Colin Ward: Sower of Anarchist Ideas

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on personal experience, this article examines Colin Ward's life and works, explores the nature and originality of his anarchism and argues that he was one of the great British anarchists of the last half of the twentieth century. Keywords Colin Ward, biography, anarchism 1. INTRODUCTION: COLIN WARD, INDIVIDUALAND ANARCHIST Colin Ward was a determined sower of anarchist ideas in many fields and one of the most influential British anarchists since the Second World War. However stony the ground, he continued to scatter his seeds far and wide and they often took root in the most unexpected places. I first met Colin Ward in the early 1970s when he was living in south London. He appeared in shorts on a summer's evening and invited me into his kitchen. We discussed the writings of William Godwin, the father of British anarchism, and his companion Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of British feminism, and how they personally united two great traditions.1 Among other things, I found we shared an interest in the common use of land, allotments, dweller control within the home, community action in society, and education for the happiness of all. I appreciated his wish to extend the span of autonomy at work and the sphere of free action everywhere. And I celebrated with him the playful creativity of children, however difficult their circumstances. Colin Ward for me represented the best in the British anarchist tradition. After becoming an anarchist whilst a soldier posted in Scotland during the Second World War, he never wavered in his belief in the harmful effects of government and imposed authority and the incalculable benefits of a federal, decentralized society of self-governing communities. As he declared in a radio interview in 1968, he was 'an anarchist-communist, in the Kropotkin tradition'.2 Like Kropotkin, he recognized that there are libertarian and authoritarian tendencies in society, and wished to encourage the former to the detriment of the latter. He was very clear that an anarchist society is 'a society which organizes itself without authority' and that anarchism is a description of human organization rooted in the experience of everyday life.3 With these firm beliefs, he helped make, along with Vernon Richards, Nicolas Walter and others, the paper Freedom and the journal Anarchy the centre of thoughtful and constructive anarchism in Britain. His main theoretical work, Anarchy in Action (1973), based on a series of articles written for them, was widely translated and reached far beyond the anarchist circle of enthusiasts. It confirmed my belief in the practical possibility of anarchism, not in some distant future but here and now. Towards the end of his long life, the man who loved to quote others was immensely gratified to discover that his own most-quoted paragraph was: When we compare the Victorian antecedents of our public institutions with the organs of working-class mutual aid in the same period, the very names speak volumes. On the one side the Workhouse, the Poor Law Infirmary, the National Society for the Education of the Poor in Accordance of the Principles of the Established Church; and on the other, the Friendly Society, the Sick Club, the Cooperative Society, the Trade Union. One represents the tradition of fraternal and autonomous associations springing up from below, the other that of authoritarian institutions directed from above. 4 The quotation reflects Ward's admiration for the long and fruitful tradition of working-class mutual aid and self-help as well as his interest in neglected areas of social history. He was convinced that the British had taken the wrong road in the provision of welfare by stifling local and voluntary initiatives and by adopting an authoritarian and hierarchical approach through the centralized power of the state. By contrast, he encouraged the voluntary, co-operative and libertarian tendencies within society and called for the widest possible decentralization of coercive power. …