George Garrett Archive Course

Module One, Workshop Three.

Radicals Under Pressure - 

Vigilance and Marching On.

The end of WW1 sees the world beginning to close down; the control of the individual states grows as they begin to police their citizens and decide, who are the ‘correct’ members, who are the interlopers, and most importantly, who are the carriers of dangerous ideas? In this our third session of the course, Tony explored the period leading up to 1920 when Britain, although one of the victors of the war, finds its Empire on the wane. Germany, defeated, will be made to pay, while Russia, in the midst of a civil war following the revolution of 1917, is also out of the economic picture. Quoting from The Common People by GDH Cole, Tony explained that by the end of 1918 300,000 soldiers were unemployed. At the time this was regarded as a catastrophe, but by 1920 this figure had grown to one and a half million and had ballooned to 2 million by the end of 1921. After the ‘war to end all wars’, things were getting worse rather than getting better.

In 1918 George Garrett, now married with his first son, Matty, and with the agreement of his wife Grace, who was prepared to eke out a living until he could send money home,  went straight to America, to New York. The conditions on the American ships were better, but he was attracted to the radical life there, and was soon active with The Wobblies.

In the US ‘Normalcy’ was the new catch-word summing up the desire to return to pre-war progress, but it was a false dawn. In 2912 Garrett is caught up in the anti-radical Palmer Raids and returns to Liverpool where all fingers are pointing, looking for someone to blame. The divisions leading to the race riots of 1919, culminating in the murder of Charles Wooton, are reflected in The Seamen’s Vigilance Committee, which had been set up to try and protect war time wages. The Seamen’s Union is pulled into the British Empire movement, and a White British Seafarers Union is also formed.

Prevalent economic theories of the time, including those of Nikolai Kondatriev, point to the patterns appearing in Capital; 25 year cycles, or waves, of boom and bust, which are mirrored in the development of the workers movement. Capital in 1920 is most definitely on a downward spiral, and Garrett is no stranger to the privations it brings, writing that he would leave the house without eating and spend the day with other unemployed men, not eating, so that his wife could eat what they had. When he returned home and she too had not eaten, a quarrel would ensue.

Although incarcerated in the unemployed struggles, Garrett’s stateside experiences stay with him, and are reflected in the wry humour he brings to his activities in the unemployed and seamen’s struggles, including the use of theatre and song and mimicking the Wobbly methods of cultural engagement alongside the political and industrial struggle.

Garrett feels responsibility on all fronts; he has a young family, is being drawn into radical politics alongside the young communist Jack Braddock, and is also beginning to try and find time to write.

The interwar economists argue that all is good – and the development of consumer goods indicates that capital is coming home. But in Liverpool and in George Garrett’s employment, all the industries are associated with heavy export. With the collapse in trade Liverpool, as well as Lancashire, becomes an unemployment black-spot. It is here that the genesis of the UK’s North-South divide can be found.

All roads lead to depression, the development of radicalism – the Liverpool branch of the British Communist Party is founded in 1920, and the subsequent clampdown on dissent. Although the contradictions of the world economy see people enjoying the Jazz age in the United States, which the true victor in the shift in the balance of relationships following WW1 (although the growth in protectionism see it becoming more and more isolated), while in the UK massive numbers of the unemployed, many with war medals pinned to their chest, are marching for work or maintenance.

The revision of the Poor Law Act in 1834 means that people are now forced into the territory of the Poor law Guardians – The Parish Guardians, who operate with local autonomy to decide if and how much someone should receive if they cannot find work. Attitudes vary, from the liberal to the dictatorial, with women in the areas of hard-line Guardians often having to take prams to the parish to disguise the huge Harvester Loaves doled out to them in place of cash relief.

The mass demonstrations in 1921-22, and the ‘Storming of The Walker Art Gallery’ arise from this period of turmoil and rebellion, but that’s for next week.

In the workshops, were we considered three questions relating to George’s writing and some of the artefacts from the archive, participants discussed the significance of Garrett being published, possibly for the first time, by writing and distributing song-sheets for the mass demonstrations of the unemployed and for the Seamen’s Vigilance Committee. The Wobblies are a clear influence here, but we also considered the influence of protest songs from slaves in the southern states of America; the tradition of popular song sheets being sold on the streets; the use of language, sometimes biblical, reminiscent of Shelley, and how these songs could unify demonstrations and could be picked up and shared by even the most illiterate. Garrett uses these broadsheets to announce himself as a writer, but one who is committed and engaged with the struggle all around him.

Garrett’s speech to the Seamen’s Vigilance Committee, on a platform where other speakers make outright racist comments blaming aliens for the lack of jobs, marks him out as brave, progressive figure with some authority. He attacks those who take patriotic pride in being British to extremes, praises the struggle for liberation in Ireland, and calls upon people to follow the example of Ghandi in India. In his writing, from the extracts from Liverpool 1921-22, he again uses humour to put to shame a police recruit, and in the Wobbly tradition of non-identification, describes himself variously as ‘The Young Seaman’ and ‘The Deportee’. Participants felt he didn’t want to put himself centre stage, wanted to make his stories, even non-fiction, universal and accessible to all, and, maybe protect himself for fear of victimisation and recrimination from the Guardians, the Police, and others. The ironic fact that it is a plain-clothes member of the CID from whom George Garrett’s words are handed down to us, indicate that he has reason to be cautious.

The workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm in Liverpool John Moores University’s AldhamRobarts Library, Maryland Street, L1 9DE (off HopeStreet).