Samuel Fielden. Anarchist!

[Francis Duckett]

Samuel Fielden was born in Todmorden ,Lancashire, as he describes it himself, "In the East Riding of Lancashire". The date of his birth was 25th,2,1847. As far as I know he died in 1922 . Coming from a family of handloom weaver and Chartists his family background was one of striving against the industrial servitude being forced on working people at that time. He records going to meetings where the speakers were negroes from the USA speaking against slavery and the plight of the blacks. He became a Methodist lay preacher and learnt the art of public speaking. In July 1868 he travelled to America and procured work Prentice's hat factory in Brooklyn. Moving to Providence,(Rhode Island I think,) he worked in various places.Travelling around he gained both knowledge and understanding. He records a newly emancipated slave telling an employer that he would work for $2.00 and not for one. This impressed Fielden who commented"there speaks the man and not the slave".Eventually after wandering about America, including the South he ended up in Chicago, Illinois.
After returning to England to marry he went back to Chicago where two children were born. (one of each as it were.) He," invested," in a team of horses hauling stone about the city and became as he describes it, "a capitalist,". This didn't stop him joining a teamsters union and being elected Vice President on the mistaken assumption that he was an Irishman, the president being a German. It was in 1883 that he became a socialist and ended up being a speaker and member of the International Working People's Association.
On the evening of the 4th, May after meeting Albert and Mrs Parsons( a fearsome lady,) and making arrangments to organise the "sewing girls in the city," they and Michael Schwarb heard of a meeting called in the Haymarket in Chicago and all decided to go. On arrival they found a meeting in decline.It was open air and wet.They were asked to speak by Michael Spies
The crowd were wet and tired, a trickle of people were leaving the meeting and Sam followed Parsons upon the platform. ( cart). In the distance he could see a column of policemen heading towards the platform. He spoke for about twenty minutes and by this time the Polis were upon them. Fielden was about to cease speaking and awaited events. i.e What were the oranisers of the meeting going to do, what did the polis want? The meeting was legal! There had been some discussion whether to adjourn the meeting to a nearby hall because of the wet weather but the proposed hall was supposed to be in use. Fielden then suggested to the faithful remnant of the crowd that things being as they were it might be better for all to make there way home .At this juncture a loud interuption was made,
"In the name of the people of Illinois I command this meeting to peacabely disperse".

Fielden got down from the wagon and moved towards the police captain protesting, "why captain this is a peacable meeting,".This was done as a gesture to allay the uneasiness of the small crowd being faced with armed police. The police captain was described as in a," very violent manner," ignoring the peaceful gesture of the Tomorden man, the police chief turned to his men saying," I call upon this meeting to disperse and I call upon you to disperse it."Fielden replied alright "we'll go". He walked to the sidewalk and indeed had just about reached it when a bomb exploded in the middle of the street.Almost simultaniously the police began firing at the crowd. The crowd from the meeting ran in every direction.Fielden ran towards the south when he was hit in the knee by a bullit. This struck the bone and travelled up striking the bone and moving across left the leg leaving a two holes.He felt the pain but didn't know the cause. By this time the terrified crowd were throwing themselves on the floor whilst the polis poured in several volleys. Fielding made it home and found that he'd been shot. After looking or seeking for his friends and enquiring after their welfare he finally sought medical attention. He was arrested next day and was not allowed to contact a lawyer.
The story of the Haymarket Martyrs is told elsewere on this sight. Samuel Fielden and two others were sentenced to life imprisonment though their innocence was evident. Finally after a few years a Govenor of Illinois , an honest man, was so appalled,(I'm told,) that they should suffer from something they were innocent of gave them a free pardon. Govenor Altgelt ruined his political career the Illinios political community never forgave him and he never assumed political office again.

Finally about 1922 either Sam Fielden or his corpse came home to Todmorden after spending some time in a commune in the wilds of America. He was buried in Walsden, but I have not been able to trace just where.n

[michele cryer]

Thank you for that great article Francis...have you any photographs that we could scan onto the board to illustrate the man and his life?

[Mitch]

This is interesting, I've just spent some time trying to find out where Samuel Fielden is buried in Walsden.

I thought it might be St Peters (the one with the huge spire) in Walsden, but I can't find Samuel Fielden the anarchist. It's all Fieldens - the mill owners!! There's quite a lot of Fieldens buried in Tod as you can imagine (better change thread title to FIELDEN - Francis you noggin!)

I find it rather interesting that in Tod history, there is so little information on this great anarchist. I thought we should do something about this so I have emailed Todmorden Tourist information centre to firstly find out where the grave is, then probably to make some comments on my disappointment at there being so little historical information about Samuel Fielden.

