The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a
novel by
Robert Tressell (17 April 1870 – 3
February 1911) first published in 1914 after his death. An
explicitly political work, it is widely regarded as a classic of UK
working class literature.
Background
Robert
Tressell was the nom-de-plume of
Robert Noonan, an Irish housepainter, who came
back to his native UK
from South Africa at the beginning of the twentieth
century. He chose the surname Tressell in reference to the
trestle table, an important part of his kit as a painter and
decorator (though baptised
Croker and usually self-styled
Noonan). Based on his own experiences of poverty,
exploitation, and his terror that he and his daughter Kathleen —
whom he was raising alone — would be consigned to the
workhouse if he became ill, Tressell embarked on a
detailed and scathing analysis of the relationship between
working-class people and their employers. The "philanthropists" of
the title are the workers who, in Tressell's view, acquiesce in
their own exploitation in the interests of their bosses.
The novel
is set in the fictional town of Mugsborough, based on the southern English
coastal town of Hastings
, where
Tressell lived. The original title page of the book carried
the subtitle: "Being the story of twelve months in Hell, told by
one of the damned, and written down by Robert Tressell."
He completed
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in 1910,
but the 1,600-page hand-written manuscript was rejected by the
three publishing houses to which it was submitted. The rejections
severely depressed Tressell, and Kathleen had to save the
manuscript from being burnt. She placed it for safekeeping in a
metal box underneath her bed.
After Tressell died of
tuberculosis,
Kathleen was determined to have her father's writing published and
showed it to a friend, the writer
Jessie
Pope. Pope recommended the book to her own publisher, who
bought the rights in April 1914 for £25. It was published that year
in the UK, Canada, and the USA, the Soviet Union in 1920, and
Germany in 1925.
Plot introduction
Clearly frustrated at the refusal of his contemporaries to
recognise the iniquity of society, Tressell's cast of hypocritical
Christians, exploitative capitalists and corrupt councillors
provide a backdrop for his main target — the workers who think that
a better life is "not for the likes of them". Hence the title of
the book; Tressell paints the workers as "philanthropists" who
unselfishly (read: stupidly) throw themselves into back-breaking
work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their
masters.
The hero of the book, Frank Owen, is a socialist who believes that
the capitalist system is the real source of the poverty he sees all
around him. In vain he tries to convince his fellow workers of his
world view, but finds that their education has trained them to
distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their
"betters". Much of the book consists of conversations between Owen
and the others, or more often of lectures by Owen in the face of
their jeering; this was presumably based on Tressell's own
experiences.
Major themes
The book provides a glimpse of social life in the UK at a time when
socialism was beginning to gain ground.
It was
around that time that the Labour
Party was founded and began to win seats in the House of
Commons
.
The book advocates a socialist society in which work is performed
to satisfy the needs of all rather than to generate profit for a
few. A key chapter is "The Great Money Trick", in which Owen
organises a mock-up of capitalism with his workmates, using slices
of bread as raw materials and knives as machinery. Owen 'employs'
his workmates cutting up the bread to illustrate that the employer
— who does not work — generates personal wealth whilst the workers
effectively remain no better off than when they began, endlessly
swapping coins back and forth for food and wages. This is
Tressell's practical way of illustrating the
Marxist theory of
surplus
value, which in the capitalist system is generated by
labour.
Adaptations
A stage adaptation, written by
Stephen
Lowe and directed by
William
Gaskill, was first perfomed by
Joint Stock Theatre Company in
Plymouth on 14th September 1978.
It opened at the Riverside
Studios
, Hammersmith on 12th October, 1978.
A stage adaptation, written by
Archie
Hind and directed by
David Hayman,
was performed in 1984 by the Scottish agitprop theatre company
7:84.
An adaptation was made by Above The Title Productions for BBC radio
in 2008, produced by Rebecca Pinfield and Johnny Vegas, and
directed by Dirk Maggs. Three 60-minute episodes were broadcast as
the Classic Serial on
Radio 4. Actors
included
Andrew Lincoln (Owen),
Johnny Vegas (Easton),
Timothy Spall (Crass),
Paul Whitehouse (Old Misery),
John Prescott (Policeman),
Bill Bailey (Rushton),
Kevin Eldon (Slyme), and
Tony Haygarth (Philpot). This adaptation was
nominated for a Sony Radio Drama award in 2009.
In May 2009,
BBC Radio 4 broadcast a
two-part sequel called
Mugsborough 1917, which featured
many of the cast from the previous year's production. The
dramatisation was by Andrew Lynch and features the characters of
Robert Tressell's novel
The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists, picking up the story 10 years on.
See also
References and notes
- "Sony Award winners and nominees 2009"
RadioAwards.org (Retrieved: 7 September 2009)
- "Classic Serial: Mugsborough 1917" BBC.co.uk (Retrieved: 7
September 2009)
External links
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