New Britain Movement Explained
The New Britain Movement was a short lived political organization in 1930s Britain. It advocated a heterogeneous collection of political ideas including guild socialism, European federalism as a first step to world Federalism, a three way parliament based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and a monetary reform that would abolish banks. By the end of 1933 it grew to 77 branches, and its eponymous weekly newspaper had a circulation of 32,000 copies. However the group soon split into four different factions and dissolved in 1935.[1] [2]
History
The movement was spun out from periodicals edited by Alfred Orage, and proposed a social state, the conception of which was influenced by Benchara Branford, brother of Victor Branford.[3] [4] The quarterly New Britain was launched in 1933 with articles by Gerald Heard, Frederick Soddy, and George Scott Williamson, and essays by Samuel George Hobson and Philip Mairet.[5] New Britain Weekly was then launched in May 1933.[6]
Among those involved as organisers were George Catlin, Hobson and J. T. Murphy.[1] W. J. Brown, a Member of Parliament who declared himself an independent, joined the movement as Catlin did, via the New Party.[7]
For a time John Macmurray was prominent in the movement, with Williamson and others such as Aubrey Thomas Westlake (1893–1985), like Williamson a physician, who went on to involvement in the early days of British organic farming.[8] Membership overlapped with a number of groups of the time with similar aims, in the case of Westlake with Grith Fyrd.[9]
Among its successors were the House of Industry League, involving Hobson;[10] and the People's Front Propaganda Committee, involving Murphy.[11]
Notes and References
- Book: Barberis . Peter . McHugh . John . Tyldesley . Mike . Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century . 1 January 2000 . A&C Black . 978-0-8264-5814-8 . 355 . en.
- Europe in Love, Love in Europe: Imagination and Politics in Britain Between the Wars London : Tauris, 1999 pp.130-1
- Book: Scott . John . Bromley . Ray . Envisioning Sociology: Victor Branford, Patrick Geddes, and the Quest for Social Reconstruction . 19 April 2013 . SUNY Press . 978-1-4384-4732-2 . 205 . en.
- 97276. John. Scott. Branford, Benchara Bertrand Patrick (1867–1944).
- New Britain . Nature . 1 March 1933 . 131 . 3306 . 358 . 10.1038/131358c0 . 1933Natur.131S.358. . 4075231 . en . 1476-4687. free .
- Book: Rigby . Andrew . Dimitrije Mitrinović: A Biography . 2006 . William Sessions Limited . 978-1-85072-334-9 . 150 . en.
- Worley . Matthew . What Was the New Party? Sir Oswald Mosley and Associated Responses to the 'Crisis', 1931–1932 . History . 2007 . 92 . 1 (305) . 57 note 103 . 10.1111/j.1468-229X.2007.00385.x . 24428698 .
- Web site: Conford . Philip. 81 note 9 . Organic society: agriculture and radical politics in the career of Gerard Wallop, ninth Earl of Portsmouth (1898–1984) . bahs.org.uk. 2005.
- Book: Costello . John E. . John Macmurray: A Biography . 2002 . Floris Books . 978-0-86315-361-7 . 204 . en.
- Book: Barberis . Peter . McHugh . John . Tyldesley . Mike . Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century . 1 January 2000 . A&C Black . 978-0-8264-5814-8 . 353 . en.
- Book: Barberis . Peter . McHugh . John . Tyldesley . Mike . Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century . 1 January 2000 . A&C Black . 978-0-8264-5814-8 . 356 . en.