internationalism

Paul Robeson

About: 

Paul Leroy Robeson was born in 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, to  William Drew Robeson and Maria Louisa Bustill. In 1915 he enrolled at Rutgers College, New Jersey, and in 1920 he entered Columbia University Law School. In 1922 he married his life-long partner Eslanda 'Essie' Cardozo Goode, and the following year he graduated from Columbia. Robeson launched his acting career in 1920 - a career that brought him to London in 1922, and again in 1925 to star in the Eugene O'Neill Play, The Emperor Jones.

Robeson returned to London in April 1928 and spring 1930 to act in Show Boat and Othello, respectively. After a visit to Moscow in 1934, his political views became increasingly influenced by socialist and Communist ideals. He also started associating with key African figures such as Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah. In 1934, he acted in Alexander Korda's Sanders of the River, a performance he later repudiated as glorifying British imperialism. His repudiation of British imperialism and growing support of the working class was applauded by Stafford Cripps, the leading Labour politician. There is also evidence that Robeson attended a League of Coloured Peoples meeting, led by Harold Moody, in 1934 (Duberman, p. 624, n. 38).

In the mid-1930s, Robeson met Cedric Dover who broadcast on Robeson for BBC Radio to India. The talk is published in George Orwell's collection Talking to India (1943). In Half-Caste (1937), Dover lauded Robeson: 'To know him, to feel his charm and unusually wide culture, is a privilege; to hear him sing at a packed Albert Hall recital is a spiritual experience' (p. 226). In the late 1930s, Robeson met Krishna Menon, Secretary of the India League. Menon enlisted Robeson's support in the struggle for Indian independence. In January 1938, Robeson visited Spain to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. In June of that year, Robeson acted in Plant in the Sun. In the audience were Jawaharlal Nehru, his sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Krishna Menon who had just come back to London after touring Spain; the four of them became friends, and Robeson and Nehru met on several other occasions. On 27 June 1938, at the India League meeting in Kingsway Hall, Nehru and Robeson spoke on internationalism and the need for unified action against Fascism. Among the other speakers were Stafford Cripps, Harold Laski, Ellen Wilkinson and Rajani Palme Dutt.

Robeson's left-leaning politics were put to the test at the outbreak of the Second World War and the Nazi-Soviet agreement. He had discussed his views on the Soviet Union with other English socialists such as Harold Laski and George Bernard Shaw. Now in the United States, Robeson continued his socialist agitations and with the onset of the Cold War he was under surveillance, his passport was revoked and he was called before the Un-American Activities Committee. When his passport was returned in 1958, he immediately travelled to Europe again. In the 1960s, he went into semi-retirement and he died of a stroke on 23 January 1976 in Philadelphia.

Published works: 

Forge Negro-Labor Unity for Peace and Jobs (New York: Harlem Trade Union Council, 1950)

The Negro People and the Soviet Union (New York: New Century Publishers, 1950)

Here I Stand (London: Dennis Dobson, 1958)

Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, Interviews, 1918-1974 (London: Quartet Books, 1978)

Date of birth: 
09 Apr 1898
Contributions to periodicals: 

Daily Worker

Secondary works: 

Adi, Hakim, 'Robeson, Paul Leroy (1898-1976)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/67911]

Balaji, Murali, The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics of W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson (New York: Nation Books, 2007)

Boyle, Sheila Tully, and Bunie, Andrew, Paul Robeson: The Years of Promise and Acheivement (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001)

Brown, Lloyd L., Lift Every Voice for Paul Robeson (New York: Freedom Associates, 1951)

Brown, Lloyd L., Paul Robeson Rediscovered (New York: American Institute for Marxist Studies, 1976)

Brown, Lloyd L., The Young Paul Robeson: On My Journey Now (Boulder and Oxford: Westview Press, 1997)

Chambers, Colin, Here We Stand: Politics, Performers and Performance: Paul Robeson, Isadora Duncon and Charlie Chaplin (London: Nick Hern, 2006)

David, Lenwood D., A Paul Robeson Research Guide: A Selected Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1982)

Dorinson, Joseph, and Pencak, William, Paul Robeson: Essays on His Life and Legacy (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2002)

