My review of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
The Life and Times of Robert Philip Noonan
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
by Robert Tressell
This is what happened when someone who knew what they were talking about read my review of this marvellous book!
This page tells a little bit of the personal history of the people surrounding The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. This page outlines the irony on which the publication of the book is founded and then it goes through the correspondence between me and the Custodian of the Tressell Family Papers, Reg Johnson, over a two month period.
The Starting Point
Let's begin by pointing out the ironical beginning of a book that describes the wretched lot of the working man and the dreadful management practices to which he was subjected at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries.
"Joan's mother Kathleen saw her father off from Warrior Square station in August 1910, the first stage of his planned emigration to Canada.
Tragically, he contracted pneumonia, died in Liverpool and was buried in a pauper's grave.
A deed box, containing the manuscript, he had given to Kathleen who then sold what was to become a world famous book for a mere £25."
(Hastings Observer 13 October 2000 page 21)
The Key Players in this Saga
Who are Joan and Kathleen?; and who was it who died so tragically before the world came to appreciate his legacy? Let's work backwards:
The author who died a pauper was Robert Tressell (real name Robert Philip Noonan) who had written the excellent social commentary The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists; Kathleen was his daughter and Joan was his grand daughter. Robert Noonan was born in Dublin on 17 April 1870 and died in Liverpool in 1911.
Kathleen's Story
The irony I mentioned above and in my latest letter to Reg (see below) is amplified by the story from a newspaper article about Kathleen, Robert's daughter:
"Miss Kathleen Noonan was unable to watch last week's television adaptation of the book The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists because she cannot afford a set.
"This is scarcely remarkable for an old age pensioner, except that Miss Noonan's father wrote the book 60 years ago.
"More in wry sorrow than anger, Miss Noonan told me today how she came to part with all rights to the original manuscript for £25 in 1913 when she was 20. Her only other payment was another £25 made about five years later because the book was selling well ...
"With the money she got for the book, Miss Noonan went to Canada, where she married and raised a daughter. Now she is a widow and has reverted to her maiden name and lives on a Canadian pension.
"… I would have liked to have seen the play on television. I wonder if they got the casting right? After all, I knew the people my father put into the book." (The Times 4 June 1967).
Joan was married to Reg Johnson from 1964 until her own death in October 2000; and that's almost where I came in.
Reg Sets Me Straight
I had written my own short review of the RTP, as Reg calls it, even though it's some years since I'd read the book. I was keen to put my oar in as it is a book that left a deep impression on me. Reg read my review and wrote to me to take me to task a little.
There followed a flurry of correspondence that is presented here in full and which I have edited only slightly:
Date: 17 October 2001
Subject: Tressell
Duncan Williamson. I have recently read you review of Robert Tressell's 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. This was of particular interest to me.
Joan, my late wife (she died last October) was Robert Tressell's (Noonan) granddaughter. We hold the most comprehensive archive of material relating to Robert, his life, his family, the RTP and the many writings and events held honouring his memory. This is all held in the private collection of the Tressell family and is known as 'The Tressell Family Papers'.
If it isn't out of order may I comment on your assumption that 'academics' have led the interest in the RTP. When, in fact, it has been the ordinary man and women who identified with Robert's writing long before sociologists and others had even heard of the book. However, the book now maintains a momentum of its own and is accepted as a classic across all levels of society.
Joan was pleased to welcome students, writers and researchers to have unrestricted sight of the papers.
It now falls to me to develop and maintain this ever growing collection.
Should your interest extend to wanting to know more about the archive I would be most happy for you to contact me at e_mail:-reg.johnson0@tinyworld.co.uk
Best wishes,
Reg W.J
Date: 18 October 2001
Subject: Re: Tressell
Dear Reg,
I was very pleased to hear from you and to learn about your links with Robert Tressell.
I read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists a good number of years ago and it is a story that has always stayed with me. I understand there was a television programme made of it even before I read the book but I never saw it.
In any conversation that steers in the general direction of the lot of the working man, I always refer people to RTF and did so only recently with someone I am currently working with. To this end, if I can encourage anyone to read the book by my efforts I will be happy.
I read the book as a young man with no political ideology firmly in place (still haven't as it happens) and with no academic axe to grind either. I don't know when and where I picked up the book but I did and I thoroughly enjoyed it on the level that I think it was written. I didn't want to read too much into it and didn't. I took the story purely at face value. I think this also led me to my "academics" comment. I think it must be true that since the book is still in print, it must be selling and therefore of interest to a significant number of people. I am happy with this. I think my comment on academics also came from having read a few reviews of it that took a look at the book in a way that I couldn't relate to.
I hope my review hasn't offended you in any way and would more than happily give over some of my website to your archives if you wish: if you have web links for the archive, I would willingly put a link to it; if you would like to post a few pages from the archive on my site, I would happily host them for you. Otherwise, if you have a library or spare room open to visitors in the UK I'd be delighted to visit one day if I could.
Thanks for taking the time to write to me and I look forward to hearing from you again.
Best wishes
Duncan Williamson
Date: 22 October 2001
Subject: Re: Tressell
Dear Duncan.
Many thanks for your prompt and interesting response to my e-mail. This was much appreciated.
Please be assured that I was in no way offended by your review. It's just that I probably pick up points which would be missed by others.
My apologies for not replying sooner.
I have been pre-occupied editing the drafts of the first few chapters of a proposed new book on Robert and the RTP.
