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From page 148:
In October 1839 a more ambitious journal appeared, entitled the Working Bee, "printed by John Green, at the Community Press, Manea Fen, Cambridgeshire, for the Trustees of the
Hodgsonian Community Societies." It took the usual honest and determined motto "He who will not work neither shall he eat" but it turned out that those who did work did not get the
means of eating, there being no adequate provision made for this at Manea Fen.
From pages 182-185:
Yielding to a necessity always adverse, experiments were next attempted in the fens of Cambridgeshire. The projector, Mr. Hodgson, was a handsome and lusty farmer, who heard from
clerical adversaries that a community might serve harem as well as public purposes ; and as he had some land, a little money, and plausibility of address, he turned out as a
peripatetic orator in favour of beginning the new world in his native fens of Cambridgeshire. No one suspected his object, he was regarded as an eager advocate for realising the new
system of society. Mr. Owen at once set his face against the ingenious schemer, whose hasty and indefinite proceedings he disapproved. Mr. Owen's high-minded instincts always led him
to associate only with men of honour and good promise. He went down to Manea Fen, the name of the site chosen, and, having acquaintance with landowners of the neighbour hood, was soon
able to properly estimate the qualifications of the new communist leader. Some gentlemen farmers, who knew Hodgson's antecedents and unfitness for trust, did Mr. Owen the service of
telling him the truth. Mr. Fleming, the editor of the New Moral World wisely declined, on business grounds, to sanction the Manea Fen project. It did not add to the repute of the
scheme that Mr. Rowbotham, afterwards known as " Parallox," made himself the advocate of the discountenanced projector. Many honest, and some able, men, naturally thinking that the
discontent with Mr. Hodgson's plans originated in narrowness, and impatient to try their fortunes on the land themselves, went down and endeavoured to put the place in working order.
Buildings were erected and many residents were for a time established there ; but the chief of the affair soon found that he had misconceived the character of those whom he had
attracted, and they soon abandoned it. Those who had the smallest means suffered most, because they remained the longest, being unable to transfer themselves. The Working Bee, the
organ of the association, edited by Mr. James Thompson, had animation, literary merit, and the advantage of appealing to all who were impatient of delay, and not well instructed in the
dangers of prematurity. It was in August, 1838, that Mr. E. T. Craig made the first announcement that Mr. Hodgson, who had the suspicious address of Brimstone Hill, Upwell, [Peter
Cox’s note: Brimstone Hill was the previous name of the village of Christchurch, in the parish of Upwell, where there was a Methodist Chapel] had an estate of two hundred acres
within a few miles of Wisbech, which he intended to devote to a community. Mr. Hodgson addressed
the readers of the Moral World as "Fellow Beings," the only time in which that abstract
designation was applied to them. The editor prudently prefaced his remarks upon the communications by quoting the saying of the Town Clerk of Ephesus, "Let us do nothing rashly" Mr.
William Hodgson had been a sailor in his younger days and many things else subsequently. He was acting in the character of the farmer when he invented the Manea Fen community. It was
mortgaged, but this did not prevent him offering to sell it to the Socialist party. This Fen Farm consisted of four fifty-acre lots, divided by dykes, as is the Fen country plan. The
dykes acted as drains also. Three fifties lay together, the fourth was somewhat distant at half a mile. Twenty-four cottages, twelve in a row built back to back, were single-room
shanties. There was a dining shanty, which would accommodate one hundred people. There were brave, energetic men attracted to this place. To set up a paper, which was one of the
features of the Fen Farm, was to enter the ranks of aspiring cities. The members were " working bees " in the best sense, and were capable of
success anywhere if moderate industry and
patience could command it. Besides being disastrous to individuals, this Fen community was a hindrance to the greater scheme of the Queenwood community, which had then been projected,
and which represented what of unity, wisdom, and capacity the Socialist party had.
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