From Rattery to the World: discovering Captain John Goss 1801 - 1853

 

From Rattery to the World: discovering Captain John Goss 1801 - 1853

By Vera and Len Arthur

As a young rooky family historian in 1967 I first came across the name John Goss on a tombstone in Rattery churchyard. Goss was my maiden name and the stone was next to my 3xggrandfather’s Isaac Goss but there was no record whatever of a family connection. All there was on the stone was ‘In memory of Captain John Goss who died at sea on the 13th day of July 1853 aged 52’ and that is where things stayed for over 40 years. We now know he died at sea as Captain of the sailing ship Candahar heading toward Java from Jakarta, now Indonesia. How was it that someone from the family of an agricultural labourer living in a small village on the edge of the moors between Totnes and South Brent could have ended up as sea captain travelling to some of the most exotic places in the world?

Of course the full answer will never be known but this is how the pieces of an amazing story have come together so far. The research voyage, as ever continues.

John Goss was born in South Brent to Isaac Goss and Mary (nee Hext) in 1801. Mary was from South Brent but by the birth of their second child, Joanna who died in her first year, they were back in Isaac’s parish Rattery and that is where the family stayed until Mary died in Totnes workhouse in 1852. Another nine children followed. Isaac was down as an agricultural labourer in the 1841 census. Many of John Goss’ siblings worked or married into farming staying in the South Hams but the youngest of them all Samuel also went to sea, became a first mate and lived in Liverpool. The sixth sibling Thomas, was a farmer in Harberton and in 1849 migrated with his wife and seven children to Adelaide in Australia. Hence back to the John Goss connection who probably recommended that they should go.

Socially it is worth noting how the siblings were having to use what opportunities were open to them to survive. My 2xggrandfather William, the third sibling, was a weaver and seemed to sink and die young with the trade in the 1840s. Shipping was one of those industries that went through an expansion in the C19 with employment doubling by 1880 compared with the time of the census in 1851 and following the surplus of sailors after the Napoleonic war. We may never know how and when John Goss went to sea but from his 1851 masters certificate it was clear he saw his home port as Totnes, about 10 miles from Rattery. If his start at sea was from there 10 miles walk is a short distance. We believe Totnes came under the port of Dartmouth and the ship's muster rolls for that port exist but are not online and remain to be searched at the National Archives. At the moment the assumption is that he went to sea young, around 12, possibly through a family connection, a James Goss was a part owner in a ship at Dartmouth.

The first research breakthrough came when British legislation in 1850 required the certification of masters and mates on merchant vessels. These records in the National Archive went online about 2011 and we found a masters certificate for a John Goss who had his hometown as Totnes. Around the same time we also found newly online marriage information of a John Goss about the right age being married in London in 1831. It was reasonably clear that it was the right John Goss as he married a Mary Ann Chaffe from Rattery who was 21 at the time. It seems a love from an early age despite the 10 year age difference and sailor of the world. It was to be a lonely life for Mary, with John away at sea for many months at a time. In the 1851 census, she was down by herself staying with friends in Essex.

Over the last 10 years records of British seamen and shipping in and around Australia have come online covering the 1830s onward and these have proven to be an gold mine of research. John's 1851 master's certificate details his mates and masters experience back to the 1830s on four ships, the William Lushington, the Hope, the Duke of Norfolk and the Candahar. Using this information it has been possible to use the online Lloyds lists and Australian sources to develop a picture and even hear the voice of someone who traversed the world.

Service on the William Lushington predated the 1835 Merchant Shipping Act. It is not clear how far this service would go back but according to the 1834 Lloyds Register the ship was 409 tons, built at Topsham in Devon and registered in London and Plymouth. In 1834 the ship was sailing to Plymouth, North America and again in 1835 and 1837, earlier in the century it had sailed to the West Indies. In 1835 John Goss served as chief mate on the Hope from December of that year to September 1836. On the Duke of Norfolk as his first master appointment from October 1838 to June 1840. On the Hope as master from March 1842 to March 1846 - where his youngest brother Sam was one of the apprentices - and finally as master on the Candahar from June 1847 until he died at sea in 1853. From the Australian Trove newspaper records in July 1842 the Hope under Captain Goss is one of seven ships sailing in what seems to be a convoy with around 2,000 convicts due to arrive in Australia that month. The Candahar is one of the other ships being Captained by Ridley who was also the owner. This may have been the start of the business arrangement with John Goss who five years later took over being the captain and Ridley was still the main owner.

John Goss starts to emerge from the records as a person from a variety of records covering his association with the Candahar as the captain. By 1847 John Goss became master and captain and the ship had been refitted to transport paying migrants from the UK largely to Adelaide, Australia, returning with goods and trading around Australia and nearby countries whilst there. Trips were made almost once a year going out in one non stop voyage of four months. Return trips may have varied as when the Hope came back in 1843 it was advertised as being via Bombay with facilities to transport horses and people.

John Goss the person first hits the news with a report and testimonial from migrants who had sailed with the Candahar from England in 1850. In the 19 August edition of the South Australian Register there is a letter signed by all the passengers attesting to the ‘cheerful kindness of Captain Goss’. All the passengers felt they needed to write and sign this statement to counteract an earlier report in the same paper complaining about the treatment  of passengers on the ‘Ceylon’ a migrant ship that had arrived earlier that year. The testimonial goes on to praise the other officers and charters of the ship, expressing concern that such complaints do not put people off from migrating to Australia. A child was born on the Candahar during the voyage and was christened ‘John Candahar Goss Harslett’ indicating the level of respect during the voyage. He was known as ‘Candi’ until he died in the 1920s

We have been very lucky and have access to three almost daily diaries kept by passengers on the Candahar, two on the 1850 voyage and one on the 1851 voyage. This section covers what we can glean about Captain Goss from the diaries. A second section will use the diaries to provide an overall insight into how the three passengers themselves experienced the voyage from their very different personal and social circumstances. It is with great respect for the memories of these two women and the man that we draw upon these journals. They were often written under the most difficult circumstances and reveal considerable skills of observation and description as well as great humanity. Although we are drawing information from these journals for our own purposes, they stand as significant historical documents in their own right. We are very thankful they have survived. 

