyolo District
Thyolo District
The Thyolo district of Malawi is one of the districts in Malawi. The capital is Thyolo. The district covers an area of 1,715 km.² and has a population of 458,976...
, Malawi), known as the Nchima Tea and Tung Estate, of which Gardiner became chairman. Gardiner was active in the 1950s in dealing with colonial officials, with a view to conserving the underlying land. He had written about erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
in Nyasaland and Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
already in the 1930s, in the New English Weekly. The Estate became a Trust in 1962.
Politics of the far right
He was editor of the magazine Youth from 1923, when still a student. It had been founded in 1920, and at that point was left-leaning and supported guild socialismGuild socialism
Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds. It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was strongly associated with G. D. H...
. In Gardiner's time it became internationally oriented and Germanophile, and his own political interests turned to Social Credit
Social Credit
Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...
. He also published articles by John Hargrave
John Hargrave
John Gordon Hargrave , nicknamed 'White Fox', was one of the leading figures in the Social Credit movement in British politics.-Early life:...
with whom he had associated in the Kibbo Kift.. After its split from the Woodcraft Folk, Kibbo Kift was in transition, en route for the Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was a political party in the United Kingdom. It grew out of the Kibbo Kift, which was established in 1920 as a more craft-based alternative for youth to the Boy Scouts....
("Green Shirts").
It has been suggested that Gardiner moved from the ideas of guild socialism and social credit, current in the circle of A. R. Orage, towards a search for a masculine brotherhood, through his involvement in the "folk revival". His views of folk music and dance have been called "fundamentalist". In any case he took up with and formed small groups, rather than political organisations.
Gardiner later broke with Hargrave, of whom Lawrence disapproved. In 1929 Gardiner was writing with approval in the Times Literary Supplement of the Jugendbewegung (German Youth Movement
German Youth Movement
The German Youth Movement is a collective term for a cultural and educational movement that started in 1896. It consists of numerous associations of young people that focus on outdoor activities. The movement included German Scouting and the Wandervogel...
) and its anti-scientific outlook. He debated the German Youth Movement in 1934 with Leslie Paul
Leslie Paul
Leslie Allen Paul was an Anglo-Irish writer and founder of the Woodcraft Folk.-Life:Born in Dublin in April 1905, Leslie Paul grew up in South East London...
, in the pages of The Adelphi.
In a series of publications from 1928 he articulated racial theories (Baltic peoples versus Mediterranean peoples) and the need for national reversals of "impoverishment" of the stock. It has been said that he was an "ecocentric" looking for a united and pagan England and Germany, and a supporter of Nazi pro-ruralist policies. He expressed anti-Semitic views from 1933, writing first in German.
He was a member of the English Mistery
English Mistery
The English Mistery was a political and esoteric group active in the United Kingdom of the 1930s. A "Conservative fringe group" in favour of bringing back the feudal system, its views have been characterised as "reactionary ultra-royalist, anti-democratic"...
, and then of the English Array, formed in 1936. Writing in the Array's Quarterly Gazette, Gardiner was an apologist for German "leadership" in Central Europe, dictatorships, and "racial regeneration". He later wrote for the periodical New Pioneer set up in December 1938 by Lord Lymington
Gerard Wallop, 9th Earl of Portsmouth
Gerard Vernon Wallop, 9th Earl of Portsmouth , styled Viscount Lymington from 1925 until 1943, was a British landowner, writer on agricultural topics, and politician.-Early life:...
and John Beckett, as a pro-German and anti-Semitic organ.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he kept in touch with Richard Walther Darré, an SS man and NSDAP agriculture minister of the Nazi era.
Kinship in Husbandry
In 1941 he formed with H. J. MassinghamH. J. Massingham
Harold John Massingham was a prolific British writer on matters to do with the countryside and agriculture. He was also a published poet.-Life:...
and Gerald Wallop, Lord Lymington the Kinship in Husbandry, a group of a dozen men with an interest in rural revival. It was a precursor organisation of the Soil Association
Soil Association
The Soil Association is a charity based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1946, it has over 27,000 members today. Its activities include campaign work on issues including opposition to intensive farming, support for local purchasing and public education on nutrition; as well the certification of...
, which was set up in 1946.
Original members were: Adrian Bell
Adrian Bell
Adrian Bell was an English journalist and farmer, who was the first compiler of The Times crossword.-Life:The son of a newspaper editor, he was born in London and educated at Uppingham School in Rutland...
, Edmund Blunden
Edmund Blunden
Edmund Charles Blunden, MC was an English poet, author and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was also a reviewer for English publications and an academic in Tokyo and later Hong Kong...
