John Worby

John Worby
Born	1911
Died	1970s
Occupation(s)	memoir writer, tramp, vagabond
Notable work	The Other Half (1937)

John Worby (born in 1911, active 1930s–1940s) was an English tramp memoirist and self-described spiv. He is best known for his controversial memoir The Other Half (1937), which chronicled his experiences of homelessness, vagrancy and petty criminality across Britain and North America. The book was rebranded in subsequent editions to emphasize his underworld connections, reflecting the growing public fascination with marginalized figures during the 1930s Great Depression in Britain and Europe in general. A sequel, Spiv's Progress (1939), expanded on his earlier reflections and articulated a clearer anti-conformist, anti-work philosophy.

Early years

John Worby's early years were marked by instability and institutionalization. He grew up in foster care in Sawbridgeworth in Hertforshire, England. At the age of 9, playmates made him realized that he was in fact an orphan. Although he later recalled being "happy" with his foster parents, Worby frequently found himself in trouble and was eventually sent to a children's home in northern England. There, he experienced what he later described as routine punishment without ever having the "difference between right and wrong" properly explained to him.

At the age of 13, in August 1924, Worby was sent to Ontario, Canada, aboard the Montrose as part of a child emigration scheme intended to provide farm labor to the Canadian agricultural economy. Although he initially worked on various farms, Worby quickly became disillusioned with the lack of personal agency over his placements. After an argument with one of his employers, he ran away to pursue an independent life, marking the beginning of his wandering existence. Over the following months, he held a series of precarious jobs—working as a farmhand, theatre usher and dishwasher—before embracing vagrancy and itinerant living.

Journey as a tramp

North America expedition

Worby began moving between towns in North America, living on the road. He sometimes stayed in hobo encampments and lived with other transient men. He stayed with a man named Reg, who was described as effeminate. When Reg made unwanted sexual advances, Worby took fifty dollars and left. He also began trading physical favors for money or food. He later recalled staying with a woman in London who gave him a pound note and keys to her flat despite his having no money.

Return to Britain and itinerant life

In the early 1930s, Worby returned to England. He lived in London and other cities. He earned money through street performances, selling laces, singing, and begging. He slept in parks, hedgerows, and in lodging houses called kip-houses. He avoided wage labor and did not seek regular employment.

Worby developed short-term relationships with people who helped him in exchange for companionship. In London, a sex worker named Ivy offered him a place to stay and gave him a pound note. In another incident, a man offered him two pounds to engage in a bondage role-play scenario. These exchanges were described by Worby as pragmatic decisions linked to survival.

At one point in the mid-1930s, Worby lived for several months with a young woman named Avril in Mayfair, a wealthy district of London. He described her as well-dressed and recovering from drug addiction. He helped take care of her, and they had a romantic relationship. After a few months of living in comfort, Avril asked him to marry her. Worby declined. He left and returned to his life on the road.

Confrontations and travel

During his time in England, Worby had several conflicts with property owners. In one case, a landowner found him sleeping in a haystack. When the man told him to leave, Worby responded by headbutting him and telling him the land belonged to God, not to any person. He did not express regret about the incident. He also stayed briefly with a Christian family who offered him food and shelter. He kissed their daughter Doris and then felt guilty, resuming traveling and eventually making his way to the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. There, he camped under the stars and reflected that solitude and nature brought him peace.

Writings and legacies

Worby wrote a memoir titled The Other Half, published in 1937. Marketed initially as a hobo's autobiography, the book drew public attention after an incendiary article by Daily Express columnist James Douglas declared it morally dangerous, urging that "this book must be banned." Douglas likened the book to "poison gas," claiming it left him choking for fresh air. Rather than suppressing sales, the moral outrage boosted the memoir's popularity. The publisher, J.M. Dent, could not keep up with orders, and the memoir ran through five editions in its first year. The quote from Douglas's article was reprinted on later dust jackets, and the book was eventually republished in the United States, remaining in circulation as late as 1946.

The controversy helped shape the public image of Worby not merely as a former vagrant but as a defiant representative of Britain's "other half," especially in the turbulent 1930s. The Great Depression in Britain led to widespread unemployment, poverty, and industrial decline, especially in the north. These conditions fueled social unrest, increased support for radical politics, and deepened public distrust in traditional institutions—themes reflected in Worby's writings.

His publishers capitalized on the publicity through altering the book's title and presentation across various editions. What was originally subtitled "A Hobo's Autobiography" was later recast as "The Autobiography of a Spiv," which emphasized criminality as well as underworld intrigue. This reframing advanced Worby's transformation in the public eyes from a wandering tramp to a cultural symbol of petty criminal rebellion.

The book's sequel, Spiv's Progress (1939), further entrenched this identity and attempted to give philosophical depth to Worby's lifestyle, reflecting on why he and others like him could not "fit in" to conventional society.

This public transformation also sparked sharp divisions in critical reception, as readers and reviewers responded not only to his lifestyle but to the tone with which he defended it. Some people expressed disdain for his lack of remorse while others were unsettled by the tone of moral superiority which he occasionally adopted toward working-class respectability. One reviewer described him as "calmly superior" to the very people whose charity he depended on. Nonetheless, not all reactions were hostile. Mark Benney wrote in The Spectator that the rejection of Wolby's civilized conventions caused "a wave of envy", clearly showing the broader culture contradiction in terms of conformity and freedom during the two World Wars.

Worby's legacy lies in his disruption of established narratives surrounding tramps, criminals as well as the working poor. Although other memoirists of the period often sought redemption or emphasized personal transformation, Worby remained unapologetically resistant to the values of productivity, respectability, and upward mobility. He rejected material aspiration as well as the very structure of the wage-earning life, and described steady employment as "a lifetime of slavery". Worby differed from contemporaries who distinguished between vagrancy and criminality, intertwined two separate identities, and redefined criminality not as a path to power, namely as with the gangster archetype of the 1930s, but as a form of passive resistance to social discipline.