Two of the passengers Jane Elizabeth Skinner and David Liston kept diaries during the same 1850 voyage. The David Liston diary has been made available as a copy of the handwritten original by the South Australian archive. I am currently in the process of transcribing and making a typewritten copy which will be deposited back in the archive. There is one more diary which was kept by David Liston’s sister Ellen then aged 12, but this is not as yet in the public domain. She later became a renowned Australian author and poet. David Liston was aged 20 on the 1850 voyage and was sailing with his family. David became an accountant in Australia and lived until 1907. His diary is quite different from Jane Skinner, as he calls it his ‘log’ and is largely taken up with more technical information such as longitude and latitude, wind direction and sightings of birds etc. In the absence of an official log this information has proven to be invaluable, giving a day by day account of progress which we have been able to plot on a Google map [use the link for full information]. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1x0T89M3WaDxhFeFEDPxS5Mqxq92OJLI&usp=sharing 

Jane Elizabeth Skinner, kept a diary which was transcribed from the handwritten form in the 1990s by a descendant and deposited in the South Australian archive. Earlier in 2020 I managed to work out how to pay and receive a copy and the 32 pages of typescript have provided a wonderful human insight into John Goss. Jane Skinner was sailing as a single woman but with her pregnant sister, her husband and her sister's son Moreton. Jane often had responsibility for Moreton and ‘as to Captain Goss he has always given Moreton something and the little fellow is getting quite fond of him’. Later she comments ‘the Captain is such a John Bull but jocular’ and ‘the Captain likes best to keep away from other ships for fear of accident ... he works like one of the men which he has no occasion to do. Of night he gets up every two hours to see everything is going alright.’ Pen pictures of the crew give glimpses of the men John worked with ‘...two of the passengers got up the rigging, much to the annoyance of the second mate, who is a great swearer, but very handsome and light on his feet… he used to be in the Navy but for misbehaviour was expelled’. And a glimpse of working around passengers ‘There are all hands heaving down the sails singing their various songs until the squall is passed over and in a hurry putting them up again… you must look out for yourself then for no one is very polite. They knock and throw their ropes everywhere…’. John Goss advises her to ‘not to form any acquaintance with anyone on the voyage if I can possibly help it because by waiting until I get there I may have a better chance’. She is asked to do some sewing repairs for John Goss and is rewarded with ‘a bottle of [beer?] and a large piece of bread and cheese’. On one occasion when talking to ‘Captain Goss” Jane relates ‘I produced my accordion and played him “The Girl he left behind me” it seemed to affect him. He is so fond of his wife…’. There is another published Candahar diary by a Sophy Cooke who migrated a couple a couple of years later and was published in 1969 as ‘Sophy Under Sail’ as yet, due to the pandemic, I've not been able to access it through inter library loan: it is big on the to-do list.

As Jane mentions toward the end of the diary when the Candahar was moored just outside Adelaide ‘Such lots of people came down to the ship to see Captain Goss. He is so much respected here.’ This was certainly the case and on a later voyage to Australia on the 3rd December 1852 John Goss was asked to give evidence to the Victoria State Parliament Select Committee on the Melbourne to Hobson’s Bay Railway Company Bill. The evidence was recorded verbatim so here we have the voice of John Goss, the closest to a recording that can be achieved. The evidence is technical and about tides, winds and water depths. He explains he has been in the Port a fortnight on this trip but ‘I have been in the Port four times within this last year’. He also describes an accident ‘In my last, I was laying there in a gale when the Aberdeen dragged her anchor and ran foul of me’... ‘It was owing to this accident that orders were issued that have caused the ships to be so scattered around the harbour as they are now’.

Unlike Jane Skinner, David Liston, provides few personal insights into Captain Goss, largely referring to the general ‘they’ when talking about the crew. It is clear, however, that he was allowed to be present and possibly participated in the midday taking of longitude and latitude positions, as well as other details in relation to wind direction and distance in knots travelled. In one departure from this technical approach, he describes in detail the ‘crossing the line’ ceremony which includes this poem from Neptune to the Captain - most possibly written by Captain Goss. 

“Ship Candahar

May 31st 1850

Sir,

Neptune who all sailors know, the wind and tide direct

I send to all on board my very best respects.

To you worthy Captain congratulations send

And hope to be remembered by an old sea going friend.

Unto the passengers and crew the weather being fine

I hope to come aboard tomorrow and … on the line

And when my messenger you see, he is a drunken dog

He will answer all questions and be glad to drink some grog

His clothes are fine, he cuts show, a swell but let him pass

He is quite tame but sure to fill his glass.

The sailors too can drink a drop ‘twill … away all sorrows.

And I will settle all accounts when I board you tomorrow.

I am

Yours …

Neptune”

David’s few references directly to Captain Goss support the view that he was as attentive to the passengers as well as his seamanship. David experienced a stomach upset after eating some preserved - possibly canned? - salmon, and the Captain making the comment that once opened, preserved food needed to be eaten straight away, especially in the warm weather. David also reports the Captain remarking that once the ship reaches the warmer and milder weather nearer to the equator all coughs seem to disappear. There is also a reference in David’s diary that gives an indication of what Captain Goss had to take account of in managing the crew, with one person on the helm sailing the ship in a circle as he lost his bearings and another being thrown 10 feet into the air when the swell catches the rudder.One direct reference to Captain Goss was a bird falling on his head “One of the pigeons [cape pigeons?] fell off the shrouds onto the Captain’s head and glanced off into the water”, which both he, David and the Captain seem to find amusing.

The following year in 1851 another migrant passenger to Adelaide Sophy Taylor also wrote letters to her father about the voyage which by good fortune have also survived. These were published as a book in 1969 under the title Sophy Under Sail. Sophy Taylor was from Clerkenwell in London and worked in her father’s bead and jewellery merchants business. She was the eldest daughter having one sister and two brothers. She was 25 when she made the journey to Australia to marry her fiance who had left three years earlier and had now set up a general store just outside the town. She travelled with her fiance’s widowed mother. Like Elizabeth Skinner [insert some later personal details for Elizabeth above] Sophy Taylor was to experience a hard life in Australia, with her husband going the the ‘diggings’ as part of the South Australia gold rush just after she arrived and married him, then three weeks after the death of her first six week old child in 1853, Sophy also dies.

It is with great respect for the memories of these two women that we draw upon these journals. They were often written under the most difficult circumstances and reveal considerable skills of observation and description as well as great humanity. Although we are drawing information from these journals for our own purposes, they stand as significant historical documents in their own right. We are very thankful they have survived.