Dover, Cedric, 'Paul Robeson', in George Orwell (ed.), Talking to India (London: Allen & Unwin, 1943), pp. 17-21

Dover, Cedric, Half-Caste (London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1937)

Duberman, Martin B., Paul Robeson (London: Bodley Head, 1989)

Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986)

Fryer, Peter, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London: Pluto, 1984)

Gerlach, L. R., 'Robeson, Paul', in J. A. Garraty and M. C. Carnes (eds) American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 629-31

Gilliam, Dorothy Butler, Paul Robeson: All-American (Washington: New Republic, 1976)

Graham, Shirley, Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World (Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press, 1971)

Hamilton, Virginia, Paul Robeson: The Life and Times of a Free Black Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1974)

Horne, Gerald, The End of Empires; African Americans and India (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008; Chesham: Combined Academic, 2008)

Hoyt, Edwin P., Paul Robeson: The American Othello (World Publishing, 1967)

Kwayana, Eusi, Paul Robeson, 9 March 1898 - 23 January 1976: Tributes (London: Paul Robeson Society, 1990)

McKissack, Patricia, Paul Robeson: A Voice to Remember (Hillside, NJ, and Aldershot: Enslow, 1992)

Nazel, Joseph, Paul Robeson: Biography of a Proud Man (Los Angeles: Holloway House, 1980)

Paul Robeson: The Great Forerunner (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1978)

Ramdin, Ron, Paul Robeson: The Man and His Mission (London: Owen, 1987)

Robeson, Eslanda Goode, Paul Robeson: Negro (London: Victor Gollancz, 1930)

Robeson, Paul, Jr, The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist's Journey, 1898-1939 (New York and Chichester: Wiley, 2001)

Robeson, Susan, The Whole World in His Hands: A Pictorial History of Paul Robeson (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1981)

Seton, Marie, Paul Robeson (London: Dennis Dobson, 1958)

Stewart, Jeffrey C., Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Rutgers University Press, 1998)

Stuart, Marie, Paul Robeson (Bristol: West Bristol Adult Education Centre, 1993)

Thompson, Allan L., Paul Robeson: Artist and Activist: On Records, Radio and Television (Wellingborough: A. L. Thompson, 1998)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Von Eschen, Penny M., Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997)

Wright, Charles H., Robeson: Labor's Forgotten Champion (Detroit: Balamp Publishing, 1975)

Archive source: 

Robeson Family Archives, Moorland-Spingarn Research Centre, Howard University, Washington, DC

New York Public Library

Archive, Berlin, Germany

'Paul Robeson', BBC, 26 November 1978, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

Black on Black, LWT, 23 April 1985, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

'Songs of Freedom: Paul Robeson and the Black American Struggle', Mirus Productions, 3 June 1986, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

'Speak of Me as I Am', 7 June 1998, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

'Paul Robeson: Here I stand', WNET, 1999, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

Advertising film footage, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

Current affairs footage, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

Documentary footage, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

News footage, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

Performance footage, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

Performance recordings, National Sound Archive, British Library, St Pancras

City of birth: 
Princeton
Country of birth: 
United States of America
Other names: 

Paul Leroy Robeson

Date of death: 
23 Jan 1976
Location of death: 
Philadelphia
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1922
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1922, 1925, April 1928 - 29, 1930-9 (mostly in England and continental Europe)

Location: 

12 Glebe Place, Chelsea, London

Carlton Hill, St John's Wood, London

India League

About: 

The India League was a Britain-based organization whose aim was to campaign for full independence and self-government for India. The activist, lawyer and editor V. K. Krishna Menon was the driving force behind it. It evolved from the Commonwealth of India League (est. 1922) – which in turn evolved from Annie Besant’s Home Rule for India League (est. 1916). Menon became joint secretary of the Commonwealth of India League in 1928 and radicalized the organization, rejecting its objective of Dominion Status for the greater goal of full independence and alienating figures such as Besant in the process. It was in the early 1930s, with Menon at its helm, that the organization flourished, expanding into multiple branches across London and in a range of other British cities including Bournemouth, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Dublin, Hull, Lancashire, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Southampton and Wolverhampton.

