Freedom (British newspaper)
ISSN 0016-0504 | | |
| Website | freedomnews | |
|---|---|---|
Freedom is a
The paper was started in 1886 by volunteers including
The current printed issue does not carry a summary, but the website retains a section of the original 1886 introductory essay by Peter Kropotkin:
We are socialists, disbelievers in property, advocates of the equal claims of all to work for the community as seems good — calling no-one master, and of the equal claim to each to satisfy as seems good to them, their natural needs from the stock of social wealth they have laboured to produce ...We are anarchists, disbelievers in the government of the many by the few in any shape and under any pretext.
History
The paper historically featured news from the
In 2006, the paper gained a colour front for the first time in its history. Along with a number of gradual changes in the content and structure of the paper and organisational changes at Freedom Press, Freedom got a re-design in January 2008. While remaining a fortnightly newspaper, it doubled the number of pages to 16 and reduced to A4 in size, introducing a basic theory section, dedicated business and public sector pages and an increased story count.[1] In late 2011, it switched from fortnightly to monthly publication, which continued until its closure as a regular paper in 2014. It cost £2 per issue.
On 1 March 2014, Freedom announced the closure of its print edition as a monthly publication,[2] continuing to publish online alongside a bi-annual printed freesheet. This was expanded into a 20-page journal from 2016. Frequency dropped to one issue per year during the 2020-2021 Covid pandemic. Freedom currently sees two print issues a year, joined by the daily website Freedom News.[3]
Editors
Note that this is a non-comprehensive list:
- 1886–1895: Charlotte Wilson
- 1895–1910: Alfred Marsh
- 1910–1928: Thomas Keell
- 1930–1934: John Turner
- 1930–1936: John Humphrey [4]
- 1936–1949: Marie Louise Berneri
- 1936–1968: Vernon Richards
- 1940–1960: Colin Ward (joint)
- 1964–1969: John Rety
- 1970: Peter Turner, Jack Robinson and Bill Christopher
- 1970s: John Lawrence, Donald Rooum[5]
- 1970s–1980s: Stu Stuart, Vernon Richards [5]
- 1976–1980s: David Peers
- 1980s: Gillian Fleming
- 1990s–2001: Charles Crute
- 2001–2004: Toby Crow [5]
- 2003–2004: Steven, Jim Clarke [6]
- 2004–2009: Rob Ray [7]
- 2009–2013: Dean Talent [8]
- 2012–2013: Matt Black
- 2013–2014: Charlotte Dingle
- 2014–2016: Ella Harrison & Adam Barr [9]
- 2016–2018: Rob Ray[10]
- 2017–2022: Zosia Brom[11]
- 2022-present: Sylvia Mann[12]
Related publications
Spain and the World was an anarchist publication founded in 1936 by Vernon Richards[13] with former Freedom writers, which had effectively ceased publication in 1932. The intention was to provide an English-language publication to support Spanish anarchists who were at that time achieving a measure of political influence through the anarchist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and other organisations. Spain and the World had several notable contributors, including Emma Goldman, Herbert Read, Ethel Mannin and John Cowper Powys.[14]
Between the end of the
In 1944, Richards, his wife
Freedom Press compiled a selection of articles from Freedom in the 1991 book The State Is Your Enemy.[16]
Related pages
- List of anarchist periodicals
- The Raven: Anarchist Quarterly
Notes
- ^ Rob Ray's blog includes an analysis of story counts in the anarchist press: [1]
- ^ http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/2014/03/10/a-statement-from-the-freedom-collective/ )offline)
- ^ "About". Freedom News. Retrieved 2024-04-16.
- ^ "Matt Kavanagh letter to Tom Keell". katesharpleylibrary.net. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
- ^ a b c Rooum, Donald (Summer 2008). "A short history of Freedom Press" (PDF). Information for Social Change (27). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2019. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
- ^ "Freedom news paper changes". libcom.org. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
- ^ Ray, Rob. "Freedom…". libcom.org. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
- ^ Bone, Ian (16 March 2009). "Freedom's Got Talent". ianbone.wordpress.com. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
- ^ "Freedom Archive". Freedom Press. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
- ^ "Freedom Archive". Freedom Press. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
- ^ "Freedom Spring Update (2023)". Freedom Press. 18 April 2023. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
- ^ "Freedom Spring Update (2023)". Freedom Press. 18 April 2023. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
- ^ Vernon Richards biography Archived 2008-05-09 at the Wayback Machine (offline)
- ^ George Woodcock, Anarchism:A History p.383.
- ^ Colin Ward's article on Vernon Richards in the UK Guardian
- ISBN 978-1-4411-4270-2.
Further reading
- ISSN 1756-901X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 14 July 2019.
- ISSN 1363-3554.
- Ray, Rob (2018). A Beautiful Idea: History of the Freedom Press Anarchists; The Story of Britain's Oldest Anarchist Publisher (1st ed.). London: OCLC 1052463857.
