5: Arthur St John: Tolstoyan Abolitionism in Practice

Authors:
Peter Cox
and
Paul Taylor
Publication Date:
19 Mar 2025
Pages:
87–107
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529234800.ch005
Restricted access
Rights and permissions Cite this chapter
Buy article/chapter (
GBP  £20.00
)

There is no easy dividing line between reform and abolition. The Howard League for Penal Reform was formed in 1921 from the merger of two bodies, the Howard Association, founded in 1866, and the Penal Reform League (PRL), founded in 1907. While the ideas of John Howard are still widely remembered and acknowledged, the Tolstoyan abolitionism that led to the foundation of the PRL and its principal inspiration and first chair, Arthur St John, is almost entirely forgotten. This chapter explores the writings of St John and his colleagues, and the networks of people and activities which they initiated. Characterized by idealism and often dismissed as utopian in aspiration, their actions were paradoxically pragmatic and collaborative, feeding not insignificantly into the Prison System Enquiry Committee of 1919 and ultimately to the publication of English Prisons Today. The biographical approach allows us to situate the analysis of penal systems within a set of larger ideas of social change concerning religious freedom, education, social norms, and social and economic justice, for example. Though Tolstoyan abolitionism is often closely intertwined with Quaker approaches or erased within Fabian narratives, it remains distinctive in its politics and vision.

  • Alston, C. (2013) Tolstoy and His Disciples: The History of a Radical International Movement, London: I.B. Tauris.

  • Alston, C. (2014) ‘A great host of sympathisers: the Doukhobor emigration and its international supporters, 1895–1905’, Journal of Modern European History, 12(2): 200–215.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • ‘An Old Gaol Bird’ (1913) London Evening News, 24 July.

  • Armytage, W.H.G. (1957) ‘Kenworthy and the Tolstoyan communities in England’, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 16(4): 391–405.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Bailey, V. (1997) ‘English prisons, penal culture, and the abatement of imprisonment, 1895–1922’, Journal of British Studies, 36(3): 285–324.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Beevers, R. (1988) The Garden City Utopia: A Critical Biography of Ebenezer Howard, London: Macmillan.

  • Bevir, M. (2011) The Making of British Socialism, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  • Biryukov, P. (1895) ‘The persecution of Christians in Russia (with a preface by Tolstoy)’, The Times, 23 October.

  • Bongiorno, F. (2001) ‘Love and friendship: ethical socialism in Britain and Australia’, Australian Historical Studies, 32: 1–19.

  • British Journal of Inebriety (1919) 16(3): 83.

  • British Journal of Nursing (1916) 57: 92.

  • British Journal of Nursing (1917) 58(3): 149.

  • British Journal of Nursing (1917) 58: 176.

  • Brockway, F. (1928) A New Way With Crime, London: Williams and Norgate.

  • Brits, E. (2016) Emily Hobhouse. Feminist, Pacifist, Traitor? Cape Town: Tafelberg.

  • Buyniak, V.O. (1999) ‘The Manitoba and North Western Railway dispute with the Doukhobors’, Saskatchewan History . Available from: https://doukhobor.org/the-1899-manitoba-and-northwestern-railway-dispute-with-the-doukhobors/ [Accessed 23 February 2024].

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Carpenter, E. (1916) My Days and Dreams, London: George Allen & Unwin.

  • Clark, J. (2008) ‘Striving to preserve the peace! The National Council for Civil Liberties, the Metropolitan Police and the dynamics of disorder in inter-war Britain’, PhD thesis, Open University.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Cobden-Sanderson, T.J. (1926) The Journals of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, London: Richard Cobden-Sanderson.

  • Cockin, K. (2017) Edith Craig and the Theatres of Art, London: Bloomsbury.

  • Cook, C.M. (2015) ‘(Julia Sarah) Anne Cobden-Sanderson 1853–1926’. Available from: https://wilpf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Anne-Cobden-Sandersonv1.pdf [Accessed 23 February 2024].

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Crawford, E. (2000) The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866–1928, London: Routledge.