The India League sought to raise consciousness among the British people of the injustice of British colonial rule in India and to mobilize them to protest against it. Organized into a range of committees, including a Women’s Committee and an Action Committee, its active members did so through a variety of means and on a voluntary, unpaid basis. For example, its Parliamentary Committee lobbied MPs – several of whom spoke on behalf of the League in the House of Commons – as well as arranging for Indians to address the House of Commons, and discussing policy based on events and opinion in India. Menon, as well as other members of the executive, addressed a variety of different audiences (workers, women’s groups, church-goers) throughout the country, and spoke at meetings hosted by several organizations including the Labour Party, the Communist Party, and the Fabian Society. The League also organized public meetings to celebrate 'Independence Day' and Tagore’s birthday, and to commemorate the Amritsar Massacre, for example. In addition, it published numerous pamphlets, treatises and newspaper articles on the plight of India, countering government propaganda and misinformation. Its own organs included Indian News (Newsindia) and the Information Bulletin.

The League’s activities were closely linked to events in India. Julius Silverman, former chair of the Birmingham branch, describes it as ‘the Sister Organization of the Congress Party in India’ (p. 844). The strength of this relationship was due in part to the friendship between Menon and Jawaharlal Nehru, and the League gave receptions for Nehru on his visits to England in the 1930s. While the League languished at the beginning of the Second World War, when Britain’s political focus lay elsewhere, the Quit India resolution in 1942 and subsequent jailing of Nehru, Gandhi and other Congress leaders saw an increase in the organization’s energy, as did the Bengal famine of 1943. In 1932, Krishna Menon formed an India League delegation with Monica Whately, Ellen Wilkinson and Leonard Matters to investigate conditions in India. Their findings, which included shocking details of political repression, torture and starvation, were published on their return and the book was banned in India.

The India League’s membership was largely elite and predominantly British, although several Indians and Ceylonese resident in or visiting England, including numerous students, did attend meetings. In order to attract more support among the South Asian working classes in Britain, the League established its East End branch in the early 1940s. The organization continued to function after independence, adapting its aims to forging strong links between India and Britain, as well as to working towards the emancipation of people across the globe. Indeed, despite its primary focus on India, the League was internationalist in its outlook throughout, perceiving India’s struggle for freedom as part of a larger struggle against imperialism and capitalism.

Published works: 

Brailsford, H. N., How it Looks from India

Bristol Branch, The Peril in India. A Reply to the Daily Mail

Condition of India: Being the Report of the Delegation Sent to India by the India League in 1932 (1933)

Conflict in India (1942)

Freeman, Peter, Our Duty to India

Graham, Margaret, India: Our Responsibilities

Indian National Congress, India Denounces British Imperialism; read the suppressed statement of All India Congress on Sept 14, 1939 (1939)

Kalam, Azad Abdul, India’s Choice (1940)

Menon, V. K. Krishna, Why Must India Fight? (1940)

Menon, V. K. Krishna, Britain’s Prisoner (1941)

Menon, V. K. Krishna, India, Britain and Freedom (1941)

Menon, V. K. Krishna, The Situation in India (1943)

Menon, V. K. Krishna, Unity with India against Fascism (1943)

Nehru, Jawaharlal, Peace and India (1938)

Nehru, Jawaharlal, The Parting of the Ways and the Viceroy–Gandhi Correspondence (1940)

Nehru, Jawaharlal, What India Wants (1942)

The Parable of a Conquered State

Plantation Labour in India, preface by A. A. Purcell

Rao, B. Shiva, Indian Labour and Self-Government

Sorensen, Reginald, Famine, Politics and Mr Amery (1944)

Example: 

L/PJ/12/448, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras, p. 216

Other names: 

Commonwealth of India League

Secondary works: 

Arora, K. C., Indian Natonalist Movement in Britain, 1930-1949 (New Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1992)

Chakravarty, Suhash, V. K. Krishna Menon and the India League, Vols 1 & 2 (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 1997)

Chakravarty, Suhash, Crusader Extraordinary: Krishna Menon and the India League, 1932–6 (New Delhi: India Research Press, 2006)

Silverman, Julius, ‘The India League’, in B. N. Pande (ed.) A Centenary History of the Indian National Congress, Vol. 3: 1935-1947 (New Delhi: All India Congress Committee/Vikas Publishing, 1985)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Content: 

This Indian Political Intelligence files documents the activities of the India League in the early 1930s. It has extensive documentation of the 1932 India League delegation to investigate conditions in India, in particular. The extract is taken from a letter from Bertrand Russell, chairman of the India League, addressed to Mr Butler of the India Office. It is dated 8 November 1932.

