Philip Sansom

Philip Richard Sansom (19 September 1916 – 24 October 1999) was a British

Sansom was the son of a lathe operator. He came from the same area in London from which his good friend Colin Ward came, Wandsworth, and was brought up in Hackney. Sansom was trained as an artist in West Ham Technical College, during which he came into contact with the published works of Herbert Read. Sansom (1987) (see 'Publications' below) documented that, in 1936, Read was ‘already established as England’s leading writer on modern art in all its facets’ and that his books: '“The meaning of art”, “Art and industry” and “Art and society” were almost required reading for my generation of art students'. After he left art college, Sansom became a commercial artist.

Political affiliation

Westhall (1973) observed that the position of Sansom:

'is closer to syndicalism than the others intimately connected with Freedom Press; indeed he worked on a paper called The Syndicalist with Albert Meltzer for a while ….'^[3]

Sansom affirmed his commitment to syndicalism with his pamphlet ‘Syndicalism: The workers’ next step’, see below, excerpts of which have been republished in Graham (2009).^[4]

Activism

During the

• Syndicalism: The Workers' Next Step. London: Freedom Press. 1951.
• "Revived 45: Anarchists against the army" (PDF). The Raven Anarchist Quarterly. 29 (8): 1. 1974.
• "Introduction" in
  ISBN 978-0-90-038430-1
  .
• "Freedom Press and the anarchist movement in the '50s and '60s". Freedom. 47 (9): 32–35. 1986.
  ISSN 0016-0504
  .
• "Surprise, surprise! A curate's egg!". The Raven Anarchist Quarterly. 1 (3): 267–279. 1987.
  ISSN 0951-4066
  .
• "Anarchists against hanging" in Rooum, Donald (2016, originally c.1993), "What is anarchism An Introduction", Edited by Vernon Richards, Second edition, PO Box 23912, Oakland, California: PM Press, ISBN 978-1-62963-146-2.