, Arthur Bryant
Arthur Bryant
Sir Arthur Wynne Morgan Bryant, CH, CBE , was a British historian and a columnist for the Illustrated London News. His books included studies of Samuel Pepys, accounts of English eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history, and a life of George V...
, J. E. Hosking, Douglas Kennedy, Philip Mairet
Philip Mairet
Philip Mairet was a designer, writer and journalist. He had a wide range of interest: crafts, Alfred Adler and psychiatry, and Social Credit. He was also a translator of major figures including Sartre. He wrote biographies of Sir Patrick Geddes and A. R...
, Lord Northbourne, Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Robert Payne may refer to:*Robert Payne , MP for Gloucester*Pierre Stephen Robert Payne , aka Robert Payne, English novelist, historian and biographer*Robert Payne , American ornithologist and professor...
, C. Henry Warren.
The group first met in Edmund Blunden's rooms at Merton College, Oxford
Merton College, Oxford
Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
, in September 1941. They drew ideas from agricultural experts: Albert Howard
Albert Howard
Sir Albert Howard was an English botanist, an organic farming pioneer, and a principal figure in the early organic movement. He is considered by many in the English-speaking world as the father of modern organic agriculture....
, Robert McCarrison
Robert McCarrison
Sir Robert McCarrison, MA, MD, DSc, LLD, FRCP was a Northern Ireland physician and nutritionist, who was made a Companion of the Indian Empire in 1923, received a knighthood in July 1933, and was appointed as Honourable Physician to the King in 1935.McCarrison was born in Portadown, in County...
, George Stapledon
George Stapledon
Sir Reginald George Stapledon FRS was an English grassland scientist and pioneer environmentalist.-Early life:...
and G. T. Wrench.
Other members were:
- Laurence Easterbrook
- Jorian JenksJorian JenksJorian Edward Forwood Jenks was an English farmer, environmentalism pioneer and fascist. He has been described as "one of the most dominant figures in the development of the organic movement".-Early life:...
In official eyes, this grouping or think-tank was treated with less suspicion than its correlated far-right political organisations. It had some effect on agricultural policy, particularly in relation to self-sufficiency. It also had an impact on the thinking of the Rural Reconstruction Association
Rural Reconstruction Association
The Rural Reconstruction Association was a British agricultural reform movement established in 1926 with Montague Fordham as its Council Secretary, a post he held for 20 years....
founded in 1935 by Montague Fordham
Montague Fordham
Montague Edward Fordham was an English agriculturalist and advocate of rural reform. He belonged to the Religious Society of Friends....
, and the Biodynamic Association.
Works
- The Second Coming and Other Poems, 1919-1921 (Vienna 1921)
- Britain and Germany. A Frank Discussion instigated by Members of the Younger Generation (1928) editor with Heinz Rocholl
- World Without End: British politics and the younger generation (1932)
- England Herself: Ventures in Rural Restoration (1943)
- Water Springing from the Ground: an anthology of the writings of Rolf Gardiner (1972) editor Andrew Best
Family
His father was Alan Henderson Gardiner, the Egyptologist. His mother Hedwig, née von Rosen, was Austrian, though with a Jewish father and Swedish-Finnish mother. Margaret GardinerMargaret Gardiner (artist)
Margaret Gardiner was a radical modern British artist and resident of Hampstead, London, from 1932, where she was also a left wing political activist. She was also for a time the partner of Professor John Desmond Bernal the eminent scientist and political activist...
, mother of Martin Bernal
Martin Bernal
Martin Gardiner Bernal is a Professor Emeritus of Government and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. He is a scholar of modern Chinese political history...
, was his sister..
The composer Henry Balfour Gardiner
Henry Balfour Gardiner
Henry Balfour Gardiner was an English musician, composer, and teacher. Between his conventional education at Charterhouse School and New College, Oxford, where he obtained only a pass degree, Gardiner was a piano student at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main where he was taught by Knorr...
was his uncle (the folk-song collector George Barnet Gardiner, with whom Balfour Gardiner worked, was however not a relation). The conductor John Eliot Gardiner
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
is his son.
The artist Howard Hodgkin
Howard Hodgkin
Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin CH, CBE is a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction.-Early life:...
is another grandson of Florence Hodgkin. Marabel's father was Stanley Howard Hodgkin, a first cousin of Roger Fry
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry was an English artist and art critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism...
, through Mariabella Hodgkin who married Edward Fry
Edward Fry
Sir Edward Fry GCB, GCMG, PC, FRS , was a judge in the British Court of Appeal and also an arbitrator on the International Permanent Court of Arbitration. He was a Quaker, son of Joseph Fry and Mary Ann Swaine....
.