G. D. H. Cole
G. D. H. Cole | |
---|---|
Born | George Douglas Howard Cole 25 September 1889 Cambridge, England |
Died | 14 January 1959 London, England | (aged 69)
Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
Political party | Labour |
Other political affiliations | Popular Front |
Spouse | |
Academic background | |
Influences |
|
Academic work | |
Discipline |
|
School or tradition | Guild socialism |
Institutions | |
Notable works | A History of Socialist Thought |
Influenced | Harold Wilson |
Part of a series on |
Socialism |
---|
Part of a series on |
Libertarian socialism |
---|
George Douglas Howard Cole (25 September 1889 – 14 January 1959) was an English
Early life
Cole was born in Cambridge to George Cole, a jeweller who later became a surveyor; and his wife Jessie Knowles.[2]
Cole was educated at
First World War and early career
In the autumn of 1912 Cole accepted a post as lecturer in philosophy at
Cole, personally a pacifist, took a pragmatic approach to the 1914-18 war.
Cole's involvement in the campaign against conscription introduced him to a co-worker, Margaret Postgate, whom he married in 1918.
Having secured exemption from military service, Cole was practically active first with his union work and with journalism in defence of workers' rights;[4]: 61–73 he also found time to develop a political theory of guild socialism.[2] which had first engaged his attention during his undergraduate years.[5]: 49ff
Cole's Prize Fellowship ended in 1919. He needed employment. He moved to London. His first job, provided by Arthur Henderson, was as part-time secretary to the Advisory Committees which had been established by the Labour Party in 1918 to create a clear and comprehensive political programme, a programme for a full-fledged political party and not a pressure group. The work was congenial and satisfactory but the requirements of the job proved too much for Cole's part-time commitment.[citation needed]
He then secured a job with the
he was not really at all fitted to be a regular journalist on a daily. Though his contributions were well informed and generally readable, and though, so far as my knowledge goes, their accuracy went unchallenged, he was quite incapable of giving to the Guardian that priority of service and attention which any good newspaperman must give to his paper; and I very clearly recollect the amazed exasperation displayed on more than one occasion by the London Editor, or the Night Editor as the case might be, when a piece of news requiring instant comment had turned up, and their Labour Correspondent was not available on the telephone, had gone out, nobody knew where, or for how long[4]: 105
Professional life
Cole authored several economic and historical works including biographies of William Cobbett and Robert Owen.
In 1925, he became reader in economics at University College, Oxford.
In 1929, he was appointed to the
Cole's pacifism of 1914-18 was abandoned by 1940 when he said: "Hitler cured me of pacifism".[6]: 84 During the 1930s, Cole sought to construct a British popular front against fascism. He identified the extent of the military threat before many of his colleagues had abandoned their pacifism. Cole lent strong support to the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.[2]
He was listed in Nazi Germany's Black Book of prominent subjects to be arrested in the case of a successful invasion of Britain.[7]
In 1941, Cole was appointed sub-warden of Nuffield College, Oxford. He was central to the establishment of the Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey which collected a large amount of demographic, economic and social data. This information was used to advocate for an extensive programme of social reform.[2]
Socialism
Cole became interested in
Cole said his interest in socialism was kindled by his reading
I became a Socialist because, as soon as the case for a society of equals, set free from the twin evils of riches and poverty, mastership and subjection, was put to me, I knew that to be the only kind of society that could be consistent with human decency and fellowship and that in no other society could I have the right to be content.
— World Socialism Restated[8]
Neither a
In the 1920s, Hugh Gaitskell, a student of Cole, became active supporter of the 1926 United Kingdom general strike.[11] Cole also was a powerful influence on the life of the young Harold Wilson, whom he taught, worked with and convinced to join the Labour Party.
