Kingsley Martin
Basil Kingsley Martin (28 July 1897 – 16 February 1969) usually known as Kingsley Martin, was a British journalist who edited the left-leaning political magazine the New Statesman from 1930 to 1960.
Early life
He was the son of (David) Basil Martin (1858–1940), a
Martin was a day boy at Hereford Cathedral School, where he was unhappy. The family then moved in 1913 to Finchley, London.[2] Basil Martin took up a place at Finchley Unitarian Church, where his pacifism made him somewhat isolated.[6]
Martin did not move directly to London. He was first sent on a sea voyage to
Conscientious objector
Martin then went to
Taking inspiration from his father's opposition to the
School life was then made intolerable for Martin, however, by the other boys.
Post-war period
In 1919 Martin attended a socialist summer school, where he gained an interest in
At this period, according to
In 1924 Martin was offered a teaching job at the
Editor of the New Statesman
Martin became editor of the New Statesman at the beginning of 1931.[15] He remained at the New Statesman until 1960, when he retired.
Circulation and influence
The circulation of the Statesman grew from 14,000 to 80,000 over the course of Martin's thirty years in the editor's chair.[15] It was renamed New Statesman and Nation after absorbing The Nation and Athenaeum in 1931. This operation was integral to Martin's appointment: he had won over Arnold Rowntree, the major backer for the new single left-of-centre journal, and Rowntree had insisted that Martin should be a director.[16] In 1934, it took over the Week-end Review owned by Samuel Courtauld, through the good offices of Gerald Barry, gaining about four thousand readers.[17]
The magazine became a significant influence on Labour Party politics on the left, and further to the left.[18]
Political line
Martin wrote after the 1938 Anschluss:
"Today if Mr. Chamberlain would come forward and tell us that his policy was really one not only of isolation but also of Little Englandism in which the Empire was to be given up because it could not be defended and in which military defence was to be abandoned because war would totally end civilization, we for our part would wholeheartedly support him".[19]
Martin later abandoned this position.[20]
Martin and the Statesman were criticised for pursuing an erratic response to the regime of Stalin in the Soviet Union. Martin's friend John Maynard Keynes complained that in regard to Stalin's Russia, Martin was "a little too full perhaps of goodwill. When a doubt arises it is swallowed down if possible."[21] Martin wrote a hostile account of Leon Trotsky, "Trotsky in Mexico" for the NS, and did not allow the magazine to review Trotsky's anti-Stalinist book The Revolution Betrayed.[22]
He became disillusioned with the Soviet Union after the
After attending the Soviet-sponsored
Dispute with Orwell
Martin's editorship resulted in what D. J. Taylor called a "titanic feud" with contributor George Orwell.[26]
Returning to the UK after fighting in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell contacted Martin and offered to give him an account of the conflict; but Martin rejected Orwell's first article, "Eyewitness in Spain", on the grounds it could undermine the Spanish Republicans.[26] As compensation, Martin then offered Orwell a chance to review Franz Borkenau's book The Spanish Cockpit. Martin and the literary editor Raymond Mortimer turned down the review, however, on the grounds that "it is very uncompromisingly said and implies that our Spanish correspondents are all wrong"; and that it was more a restatement of Orwell's opinions than a review.[26][27] Mortimer later wrote to Orwell to apologise for the rejection of his articles on Spain, stating that "There is no premium here on Stalinist orthodoxy".[26]
Orwell continued to write for the New Statesman, but made "wounding remarks" in his journalism about the magazine being "under direct communist influence" and its readers being "worshippers of Stalin".
Works
- The Triumph of Lord Palmerston (1924)[29]
- The British Public and the General Strike (1926)[30]
- French Liberal Thought in the Eighteenth Century: A study of political ideals from Bayle to Condorcet (1929)[31]
- The Magic of Monarchy (1937) put forward arguments for British Republicanism. It was later described by Brian Pearce as an "excellent account".[32]
- Harold Laski, 1893-1950: A Biographical Memoir (1953)[33]
- The Crown And The Establishment (1962)[34] argued again for republicanism. It caused controversy, with Gerald Nabarro condemning Martin's views on the monarchy as "scurrilous".[35]
- Father Figures (1966), autobiography. In a review, Margaret Cole described Martin as a "wonderfully good editor".[20]
- Editor (1968), autobiography
Personal life and views
Martin married in 1926 Olga Walters, daughter of Dr. Frederick Rufenacht Walters, a physician and medical officer of health who ran a sanatorium at Tongham; they divorced in 1940.[2][36][37] Martin then became romantically involved with the activist Dorothy Woodman. They remained together for the rest of his life, although they never married. They worked together in pressure groups such as the Union of Democratic Control and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.[24]
Kingsley Martin died in the Anglo-American Hospital, Cairo, on 16 February 1969 after a heart attack.[2] He was an active and longtime humanist.[38] After his death, the editor of Humanist News wrote:
Kingsley Martin was through and through a Humanist and a life-long champion of Humanist causes. As a speaker, a contributor to Objections to Humanism and to The Humanist Outlook, he showed his constant readiness to serve and promote humanism.[38]
References
- ^ Census records 1871
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34902. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 0575016361.
- ^ "The Surman Index, Martin, David Basil". surman.english.qmul.ac.uk.
- ^ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1206692)". National Heritage List for England.
- ISBN 978-0-19-924117-0.
- ISBN 0575016361.
- ^ ISBN 0575016361.
- ISBN 978-1-904130-32-1.
- ISBN 0575016361.
- ISBN 0575016361.
- ISBN 0575016361.
- ISBN 0575016361.
- ISBN 978-0-224-02100-5.
- ^ a b Dennis Griffiths (ed.) The Encyclopedia of the British Press 1422–1992, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 404
- ISBN 978-1-135-20622-2.
- ^ Hyams, Edward (1963). The New Statesman: The History of the First 50 Years; 1913-63. Longmans. pp. 183–184.
- ISBN 978-1-137-55155-9.
- ^ Neville Thompson, The Anti-Appeasers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 156–157.
- ^ a b Cole, Margaret. "Kindly Dissenter", Tribune, 28 January 1966.
- ^ Bill Jones The Russia complex: the British Labour Party and the Soviet Union, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977, p. 25, 100
- ISBN 1611493528, (pp. 169–70).
- ^ Jones, (1977) (p. 40).
- ^ a b William Fitter "Portrait of an Editor" (Review of Kingsley by C.H. Rolph), The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 June 1973. p. 46
- ^ Jones, (1977) (pp. 194–5).
- ^ a b c d e "The Orwell Wars", D.J. Taylor and Adrian Smith. New Statesman, 12–25 April 2013.
- ISBN 1412811619, (pp. 46–7)
- ISBN 1-86207-029-6. (p. 299)
- ^ Martin, B. Kingsley (1924). The Triumph of Lord Palmerston, by B. Kingsley Martin. George Allen & Unwin.
- ^ Martin, Kingsley (1926). The British Public and the General Strike. L. & Virginia Woolf.
- ^ Martin, Kingsley (1929). French Liberal Thought in the Eighteenth Century. A study of political ideals from Bayle to Condorcet. Ernest Benn.
- ^ Brian Pearce "The Queen Cult", The Newsletter, 6 June 1959
- ^ Martin, Kingsley (1953). Harold Laski, 1893-1950: A Biographical Memoir. Viking Press.
- ^ Martin, Kingsley (1962). "The Crown and the Establishment".
- The Sun (Vancouver), 28 May 1962, p. 1
- ISBN 0575016361.
- ^ "Walters, Frederick Rufenacht (1857 - 1946)". livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk.
- ^ a b "Obituary". Humanist News. April 1969.