Date began: 
01 Jan 1928
Extract: 

I should be very glad if you could come to a small meeting on Monday evening, the 21st instant, at 8 pm, to meet the members of the India League Delegation on their return from India.

We are inviting a few people who are interested in India to hear the Delegates talk of their interesting experiences and to have an opportunity of discussing personally with them the present situation out there.

Mr and Mrs J. F. Horrabin have very kindly allowed us to hold this meeting in their house at 72, Gower Street, WC1.

[Annotation by India Office official]
The public meeting is to be on the 26th, I think, and any public counterblast should be issued either at it or simultaneously or both. I agree that this private meeting would be no good for counterpropaganda, but it would be useful to have a spy there.

Precise date began unknown: 
Y
Key Individuals' Details: 

Horace Alexander (exec), Bhicoo Batlivala (exec), Asha Bhattacharya (exec), K. C. Bhattacharya (exec), H. N. Brailsford (committee for action), Reginald Bridgeman (exec), Fenner Brockway (exec), P. S. Chaudhry (secretary, Dublin branch), A. J. Cook (exec), Lord Farringdon (exec), Peter Freeman (chair, 1930-2), Dr H. J. Handoo (exec), Mrs Jai Kshori Handoo (women’s committee), Gulab Hassan (secretary, Newcastle branch), George Hicks (parliamentary committee), J. F. Horrabin (vice-chair, early 1930s, committee for action), Winifred Horrabin (exec), George Lansbury (committee for action), Harold Laski (president, 1930-49, and committee for action), Fred Longden (exec), James Marley (secretary), Leonard Matters (1932 delegation to investigate conditions in India), V. K. Krishna Menon (hon. secretary, 1928-47; president, 1947-74), Syed Mohamedi (exec), Mrs Bimla Nehru (women’s committee), Brijlal Nehru (exec and chair of women’s committee), Miss M. Nicholson (exec), Anna Pollack (often acted as assistant secretary) Dhani Ram Prem (secretary, Birmingham branch), A. A. Purcell (Indian labour committee), Bertrand Russell (chair, 1932-9, committee for action), Julius Silverman (chair, Birmingham branch), Bridget Tunnard (administrative secretary, until 1971), Wilfred Wellcock (exec and women’s committee), Monica Whately (exec and 1932 delegation to investigate conditions in India), Anne C. Wilkinson (treasurer), Ellen Wilkinson (1932 delegation to investigate conditions in India), Tom Williams (parliamentary secretary and committee for action), Dorothy Woodman (committee for action), Commander Edgar Young (exec).

Relevance: 

Bertrand Russell’s authorship of this letter and the Horrabins’ hosting of the meeting emphasize the involvement of British intellectual and political figures in the campaign for Indian independence – and the success of Krishna Menon and the India League in attracting British involvement. It is suggestive of the cross-cultural interaction that took place in the left wing of the political sphere, transgressing racial and cultural boundaries, and the location of anti-imperial activism at the heart of empire. The annotation by the India Office official underlines the extent of their surveillance of anti-colonial activists, whether Indian or British.

Connections: 

Mulk Raj Anand, C. F. Andrews, Tarapada Basu, Annie Besant, Aneurin Bevan, P. C. Bhandari, Vera Brittain, B. B. Ray Chaudhuri, Mrs Ray Chaudhuri, Venu Chitale, Savitri Chowdhary, G. D. H. Cole, Jean Cole, Elizabeth Collard, A. J. Cook, Isabel Cripps, P. T. Dalal, S. K. Datta, R. J. Deshpande, Joseph Devli, Rajani Palme Dutt, Michael Foot, Feroze Gandhi, Indira Nehru, Pran Nath Haksar, Agatha Harrison, Laurence Housman, C. E. M. Joad, Sunder Kabadia, C. L. Katial, Dr Kumaria, Freda Laski, Professor Madhusudan, M. Majumdar, Kingsley Martin, Aubrey Menen, S. Menon-Marath, James Marley, S. P. Mitra, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajni Patel, Marion Phillips, H. L. Polak, Renuka Ray, Paul Robeson, Marie Seton, Krishnarao Shelvankar, Mary Shelvankar, Harbhajan Singh, Reval Singh, Marthe Sinha, Sasadhar Sinha, Donald Soper, Lady Sorensen, Reginald Sorensen, T. Subasinghe, J. P. Thompson, J. Vijaya-Tunga, S. A. Wickremasinghe.

