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H. N. Brailsford

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H. N. Brailsford
Born
Henry Noel Brailsford

(1873-12-25)25 December 1873
Mirfield,West Riding of Yorkshire,England
Died23 March 1958(1958-03-23)(aged 84)
Acton, London,England
Occupation(s)Journalist, writer

Henry Noel Brailsford(25 December 1873 – 23 March 1958) was an English journalist and writer, considered one of the most prolificleft-wingjournalistsof thefirst half of the 20th century.A founding member of theMen's League for Women's Suffragein 1907, he resigned from his job atThe Daily Newsin 1909 when it supported theforce-feedingofsuffragettesonhunger strike.

Early life

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The son of aWesleyan Methodistminister, Brailsford was born in theWest Riding of Yorkshireand educated at theHigh School of Dundeein Scotland.[citation needed]

Career in journalism

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Brailsford abandoned an academic career to become a journalist, rising to prominence in the 1890s as aforeign correspondentforThe Manchester Guardian,specialising in theBalkans,France and Egypt.[citation needed]

In 1899 he moved to London, working for theMorning Leaderand thenThe Daily News.He led a British relief mission toMacedoniain 1903, publishing a book,Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future,on his return. In the book, Brailsford took a pro-Bulgarian stance.[1][2][3][4]

In 1905 he was convicted of conspiring to obtain a British passport in the name of one person for another person to travel to Russia.[5]

TheMen's League for Women's Suffragewas formed in 1907 in London by Brailsford,Charles Corbett,Henry Nevinson,Laurence Housman,C. E. M. Joad,Hugh Franklin,Henry Harben,Gerald Gould,Charles Mansell-Moullin,Israel Zangwilland 32 others.[6]Brailsford joined theIndependent Labour Partyin 1907 and resigned fromThe Daily Newsin 1909 when it supportedforce-feeding of suffragetteprisoners. He co-authored with DrJessie Murray,apsychologistandsuffragette,a reportThe Treatment of Women's Deputations by the Metropolitan Police,[7]over the violence of the Metropolitan Police during theBlack Fridaydemonstration (18 November 1910).[8]Over the next decade he wrote several books, among themAdventures in Prose(1911),Shelley,Godwinand their Circle(1913),War of Steel and Gold(1914),Origins of the Great War(1914),Belgium and the Scrap of Paper(1915) andA League of Nations(1917).[citation needed]

In 1913–14 Brailsford was a member of the international commission sent by theCarnegie Endowment for International Peaceto investigate the conduct of theBalkan Warsof 1912–13. He co-authored its report.[9]

He was a prominent member of theUnion of Democratic Controlduring the First World War and stood unsuccessfully as aLabour Partycandidate in the1918 general election.He subsequently touredcentral Europeand his graphic accounts of life in the defeated countries appeared in his booksAcross the Blockade(1919) andAfter the Peace(1920).[citation needed]

Brailsford went toSovietRussiain 1920 and again to the USSR in 1926, publishing two books on the subject. He was editor of theNew Leader,theILPnewspaper, from 1922 to 1926. He left the ILP in 1932 and through the 1930s was a regular contributor toReynold's Newsand theNew Statesman.Brailsford was an outspoken critic ofMussolini's ItalyandHitler's Germany.[10]

His books in the 1930s include the anti-colonialist classicRebel India(1931) and the anti-militaristProperty or Peace?(1934). In the late 1930s, he was one of the few writers associated with theLeft Book Club,theNew StatesmanandTribunewho was consistently critical of the Sovietshow trials.[11]

Following theSoviet invasion of Finland,Brailsford published a hostile essay about Stalin in the left-wingReynold's News:

Stalin... has compelled us to pass the judgement we had hitherto refused to register. His Russia is a totalitarian state, like another, as brutal towards the rights of others, as careless of its plighted word. If this man ever understood the international creed of socialism, he long ago forgot it. In this land the absolute power has wrought its customary effects of corruption.[12]

During the Second World War, Brailsford penned a weekly column inReynold's News.He also continued to write books, the most important beingSubject India(1943) andOur Settlement with Germany(1944). After his retirement from journalism in 1946, he wrote a history of theLevellers,which was unfinished at the time of his death.[citation needed]

Paul Footdescribed Brailsford as "perhaps the best socialist writer in Britain at the time".[13]

Personal life

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Blue plaquecommemorating Brailsford inBelsize Park Gardens,Hampstead.

He married a former student, the women's activistJane Esdon Mallochin 1898. She denied him children and regarded the marriage as demeaning. They separated but she refused him a divorce.[14]

In 1928[dubious–discuss]he met the artistClare Leightonand they lived together for several years. His wife died in 1937 after years of drinking,[14]and whereas this removed any legal obstacle to the couple being married, Brailsford, consumed by guilt, suffered an emotional breakdown, effectively destroying his relationship with Leighton who left for the US in 1939.

