What socialism is (Fabian Tract 4)
Women and Prisons (Fabian Tract 163)
Charlotte Mary Wilson (6 May 1854, Kemerton, Worcestershire – 28 April 1944, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York) was an English Fabian and anarchist who co-founded Freedom newspaper in 1886 with Peter Kropotkin, and edited, published, and largely financed it during its first decade. She remained editor of Freedom until 1895.[1]
Life and work
Born Charlotte Mary Martin, she was the daughter of a well-to-do physician, Robert Spencer Martin. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She married Arthur Wilson, a stockbroker, and the couple moved to London. Charlotte Wilson joined the Fabian Society in 1884 and soon joined its executive committee.
The club first turned its attention to studying Das Kapital read out by a Russian woman in French, and later turned to Proudhon. In 1889 George Bernard Shaw described the Club discussions and how heated they became.[5] Although the Fabian Society and Hampstead Historic Club contained many of the same people, they remained separate. The ideas debated by the club resulted in the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism in 1889. This led Shaw to describe Hampstead, and the meetings, as 'the birthplace of middle-class socialism.'[6]
Another visitor to the house was Stepniak who, with Mrs Wilson, Karl Pearson and Wilfrid Voynich, established an informal society that was later formalised as The Society of Friends of Russian Freedom. Mrs Wilson is believed to be the model for Gemma in the best-selling novel The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich; while a description of Mrs Wilson's faux farm kitchen where the club met was given by E. Nesbit.[7]
An active campaigner she spoke at socialist rallies, including that in Trafalgar Square on 13 November 1887, known as Bloody Sunday, which police broke up violently.
In 1886, parliamentarians within the Fabian Society proposed that it organize as a political party; William Morris and Wilson opposed the motion, but were defeated. She subsequently resigned from the society in April 1887, continuing her association with the anarchists from the society.[8]
She wrote extensively to Karl Pearson about anarchism, the Fabians, the Karl Marx Society and about her "Russian Society" from 1884 to 1896.[9][10]
In 1886, Wilson and Kropotkin co-founded Freedom, an anarchist newspaper that shared William Morris's press with which he printed Commonweal; Wilson remained its editor until 1895.[11] The newspaper's mission statement is stated in every issue, on page 2, and summarises the writers' view of anarchism:
Anarchists work towards a society of mutual aid and voluntary co-operation. We reject all government and economic repression. This newspaper, published continuously since 1936, exists to explain anarchism more widely and show that only in an anarchist society can human freedom thrive.
Her publication Work (1888) was mistakenly attributed to Kropotkin for many years.[12]
Although never disavowing the Anarchist ideology she distanced herself from the movement in the early years of the twentieth century. She rejoined the Fabian Society in 1907, and founded its Women's Group in 1908 joining the campaign for female suffrage. She remained a very prominent member of the Fabian Women's Group in its early years as she served as its General Secretary (1908–1913) and Secretary of the Studies Subcommittee (1908–1913) where she heavily influenced the direction of the group's studies into working conditions for women.[13][14] She would also rejoin the Fabian Executive between 1911 and 1914.[15]
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