ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

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SOCIALISM

 

I added this section to the site in October 2020, when the President of the United States had declared Socialism the true enemy of the people and a year after the vilification and persecution of Jeremy Corbyn by the massed ranks of the media (both right-wing and mainstream) at the behest of their masters, had ensured that there would never be a Socialist government in Britain.

It began as a simple attempt to gather together all the available information about Robert Williams Buchanan’s maternal grandfather, William Williams, but then drifted into more of a collection of material about the nature of Robert Owen’s crusade in the years just before the birth of the writer. We begin with this passage from Chapter I of Harriett Jay’s biography of Robert Williams Buchanan:

     ‘The poet’s grandfather, known throughout the Midlands as “Lawyer Williams,” was a very remarkable man. Quite early in his career he had come under the influence of Robert Owen and had accepted that philanthropist’s ideas on social, political, and religious problems—in fact, he was a freethinker of the most advanced school. He fearlessly proclaimed his opinions in and out of season, and this exceptional candour, so far from hindering his progress in his profession, gained for him the respect of his most bitter opponents. It was a favourite dictum of his, that there was no such anachronism as an “honest lawyer,” but he himself was honesty incarnate, a living refutation of his own dictum; and his fearlessness, his unselfishness in helping the weak and in denouncing every form of injustice, earned for him the title of the “poor man’s friend.”
     At the time that the war against Capital and Superstition was raging, “Lawyer Williams” followed his profession as a solicitor in Stoke-upon-Trent, and his house became the temporary home of every wandering preacher of the cause who visited the district. He entertained the lecturers, he presided at their meetings, he furthered, both publicly and privately, the dissemination of the new doctrines, and only his great popularity with the lower classes saved him from personal violence. Again and again when the mob rose in its fury, when public halls were wrecked and Owen’s lecturers were compelled to fly for their lives, the only refuge in Stoke was the house of “Lawyer Williams,” and while some trembling apostle of freethought was being smuggled away through the back door, the “poor man’s friend” faced the furies and diverted their attention to his own person. Any other man’s house would have been burned down or razed to the ground; any other man would, in all likelihood, have been torn to pieces. Both the men and women of Stoke respected the man who had befriended them in a thousand ways, who had sacrificed time and money and reputation to the legal defence of the poorest and most wretched among them, and much as they loathed the opinions which he fearlessly shared, not one hand in all the crowd was raised against him. Nor was it among the poor and wretched alone that his name was a synonym for honesty, kindliness, and philanthropy. Even amongst the clergy, his bitterest opponents, he had sympathisers and well-wishers. Doctor Vale, the Vicar of Stoke, was the intimate friend of the lawyer and his wife, and on one occasion Mr. Williams protected him from the wild mob of hungry men and women who would otherwise have had his life.’

 

The Staffordshire Advertiser (22 September, 1838 - p.3)

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The Staffordshire Advertiser (27 October, 1838)

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The Staffordshire Gazette (17 October, 1840 - p.3)

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The Staffordshire Advertiser (2 October, 1847 - p.4)

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The Staffordshire Advertiser (16 March, 1850)

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The Staffordshire Advertiser (23 March, 1850 - p.8)

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The Staffordshire Advertiser (27 April, 1850 - p.8)

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These are photos of Adventure Place, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent (or Adventure-place, Albion-street, Shelton as it was in 1850). Going by the above notices, it would seem that William Williams had his office in Pall Mall, in the centre of Hanley, and lived at a house in Adventure Place. Whether that is one of the houses still standing - I have no idea.

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After checking the local newspapers for items about William Williams I thought I’d try the magazine of Robert Owen’s socialist crusade, The New Moral World: or Gazette of the Universal Community Society of Rational Religionists. Nothing much about Lawyer Williams but there was a great deal about Robert Buchanan Snr., (especially in the 1839 volumes) in fact too much to mention here, so a link to the HathiTrust must suffice. What I was really looking for was the account of Robert Owen’s visit to Burslem, the trouble which resulted, and the part played by William Williams in the business. However, before getting to that, I did pick up some interesting snippets along the way.

The New Moral World (28 December, 1839 - pp.988-989)

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The New Moral World (18 January, 1840 - p.1036)

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The New Moral World (22 February, 1840 - pp.1126-1127)

[Note: I include this one to dispel the notion that all Robert Owen’s socialists did was lecture and argue with vicars. I especially liked the bit about nitrous oxide.]

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The New Moral World (25 April, 1840)

[Note: There is an extensive review of Robert Buchanan Snr.’s poem, The Past, the Present and the Future in this issue of The New Moral World, which is available on the Robert Buchanan Snr. page - where there is more information about Robert Williams Buchanan’s father.]

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[Note: The above is possibly confusing. Is this Mr. Williams who owns a Manufactory, the same as ‘Lawyer Williams’?]

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The New Moral World (23 May, 1840 - p.1242)

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[Note: There’s an explanation of ‘Dissolving Views’ on wikipedia.]

The New Moral World (30 May, 1840 - p.1256)

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pp.1258-1259)

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Socialism - continued

 

Home
Biography
Bibliography

 

Poetry
Plays
Fiction

 

Essays
Reviews
Letters

 

The Fleshly School Controversy
Buchanan and the Press
Buchanan and the Law

 

The Critical Response
Harriett Jay
Miscellanea

 

Links
Site Diary
Site Search