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/448-56, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Krisha Menon Papers, Nehru Memorial Library and Museum, Teen Murti, New Delhi

‘India League Collection with Handbills, 1941-1960’, Serial No. 439, Nehru Memorial Library and Museum, Teen Murti, New Delhi

‘Documents Relating to the India League’, Miscellaneous Microform Collections, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge

Organization location: 
146 Strand, London; 165 Strand, London.

Location

146 Strand
London, WC2R 0PT
United Kingdom
Involved in events details: 

'Independence Day' and Republic Day (regular meetings)

Labour Party conferences

Simon Commission

Quit India Movement, 1942

 

Agatha Harrison

About: 

Agatha Harrison was a welfare worker, pacifist and Quaker, and dedicated to the struggle for Indian independence. Her father was a Methodist minister, and her mother the daughter of a portrait painter. Born in Berkshire, the family moved to Jersey and then, on Agatha’s father’s death, to Bristol, where she attended Redland High School, helping out at the school in exchange for the waiving of her fees. From the age of 16, she taught and assisted at Kent College, Folkestone, where she received training for the Froebel teaching certificate by night. She then turned to welfare work at Boots Chemist in Nottingham, and at Dairycoates, a tin box factory in Hull, where her role was to protect the interests of the women who worked there, negotiating fair wages and better working conditions on their behalf. In 1917 she was appointed welfare tutor at the London School of Economics. Three years later she travelled to China to conduct welfare work in factories there and to undertake an industrial survey.

In 1928, Agatha Harrison began working with the Women’s International League, an organization whose concerns included the relationship between India and Britain and which, to that end, welcomed representative Indian women visiting London and sent British representatives to sessions of the All-India Women’s Conference. She also accompanied the Royal Commission on Labour, as Beryl Power’s assistant, on their international tour which included a visit to India to inspect their factories, workshops and villages. Back in the UK, she helped C. F. Andrews in his preparation for Gandhi’s visit to attend the Second Round Table Conference in 1931, eventually becoming Andrews’ assistant. Thus began an extensive correspondence and working relationship with Gandhi. She worked hard to spread his message in Britain and accompanied his party on visits to the poor in India. She also made various trips to India as part of the India Conciliation Group where she visited jails and attended meetings with prominent political figures.

Agatha Harrison attended numerous India League meetings, also speaking at some of them, and was kept under surveillance by the Indian Political Intelligence. In May 1946, her name was added to the ‘stop list’ of people who should not be permitted to enter India without prior consultation. She died of an unsuspected heart condition in May 1954. Speaking at a tribute to her in London, Krishna Menon said of Harrison: ‘she had no office or title, and no flags were lowered for her, but all over India people honour her name’ (Harrison, p. 131).

Example: 

L/PJ/12/444, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras, pp. 2, 22

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1885
Content: 

1. Secret note on Agatha Harrison, 1932 (p. 2)

2. Secret note on Agatha Harrison, 17 September 1942 (p. 22)

Connections: 

Horace Alexander, L. S. Amery, C. F. Andrews, Mahadev Desai, Stafford Cripps, M. K. Gandhi, Lord Halifax, Carl Heath (Quaker), Edward Heath, Muriel Lester (accompanied Harrison on trip to India in 1934), V. K. Krishna Menon, Sarojini Naidu, Indira Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Rajendra Prasad, Sasadhar Sinha.

Independent Labour Party, Indian Conciliation Group, Peace Pledge Union, Society of Friends, Women's International League, YWCA.

Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Extract: 

1. I understand her to be sentimental, well-intentioned and harmless. A friend of mine who knows her recently described her as 'not capable of doing any harm or good. She is a worthy sort of person who distresses herself quite unnecessarily about the state of affairs in India'.

