UNITY: a 125 Years of Bolton’s Socialist Club

June 2nd sees Bolton Socialists on the moors taking their annual Walt Whitman walk, with fellowship, a swig of wine from the loving cup and poetry from Whitman. An event made famous from Stuart Maconies Radio 4 documentary and the book, With Walt Whitman in Bolton by Paul Salveson. Their association with Whitman is just one in a long list of historic ties going back to their formation in 1887. “The story begins with Tom France, who sold hot peas around the streets.” Argues Denis Pye in his history of the Club, In January 1886, Tom announced in the Social Democratic Federation newspaper, Justice that he would like to hear from any friends interested in forming a branch. The branch grew and was very active in a bitter engineering workers dispute from May until October 1887. In which they where supported by full-time SDF organiser Tom Mann, Bolton Socialists where so impressed they invited him to stay setting him up with a tobacconists and newsagents in Deansgate. Not long after his arrival the Independent Order of Good Templers Hall where they had been meeting became the Social-Democratic Hall, or the Socialist Club. Bolton had an incredibly vibrant socialist scene, as well as a Labour Church, they even tried to establish the Bolton Co-operative Commonwealth a self supporting village or colony. Sadly it only lasted six years. Meanwhile many important figures passed through including Peter Kropotkin and William Morris. In 1892 the ILP was established in the town with a strong overlap with the SDF. Noticeable when in 1896 Eleanor Marx came to speak. But the most important vehicle for creating socialist unity was the Clarion. Not just a political paper but a way of life. Its readers formed choirs, theatre groups, cycling and rambling clubs and most of all preached socialist unity. It is thanks to the Clarion that we still have a Socialist Club in Bolton today. It was in June 1898 that Sarah Reddish, active in the Co-operative Women’s Guild well known as a speaker with the Clarion women’s van, wrote in to the paper as Secretary of Bolton West Ward ILP branch saying they where prepared to fuse with the SDF. That fusion took place in September 1898 to form the Bolton Socialist Party. Their Principles and Objects ring down the years: a) The national ownership and control of land and the means of distributing national wealth. b) The reduction of the hours of labour to the lowest point compatible with the highest material moral and intellectual development and well being of the individual and society. c) The equal right of all to the highest and best education. Equal social rights, duties and responsibilities. Observance of the highest principles of fellowship. d) The abolition of all class privileges and monopolies. The abolition of war and the establishment of peace between nations. e) The furtherance of Socialism to the uttermost:- by means of local conferences, elections, public meetings, papers, pleasures and pastimes, not incompatible with the highest interests if the Party and Club and the uttermost furtherance of its objects. f) The promotion of the highest material wellbeing of the people of this and every other country of the world, without distinction of race, sex or creed. g) The emancipation of labour from the domination of capitalism and landlordism. The establishment of social equality between the sexes, the cultivation in all the clearest of conception and love of truth, justice, liberty, good manners and good motives. In 1901 a prospectus for the Bolton Socialist Hall Limited (the Co-operative Industrial and Provident Society which still exists) was launched offering £1 shares. Meanwhile social, cultural and propaganda activities continued, a Socialist Sunday School was established with the Socialist Ten Commandments which were reproduced for the centenary by Leeds Postcards. The same year James Connolly visited the town and by 1904 they had raised enough money to buy 16, Wood Street. Still committed to unity the Bolton Socialists sent delegates when the SDF called a Unity conference in 1911. This lead to the formation of the British Socialist Party and they became a branch. Then in 1913 they hosted Big Jim Larkin campaigning against the Dublin lockout. In 1916 a pro-war faction of the Socialist Party formed a National Socialist Party; the Bolton branch had the good sense to reject this and became independent once again. Following the war club secretary, Jim Paulden, write a hundred-page epic poem in praise of Lenin, yet at the end of 1921 they affiliated to the Labour Party. Sadly from the late 1920’s for fifty years the Club became something of drinking den as they exploited the licensing laws to serve alcohol when the pubs where shut. Left wingers still met in the Club but it was thanks to the licensing authorities who took the clubs license away in 1979 that it rediscovered its true purpose. In hock to the brewery the club was put up for sale in 1982 but its co-operative status saved it – the signatures of 75% of its members where required to wind up the society and they simply could not be found. The Society was re-floated in November 1983. The reborn co-operative club introduced many of the old activities to a new generation. Sadly in a burst of sectarianism by the Labour Party the clubs affiliations were terminated having hosted a meeting of Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party – like they have for many other socialist parties and organisations. Independent again every Friday they have a regular cycle of events designed to encourage the education, organisation and agitation of socialists. They support those in struggle but also have a full cultural program of cinema, talks, play readings they even have a Clarion choir. As William Morris pointed out they are engaged in that most important of work “making socialists”. The Bolton Socialist Party and Club have been doing just that for 125 years, every town needs one!