Willie Hopkin’s Political Circle

Artefact 5: The Stamp of Willie Hopkin | Article 4 of 4

Lawrence and Hopkin

In the last of four articles, John Pateman explores some of the progressive and radical thinkers that would influence Lawrence via his friendship with Willie Hopkin.

John Pateman

Willie Hopkin was involved in politics for most of his life. He joined the Social Democratic Federation, Britain’s first Marxist party, in 1885 but later switched to the Independent Labour Party and eventually ended up in the Labour Party. Hopkin was politically active at a time when the two party system of Liberals and Conservatives was challenged by the emergence of the Labour Party.

Hopkin held regular political meetings at his Eastwood home in Devonshire Drive which attracted a wide range of national figures including Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Keir Hardy, Ramsey Macdonald and Philip Snowden. Beatrice and Sidney Webb were active members of the Fabian Society which was formed in 1884 and became one of the founding organizations of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, the forerunner of the Labour Party. Keir Hardie was a founder of the Labour Party and served as its first parliamentary leader. Ramsey Macdonald led the first Labour government in 1924 and again between 1929-31. Philip Snowden was the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer who became popular in trade union circles for his denunciation of capitalism as unethical and his promise of socialist utopia. Both Snowden and Macdonald were expelled from the Labour Party for forming a National Government dominated by the Conservative Party.

Willie’s daughter Enid noted that:

‘Not only did we entertain the Fabians, but we also supported the women’s movement, as my mother, along with Alice Dax, was involved with the suffragettes. After meetings in the city of Nottingham, dedicated women such as Annie Kenney, Charlotte Despard, Margaret Bondfield, and – once – one of the Pankhursts came home with us to spend the night under my mother’s best linen sheets for the occasion.’

Annie Kenney was an English working class suffragette and socialist feminist who became a leading figure in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst. Charlotte Despard was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Fein activist, a founding member of the Women’s Freedom League (a breakaway movement from the WSPU), and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1907 Despard established the League as a more representative voice for women’s suffrage with more branches outside London and with a policy of ‘constitutional militancy’. Margaret Bondfield was a Labour Party politician, trade unionist and women’s activist who became the first female cabinet member when she was appointed Minister of Labour in the Labour government of 1929-31. She had earlier become the first woman to chair the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.

Hopkin met a number of progressive and radical political figures including H.M. Hyndman, John Bruce Glasier, Frances Evelyn Greville, and Victor Grayson. Henry Mayers Hyndman was an English writer, politician and leader of the Social Democratic Foundation, which he established in 1881. Other members included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanour Marx. The Social Democratic Foundation later united with other radical groups to form the Marxist British Socialist Party Hyndman was the author of England for All and Historical Basis of Socialism, which were based on Marx’s Capital. John Bruce Glasier was a Scottish socialist politician associated mainly with the Independent Labour Party. Frances Evelyn ‘Daisy’ Greville, the ‘Red Countess of Warwick’, was a campaigning socialist who supported many schemes to help the working class in education, housing and employment. Victor Grayson was an English socialist politician and an Independent Labour Party M.P.

Hopkins political influence on Lawrence was both direct and indirect. His direct influence came through the columns he wrote for the local newspaper and the conversations he had with Lawrence during their long walks through the local countryside. Hopkin’s indirect influence came through his ability to introduce Lawrence to a wide range of progressive people, from left wing politicians to women’s rights activists. There is no way that Lawrence would have had such easy access to a wide range of positive political influences if he had not been for his close and lifelong friendship with Willie Hopkin.

For more information see Pateman, John, Willie Hopkin: D.H. Lawrence’s Socialist Friend, (Five Leaves Press, 2024).

References:
i Enid Hilton More Than One Life: A Nottinghamshire Childhood with D.H. Lawrence (Alan Sutton, 1993), 8