  • Devon, J. (1912a) ‘The relation between crime and destitution and the effects of imprisonment’, Report of the Proceedings of the National Conference on Destitution, June 11–14, 1912, London: P.S. King & Son.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Devon, J. (1912b) The Criminal and the Community, London: John Lane.

  • Edwards, J. and Pethick Lawrence, F.W. (eds) (1908) The Reformers Year Book , London: Harvester Press.

  • Eugenics Education Society (1912) Problems in Eugenics Vol. II. Report of Proceedings of the First International Eugenics Congress held at The University of London, July 24th to 30th, 1912, London: Eugenics Education Society.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • T he Friend (1900) LXXIII: 319.

  • Gardner, A.R. (1930) ‘The Howard Association after 1901 and the Penal Reform League’, Howard Journal, 3(1): 36–42.

  • Gilmour, D. (2002) The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling, London: David Gilmore.

  • Gray, V. (2019) A New World in Essex: The Rise and Fall of the Purleigh Brotherhood Colony, 1896–1903, Colchester: Campanula Books.

  • Hardy, D. (1979) Alternative Communities in Nineteenth Century England, London: Longman.

  • Hardy, D. (1991) From Garden Cities to New Towns, London: E & FN Spon.

  • Hardy, D. (2000) Utopian England: Community Experiments 1900–1945, London: Routledge.

  • Hobhouse, S. (1919) An English Prison from within, London: George Allen & Unwin.

  • Hobhouse, S. (1951) Forty Years and an Epilogue: The Autobiography of Stephen Hobhouse, London: James Clarke & Co.

  • Hobhouse, S. and Brockway, F. (eds) (1922) English Prisons To-day: Being the Report of the Prison System Enquiry Committee, London: Longmans, Green & Co.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Holman, M. J. de K. (1978) ‘The Purleigh Colony: Tolstoyan togetherness in the late 1890s’, in M. Jones, (ed.) New Essays on Tolstoy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 194–222.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Holmes, R. (2020) Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel, London: Bloomsbury.

  • Howard League (n.d.) Available from: https://howardleague.org/100-years-as-the-howard-league-for-penal-reform/ [Accessed 28 October 2021].

  • Huws Jones, E. (1966) Margery Fry: The Essential Amateur, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Linehan, T. (2012) Modernism and British Socialism, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • Logan, A. (2016) ‘The Penal Reform League and its feminist roots’, Howard League ECAN Bulletin, 28 (February).

  • Logan, A. (2018) The Politics of Penal Reform. Margery Fry and the Howard League, Abingdon: Routledge.

  • L ondon Evening Standard (1912) 29 April: 12.

  • López-Martín, L. (2019) ‘Help Spain by showing films: British film production for humanitarian aid during the Spanish Civil War’, Culture and History Digital Journal, 8(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2019.019.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Manton, K. (2003) ‘The fellowship of the new life: English ethical socialism reconsidered’, History of Political Thought, 24(2): 282–304.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Maxwell St John, L. (1914) ‘Nursing in prisons’. Paper presented to the Nursing and Midwifery Conference, 10–12 June.

  • Penal Reform League (n.d.) The Penal Reform League (handbill), London: PRL.

  • Reid, F. (2007) ‘Distinguishing between shell-shocked veterans and pauper lunatics: the ex-services’ welfare society and mentally wounded veterans after the Great War’, War in History, 14(3): 347–371.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Renwick, C. (2011) ‘From political economy to sociology: Francis Galton and the social-scientific origins of eugenics’, British Journal for the History of Science, 44(3): 343–369.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Richardson, S. (2006) ‘“You know your father’s heart”: the Cobden sisterhood and the legacy of Richard Cobden’, in A. Howe and S. Morgan (eds) Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays, Farnham: Ashgate, pp 229–246.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Rose, G. (1955) ‘Some influences on English penal reform, 1895–1921’, Sociological Review, 3(1): 25–46.

  • Rose, G. (1961) The Struggle for Pena1 Reform, London: Stevens.

  • Rowbotham, S. (2008) Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love, London: Verso.

  • Salt, H.S. (1921) Seventy Years among Savages, London: George Allen & Unwin.