2. Briefly she is a high-souled crank who with the best intentions continually makes a nuisance of herself to those responsible for law and order, by encouraging extreme Indian nationalists whom she regarded as the blameless victims of brutal British imperialism.

Secondary works: 

Harrison, Irene, Agatha Harrison: An Impression by her Sister (London: Allen & Unwin, 1957)

Relevance: 

These descriptions of Agatha Harrison emphasize the role of gender in shaping discourses about political activists involved in the struggle for Indian independence. The mismatch between the dismissive and infantilizing tone of the official reports and the activities carried out by Harrison as well as her close links with Gandhi and Menon is particularly instructive in this regard. This also points to the unusualness of a woman involved in political activism. Harrison’s involvement with both the rights of working women in Britain and the mobilization for Indian independence highlights the connections between these different struggles.

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/444, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events: 

India League meetings

City of birth: 
Sandhurst, Berks
Country of birth: 
England
Date of death: 
10 May 1954
Location of death: 
Geneva, Switzerland
Location: 

2 Cranbourne Court, Albert Bridge Road, London (1935)

Henry Moore

About: 

Born in the mining town of Castleford in West Yorkshire, Henry Moore gained an international reputation during his lifetime for his prolific work as a sculptor. He began his formal training in Leeds and was the first sculpture student at the Leeds School of Art. He was introduced to a wide range of art whilst still in Yorkshire, first through his school teacher, Alice Gostick, and then via his acquaintance with Sir Michael Sadler, the Vice Chancellor of Leeds University, who was a collector of modern art.

His studies were interrupted by the First World War when he was called up to fight at the age of eighteen, serving in the Civil Service Rifles, 11th London Regiment. After the war, he moved to London to study and teach at the Royal College of Art after being awarded a scholarship. Moore’s artistic imagination was fired by frequent trips to the collections of the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Zwemmer’s bookshop. A travelling scholarship also enabled him to visit Italy and France in 1924 where he visited numerous museums. He was particularly captivated by an Indian sculpture he saw at the Musée Guimet in Paris and wrote in an excited letter that it was one of the finest pieces of sculpture he had ever seen. The sculpture from India, Africa and Oceania, which Moore encountered through his trips to museums and in the books which he collected, undoubtedly shaped his sculptural oeuvre which was based predominantly on the human body. Moore also credited Roger Fry’s book Vision and Design, which examined art from beyond Europe, as having a profound impact on him. In the 1920s and 1930s, Moore’s reputation was confirmed with solo exhibitions and public commissions.

In the 1930s, he was involved with an international group of artists based in London — many of them émigrés of the Second World War — who promoted the idea of abstract art as a universal language. Other artists who he was close to at this time include Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo, Paul Nash and his lifelong supporter, the poet, writer and critic Herbert Read. Moore’s reputation as an international figure was cemented in the 1940s with the publication of his Shelter Drawings depicting London’s populace seeking protection underground from the Blitz. Moore was friends with the poet and editor Tambimuttu, whose Poetry London Editions published Moore’s Shelter Sketch-Book in 1945. He also contributed a lively and colourful front cover depicting two lyre birds for the magazine Poetry London (no. 8, 1942).

After the war, Moore’s work was exhibited all over the world and he was enthusiastically promoted by the British Council in particular. He also executed prestigious commissions, such as the 1958 Reclining Figure outside the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and his work and name have become associated with post-war internationalism. Perry Green in Hertfordshire had been home to Moore’s family and his workshops and studios since 1940 and houses the Henry Moore Foundation today.

Published works: 

Shelter Sketch-Book (London: Editions Poetry London, 1945)

Date of birth: 
30 Jul 1898
Connections: 

Herbert Read, Sir Michael Sadler, M.J.Tambimuttu.