It's all tittle tattle about John Fielden II and his second wife Ruth, a weaver who turned to the drink, cause he was such a t w a t probably. Local history seems to conveniently forget the radicals!

They are very helpful in Tod library if anyone happens to be passing and fancies asking them. I would quite like to view it.

[jim]

In the 1970's Burnley DAM, held a meeting in Tod with Samuel J. Fielden as the cover. Initially we had trouble hiring a room,but eventually tried the Cotton Workers Union, I had been a member in the late 40's and early 50s. This union had property in Tod it was on the road from Burnley, a big Georgian house. The secretary who had an office in Rochdale, (I think) was very cagey at first.Who were we? What were our aims? Were we Labour or Communists? If we were Bolshies we couldn't have the room. I explained that we were Syndicalists in the IWA who were simply trying to spread the word to various interested people. Not atogether true, but near enough.We got a booking. The business then was to draw up a poster for the meeting. We did an A4 size one. On the front was a picture of Sam Fielden and it bore the legend," TODMORDEN MAN ACCUSED OF MURDER. " There was other stuff on i.e. time , date and venue plus speakers from the DAM.

On the date when we arrived we found that the T.U.official had not informed the caretaker of our meeting and he refused to let us in. Already there was a branch meeting of an AUE branch going on and I got the impression that whilst the Secretary had not informed the local man ,the AUE had frightened him about bomb makeing and wild orgies. However charm worked in the end as did an audience of about twenty people who turned up to hear and find out what it was all about.
The first part was a description of Fielden and a survey of his place in the Working Class Movement, the second was an analysis of politics at that time.
We called another meeting sometime later. It was observed that a young chap was sat quietly on the front row clad in black with a sabretache belt across his chest and on his head a black beret!" Very Interesting" as the little fat gestapo man in Dad's Army would have said.

The next meeting could have very well been a disaster.
Having booked the room we appeared on time only to find that the room was locked and we couldn't get the key. Another room was vacant but the rightwingers on the AUE, objected to its use and prevented its use by locking it and refusing the key. All this drama was carried on in the entrance hall.Leading from this was a quite handsome and imposing staircase. The stairs were a tribute to the Union and the care taker in their cleanliness. After a short meeting we decided to use the stairwell as a meeting hall. The audience to sit on the steps five or so abreast. Amongst the 15 or so people present was our suspicious looking,"fascist".
After the meeting and the questions, when everyone was filing out ,I confronted by the lad, with his black boots, belts and beret. Sure he was a fascist, (we were paranoid at the time) I challenged him," what are you after"? My mum told me to join. We were astounded. We'd had anxious parents demanding their offsprings release from our clutches, this was new. It turned out that "Mum," was an Italian lady and his father was an ex- Polish Paratrooper who lived in a house quite as big as the one we were using. He became a member. At most of the meetings he attended or on the occasions we were out selling papers or giving leaflets out, he would offer his,"Mums " advice on what we should do and how we should do it. WE asked why doesn't your mother come to meetings?
Well, she had an agreement with her husband to restrain her political activities for one thing, but also she thought English Anarchists too soft. Collapse of stout party! It turned out that the lady was a member of an anarchist family where everyone was anarchist. No God and no State was their look out. Indeed all the area of Italy where she lived was strongly Anarchist and on Saturday nights after a night out the local sport was to take their rifles and snipe at the local carabinere who obligingly returned the complement. As for casualties I don't know.
As it happened we kept the member busy for two or three years picketing and such like endevours but finally he went to college and we lost him.

[Mitch]

Message from Tod Tourist Info centre:

Where is 'the' Samuel Fielden buried in the Mid-west of the States then?


Hello Michelle

Thank you for all your E-Mails. The Samuel Fielden buried at Walsden is NOT the Samuel Fielden who was a Haymarket Martyr. That Samuel Fielden was buried in Mid-West America, not brought back to England.

However, there are quite a few Fielden graves in Walsden churchyard. Go through the lych gate, and up the path and the graves are altogether on your left.

Please do not hesitate to contact me again if you need any further information.

Best Wishes
Carolyn Hall, Manageress
Todmorden TIC
15 Burnlley Road,
Todmorden.
Tel [phone]

[Sean McHeathen]

Guest-jim said:

It turned out that the lady was a member of an anarchist family where everyone was anarchist. No God and no State was their look out.

Must have sat badly with you jim/fred/francis etc etc.

[michele cryer]

Guest-Sean said:

Must have sat badly with you jim/fred/francis etc etc.

What are you implying Sean? Do u have any worthwhile bits of info to add to this discussion of Samuel Fielden, I don't and that is why I haven't tried to comment other than to praise the work that Fred and Mitch have done in attempting to trace his grave and any more information about him.