Sophy made a number of references to Captain Goss. As with Elizabeth they give insights into the type of person he was and how he ran the ship. It seems that on this voyage Captain Goss’ wife Mary Ann sailed with the Candahar from Gravesend on 24 July 1851 to Plymouth which was the last stop before Adelaide. Some passengers travelled this far and others joined the ship for Australia. Sophy describes the scene when leaving Plymouth Sound on 7 August 1851 with ‘many tears’. She also mentions that ‘The parting between the Captain and his wife when we reached the breakwater was truly heart rendering… it was really quite a scene while she was being let down almost fainting into the boat, to see the passengers and crew climbing up the rigging to give her three hearty cheers. She said “Give three more for my husband”.’ Sophy describes her as a ‘kind, agreeable lady and we all felt her loss’ Sophy explains that her ‘health not now allowing her ever to accompany her husband on his voyages’.

Sophy has a  number of other references to Captain Goss. Early in the voyage she mentions him calling out to the sailors “Look smart, my lads” and calling for the male passengers from below to help pull the ropes. She refers to him being a ‘very agreeable man, jocular and good tempered, answering every question’ and treats us all alike; ‘None of the sailors are allowed to swear if he knows it for he does not like females to hear it’. He clearly kept the passengers informed of progress, such as when crossing the edge of the Bay of Biscay he expressed how calm it was and then when off Cape Finisterre he was not at all happy to be so close to the coast. He clearly helped keep the passengers happy with gentle flattery as Sophy mentions that he stated that he never took out such a respectable lot of migrants before. Later in the voyage she refers to meeting other ships and Captain speaks with them through a ‘trumpet’, all the passengers hushed so as to help the communication.

There is also regular references to his concern about the 129 passengers of whom 33 were children, so when near the equator Sophy reports that he ‘will not allow anyone to sit five minutes in the sun… as although it is the same sun as in England its rays have a very different effect upon the brain’. The passengers were organised into messes of around 15 people to organise collective eating, cooking and other duties with one of each being elected each fortnight as a ‘captain’ and ‘mate’. Sophy refers to her mess as being numbered one with all females. She mentions that ‘Captain often comes down and sits on the stairs at our end of the table to chat with us; he tells us that ours is the only Mess he takes a positive interest in and he feels he ought to protect the unprotected. His advice to us at first was to “keep the men at arms length” and Miss Stone and I have not failed to follow it’. Captain Goss interest in this Mess continues so having just passed the equator on 17 September Sophy reports in her letter a day later ‘I should like to write to you again but Captain has just given me a glass of such beautiful strong cider which has actually got up in my head so that I do not feel particularly bright…’. Sophy describes the crossing the line ceremonies of throwing water, mock shaving, ducking, a lighted tar barrel over the side, sailors dressed up as Neptune and his wife. Sophy says she felt rather timid and asked permission to sit in the Captain's cabin to look on. She says after two hours the Captain came out and gave orders for all to be cleared up and the scene was immediately changed. This was all followed with a feast of 5/- each in the evening with two pigs being killed and roasted, the Captain and his mate at the head of the table.

Later in September she writes that they are passing the island of ‘Trinidad’ which we take to mean Tristan du Cunha, and gives a little pen portrait of Captain Goss

‘This is the Captain’s wedding day, he has been married 20 years. I like him much, he is full of fun and good humour without any foolery or nonsense. When he comes on the poop the question he calls out the man at the wheel is “How’s her head now?” If wrong he scratches one whisker, if right he lifts his hat on one side and says “beau-ti-ful,” He is about the height of Mr Wooley but rather stouter, good features and brown curly hair. I should like you to see his funny ways with us here, perhaps as some of us are coming down the poop stairs he will come behind and take us by the shoulders pretending to push us down, or when Miss Stone and I are taking our evening walks together on the poop he will walk softly behind us, close to our heels when we little suspect him, so on turning around there he is in our path like a post, pretending we startled him. One Sunday evening we were sitting on the deck reading and some one came behind and placed a great hand each side of our heads and there we were in a vice; we felt the hands but could not tell who it could be until we were liberated and then we found it was Captain!”.

I had not long left Plymouth before he found out the object of my coming so of course I often have to put up with a joke about it, but he commends me for doing so and says he shall always come to see me whenever he is in Adelaide. He is too hard upon me for getting so stout; he says “if any of the passengers at the end of the voyage feel inclined to go before a magistrate to complain of the ship’s provisions, he has only to show Miss Stone and me, himself and the First Mate, and they will immediately say to the complainants ‘be off’. So Miss Stone told him it was our contented minds that makes us get stout. “Oh no” said he, “it’s that awful pudding pan that’s under my nose when I look downstairs every morning” and this is the way he is always going on. I do not say there is not some truth in it but it is slightly stretched. When the waves are extra high I say to him: “It’s rather rough Captain.” “Rough!” he says “you are never going to call such a beautiful day as this rough”. So as he never will allow it to be rough when I ask him, Mrs Cooke the other day added “Will you tell us, Captain, when you do call it rough,” “I call it rough, ma’m, when you can’t sleep in your beds.” So you see he is a kind, jocular, good-tempered man, familiar and yet in a way that we cannot be offended, has plenty of good sense, has seen much of life and human nature, possesses great nautical experience and often entertains us with the tales he relates.

I had no thin writing paper of my own so he made me a present of this, for which I have mended one of his shirts and hemmed him a silk handkerchief. Nearly all his shirts he bought in China last voyage. I was surprised when he told me they were all made by men as the men do all the needlework in China, and the women, if they are seen at all, are doing men’s work, but they are generally out of the way and very seldom seen in public.’

This last reference is particularly interesting as it indicates that once in Australia the Candahar was kept busy bringing in revenue until there were enough bookings to return to the UK, through trading along the Australian coast and up to China, Java and Indonesia. Similarly, there is an interesting reference to the Captains nephew working on the boat and incautiously opening the lamp just as the mate opened some rum which briefly ignited, but caused little damage. We are not sure who this is, but it could be one of his brother Thomas’ sons, who had migrated to Adelaide in 1849, though not on the Candahar.

