Henry (Harry) QUELCH

Henry QUELCH

• Death Notes
  • V. I.   Lenin
    Harry Quelch
    ________________________________________
    Published: Pravda Truda No. 1, September 11, 1913; Nash Put No. 16, September 12, 1913. Signed: V. I.. Published according to the Pravda Truda text.
    Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977,
    On Wednesday, September 17 (September 4, 0. S.), Comrade Harry Quelch, leader of the British Social-Democrats, died in London. The British Social-Democratic organisation was formed in 1884 and was called the Social Democratic Federation. In 1909 the name was changed to Social-Democratic Party, and in 1911, after a number of independently existing socialist groups amalgamated with it, it assumed the name of the British Socialist Party.
    Harry Quelch was one of the most energetic and devoted workers in the British Social-Democratic movement. He was active not only as a Social-Democratic Party worker, but also as a trade-unionist. The London Society of Compositors repeatedly elected him its Chairman, and he was several times Chairman of the London Trades Council.
    Quelch was the editor of Justice, the weekly organ of the British Social-Democrats, as well as editor of the party monthly journal, the Social-Democrat.
    He took a very active part in all the work of the British Social-Democratic movement and regularly addressed party and public meetings. On many occasions he represented British Social-Democracy at international congresses and on tile International Socialist Bureau. Incidentally, when he attended the Stuttgart International Socialist Congress he was persecuted by the Wurtemburg Government, which expelled him from Stuttgart (without trial, by police order, as an alien) for referring at a public meeting to the Hague Conference as a “thieves’ supper”. When, the day following Quelch’s expulsion, the Congress resumed its session, the British delegates left empty the chair on which Quelch had sat, and hung a notice on it bearing the inscription:   “Here sat Harry Quelch, now expelled by the Wurtemburg Government.”
    The South Germans often boast of their hatred for the Prussians because of the Prussian red tape, bureaucracy and police rule, but they themselves behave like the worst Prussians where a proletarian socialist is concerned.
    The historical conditions for the activities of the British Social-Democrats, whose leader Quelch was, are of a very particular kind. In the most advanced land of capitalism and political liberty, the British bourgeoisie (who as far back as the seventeenth century settled accounts with the absolute monarchy in a rather democratic way) managed in the nineteenth century to split the British working-class movement. In the middle of the nineteenth century Britain enjoyed an almost complete monopoly in the world market. Thanks to this monopoly the profits acquired by British capital were extraordinarily high, so that it was possible for some crumbs of these profits to be thrown to the aristocracy of labour, the skilled factory workers.
    This aristocracy of labour, which at that time earned tolerably good wages, boxed itself up in narrow, self-interested craft unions, and isolated itself from the mass of the proletariat, while in politics it supported the liberal bourgeoisie. And to this very day perhaps nowhere in the world are there so many liberals among the advanced workers as in Britain.
    In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, however, things began to change. Britain’s monopoly was challenged by America, Germany, etc. The economic basis for the narrow, petty-bourgeois trade-unionism and liberalism among British workers has been destroyed. Socialism is again raising its head in Britain, getting through to the masses and growing irresistibly despite the rank opportunism of the British near-socialist intelligentsia.
    Quelch was in the front ranks of those who fought steadfastly and with conviction against opportunism and a liberal-labour policy in the British working-class movement. True, isolation from the masses sometimes infected the British Social-Democrats with certain sectarianism. Hyndman, the leader and founder of Social-Democracy in Britain, has even slipped into jingoism. But the party of the Social-Democrats has fought him on this, and over the whole of Britain the Social-Democrats and they alone, have for decades been carrying on systematic propaganda and agitation in the Marxist spirit. This is the great historical service rendered by Quelch and his comrades. The fruits of the activities of the Marxist Quelch will be reaped in full measure by the British working-class movement in the next few years.
    In conclusion we cannot refrain from mentioning Quelch’s sympathy for the Russian Social-Democrats and the assistance he rendered them. Eleven years ago the Russian Social-Democratic newspaper had to be printed in London. The British Social-Democrats, headed by Quelch, readily made their printing-plant available. As a consequence, Quelch himself had to “squeeze up”. A corner was boarded off at the printing-works by a thin partition to serve him as editorial room. This corner contained a very small writing-table, a bookshelf above it, and a chair. When the present writer visited Quelch in this “editorial office” there was no room for another chair.... 

• General Notes
  • Harry QUELCH, the son of a blacksmith, was born in Hungerford, Berkshire, on 30th January, 1858.  The QUELCH'S were very poor & at the age of ten Harry was forced to leave school to help increase the family income.  Harry found work in an upholsterer's shop & this was followed by spells working for a dairyman & a cattle dealer.
    
    At the age of fourteen, QUELCH left Berkshire for London & successively worked as a factory worker producing biscuits, at a tanyard, an iron foundry, & a wholesale paper warehouse.  Although QUELCH left school early he retained an interest in education & in his twenties he taught himself French.
    
    QUELCH read numerous books on politics including a French edition of Das Capital by Karl MARX.  The book converted him to revolutionary socialism & after hearing a lecture on MARX in 1881, QUELCH joined the Social Democratic Federation.
    
    QUELCH was elected to the executive of the SDF in 1883 & remained a loyal supporter of H. H. HYNDMAN when others left the party in 1884 to form the Socialist League. QUELCH now became an increasingly important member of the Social Democratic Federation & in 1886 he left his job in the warehouse & became the paid editor of the party's journal, Justice.
    
    Harry QUELCH played an important role in organising the protest meeting on 13th February, 1887, in Trafalgar Square that led to the events that became known as Bloody Sunday.
    
    Despite attempts by various people to keep the Social Democratic Federation away from the London Dockers' Strike in 1889, QUELCH worked on the South Side Strike Committee that organised strikers South of the Thames.
    
    QUELCH represented the Social Democratic Federation at the Trade Union Congress in the early 1890s. QUELCH, who had also taught himself German as well as French, attended several conferences held by European Socialist groups. He also regularly represented the SDF at the annual congress of the German Social Democratic Party.
    
    On 27th February 1900, QUELCH represented the SDF at the meeting in London that established a Labour Representation Committee (LRC).  However, the following year QUELCH led the campaign that resulted in the SDF withdrawing from the LRC. Despite his hostility to what he considered to be the non-socialist policies of the LRC, QUELCH continued to attend their conferences as a delegate of the London Trades Council.
    
    QUELCH made several attempts to enter the House of Commons. In January 1902 he was the defeated SDF candidate at the Dewsbury by-election.  In the 1906 General Election QUELCH came bottom of the poll in Southampton.  He was also badly defeated at Northampton in the 1910 General Election.
    
    QUELCH was a strong opponent of the idea of women's suffrage based on property qualifications. QUELCH, like most socialists, favoured universal adult suffrage & when the WSPU agreed to a plan that would give the vote to women householders, he denounced the organisation as "anti-proletarian, anti-Socialist & anti-democratic.
    
    In April 1913, ill-health forced QUELCH to retire from his full-time post with Justice, the journal he had edited for twenty-seven years. However, Harry QUELCH continued to write for the journal until his death on 17th September, 1913

Click here for details of Harry's family with Sarah Rachel FISHER

Click here for details of Harry's family with Mary Catherine Elizabeth HAMES

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