Constructive criticism is welcomed here, snide remarks are not...Am I right in assuming yours was the latter? Apologies if I have just misunderstood your remarks.

[Mitch]

[Francis DuckettAbout the time]

About the time of the Miners Strike a chap gave me a magazine in which it definitely said that Sam. Fielden had been brought home to Tod and buried there. It went on to say that the teamster had been living quietly
in a Commune in Mid America. I had some other stuff on him as well.

There was an attempt to build a Anarchist Archive centre in the 80s and I gave the file to them at their request. I do not know who gave it me, I think he was a Labour Party chap. I know I tried to find Fielden's grave but couldn't. All I can say is that the details printed looked serious stuff. There was a lot of North West Labour History stuff going around at that time. The information might have been in their magazine!

[Francis Duckett]

Sean McHeathen.

Colleague

I do not mind whatever anyone else thinks or the ideas they hold as long as they do not harm me or mine,or indeed anyone. I've been in the movement for some years and have never met any hostility until recently. When we formed Burnley anarchists , I think everyone else was either agnostic or athiest. The trouble is when enthusiasts try to foist there ideas on others
and believe me lately there's a lot of it about.
Take care
Francis.

[Mitch]

Umm, I think they're wrong at Tod Tourist Info. Headless Les thinks he's buried in Tod too, and what Headless says goes!

I think Bob Jones, Northern Herald Books is the man in the know. I'm gonna email him. He and his wife know where every important radical is buried. They once traced Enid Stacy's grave, concealed under several foot of grass.

I'm off to email him, failing that Working Class Movement Library.

Tod's in Yorkshire now - boundary used to run right through the the town hall, so one side of the town hall was in Yorkshire, one in Lancashire. It was a standard joke in days of old. ;D

[fredduckett]

Mitch!

Sam Feilden's grave ? Did you ever find out where it is?
I know it's a long time since I enquired, but I lost track of time, Headless's fault not mine!
Francis Duckett!

[fredduckett]

It would appear that the info, regarding Sam Fielden I gave, (Reply 8.) was wrong. According to Wiki, Sam was buried in the U.S. and they show his burial date and that of his wife . Tod, C.C. were in the right also! Just shows! If anyone would like to pursue further this interesting Anarchist Syndicalist , relatively unknown but of major importance it is easily available!

Spartacist,another ,'left wing,' organ on the web, doesn't do any work on Sam at all ,but concentrates on the Mill Owner of the same name and from the same town, who was a worthy enough chap, but was a Liberal.

[fred]

SAMUEL FIELDEN, A biographical piece reputedly written for an American Magazine.Whilst on death row Samuel Fielden was asked to write the history of his life for publication in a newspaper. The following are selected paragraphs in Sam’s own words.



"I was born in Todmorden, part of which is in the West Riding of Yorkshire and part in the East Riding of Lancashire. I was born in the Lancashire part. The town is like most towns in Lancashire – a manufacturing one. It lies in a beautiful valley, and on the hillsides are small farms; back about a mile are the moorlands, which could be made into fine farms, as the topography of the moors is more level than the enclosed land. But though thousands of starving Englishmen would be very glad to work them, they must be kept for the grouse and the game keeper and the gentry. The farms are small running from 10 acres to 60 acres, The farms are all dairy, the milk being sold in town. There are numerous large mills in the town, Fielden Bros. being the largest; it contains 2,000 looms.

Here I was born in the year 1847, on the 25th day of February. My father’s name was Abram Fielden, he was one of a family of four sons and three daughters. They were of very powerful physique; my father stood nearly six feet in height; they were a family of hand loom weavers, until the application of steam to weaving. This occurred when my father was hardly out of his teens. My Father became a foreman when quite young in the mill of the Fielden Bros. where he worked until incapacitated by infirmities and age. He was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and was generally acknowledged to ‘know a thing or two’. There were very few that cared to cross swords with him in argument among those with whom he came in contact. My father was a peculiarly eloquent conversationalist, and the recital of the most ordinary incident from his lips bore the charm of romance. When the Ten Hour movement was being agitated in England my father was on the committee of agitation in my native town, and I have heard him tell of sitting on the platform with Earl Shaftsbury, John Fielden, Richard Otler and other advocates of that cause. I always thought he put a little sarcasm into the word earl, at any rate he had but little respect for aristocracy and royalty. He was a Chartist, and I have heard him tell of many incidents connected with the Chartist agitation and movement.

