Jump to content

Philip Sansom

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philip Sansom
Photo of Sansom published 1945
Born
Philip Richard Sansom

(1916-09-19)19 September 1916
Died24 October 1999(1999-10-24) (aged 83)
London, England
Occupation(s)Writer and editor
MovementAnarchist movement

Philip Richard Sansom (19 September 1916 – 24 October 1999) was a British anarchist writer and activist.[1][2]

Early life and education

[edit]

Sansom was the son John Sansom, lathe operator, and Lillian Sansom (née Underwood), occupation unknown, who lived in Hackney, London. He later lived in Wandsworth in south London.[3] Having been influenced by Education through art by Herbert Read,[4] the acclaimed art historian, he trained as a commercial artist in West Ham Technical College. Sansom (1987) recalled that at the time, in 1936, Read was ‘already established as England’s leading writer on modern art in all its facets’ and that his books: '“The meaning of art”, “Art and industry” and “Art and society” were almost required reading for my generation of art students'.[5] After he left art college, Sansom worked as a commercial artist.

Second World War

[edit]

During the Second World War Sansom was a registered conscientious objector and worked on the land.[6] In 1943 he encountered the London anarchists and the surrealists.[7] Thereafter he contributed articles and cartoons to the newspaper War Commentary and became involved with its publisher, Freedom Press. By 1944 Sansom had become, with Marie Louise Berneri, Vernon Richards and John Hewetson, an editor of the newspaper. He served two prison sentences in the following year. First, he served a two-month sentence in Brixton Prison, having been charged with ‘being in possession of an army waterproof coat and for failing to notify a change of address’.[8] Second, very shortly afterwards he and his fellow editors of War Commentary were tried at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, and found guilty of the offence of ‘the dissemination of three seditious issues of War Commentary under Defence Regulation 39a’.[9][10] Sansom was sentenced to nine months imprisonment, which he served in Wormwood Scrubs.

Sansom's problems with the state didn't finish with his release from prison. On the day before his release he was served with a notice requiring him to attend at 9 o'clock the following morning, within an hour of his release, for a medical examination for the army. On the 18th January 1946 the Freedom Press Defence Committee circulated a letter which was signed by George Orwell and twenty-five public figures requesting that the ministers responsible correct the injustice of his call-up for military service.[11] The letter was published on 18 January 1946 in the Manchester Guardian, Peace News and Tribune, on 21 January by the Daily Herald, on 26 January by Freedom and in the February/March issue of the bulletin of the Freedom Press Defence Committee.

On the 22 February, Tribune published the following letter by Sansom:

'It has been said that the price of Freedom is eternal vigilance and it is certainly true that if ever vigilance was responsible for any man's freedom it is for mine at the present moment. For it is clearly as a direct result of the protest made by the Freedom Defence Committee in the form of a letter published by you (Jan. 18. 1946), that the Home Secretary ordered my immediate release from prison last week (Feb. 11).

I am therefore writing to thank you for giving space to the publication of the disturbing circumstances surrounding my prosecution and to be asked to be allowed to express through your columns my hearfelt gratitude to the Committtee and the twenty-six signatories of the letter for so willingly giving their support in my defence.'[12]

Post Second World War

[edit]

After the war Sansom variously became a journalist, an editor (of Sewing Machine Times and the Loading Machine Times), and a comic-strip artist.[13] In 1951 he promoted syndicalism with his pamphlet ‘Syndicalism: The workers’ next step’.[14] In 1952 he, with Albert Grace, Albert Meltzer and Donald Rooum, launched as an editor The Syndicalist, which he printed.

Sansom was a charismatic orator at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, and elsewhere in the 1950s and 1960s.[1]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Rooum, Donald (15 November 1999). "Philip Sansom". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  2. ^ Pilgrim, John (3 November 1999). "Obituary: Philip Sansom". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  3. ^ Ward 2014, originally 2003, p. 39.
  4. ^ Philip Sansom
  5. ^ Sansom 1987.
  6. ^ Ancestry.com documents that in 1939 Sansom was living with his widowed mother in a caravan on a farm in Uckfield, Sussex.
  7. ^ Ward 2014, originally 2003, 39.
  8. ^ Ward 1995.
  9. ^ Honeywell 2015.
  10. ^ The funds to cover the legal costs for the editors were raised by the Freedom Press Defence Committee.
  11. ^ The letter is reprinted in Orwell 1998, pp. 48-49.
  12. ^ The letters is reprinted in Orwell 1998, p. 49
  13. ^ As a comic-strip artist he championed surrealism.
  14. ^ Excerpts of his pamphlet have been republished in Graham 2009.

References

[edit]


Publications

[edit]

1950s

  • Syndicalism: The Workers' Next Step. London: Freedom Press. 1951.

1970s

  • "Revived 45: Anarchists against the army" (PDF). The Raven Anarchist Quarterly. 29 (8): 1-10. 1974.
  • "Foreword" in Huggon, Jim (1977). Speakers’ Corner An anthology. London: Kropotkin’s Lighthouse Publications.

1980s

1990s

  • "Anarchists against hanging" in Rooum, Donald (2016, originally c.1993), "What is anarchism An Introduction". Second edition. Edited by Vernon Richards. PO Box 23912, Oakland, California: PM Press. ISBN 978-1-62963-146-2.
  • With Bill Christopher, Jack Robinson and Peter Turner, "The relevance of anarchism". in Rooum, Donald (2016 originally c.1993), "What is anarchism An Introduction". Second edition. Edited by Vernon Richards. PO Box 23912, Oakland, California: PM Press. ISBN 978-1-62963-146-2.

See also

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philip_Sansom&oldid=1294748227"