Tressell records this election (and a subsequent 1908 by-election) in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Hastings was one of the only seats to go Tory in 1906 in an otherwise good year for the Liberals, electing another Irishman — millionaire financier and tyre magnate Harvey du Cros. Two years later it returned his son Arthur in his place. Interestingly, Tressell reverses these fortunes in the book, awarding the seat to the Liberals. His working men lead harsh lives at the whim of their bosses, with little praise or pay for their labours, and harsh penalties or dismissal for the slightest of mistakes. This is an ideological book, and it is a work of fiction. Part of me believes that fiction and ideology make bad bedfellows. Part of the reason for that is that fiction nearly always allows (and frequently implies) an ironic reading, and ideology doesn’t really expect that and so is undermined by not seeing the possible ironic reading. But this book is perhaps a little too didactic to allow an ironic reading. My main object was to write a readable story full of human interest and based on the happenings of everyday life, the subject of Socialism being treated incidentally."

Frank became very frustrated with his colleagues and opened up the very issues which many socialists have faced as they argue their case with those who seem to be both contented and dissatisfied with their role in the world. I still think there's no better explanation of the failings of capitalism than Owen's demonstration of the system using his colleagues' slices of bread, and the scene late in the story where Barrington encounters the workers' children outside the toyshop moves me to tears every time I read it. Grant Richards Ltd. published about two-thirds of the manuscript in April 1914 after Tressell's daughter, Kathleen Noonan, showed her father's work to her employers. The 1914 edition not only omitted material but also moved text around and gave the novel a depressing ending. Tressell's original manuscript was first published in 1955 by Lawrence and Wishart. [1] In 1979 Jonah Raskin described The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists as "a classic of modern British literature, that ought to rank with the work of Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, and James Joyce, and yet is largely unknown... Tressell's bitterness and anger are mixed with compassion, sympathy and a sharp sense of humour." [12] According to David Harker, by 2003 the book had sold over a million copies, and had been printed five times in Germany, four in Russia, three in the United States, and two in Australia and Canada; it had also been published in Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch and Japanese. [3] Adaptations [ edit ] Declan Kiberd has argued that Pádraic Ó Conaire's seminal novel in Irish, Deoraíocht, has many parallels in its progressive socialism with Tressell's The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. [20] Use of Tressell's name [ edit ]Robert Tressell, the author of the classic socialist novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, was one of the most influential writers in twentieth-century England. Yet, for decades after his death, hardly anyone knew who he was. He died 3 February 1911 in Liverpool Royal Infirmary, and was buried a week later in a pauper’s grave. The book which he worked on for the final five years of his life had never been published — and, as far as he knew, it never would.

As we now know, some of Ball’s assumptions about Tressell’s Irish childhood were inaccurate. Many years later, the research of Bryan MacMahon would reveal that the boy had spent much of his early years in various parts of England and was not, as Ball assumed, unfamiliar with the country until the 1900s. Tressell received a good education — speaking seven or more languages, by some accounts — but very little of the inheritance passed to his mother reached him, with the vast majority spent or going to his sisters and other family. He had much of the experience of an elite upbringing but without the means that so often went with it. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is based on his own experiences of poverty and his terror that he and his daughter whom he was raising alone, would be consigned to the workhouse if he became ill- which he did, Tressel wrote 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 his view, acquiesce in their own exploitation in the interests of their bosses. That's for sure, you will know that just by reading the preface: The present system - competition – capitalism … it’s no good tinkering at it. Everything about it is wrong and there’s nothing about it that’s right. There’s only one thing to be done with it and that is to smash it up and have a different system altogether.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.(Summary by Tadhg) Johnson, Mark (31 October 2018). "Liverpool MP Dan Carden to host performance of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in Parliament during Budget week to highlight the economy's "systematic flaws" ". Liverpool Echo. A key part of the TUC Library Collections at London Metropolitan University, the manuscript is consistently popular, recently attracting the attention of, amongst others, the Irish Embassy, historian Paddy O’Sullivan and the University’s Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, Prof Don MacRaild. It recently featured in a short BBC series about Novels that Shaped Our World. What Tressell has demonstrated so entertainingly is nothing less than Karl Marx's labour theory of value, a cornerstone of socialist thinking.

I have given this book to many, many people in the course of my life and all the recipients have been as inspired by it as I have been. Every generation has to fight the same battles again and again, and in each case it is the confidence of the campaigners that determines the speed of their success. Their work as hired 'temporary hands' in a painter and decorating firm, is short term and uncertain. Desperately trying to keep themselves and their families out of the workhouse, this vulnerability is fully exploited by their employers. Tressle who worked as a painter and decorator himself, uses his knowledge of this trade, and almost certainly anecdotal experience, to describe their profession, and therefore their 'plight' with a dark realism.He completed the manuscript in 1910, with the title The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Being the Story of 12 months in hell, told by one of the damned, and written down by Robert Tressell. Robert sent it to three publishers but with no success and at some point he threw it on the fire, from which Kathleen rescued it. His TB was getting worse, and he was finding it harder to get work. And so he decided to emigrate to Canada for health and economic benefits. The book provides a comprehensive picture of social, political, economic and cultural life in Britain 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.