He was also one of the incorporators of the Consumer’s Corporation society in the town of Todmorden and one of the managers of that society for a long time. I remember that he used to go with the other managers to the warehouse of the store after he came home from work at night. From a small room where these pioneers first stored and dispensed the few barrels of potatoes, a few barrels of flour, a barrel of molasses, one of sugar and a very limited supply of other items, that society has now risen to owning two stone buildings where they conducted their business until 1880, when I was there last, besides having branch stores in the outskirts of the town. He also owned shares in some co-operative manufacturing establishments of the vicinity. He was also one of the managers of a local Odd Fellow Benevolent Society and paid a handsome rate to its sick members and also to the families of its deceased members.

In his family relations my father was very severe, at the same time he was kind hearted in the extreme. He was a great lover of children, and the children of all the neighbours used to make common property of his knees, but in his own house he was a strict disciplinarian, but, not withstanding this, there was hardly ever a father who was more idolized by his children than ours was. There was such a sense of justice and right in all his severity that when we grew older we appreciated his motives.

Of my mother I cannot remember so much, as she died when I was a child of ten years. I can remember her as small in stature, with dark eyes and hair, and with pleasing and regular features. I remember in the later years of her life she was a very devoted member of the primitive Methodist church. Her maiden name was Alice Jackson; the family to which she belonged was very poor, I have often heard her and father tell on the cold winter nights, when the wind would shriek around the corners of the house, of the first meeting of her and father. How she was walking in her bare feet through the snow, carrying a basket which contained sand, which she was trying to sell to the poor people to sprinkle on their stone flag floors. You can imagine how poor a family must be when I tell you that this sand was sold for one half penny [one cent] a quart, and how much a child could carry in a basket, but they were compelled to put their children to this means of earning a few cents. The sand they procured from refuse piles at quarries and picking out the whitest scraps, then taking them home and with a large stone beating them into fine sand.

I remember how she used to take my father’s rug and wrap it around her on class- meeting nights, and travel down the lonesome road which skirted to the top of the piece of woods which covered the side of the hill, to go on the coldest and roughest of nights to her class meetings. Such was my mother.

I remembered vividly the foreman under whom I worked in the cotton-mill coming to me and telling me that I was wanted at home, one summer afternoon. I instinctively knew what it was, for my mother was sick when I left home. With breathless haste and with beating heart I climbed the steep hill to find my mother dying. My father was walking the floor. He took me and led me to a chair on which he sat down and took me between his knees, He tried to tell me what I already knew, that my mother was dying. But the words would not come, and he laid his cheek against mine until I released myself from him and rushed upstairs to the bedside of one who to every man’s best and truest friend and I saw the pale face of my mother. She was unconscious. She gasped for breath. Her breast heaved in the last throes of life. Words cannot describe my feelings. It seemed that the bright summer day drew black, but I will not dwell on this painful scene. But it had a wonderful effect on me, and I have had the scene before my mind in all the pain and anguish I have suffered and all the changes in my life. She was laid in the little church yard at Walsden under the hill.

On my visit to England in 1880 I went with an uncle of mine to see the grave. Since my visit home, my father has also found a resting place there. He died August 27th 1886, the present year. The Todmorden Adviser contained the following on August 27th 1886: Abraham Fielden of Burnley, formerly of Todmorden, a moral force chartist, died at Burnley on Friday last and was interred at Walsden churchyard. I undoubtedly inherited from my father that hatred of shame and hypocrisy which I possess to some extent; from my mother that sympathy that I find it impossible not to feel for every form of suffering and which has impelled me to do something toward alleviating it, and I believe now today that I was fortunate in having such a father and mother. But circumstances over which I had no control placed me under these influences and of my subsequent opinions, the readers will decide for themselves.

When, I arrived at the mature age of 8 years, I, as was usual with the poor people’s children in Lancashire, went to work in the cotton mill, and if there is any of the exuberance of child hood about the life of a Lancashire mill hands child it is in spite of his surroundings and conditions, and not in consequence of it. As I look back on my experience at that tender age I am filled with admiration at the wonderful vitality of these children. I think that if the devil had a particular enemy whom he wished to unmercifully torture he would put his soul into the body of a Lancashire factory child and keep him as a child in the factory the rest of his days. The mill into which I was put was the mill established by John Fielden M.P., who fought so valiantly in the ten-hour movement. It was then and is now conducted by his sons, Samuel, John and Joshua. I continued to follow this work in the mill until I was 21 years old and in July 1868 I left for America. I returned home in 1879 to fulfil a matrimonial engagement which I had entered into eleven years before. We left for the United States in February 1880, the fruit of my marriage being a girl of two and a half and a boy born since my imprisonment. On my return to America I invested what money I had in a team of horses, so that I became what the Chicago Tribune calls a capitalist. I have earned my living hauling stone from that time to the time of my arrest."