  • Scott, D. (2013) ‘Visualising an abolitionist real utopia: principles, policy and praxis’, in M. Malloch (ed.) Crime, Critique and Utopia, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 90–113.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Scott, D. and Gosling, H. (2016) ‘Before prison, instead of prison, better than prison: therapeutic communities as abolitionist real utopia?’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 5(1): 52–66.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Semple, D. (1939) ‘Introductory Note’ in A. St John, Why Not Now? A British Islander’s Dream, London: C.W. Daniel Co., pp 7–12.

  • Shrubsole, G. (2010) ‘“To re-enter the temple by means of the gate called beautiful”: new approaches to prostitution, criminality and rehabilitation? The work of the Committee for Social Investigation and Reform, c.1913–1921’, unpublished thesis. Available from: https://guyshrubsole.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/arts-crafts-and-prostitution/ [Accessed 23 February 2024].

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • St John, A. (1899) ‘An inconvenient visit to the Caucasus [published in 6 parts]’, New Order, January–June.

  • St John, A. (1904) Education: A Depreciation of Cramming and a Plea for Natural Education, London: Simple Life Press.

  • St John, A. (1906) ‘A practical policy’, The Humane Review, 5: 103–114.

  • St John, A. (1908) ‘Discussions: the indeterminate sentence and the need for reformative treatment’, Sociological Review, 1(4): 377–382.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • St John, A. (1911a) ‘The community and its children: their co-operation in their own training’, Sociological Review, 4(2): 125–139.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • St John, A. (1911b) ‘Crime and eugenics in America’, Eugenics Review, 3(2): 118–130.

  • St John, A. (1912a) ‘Modifications in prison regime and conditional release’, in National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution 1912. Report of the Proceedings, London: P.S. King & Son, pp 517–522.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • St John, A. (1912b) ‘Criminal anthropology and common sense’, Sociological Review, 5(1): 65–67.

  • St John, A. (1912c) ‘The futility of prison’, Eugenics Review, 4(2): 210–211.

  • St John, A. (1912d) ‘Discussion on Captain St John’s paper’, in National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution 1912. Report of the Proceedings. London: P.S. King & Son, pp 528–535.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • St John, A. (1913) ‘Forcible feeding and the Penal Reform League’, The Hospital, 8 November.

  • St John, A. (1927) ‘Montessori and social progress’, Sociological Review, 19(3): 197–207.

  • St John, A. (1929) ‘A new way with criminals’, Sociological Review, 21(3): 233–240.

  • St John, A. (1939) Why Not Now? A British Islander’s Dream, London: C.W. Daniel Co.

  • Tarasoff, K.J. and Ewashen, L. (1994) In Search of Utopia: The Doukhobors. Ottowa: Ottawa: Spirit Wrestler Publishers.

  • The War Hospital at Neuilly (n.d., probably 1916) The Anglo-French-American Hospital. An account of the work carried on under homeopathic auspices during 1915–1916 at the Hôpital Militaire Auxiliaire, No. 307, Neuilly-Sur-Seine in conjunction with the French Red Cross Society, by the British Committee sitting at The London Homeopathic Hospital.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Tidcombe, M. (2017) The Prison Diary of Annie Cobden-Sanderson with a Facsimile of the Original, London: Libanus Press.

  • Tolstoy, L. (1882) A Confession [first English translation 1884, Geneva] Edition used A. Maude and L. Maude (trans.) A Confession and What I Believe, London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Tolstoy, L. (1886) What Is to Be Done? [first English translation 1887] Edition used A. Maude (trans.) What Then Must We Do?, London: Green Classics, 1991.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Tolstoy, L. (1894) The Kingdom of God Is Within You, W. Delano (trans.), London: Water Scott.

  • Tolstoy, L. (1895) ‘Dukhobortay Sectarians’, The Times, 23 October.

  • Vulcan Advocate (1913) 15 October: 6.

  • Weinbren, D. (1994) ‘Against all cruelty: the Humanitarian League, 1891–1919’, History Workshop, 38: 86–105.

  • Women’s Franchise [newspaper] (1907) 05 December: 11

  • Wright, E.O. (2010) Envisioning Real Utopias, London: Verso.

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 24542 24542 217
Full Text Views 5 5 1
PDF Downloads 2 2 2

Altmetrics