By October the Candahar was around the Cape of Good Hope and well into the Southern Indian Ocean. Sophy had previously described what she now called ‘a little rough weather’ but now they were experiencing some big seas. It has been rough and squally with lightning for three successive nights which ‘the Captain considered was a forerunner of bad weather, and so it proved. ‘On Saturday night we retired to rest as usual; at two on Sunday I was wakened by hearing the sailors rushing about. Captain and Mate were calling out to them up in the riggings; all sails had to be reefed, men from below were running up to help.’ Sophy goes on to explain how the storms continued for a number of days with the sea breaking over the decks with such violence that the hatchways were shut down and all passengers were compelled to ‘sit in the dark, feeling cold and miserable until the lamps were lit in the evening’. She reports that ‘Captain said he had not seen such an ugly sea for twelve month’.

The sail across the Indian Ocean continued to be uncomfortable, especially as they had to tack South toward the Antarctic. On 6 November Sophy reports that there was another terrible rough night and ‘to make matters worse, some of the unsteady young men made several of the sailors intoxicated so they were not fit when wanted to unreef the topsails. I am sorry to say that the chief mate was not much better, but our dear Captain is always the same and ever at his post so no harm came to us’. By the 9 November the weather improved and she reports that was ‘What the Captain calls a “butterfly day” because it fetches all the ladies out’. Sophy reports the Captain saying that it was just like Adelaide. With the weather improving, Sophy has time to make some more observations, this time on salt beef, which some speculate is horses or donkey flesh and possibly been on more than one voyage. She considers that it looks like a piece of mahogany when it comes out of the boiler. The Captain she reports ‘says the beef has only been on one voyage and he eats a great deal of it’.

As they were nearing Australia Captain Goss was clearly getting concerned about coping with the landing and Sophy reports him ‘telling us what a confusion the ship will be in when we get into port as he then loses all control, for as soon as the anchor is dropped the sailor work is done…’. Sophy has clearly been making her father some carpet shoes during the voyage and tells him ‘I have at last finished your carpet shoes, and Captain has kindly offered to take them back to England for me when he returns…’. By 2 December they finally make landfall in Port Adelaide. There is a footnote in the book which refers to the local newspaper the South Australian Register printing a testimonial to Captain Goss signed by the passengers. This is in addition to the one quoted above from the previous voyage.

It was on this last trip before returning to England, that John Goss died at sea between what is now Indonesia and Java. So far I've not found any evidence of a log or inquiry into the circumstances of his death. The probate records reveal that he left £1,000.00 and are extensive running over 10 pages, with all his surviving brothers signing to say that they agree that his final will leaves his wealth to his wife Mary Ann. The will and affidavit are all online and provide confirmation of where John Goss and his wife lived, his wealth, as well as signatures of the family. I assumed for a couple of years that this was all required due to the nature of his death. However, of course with family history, you are never allowed to assume for long and a final twist and mystery to John Goss has recently appeared.

A recent word search in a newspaper archive revealed a report in the Morning Chronicle of 6 July 1854 of the London Consistory Court that a second will of John Goss had been found.

‘...a paper purporting to be a later will for the deceased was received per post by the executor appointed under the former instrument. This paper reduced the amount of the bequest to Mrs Goss, and purported to be signed by the testator in the presence of two witnesses, neither of whom was known on board the vessel where, from the date, it must, if genuine, have been executed. Dr Addams submitted that the second paper was a forged will. The learned Judge was of the same opinion, and decided in favour of the previous paper.’

Hence the requirement of the probate paperwork. The records of the Consistory Court are not online, so a visit to the archives will hopefully reveal a copy of this ‘purported’ will and whether further issues can be investigated to reveal yet more about the life of John Goss.

BT 98 National Archives Register of Shipping and Seamen: Agreements and Crew Lists series 1: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C4064368

Ships registered in Dartmouth 1800 - 1824 http://www.dartmouth-history.org.uk/dartmouth/main.asp

Masters Certificates, Greenwich, London UK National Maritime Museum via Ancestry. 

Google ebooks Lloyds Register of British and Foreign Shipping

National Library of Australia - Trove website Newspapers and Gazettes https://trove.nla.gov.au/

South Australian Maritime Museum - https://maritime.history.sa.gov.au/research/

Diary of Elizabeth Skinner 1850 https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/28615308?keyword=Jane%20Elizabeth%20Skinner

Sophy Under Sail - Diary of Sophy Cooke 1852 https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/5762996?subject=Cooke,%20Sophy,%201825-1853.

Victory State Parliamentary Reports 1852-1853:

https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1852-53Vol2p983-1018.pdf

British Newspaper Archives https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section, Clerkenwell, London, England; Reference Number: DL/C/538; Will Number: 139 via Ancestry.com. London, England, Wills and Probate, 1507-1858

Justice 1830s - the trial of Joanna Arter and her two daughters

 

Justice 1830s - the trial of Joanna Arter and her two daughters

At the 7 December 1830 Michaelmas County magistrates general session held at Exeter Castle, my 3 x grandmother Joanna Arter, together with her two daughters Maria and Hannah, were sentenced to prison in Exeter Bridewell for stealing and receiving stolen cheese from John Ashfield, a local tanner and farmer, who was Hannah’s employer. For receiving Joanna age 49 was sentenced to six months hard labour with one week a month solitary confinement. Both Maria age 25, with the surname Bowden through marriage, and Hannah age 13 were sentenced to twelve months hard labour with one week a month solitary. Hannah for stealing and Maria for receiving.

Information about this situation was assembled slowly over a number of years and, as ever with family history, raised more questions that cried out for further research. Some of these questions relate to the family circumstances others to a picture of power, struggle and poverty of Devon rural life at the time.

The usual online sources of parish registers, censuses, tithe apportionments and other family historians’ work helped build a picture of the life of the Arter family in Lurley part of Loxbeare, in 1831 a parish of 138 inhabitants near Tiverton and Sowton near Exeter. It was a colleague family historian that alerted me to the possibility of a criminal conviction when the Criminal Records came online. However details of the family circumstances have slowly been pieced together through searching the Parish, court and other records at the Devon records office in Exeter. The court records are hardly catalogued but are in date order in quarterly terms - Michaelmas etc. These were then supported by some newspaper reports. The court records are an amazing source of family and social history information.