Cole formed the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda to advance his views, which combined with former members of the
Cole wrote at least seven books for the
Although Cole admired the Soviet Union for creating a socialist economy, he rejected its dictatorial government as a model for socialist societies elsewhere. In a 1939 lecture, Cole stated:
If I do not accept
Democratic Socialism, despite all its failures and vacillations of recent years, as a total loss.... Democratic Socialism offers the only means of building the new order on what is valuable and worth preserving in the civilisation of to-day.[16]
In his book Europe, Russia and the Future published in 1941, Cole claimed that however immoral the new Nazi-dominated Europe was in some ways it was better than the "impracticable" system of sovereign states that had preceded it. In economic terms, it could be said that "it would be better to let Hitler conquer all Europe short of the Soviet Union, and thereafter exploit it ruthlessly in the Nazi interest, than to go back to the pre-war order of independent Nation States with frontiers drawn so as to cut right across the natural units of production and exchange".[17] Cole also stated:
I would much sooner see the Soviet Union, even with its policy unchanged, dominant over all Europe, including Great Britain, than see an attempt to restore the pre-war States to their futile and uncreative independence and their petty economic nationalism under capitalist domination. Much better be ruled by Stalin than by the destructive and monopolistic cliques which dominate Western capitalism.[18]
Co-operative studies
Cole was also a theorist of the
A second book, titled A Century of Co-operation, examined the history of the movement from the very first co-operatives to the contribution of the
Cole contributed to
Personal life
In August 1918, Cole married Margaret Isabel Postgate (1893–1980). Margaret was the daughter of the classical scholar John Percival Postgate.[2]
The couple had one son and two daughters in a marriage that lasted forty-one years. However, the marriage does not seem to have been especially happy. Cole expressed little interest in actual romantic attachment and even less in sexual relations. Friends observed that emotional attachments tended to be with men rather than women. Cole was very fond of some of his male students. They included the future leader of the Labour Party Hugh Gaitskell. There is no evidence of any homosexual encounters either before or during his marriage.[2]
Cole and his wife jointly wrote a number of books and articles, including twenty-nine detective stories.[2]
Cole could not accept the idea of a "determinate human superior". His wife recalled that "he... never gave orders except in a purely routine and non-significant sense".
In literature and poetry he enjoyed (after Morris)
He was admired by his students, but Gaitskell said he was much too sensitive, self-critical and sardonic to play the part of the master at all willingly.[4]: 144
In the spring of 1929 the Coles returned to London, living in West Hampstead for six years until buying a "rambling Victorian" house called "Freeland" in Hendon where he lived for most of the last three decades of his life.[4]: 171–173 In early 1957 he and his wife moved to a flat in Holland Park, Kensington.[21] He died after going into a diabetic coma in the early hours of 14 January 1959 in hospital in Hampstead.[22] In lieu of religious rites his brother-in-law, Raymond Postgate, read two passages from the works of William Morris at his funeral in Golders Green Crematorium.[23] His estate was offered for probate at £46,617 (equivalent to £1,097,364 in 2020).[21][24]
Bibliography
Non-fiction works
- The World of Labour (1913, revised 1920)
- Labour in War Time (1915)
- Trade Unionism on the Railways (1917) [with R. Page Arnot]
- Self-Government in Industry (1917, revised 1920)
- The Payment of Wages (1918)
- The Regulation of Wages During and After the War (1918)
- An Introduction to Trade Unionism (1918)
- Labour in the Commonwealth(1919)
- Social Theory (1920)
- Guild Socialism Restated (1920)