Contributions to periodicals: 

Poetry London 8 (1942)

Secondary works: 

A good reference guide is:

Davis, Alexander (ed.), Henry Moore: Bibliography (Henry Moore Foundation, published in 5 volumes between 1992 and 1995)

Archive source: 

The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, Much Hadham, Hertfordshire

The Henry Moore Institute Archive, Leeds

BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park, Reading (written transcripts of BBC interviews)

British Museum (Shelter Sketch-Book)

Letters and correspondence, Tate Gallery Archives

British Council Papers, National Archives, Kew

Letters and photographs, Dartington Hall Archives

University of Leeds Special Collections

City of birth: 
Castleford, near Leeds
Country of birth: 
England
Other names: 

Henry Spencer Moore

Date of death: 
31 Aug 1986
Location: 

Castleford

Leeds

London

Much Hadham (Hertfordshire)

Tags for Making Britain: 

H. G. Wells

About: 

H. G. Wells was an author, intellectual and social commentator. Marking the transition from the Victorian to the Modern era, he made his name as the writer of utopian and dystopian science fiction novels. In later years he became increasingly noticed as a  social commentator, which would overshadow his career as a playwright and novelist. His connections with South Asians in the UK were tentative; however Wells was incredibly well connected to a number of networks that had extensive links to the South Asian community in Britain, most notably through the Fabian Society.

Wells was openly critical of British imperialism. After the massacre at Amritsar in 1919, Wells concluded that the incident was an example of the failures of the British imperial system, which had not fostered interaction between the British colonial masters and Indian subjects. He concluded that ‘no race is fit to have the upper hand over any other race; the possession of the upper hand leads at best to an inconsiderate self-righteousness and at the worst to an extreme contempt and cruelty’ (quoted in Foot, p. 195).

H. G. Wells’s writings influenced the young dramatist and novelist Aubrey Menen, who was granted permission by Wells to adapt The Shape of Things to Come for his drama society while studying at the University of London. Wells was impressed by the young Menen and deliberately risked a confrontation with the film producer Alexander Korda, who had just acquired the film rights for the novel. Wells’s A Short History of the World provoked a hostile reaction among South Asians in Britain. The  Jamiat-ul-Muslimin organized protests against the book in 1938 leading the Indian High Commissioner Firoz Khan Noon to intervene.

In 1941, Bhicoo Batlivala approached Wells to speak on the Subject Charter at the India League meeting in October. Krishna Menon sought to enlist Wells’s support on the question of Indian independence and to raise the profile of his pressure group. In 1941 Wells had written an open letter to Sir Hari Singh Gour, who had sent him his pamphlet ‘Truth About India’. In the letter Wells highlighted the ill-treatment of Nehru and called for Indian self-determination. Wells was particularly interested in the treatment of Nehru and sent a number of letters to the India Office in 1941. However their response was less than satisfactory. Wells was privately engaged in conversations with Lord Amery, Secretary of State for India, about Nehru, worried about his treatment as a political prisoner. This had led Bhicoo Batlivala to pursue Wells on behalf of Menon. She persuaded Wells to attend a private India League meeting to discuss the position of India and the Atlantic Charta, held at the Savoy Hotel on 23 October 1941, after he had declined invitations to speak at one of the organization's public meetings. From 1934 to 1946, Wells was the President of the writers’ organization International PEN.  Wells died in London on 13 August 1946.

Published works: 

Selected published works:

The Stolen Bacillus, and Other Incidents (London: Methuen & Co., 1895)

The Wonderful Visit (London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1895)

The Island of Doctor Moreau (London: W. Heinemann, 1896)

The Wheels of Chance: A Holiday Adventure, etc. (London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1896)

The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance (London: C. A. Pearson, 1897)

The Plattner Story, and Others (London: Methuen & Co., 1897)

The War of the Worlds (London: W. Heinemann, 1898)

God The Invisible King (London: Cassell, 1917) [mentions Rabindranath Tagore's poetry]

The World Set Free: Essays (London: Ernest Benn, 1927)

Date of birth: 
21 Sep 1866
Secondary works: 

Foot, Michael, H. G.: The Story of Mr Wells (London: Doubleday, 1995)

Parrinder, Patrick., H. G. Wells (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1970)

Parrinder, Patrick (ed.), H.G. Wells: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972)

Parrinder, Patrick (ed.), H. G. Wells: Literary Criticism (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980)

Parrinder, Patrick, ‘Wells, Herbert George (1866–1946)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36831]

Involved in events: 

Attended East India Association lecture given by Mrs N. C. Sen on Tagore at Caxton Hall on 29 May 1917.

City of birth: 
Bromley
Country of birth: 
England
Other names: 

Herbert George Wells

Date of death: 
13 Aug 1946
Location of death: 
London, England
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