In 1944 he married Evamaria Perlmann, a refugee from Germany, 40 years his junior.[citation needed]

Brailsford was an advocate ofanimal rightsand was avegetarian.[15]In opposition toG. K. Chestertonhe defended the practice of vegetarianism inThe Daily News.His fondness for animals was a lifelong trait and he found it easier to show affection to animals as they did not betray or disappoint him.[15]He opposed blood sports and several of his essays allude to his friendship with cats.[15]

Bibliography

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  • Broom of the War God: a novel (1898)
  • Some Irish problems (1903)
  • Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future (1906)
  • Treatment of the Women's Deputations by the police (1911), with Jessie Murray
  • The Fruits of our Russian Alliance (1912)
  • Shelley, Godwin and their Circle (1913)
  • The War of Steel and Gold: A Study of the Armed Peace (1914)
  • The Origins of the Great War (1914)
  • Belgium and the scrap of paper (1915)
  • A League of Nations (1917)
  • A Share In Your Motherland and other articles (1918)
  • Covenant of peace; an essay on the league of nations (1919) with an introduction byHerbert Croly.
  • The Russian workers' republic (1921)
  • After the peace (1922)
  • The Pros and Cons of P.R.: A plea for reconsideration (1924)
  • Socialism for To-Day (1925)
  • The Living Wage (1926)
  • Families and incomes (1926)
  • How the Soviets Work (1927)
  • Olives of Endless Age: being a Study of this distracted world and its need of unity (1928)
  • Scrap Battleships! (1930)
  • Rebel India (1931)
  • If We Want Peace (1932)
  • Property or Peace? (1934)
  • Towards a New League (1935)
  • Voltaire (1935)
  • Spain's Challenge to Labour (1936)
  • Why Capitalism Means War (1938)
  • Democracy for India(1939)
  • America our Ally (1940)
  • From England to America: A Message (1940)
  • The Habsburgs-Never again! (1943)
  • Subject India (1943)
  • Our Settlement with Germany (1944)
  • Making Germany Pay? (1944)
  • Fabian Colonial Essays (1945) introduced by A. Creech Jones, edited byRita Hinden
  • The Life-Work ofJ. A. Hobson(1948)
  • Essays, Poems and Tales ofHenry W. Nevinson,chosen from his works (1948)
  • Mahatma Gandhi (1948) withFrederick Pethick-Lawrenceand Henry S. L. Polak.
  • The Levellers and the English revolution (1961), withChristopher Hill (historian).

References

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  1. ^Cassavety, N. J. (1918)."Bulgaria's Case: A Reply to Professor R. A. Tsanoff".The Journal of Race Development.9(2): 145–156.doi:10.2307/29738285.ISSN1068-3380.JSTOR29738285.
  2. ^Wilkinson, Henry Robert (1951).Maps and Politics: A Review of the Ethnographic Cartography of Macedonia.University of Liverpool Press. p. 139.Sometimes Brailsford is accused of pro-Bulgarian sympathy.
  3. ^Price, Charles Archibald (1963).Southern Europeans in Australia.Australian National University [by] Oxford University Press. p. 319.ISBN978-0-909409-03-6.Amongst prolific Bulgarian writers have been J. Ivanov; a more moderate pro-Bulgarian view appears in H.N. Brailsford,Macedonia: Its Races and their Future.
  4. ^Great Britain Naval Intelligence Division(1944).Greece: Physical geography, history, administration, and peoples.London. p. 367.H.N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and their Future (London, 1906) (this is pro-Bulgarian).{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^Brailsford's appeal is reported in the Law Reports of the Court of Kings Bench asR v Brailsford[1905] 2 KB 730
  6. ^"Men's League for Women's Suffrage".Spartacus Educational.Retrieved11 June2018.
  7. ^Elizabeth R. Valentine, "'A brilliant and many-sided personality': Jessie Margaret Murray, founder of the Medico-Psychological Clinic",Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences,45:2 145–161, 2009,doi:10.1002/jhbs.20364.
  8. ^Murray, J. & Brailsford, H.N.,The Treatment of Women's deputations by the Metropolitan Police,London: The Women's Press, 1911.
  9. ^Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars.Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 1914.Retrieved25 September2018– via Internet Archive.
  10. ^Keith Hodgson,Fighting Fascism: the British Left and the Rise of Fascism, 1919–39Manchester University Press, 2011.ISBN071908055X,(pp. 59–60).
  11. ^Frederick Charles Barghoorn, The Soviet Cultural Offensive: the role of cultural diplomacy in Soviet foreign policy.Princeton University Press, 1960 (p. 37).
  12. ^F. M. Leventhal,The Last Dissenter: H.N. Brailsford and His World,by F. M. Leventhal. Oxford University Press, 1985.ISBN0198200552(p. 269).
  13. ^Paul Foot, "New Statesman, Decline and Fall",Socialist ReviewOctober 1996.
  14. ^abF. M. Leventhal (2004)."Brailsford, Jane Esdon (1874–1937)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/56223.
  15. ^abcLeventhal, F. M. (2003).The Last Dissenter: H.N. Brailsford and His World.Oxford University Press. p. 45.ISBN0-19-820055-2
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