- Chaos and Order in Industry (1920)
- Guild Socialism - A plan for Economic Democracy (1921)
- The Future of Local Government (1921)
- Rousseau's Social Contract and Discourses edited and translated in Everyman's Library (1923)
- Robert Owen (1923)
- Workshop Organisation (1923)
- Trade Unionism and Munitions (1923)
- The Life of William Cobbett (1925)
- The Life of Robert Owen (1925, second ed. 1930, third ed. 1965)
- Some Essentials of Socialist Propaganda (1932)
- The Intelligent Man's Guide through World Chaos (1932)
- The Intelligent Man's Review of Europe Today (1933) [with Margaret Cole]
- Studies in World Economics (1934)
- What Marx Really Meant (1934)
- Principles of Economic Planning (1935)
- The Condition of Britain (Left Book Club, 1937) [with Margaret Cole]
- The People's Front (Left Book Club, 1937)
- Practical Economics(Penguin Books, 1937)
- Persons & Periods (1938)
- Socialism in Evolution (1938) Pelican[25]
- The War on the Home Front (1939)
- War Aims (Left Book Club, 1939)
- Europe, Russia and the Future (Left Book Club, 1941)
- British Working Class Politics 1832-1914 (1941)
- Great Britain in the Post-War World (Left Book Club, 1942)
- The Fabian Society, Past and Present (1942)
- Fabian Socialism (1943)
- Monetary Systems and Theories (1943)
- The Means to Full Employment (Left Book Club, 1943)
- A Century of Cooperation (1944)
- Money: Its Present And Future (1944)
- The Common People, 1746–1946 (1946) [with Raymond Postgate]
- A Short History of the British Working Class Movement, 1789–1947 (1947) ISBN 0-415-26564-9
- An Intelligent Man's Guide to the Post-War World (1947)
- A History of the Labour Party from 1914 (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1948)
- The Meaning of Marxism (1948; a rewrite of What Marx Really Meant)
- Consultation or Joint Management? (1949)
- Labour's Second Term (1949)
- The Meaning of Marxism (1950)
- The British Co-operative Movement in a Socialist Society, (London, Allen & Unwin 1951)
- Introduction to Economic History 1750–1950 (London: Macmillan 1952)
- ISBN 1-4039-0264-X
- Studies in Class Structure (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1955)
- Capitalism in the Modern World (1957)
- Early Pamphlets and Assessment (2011, originally published between 1921 and 1956)
Detective fiction
Novels and short story collections
G D H Cole
- The Brooklyn Murders (1923)
G D H and M Cole
- The Death of a Millionaire (1925)
- The Blatchington Tangle (1926); serialised in The Daily Herald (1926)
- The Murder at Crome House (1927)
- The Man from the River (1928)
- Superintendent Wilson's Holiday (1928)
- Poison in the Garden Suburb (1929); serialised in The Daily Herald (1929). Also known as Poison in a Garden Suburb
- Burglars in Bucks (1930) aka The Berkshire Mystery
- Corpse in Canonicals (1930) aka The Corpse in the Constable's Garden
- The Great Southern Mystery (1931) aka The Walking Corpse
- Dead Man's Watch (1931)
- Death of a Star (1932)
- A Lesson in Crime (1933)
- A Lesson in Crime; A Question of Coincidence; Mr. Steven's Insurance Policy; Blackmail in the Village; The Cliff Path Ghost; Sixteen Years Run; Wilson Calling (Wilson); The Brentwardine Mystery; The Mother of the Detective; A Dose of Cyanide; Superintendent Wakley's Mistake.
- The Affair at Aliquid (1933)
- End of an Ancient Mariner (1933)
- Death in the Quarry (1934)
- Big Business Murder (1935)
- Dr Tancred Begins (1935)
- Scandal at School (1935) aka The Sleeping Death
- Last Will and Testament (1936)
- The Brothers Sackville (1936)
- Disgrace to the College (1937)
- The Missing Aunt (1937)
- Mrs Warrender's Profession (1938)
- Off with her Head! (1938)
- Double Blackmail (1939)
- Greek Tragedy (1939)
- Wilson and Some Others (1940)
- Death in a Tankard (Wilson); Murder in Church (Wilson); The Bone of the Dinosaur (Wilson); A Tale of Two Suitcases (Wilson); The Motive (Wilson); Glass (Wilson); Murder in Broad Daylight (Wilson); Ye Olde Englysshe Christmasse or Detection in the Eighteenth Century; The Letters; The Partner; A Present from the Empire; The Strange Adventures of a Chocolate Box; Strychnine Tonic.
