|
from the CLHS review no 10, Sept 2001, pages 20-23. Optically scanned from an original - may contain scanning errors |
In his Report to the Committee for the Relief of the Poor, published in 1820, Robert Owen, the socialist mill owner suggested that in order to remove poverty new villages should be built where up to 1200 people could live communally, housed in uniform blocks of buildings and engaged in the honest toil of spade agriculture.(i) The idea of model communities as an answer to the evils of early nineteenth centuary society caught the imagination of a number of individuals. One of these was William Hodson, mariner, Methodist preacher and farmer of Brimstone Farm, Upwell. He purchased 200 acres of land on Manea Fen that be offered to the Central Board of Owenite's. When they refused his offer he was determined to form his own community usling Owen's principles.
In order to find volunteers to form his community he placed an advertisement in the Owenite newspaper The New Moral World in January 1839. After a series of false starts when it was found that some would-be members were poor and unemployed because they were given to drinking spirits, it was decided that members would only be accepted after a trial period. Later, prospective members were subjected to an examination on their knowledge of rational socialism.
The community did not want a surplus of any one trade, nor did they want the destitute with large families to join. Eventually children under five years were not admitted to the community. Neither did they want people travelling from far afield as prospective members because the community had to pay their travelling expenses. Whereas the early members had come from the industrial towns of the north west, the later members came from the East Midlands. There was only one applicant from East Anglia, who was rejected. Those who were rejected were sent back from whence they came.
It took some time for the community to become a cohesive concern. One of the original trustees of the scheme noted that the first settlers were forever finding fault with each other, consuming the provisions and paying more attention to the beer shops and lowest prostitutes of the district rather than working. (ii)
The community was planned on principles explained by Owen in his pamphlet The Ideal Village in which he stated that the ideal village would be composed of moral parallelograms with dormitories for the children, public dining rooms, and separate accommodation for married couples. In the centre of the complex would be apartments for superintendents, schoolteachers and other professionals. The communities would be self-supporting with food, labour and possessions held in common. Members would be identifiable by wearing a comfortable but practical uniform. Hodson designed this himself. It consisted of suits of Lincoln green so that community members went about their work as latter-day Robin Hoods. (iii)
| other pages |
| Home & introduction |
| Slide show |
| The Fenland Ark, the floating church |
| George Holyoake's unflattering views |
| academic papers |
| Manea Society, by Enid Porter |
| Hodsonian Community, Dennis Hardy |
| This page and those linked above are not accessible from any website or search engine listing - they are only available via a private link given to the main contributors. The pages are "work in progress" and will grow and change when new information is received - and time permits. |
| related pages on other websites |
| The Colony |
(webmaster's note: a larger view can be seen in the slideshow)
The day for the community started at 6 am. Everyone including the children worked in the gardens before breakfast, and again at the end of the day. In between craftsmen worked on their own tasks, and the women undertook the domestic chores.
The community's journal The Working Bee paints an idyllic if biased picture of life on the Fen, devoted to hard but rewarding toil, improving lectures amd communal activities. These included trips down the Old Bedford River on the community's cutter The Morning Star, accompanied by music on a bugle, flute and violin, and other communal activities such as 'folk dancing'. The set sequences of the folk dance and the participation of all those who were able helped to foster community feeling. (iv) The agriculture practiced by the community followed scientific principles and The Working Bee included a weekly agricultural column dedicated to improvement However, the personnel of the community were heavily weighted towards urban industrial craftsmen and their families who had little farming experience, and eventually labour for the fields had to be hired locally.
On the whole relationships with the local population was good. The community shoemaker took orders from the surrounding villages and locals were encouraged to visit the community. But some viewed the community with suspicion. Issue 6 of The Working Bee reprints a copy of a letter sent by a 'Fen Farmer' to the Cambridge Advertiser and printed in that paper on Wednesday July 11th 1839. He had seen a copy of The Working Bee and felt that the effect of 'such a publication as this on the poorer classes of the neighbourhood is fearful to contemplate.' He exhorted
'pious and well disposed people to take IMMEDIATE steps to counteract the sting of the Working Bee. If this, be not done, I fear, we shall before long, find that the fearful scenes of 1816 will be again enacted in this place and neighbourhood, for when once the religious principles of the people are undermined, what security is there for life and property?'He is referring to the Littleport Riots of 1816.
Another farmer wrote to The Working Bee to complain about the community harvesting on the Sabbath. In turn the editors of the Bee went out of their way to be deliberately provocative to the local clergy by running a series of articles on the iniquity of the tithe system and the church rate, in which it challenged the local clergymen by name.
It was not local opposition which led to the community's demise, but the clash of personalities within it and squabbles with other socialist groups outside which observed the success of the community at Manea Fen and poached its most able members. The real problem, however, was Hodson himself. He was a visionary who saw Manea as the first of many similar enterprises. Instead of nurturing it he departed on a series of lecture tours across the country. Hodson's vision that be preached on his lecture tours was of a vision of self-governing communities which would raise money to support each other. When the Central Board of Owenites rejected this proposal, it seems that Hodson's interest in model communities waned. His earlier career which included eight years at sea, as well as periods spent farming and preaching should have warned others tbat here was an enthusiast who would eventually run out of enthusiasm and espouse another cause. Shortly before Christmas 1840 Hudson withdrew what funds he had left in the Manea community and cancelled all orders for provisions made with outside tradesmen.
Some members of the community tried to reform it as a self governing body, but feelings within were split between pro and anti Hodson groups. At this point discipline broke down in the community and violence erupted between the rival groups. Workshops and houses were smashed and the remaining community members fled from the scene.
The Hodsonian community as a place appears in the 1841 census, but it is obvious that no community members remained in it. Nineteen people were listed as resident there on census night. All were agricultural labourers or farm servants, and only one family came from outside Cambridgeshire. At least two of the families have surnames that were common to other areas of Manea Fen at that time. The accommodation had been taken over by the local population, and eventually the land was sold to a local tanner [farmer?]. After the First World War, Colony Farm, as it became known was purchased by the county council and divided into smallholdings as part of the national scheme to provide ex-servicemen with three acres to till so that they could become self-sufficient. Thus fulfilling at least some of Hodson's and Owen's aims.
(i) Owen R. A New view of Society and other writings, 1927 ed., pp 156-169
(ii) The Working Bee: I3th September 1839, p79
(iii) Ibid, 3rd August 1839. p 1
(iv) Ibid 24th August 1839, p 56
Illustration from Cambridge and Peterborough Life. August 1980, p26 courtesy of the Cambridgeshire Collection.