The family background

Joanna Davey was born in Loxbeare in 1781, She married William Arter, born 1773 in Loxbeare, on 6 August 1800. On the marriage record he is recorded as a ‘sojourner’, a visitor to the neighbouring Washfield parish where the Davey family are farmers and Joanna was recorded as ‘of this parish’. The Arter family had been in Loxbeare since at least the 1680s. Records emphasising at every point where you belong and where you don’t. Their first son James Thomas Arter - my 2 x grandfather was born in Loxbeare on 21 October 1800. The next child was born in Loxbeare, the third in Exeter and the fourth through to the seventh were born in Sowton which indicates that’s where they were living from around 1805 - 1816. By the time of the birth of the eighth child in 1817 they were back in Loxbeare, more specifically Lurley, a small hamlet in the parish and that is where they stayed. Another four children followed up until 1827.

It seems very difficult to know why they moved back but one hint is from the Loxbeare poor law and apprentice records. The poor law records in Sowton have no record of a claim from the Arter family which legally, of course. would be most unlikely given that relief was only available from the home parish. 1815 saw the end of the Napoleonic wars and the start of the long agriculture depression as post war prices started to fall and depression set in. As an agricultural labourer William Arter could have been directly affected and the need for relief sent the family back to Lurley. There may have been one more draw. Using the tithe apportionment records it has been possible to identify where the Arter family lived and this can be corroborated using the 1841 census information. Their cottage at Lurley together with a garden and waste land, was owned by Baronet Sir Thomas Dyke Acland but the occupier at the time was a Sam Arter. It has been difficult to confirm who this person was exactly but there does seem to have been an inheritable tenancy within the Arter family for this property, as William, Joanna and William’s last born who was blind, was still living there in 1885 and an inquest into his death indicated this form of tenancy.

By the time of moving back to Loxbeare the eldest boys, James and Zachariah, had left home with Wlliam and Joanna going back with five of their remaining children. Almost immediately after moving back to Lurley in 1818 Mary Arter, their fourth child born in 1807 and now 11, was apprenticed to a local yeoman John Toswell until ‘21 or married’ and Maria Arter, their third child born in 1805 and now 13, was apprenticed to Loxbeare tanner John Ashfield for ‘housewifery’. This is where the court connection starts. Two more children were apprenticed. In 1821 Isaac aged 9 to Loxbeare yeoman Thomas Norrish for ‘husbandry’ and Abraham aged 11 to Loxbeare Yeoman Jonathan Nichols for ‘husbandry’ until 21 or married.

The parish poor rate assessments and expenditure exist for 1830-37.  Throughout this period the William Arter family received payments and from 1829 to 1832 received monthly payments of 4/- for the children sometimes rising to 14/- due to the sickness of William. The years 1829 and 1830 were also years of poor harvests leading to a sharp rise in the price of bread. A picture emerges of a family struggling to survive throughout the 20 year period after Waterloo in 1815.

Details of the trial and sentencing

Copied from The Western Times – Saturday December 11^th 1830, accessed at Devon County Archives:

“Devon County Sessions

Hannah Harters, for stealing a cheese from her Master, John Ashford, and Johannah Harters, the mother of Hannah Harters, for receiving the same knowing it to have been stolen. The prisoners receive a good character, and the mother was recommended to mercy by the jury.

Hannah Harters was further indicted for stealing another cheese, and Maria Bowden for receiving the same knowing it to have been stolen. Hannah Arters 12 months imp, 6 weeks solitary – Johanna Harters 6 months imp 6 weeks solitary – Maria Bowden 12 months imp 12 weeks solitary.”

Ths image is the report of the trial as entered into the minutes of the County petty sessions minute book kept at the Devon County Archives at Exeter. 

The report gives some indication of what was said at the trial as ‘the prisoners received good character and the mother was recommended for mercy”. What also emerges from these records is the fear that must have been going through their minds as the case before theirs resulted in six people being transported for seven years for the same charge of larceny. The one piece of evidence that has yet to be found in the boxed archives is the written deposition of John Ashfield which led to the trial. These are all in bundles tied with fading red tape but as yet I’ve not been able to find the detail of his accusations.

One more insight that emerges from the minutes of the petty sessions is the amounts paid to the person bringing the prosecution. 

As can be seen John Ashfield was paid a total of £22.17.6 for his prosecution. I was completely unaware that the person bringing the prosecution would be paid for doing so. It starts to raise wider questions about the social context of the accusations, the trial and what could be seen as a financial incentive to bring a case against people with whom there was a dominating ‘master and servant’ relationship. The sum paid to John Ashfield needs to be considered against what was an average agricultural wage at this time of about 1/-3d per day in the South West (to remind younger readers 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound). Pay fluctuated through the year and employment was intermittent but even working for six days a week throughout the year would only bring in an annual wage of around £20.00.

Out of the 138 inhabitants in Loxbeare only 17 had large enough tenancies to pay rates. John Ashfield was one of these, his rate assessment for 1830 being 2d in the pound. This information is in the Loxbeare parish boxes held in the Devon Archives number 1558A/PO1. A small but not necessarily insignificant incentive perhaps to retrieve some of the rate payments. Maria Bowden (nee Arter), who was the elder daughter charged with receiving the cheese, had been a pauper apprentice with John Ashfield from the age of 13 for seven years until 1825 when she was married. Hannah Arter, 13 at the time of the trial, was employed by John Ashfield.  So the family connection through apprenticeship and work extended over 12 years. Chaplands the farm and tannery owned by John Ashfield was about a mile away from where the Arter’s lived, just across three fields. Clearly something had happened leading to a breakdown of not only a work relationship but quite possibly a social one, with a long established local family in such a small community. It is worth remembering that Joanna and her two daughters had good character references at the trial, presumably from local people, so John Ashfield could have been seen as stepping outside the mores of the local community to bring these charges. Finding John Ashfield’s deposition becomes even more important. What did he do to justify such a large payment for bringing the prosecution?

The wider social and economic context of the time may also have had some effect though it will probably be almost impossible to link them directly. The Joanna and William Arter family had clearly been struggling for many years and possibly clung on locally due to their tenancy rights in their cottage. In the years 1828 to 1831 the Arter’s and many other families like them were experiencing extra hard times as prices rose due to the poor harvests but wages barely moved and work became more intermittent. Technical and political changes were in the air. Across Southern England the ‘Captain Swing’ uprising had taken place during the summer of 1830 in part against new farm machinery. George IV died and although the long term Tory and repressive government won the 1830 general election it was about to fall to the reforming liberal Whigs in the 1831 and 1832 elections. There was a shift toward a more technically administrative and rational form of government. One example of which was the first census of 1831. So, because of all this, the existing agrarian, aristocratic and landowning class system was under a general pressure to change with the times. Perhaps even reaching down to individual work relationships where pay which had traditionally been, in part through produce and allowances, now felt that boundaries such as this, payment in cheese, was being taken advantage of. What had been acceptable was beginning not to be any longer.