This is being written by a former lecturer at Manchester University who, having taken early retirement, set about researching Tressell with the view to writing a new look at Tressell and the RTP.
This has been an exacting task, he has visited here several times and for the past months we have been exchanging e-mails and letters every few days.
Never a dull moment living in the shadow of Robert!!! We never cease to marvel at the ever growing interest in the book. We maintain world-wide correspondence with individuals and academic institutions. We will never be able to say 'finis' to the Tressell story. Your own interest is an example of this.
I seem to be chattering on instead of replying to your e_mail.
I greatly appreciate your suggestion of incorporating some of the Tressell material into your web site. It was my intention some months ago to open a site to be known as 'The Robert Tressell Family Memorial Page'. This to pay tribute to the memory of Robert, Kathleen and Joan, and to tell the family story in relation to the RTP. I had produced the draft of some introductory pages and circulated them to a few friends who felt it would be an interesting project to pursue.
This all had to be put on hold when I became involved in helping with the new book. I hope to get back to it before too long, and also to continue compiling the family story. This had been started by Kathleen and Joan, but quite frequently their own writing had to be put to one side as they became involved with helping and supporting other writers and encouraging those who were interested in various events in Robert's memory.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss more fully the idea collaborating with you and, if possible, perhaps we could meet together sometime to consider how this could best be done. The archive is kept here and it would be a pleasure for you to visit and have sight of the collection yourself.
My postal address is: … [deleted for security reasons but I'm sure Reg would be delighted to hear from any bona fide researchers and interested parties so I'm sure he won't mind me giving out his e-mail address: reg.johnson@tinyworld.co.uk]
Are you far from here? Please let me have your postal address and I will send copies of a few photos from the collection which I think would be of interest to you.
Looking forward to hearing from you, best wishes,
Reg.
Date: 22 October 2001
Subject: Re: Tressell
Dear Reg,
At the moment I am in Tbilisi, Georgia, which is a few hours drive from East Grinstead!
I'll be back home in December, just in time for Xmas. I'd love to have a look round but I don't know whether I'll be back just for a couple of weeks or a couple of months.
My postal address is
… [deleted for security reasons]
and I'd love to see the pictures.
I gave away my copy of RTP some years ago but now that you've made contact I feel the need to read it again: when I get back!
Anyway, if there is anything you would like to put on the website: a couple of photos, a book cover photo ... some insights into the life and times of RT himself, I'd be more than happy to upload it. Let me know.
Best wishes
Duncan Williamson
Reg then sent me a package of newspaper clippings, family photos and extracts of the history of the book and so on.
Date: 22 November 2001
Subject: Tressell Family Papers
Dear Reg,
I am currently in Almaty, Kazakhstan on a business trip and would like to say a big thank you for letting me have copies of the papers from your Robert Tressell archives. There are a few interesting points in the papers: for example, how did Robert ever write such a tome, 250,000 words, without being spotted? I assume the whole thing was handwritten and must have taken ages. Does any of the manuscript survive?
I suppose there's lots of irony in the fact that the RTP was effectively lost to the capitalist publishing world for a mess of pottage as his daughter called it!
I would have thought that there are at least two groups of people who should be interested in funding your web site for Robert and the RTP: one or more publishers who are probably doing very well out of this book; and the TUC and affiliated organisations.
After all, a book that can attract such luminaries as Jack Jones, Eric Heffer, Stan Orme and Norman Willis to marches and various events should surely be able to sponsor a web site that could cost as little as 20 quid a month (that's what I pay to my ISP to host mine) and a few quid to put it all together (I do mine in my spare time abut appreciate it would cost a few thousand to get someone to do what I do full time).
If you want to send me an electronic copy of the picture of Robert on his bicycle with his daughter Kathleen on his shoulders, I would more than happily host it on a special Robert Tressell page that I'm just doing now (let me know if this page OK, by the way, and what changes I should make).
I will be in the UK for Xmas and the New Year and will get down to East Grinstead if at all possible to have a wander through your archives. This is the kind of opportunity that I could never have dreamed of before and I thank you for your open invitation. I hope to have reread the book by the time I get there so that I can talk about it with more authority than my memory allows at the moment.
Anyway, my e-mail is playing up at the moment and I'll send this message as soon as I can. I expect to have finished and posted the RT page by the time you read this message.
With very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
Yours sincerely
Duncan Williamson
A brief history of the book:
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
From the package of goodies that Reg sent me, I thought it would be interesting just to run through a few of milestones in the life of The RTP.
First published 23 April 1914 (44 years almost to the day from the day that the author was born).
22 reprints by February 1954
Published by Penguin in five different paper back editions including one in Australia
Published worldwide
Hardback edition from Lawrence and Wishart published in 1955 and reprinted 13 times
Paperback editions in the UK:
Joan's Work
Joan, the grand daughter, was caught up in the RTP industry for the 30 years from 1968 to 1998. Over that period, Joan took part in a wide variety of RTP events, including
Concluding remark from me
It's remarkable what can come from global communications these days! I happily and innocently posted a short review of a book that I admired and the outcome is that I get to become a tiny fraction of a part of the story of the book itself. I sincerely hope that before long I have met Reg Johnson and managed to spend at least a few hours in East Grinstead poring over the Tressell Family Papers
Duncan Williamson
22 November 2001
© Webmaster Duncan Williamson 2001