- Murder at the Munition Works (1940)
- Counterpoint Murder (1940)
- Knife in the Dark (1941)
- Toper's End (1942)
- Death of a Bride (1945)
- Birthday Gifts (1946)
- The Toys of Death (1948)
Radio plays
G D H and M Cole
- Murder in Broad Daylight. BBC Home Service, 1 June 1934
- The Bone of the Dinosaur. (Detection Club: Series 1, Episode 6). BBC Home Service, 23 and 27 November 1940
Short stories
G D H and Margaret Cole
- Death in the Tankard. (London) Daily News, 15 to 19 January 1934
- Too Clever by Half. (London) Daily News, 20 to 24 April 1936
References
- ISBN 978-0-334-05373-6.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32486. Retrieved 25 October 2017. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ 'Oxford University Calendar 1913, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913, pp. 196, 222
- ^ ISBN 0-333-00216-4.
- ^ ISBN 0-521-08702-3.
- ISBN 0-7190-1892-7.
- ^ Walter Schellenberg, The Schellenberg Memoirs, London 1956 (Deutsch: Aufzeichungen, München 1979) pp 174.
- ^ G. D. H Cole, "World Socialism Restated," pamphlet (1956); cited, Harry Barnes, Three Score Years and Ten (24 July 2006).
- OCLC 1285556329.
- ^ Peter Sedgwick, "A Return to First Things", Balliol College Annual Record 1980, pp.86–88 (review of A. W. Wright, G.D.H. Cole and Socialist Democracy). Marxists’ Internet Archive. Online.
- ^ "PPE: the Oxford degree that runs Britain". the Guardian. 23 February 2017. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- OCLC 1285556329.
- ISBN 019820647X(pp. 282–83)
- ^ Marc Stears, ‘Cole , Dame Margaret Isabel (1893–1980)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 7 May 2017
- ISBN 978-0-7864-9992-2.
- ^ "The Decline of Capitalism". Lecture to Fabian Society, 1939.|Quoted in
A. W. Wright, G. D. H. Cole and Socialist Democracy. Clarendon Press, 1979. ISBN 0-19-827421-1(p. 226).
- ^ G. D. H. Cole, Europe, Russia and the Future (London: Victor Gollancz, 1941), p. 104.
- ^ Cole, Europe, Russia and the Future, p. 104.
- ^ Cole, G. D. H., "The British Co-operative Movement in a Socialist Society: A Report for the Fabian Society", London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1951.
- ^ Cole, G.D.H., A Century of Co-operation, Oxford: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1944.
- ^ a b "Cole, George Douglas Howard". The Times. London. 4 September 1959. p. 12.
- ^ "G. D. H. Cole". The Times. London. 15 January 1959.
- ^ "G. D. H. Cole". The Times. London. 17 January 1959.
- ^ "Find a will | GOV.UK". Archived from the original on 30 November 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
- ^ "Penguin First Editions". Penguin Publishing.
Sources
- Margaret Cole, The Life of G. D. H. Cole, Macmillan/St. Martin's (1971) ISBN 0-333-00216-4
- A. W. (Tony) Wright, G. D. H. Cole and Socialist Democracy New York, Oxford (1979) ISBN 0-19-827421-1
- L. P. Carpenter, G.D.H. Cole: An Intellectual Biography, Cambridge (1974) ISBN 0-521-08702-3
- Chris Wyatt, "A Recipe for a Cookshop of the Future: G. D. H. Cole and the Conundrum of Sovereignty" Capital and Class 90 (2006)
External links
- "Archival material relating to G. D. H. Cole". UK National Archives.
- Works by G. D. H. Cole at Project Gutenberg
- G. D. H. Cole Archive at marxists.org
- Guild Socialism (1920)
- Some Essentials of Socialist Propaganda (1932)
- The War on the Home Front (1939)
- Capitalism in the Modern World (1957)
- "In Memory of G.D.H. Cole" by Ray Challinor (1960)
- New Statesman article on G.D.H. Cole (2012)
- Mike Grost on Cole's detective novels