Finally what happened to Joanna, Maria and Hannah and the Arter family? Joanna lived until 1879 almost reaching 100. Through the census information it is clear she moved around the family but died in the cottage at Lurley with possibly the blind son William supporting each other. The prison sentence did not affect her social standing in the village. Maria and her family moved around the area and she died a widow in the workhouse in Exeter in 1902, again nearly reaching 100. Hannah has been more difficult to follow and did not seem to marry and in the 1871 census was a servant in a house in Richmond, Surrey. My own 2 x grandfather James, Joanna and Williams first son, clearly became involved with horses and stagecoaches whilst living in Sowton, drove coaches all over England and finally ending up owning two hackney carriages in Greenwich, Kent, my 1 x grandfather’s family still had horses there in the early 1920s.

End (at the moment).

Sources

Online census data via Ancestry

Devon Archives - Loxbeare registration - 1558A/PR

Devon Archives - Loxbeare overseers -  1558A/PO

Devon Archives - Sowton overseers - 780A/PO

Devon County Council - tithe apportionments - https://www.devon.gov.uk/historicenvironment/tithe-map/

Devon Archives - Sessions Order Book 1830-1835 QS/1/27

 

 

 

Saving Fords: nationalisation & alternative production

This is an experiment in constructive political cooperation.

Many members of the Pontyclun Hub will be affected if the Ford plant at Bridgend closes. I'd like to think that we can bring the thoughts of the community and those that know the plant and industry together to see if we can up with way of keeping it open.

I wrote a piece about the closure of the Crabtree and Evelyn plant in Pontyclun two years ago about how international corporations have the power to move capital around leaving broken communities behind. Ford's was one of the other plants I mentioned that was at risk.

The Welsh Government has set up a task force to look at options, the workforce is prepared to support industrial action and some have suggested nationalisation.

The problem is that the Bridgend plant produces engines as part of an international supply chain so a solution needs to be international, for example the EU being pressed to support continued production - a Ford's plant in Germany is also affected - about alternative production locally or a combination of the two.

I think it will be a tragedy for us all locally if the skills, jobs and family incomes that rely on Ford's at Bridgend are lost. With those directly employed and with those who indirectly rely on plant we could be talking about 10,000 jobs.

So here is the question: can we think of ways that alternative production perhaps coupled with alternative ownership, building on the skills available could be brought into operation? This would also need to consider investment and other support that could be aided by state institutions, such as the Welsh and UK governments and the EU. Their involvement might result in bringing in support from other sources such as research and development from universities.

One example of what I have in mind is the Lucas plan: https://notesfrombelow.org/article/bringing-back-the-lucas-plan

If there is enough interest we can set up a separate FB group.

One result of our collective suggestions is that we could make a submission to the Welsh Government task group etc.

Stop RCT closures of residential care homes.

Tory austerity cuts are driving the ‘modernisation’ of residential and day care for older people in Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT). A detailed proposal is out for consultation ending in early April 2019. Even before the consultation is complete, RCT has started to restrict admissions to residential care in line with its proposed option (6.14) and the consultation is focused on the Council’s proposed option of reduced residential care as opposed to sustaining the current provision.

RCT argues that the changes are about improved quality of care but also admit that they would be ‘cost effective’.

"10.1 The proposals set out in this report have the primary focus on delivering improved quality of care and support outcomes for Rhondda Cynon Taf residents. Whilst the financial implications are a secondary consideration, the proposals for change should provide more cost effective solutions to the current arrangements and these will be 
explored post consultation when a decision is taken by Cabinet on a way forward."

Further, they recognise that qualified and experienced staff will be lost (11) if the proposal is agreed.

We argue that Tory austerity are at the root of the proposal as RCT itself admits, it has made real savings of over £90m over the last ten years and is aiming to save a further £6m in the current financial year and another £6m in the coming 2019/20 financial year (6.10). These financial cuts are a direct result of the cumulative austerity cuts in the Welsh budget made by the UK government. These cuts have then been passed down to councils and other public services in Wales which, of course, includes RCT. All the links are to our People's Assembly Wales research. In RCT the current year budget savings specifically referred to savings by early intervention and increased independence in social service provision, the very language used in the current consultation document.

RCT are not alone at using day and domiciled care as a justification for more cuts. Similar moves are being made by councils for financial reasons across Wales. Essentially the aim is to reduce face to face and 24 hour support which is seen as costly in terms of staffing. Substituting instead, technical aids, collective provision and toughening the criteria for more intensive and personal support. Once in place, the criteria can be toughened and staff cut all in the name of individualized domiciled based packages, pushed by further cuts and not the needs of older people. We would argue that provision is moving not to better care but ‘domiciled solitary confinement’.

Supports the local campaign against these cuts.

A key demand should be that the option to keep the current provision is agreed by RCT.

This has to be raised with as many interested people as possible such as local councillors, AMs, MPs, affected trade unions and local Labour and other party branches. Charities such as Age Concern should also be asked to support the campaign.

It may also be possible, using our People's Assembly Wales contacts, to interest other people affected by similar cuts around Wales.

Of course this can only go forward with the agreement of the existing campaign. We hope our analysis is a help and suggest that we meet up as soon as possible to see how we can coordinate our action.

Socialist should still oppose Brexit: Remain and Transform! Craig Lewis and Len Arthur

Socialist should still oppose Brexit: Remain and Transform!

Craig Lewis and Len Arthur

Theresa May’s strategy of delay and prevarication over Brexit continues. A so called “meaningful vote” on her withdrawal agreement has been postponed yet again to within a fortnight of the Article 30 deadline. Stopping Brexit should now be the immediate priority for the radical left. Whether this is achieved by a General Election, a second referendum or a combination of both along with a delay in Brexit is not a matter of socialist principle.

Labour has been unsuccessful in its attempts to force a general election and its version of Brexit was defeated in Parliament. More opportunities to force an election may arise but Jeremy Corbyn’s apparent endorsement of a final vote should be welcomed by socialists as a step in the right direction. It does at least open up the possibility of winning Labour to a radical “remain and transform” position. Of course Labour’s Brexit ambiguity remains. Its expressed intention to abstain on May’s deal whilst supporting a “confirmatory” second referendum is fraught with dangers. The unpredictable parliamentary arithmetic, the Blairite split and divisions within the PLP could yet see Labour inadvertently becoming the “midwife of a Tory Brexit”.  This would be a tragedy for working class people and a serious setback to the prospects of the UK radical left.  Labours difficulties stem partly from electoral concerns amongst MPs from leave voting constituencies, which persist despite recent polling evidence that Labour has more to gain by backing a remain and reform agenda. But they also reflect the persistent influence of Lexit mythology on the Corbyn leadership and some leading trade unionists.

Here we review and update the socialist case against Lexit outlined in an article on Left Unity’s website last year. The article was a response to a piece by Costas Lapavitsas in Jacobin Magazine in May 2018, setting out a case for Labour to pursue a hard Brexit under WTO rules. Since then Lapavitsas has developed his critique of the EU and support for Brexit in his new book (Lapavitsas 2019). He will be the key speaker in a series of meetings planned for the run up to Brexit Day on March 29, organised by leading Lexit groups and figures including the CP, Counterfire , Tariq Ali, the Guardian’s Larry Elliot and, bizarrely, Baron Glasman of Blue Labour: Transforming Britain after Brexit

Like most of the pro-leave Left, Lapavitsas accepts that Brexit was led by racists and xenophobes but nevertheless it was a working class revolt in areas “ravaged by the neoliberal policies of the last four decades”. Both the Jacobin article and his new book develop the standard anti-EU arguments widely rehearsed before the referendum and subsequently by Lexit supporters.   Staying within the single market will prevent a Corbyn government implementing key aspects of its “radical” programme.  EU Single Market rules will undermine its industrial strategy by blocking increased public ownership, state aid, and the use of public procurement to promote decent jobs and employment standards.  Trading under WTO terms will provide more favourable opportunities.  Free movement is nothing more than a business ploy to lower wages and Labour needs to replace it with a “progressive and fair migration policy”.  A radical left government outside the single market and the customs union will not be subject to ECB blackmail or EU interference in government spending through the “fiscal compact”.

Those of us on the radical left who support remaining in the EU and fighting to transform it have consistently rejected such arguments.  We certainly accept that a radical Corbyn government will face internationally co-ordinated ruling class attacks.  But it will do so whether or not the UK remains in the EU.  To focus on EU policy towards southern Europe during the debt crisis is misleading to say the least. Britain is not a Eurozone country. The ECB does not have the power to strangle bank liquidity and threaten to ruin the UK economy as in Greece. For the same reason the UK would not be subject to the Fiscal Compact and the EU could not impose sanctions for breaching public spending limits as it has recently threatened with Italy.  

Lapavitsas’s support for “a progressive migration policy” is not supported by all Lexit groups.  But the fact that it is supported at all indicates the extent to which sections of the Labour and far left have accommodated to right-wing nationalist ideas. It will inevitably make migrant workers more precarious. By creating a two-tier workforce, it will allow unscrupulous employers to intensify exploitation, undermine workplace rights and worsen employment conditions. At the same time it will sow division, fracture collective solidarity and in consequence further weaken trade union organisation and resistance.  Support for an end to free movement also represents a massive concession to the idea that low wages and pressure on public services is the fault of migration not the result of austerity.  A contention extensively challenged even by mainstream economic commentators as Phil Hearse has recently pointed out.  

In a widely quoted report for the Renewal Journal, Andy Tarrant and Andrea Biondi have undertaken a detailed analysis of claims that EU rules would present significant barriers to Corbyn’s industrial strategy. They looked at each of Labour’s economic proposals in the 2017 manifesto (26 in total).  17 would not fall within State Aid rules at all. 7 potentially do, but these would be exempted under current EU law. Only 2 measures would need to be reported under existing regulations and these could be structured to comply. With regard to nationalisation they suggest that little of Corbyn’s agenda would be affected, and point to the far higher proportion of public ownership in other EU countries.

State aid and nationalisation rules have not stopped Germany from municipalising energy provision and it has not prevented the operation of publicly owned railways throughout much of the EU. In Germany 90% of passenger services are run by the state railway company; in France both the main train operator and the infrastructure operator are state owned; the same applies in Italy; the Spanish railways are virtually entirely in public ownership; as is the case in Belgium and Holland; even in Sweden which has started to privatise its railways 80% of services are still publicly owned and run. See here.  In fact in recent years the UK has actually spent less on state aid as a percentage of GDP than most other EU state.  This has been the choice of successive Westminster governments; not the result of EU diktat.

Surprisingly Lapavitsas has little to say about the direct impact that trading under WTO rules would have on production, jobs and living standards. Other Lexit proponents take a similarly dismissive attitude. For instance John Rees of Counterfire implies that trade is of secondary importance in modern capitalism: “Mature capitalism depends on its productive base. Trade of course plays an important role in opening or closing markets.” But for him trade is: “only the primary form of capitalism in its early mercantile period”.  Socialist Worker’s Tomas Tengeley-Evans writes in support of a hard Brexit that: “A free trade area would be a chink in its (the EU’s) customs union and its “Fortress Europe” policy that locks out refugees.” (Socialist Worker 13 Feb 2019). In a recent Socialist Review Joseph Choonara reiterates Lapavitsas’s concerns on EU state aid but when it comes to trade relations implies that socialists should be agnostic: “Precisely what trade arrangements this would entail is a largely tactical question — the socialist left cannot have a one-size-fits-all position in favour of protectionism or of free trade. But any progressive deal would have to free the British government from constraints such as the restrictions on creating state-run monopolies imposed by the EU.”

The problem with such sloppy thinking is that it ignores the very nature of the capitalist accumulation process itself. Globalisation and the internationalisation of capitalist production did not evolve as a conspiracy in Brussels. It reflects the inescapable driving force behind capital accumulation; the need for businesses continuously to seek improved efficiency and profitability in order to compete. It is that fundamental process that has created an international division of Labour. Almost 150 years ago Marx and Engels foresaw how the logic of capitalist production would develop: “The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country”.  (Marx, Engels 1848)

Trade relations are central to the functioning of an internationally integrated capitalist production process. Socialists cannot afford to dismiss the impact of Brexit on trade. For nearly 45 years the “cosmopolitan character” of UK capitalism has involved complex and interconnected production, distribution and exchange systems throughout the European Union.  These are totally dependent on EU trade structures most important of which are the EU’s Single market and Customs Union. It is borderline ultra-leftism for Socialists to ignore the devastating impact on working class living standards, jobs and employment rights attendant on disrupting these links in favour of a retreat into economic nationalism. Recent announcements of closure and cutbacks from the likes of Honda, Nissan, Land Rover, Airbus and most recently BMW are concrete examples of how unpicking trade links will impact on workers.

It is facile to think that this is just “project fear”. The right-wing of the Tory party support trading under WTO rules precisely because they understand that it really will hard wire austerity and neoliberal economics into the UK economy.  Dismantling EU supply chains and market access will massively increase pressure to intensify the rate of exploitation within British capitalism in order to maintain competitiveness and profitability. Will Hutton argues perceptively that leaving the Single Market in order to engage in secretive trade deals with China, Russia, Trump’s America and Modi’s India is akin to “swimming with crocodiles”.  Link here.  He is correct, but we need to recognize that this is deliberate.  It is part of a hard right-wing strategy to supercharge neoliberalism and complete the ERG agenda of establishing a low wage, low tax economy with minimal welfare provision and workers’ rights. Lexit supporters risk becoming complicit in this strategy by actively promoting a Brexit under WTO rules.

There is of course no socialist principle that requires us to remain in the EU under all circumstances. Left remain supporters totally accept that it is “a guarantor of neoliberalism and corporate interests”.  In its current form the EU has become a vehicle through which austerity politics has been imposed by the European elite.  An exercise of class power that has had particularly devastating consequences for the people of Southern Europe especially the Greek working class, where civil society has come close to collapse through enforced privatisation and massive attacks on working class jobs, living standards and welfare provisions since the 2008 financial crisis. But as socialists we must confront reality as it is, not as we would wish it. Brexit will not provide political and economic opportunities for a radical transformation of British society.  There are a number of reasons why this is the case which left remainers have argued consistently since before the referendum.  See here and here.

To their credit the more perceptive Lexiteers recognise the radical left’s current weakness. But as Trotsky once said about the Comintern leadership “they are blinded by their own theories”. (Trotsky 1933). They persist in offering nothing but abstract propaganda against EU neoliberalism, whilst berating left remain supporters for ignoring the “working class revolt” evidenced by the referendum. (Lapavitsas 2019). They continue to downplay the fact that, if there was such a revolt, it was led by racist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant ideas pedalled by Tory ultras and darker forces further to the right.

Plenty of commentators have discussed the intellectual and electoral collapse of European Social Democracy since the financial crisis of 2008. At the recent “No Pasaran” Conference in London speakers from left groups and campaigns throughout Europe testified to the emerging influence of far right ideas that are increasingly filling the political vacuum left by that collapse. Some spoke in worrying terms of fascist forces on the streets of Hungary and Poland, emboldened by the reactionary politics of right-wing nationalist governments. Others from France, Germany, Italy and Spain spoke of the normalisation of racist and anti-migrant discourse in mainstream politics where far right parties have increased their parliamentary representation or entered coalition governments. This is alarming evidence of what Neil Faulkner has called “creeping fascism”. But it was also clear from conference participants that Europe-wide resistance is growing in workplaces and communities, both to the far right and the politics of austerity that feeds it. A real concrete opportunity is emerging for Corbyn’s Labour Party to lead a radical “Remain and Transform” campaign; not just in Britain, but across Europe by focusing such resistance.  It would be tragic if abstract Lexit propaganda diverted Labour from such an opportunity.

The Remain supporting radical left must fight alongside those within the Labour Party and wider campaigning groups who seek to commit Jeremy Corbyn’s party to a policy of delaying Brexit to secure a second vote or a General Election. In doing so we should argue boldly for a “Remain and Transform” position.  We do not support a “people’s vote” to maintain the status quo in Europe.  The EU is as much a terrain of struggle for socialists as the individual capitalist states which comprise it.  The radical left in Britain needs to build on the emerging struggles by Europeanising and internationalising the fightback.

The Party of the European Left (EL) is a starting point in this process. It covers 23 countries – not all in the EU – and 40 radical socialist and communist parties. It acts more as a network than a democratic centralist party and with regular meetings and congresses it provides an ongoing forum for socialists to develop policy, politics and coordinate action. It is intent on reaching out through the annual Summer University and European Social Forum, the next one to be held after the May European Elections. It is coordinating action against the rise of the right and neo-fascism as well as emphasising the fight against austerity, NATO and militarisation. The EL includes 27 MEPs and is the largest part of the 52 GUE/NGL red green group in the European Parliament. A recently agreed EL statement has been put out in the name of Gregor Gysi the EL President, appealing to the left across Europe to work toward a joint platform against the right, neoliberalism and climate change running up to the European Parliament Elections in May.

Internationalism also needs to be an integral part of the socialist case and action in the UK. Defending these politics is what this response is all about and in practice, on the issue of the EU working with others through organisations such as Another Europe is Possible, to ensure that the socialist case for remain and fighting for a social and democratic EU is made as opposed to the ‘business as usual’ case being promoted by others. Just as important is the active defence of working class action across Europe, against the attacks of neoliberal governments such as that of Macron in France; opposing the rise of the right, for example the AfG in Germany; and supporting social and human rights, such as the vote against the anti-abortion laws in Ireland.

The key to a radical socialist transformation of Europe remains the process of actively linking local fightbacks, with building an international socialist organisation, such as the European Left. It, at least, provides a European starting point of being able to seriously and meaningfully tackle the power of international capital and the threat of climate change. Such a process becomes more urgent than ever, as parties and movements of the hard right target next year’s European elections for their anti-migrant and islamophobic politics.

Pulling up the national drawbridge, as advocated by Lapavitsas and other Lexit supporters, would mean turning our backs on this international project, creating divisions and rendering the required transformation less likely.

Additional References:

Lapavitsas, C. (2019). The Left Case Against the EU. Cambridge: Polity Press.  ISBN: 978-1-50953106-6.

Communist Manifesto:  Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137;

Fascism, Stalinism and the United Front: L Trotsky , Bookmarks 1989

https://craiglewis138.blogspot.com/2019/03/socialistshould-still-oppose-brexit.html