Utopian England

Community Experiments 1900-1945

Dennis Hardy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135153977
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

England in the early part of the twentieth century was rich in utopian ventures - diverse and intriguing in their scope and aims. Two world wars, an economic depression, and the emergence of fascist states in Europe were all a spur to idealists to seek new limits - to escape from the here and now, and to create sanctuaries for new and better lives.
Dennis Hardy explores this fascinating history of utopian ideals, the lives of those who pursued them, and the utopian communities they created.
Some communities were fired by a long tradition of land movements, others by thoughts of more humane ways of building towns. In turn there were experiments devoted to the arts; to the promotion of religious doctrine; and to a variety of political causes. And some were just 'places of the imagination'.
Utopian England is about just one episode in the perennial search for perfection, but what is revealed has lessons that extend well beyond a particular time and place. So long as there are failings in society, so long as rationality is not enough, there will continue to be a place for thinking the impossible, for going in search of utopia.

Chapter One
The Quest for Perfection

The idea of creating the perfect place on earth, perhaps in a corner of England, was certainly not new at the start of the twentieth century, and in the first part of this chapter the reader is offered a glimpse of this earlier experience. But time stamps its own mark on events, and the years from around 1900 to 1945 brought to a long tradition of seeking perfection its own unique circumstances. Thus, while in one sense what happened in this period is a continuation of an earlier history, it is also something quite new. The element that is new is the subject of the second part of the chapter. Finally, there is a brief discussion of boundaries, with a section that maps the ground on which the rest of the book is located.

In spite of the specificity of the subject, the writing of this book has been guided by questions about utopianism in theory and practice that are of wider application. Why, in a modern period, did utopianism persist? What form did it take, and in what ways did it differ from earlier episodes? And what was the point of it all: was it simply therapeutic or were there more tangible outcomes? Are there lessons from this period that might be of contemporary value? On the basis of past experience, is utopianism likely to continue as a feature of society in a new millennium, and is there any merit in it doing so? These questions are pursued in subsequent chapters, and revisited with the benefit of a wide range of evidence of community formation.

Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained

The world was all before them, where to choose …
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.¹

The concluding lines of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, express both the human tragedy of leaving Eden and also a subtle hint of hope. In the unknown territory, the world before them, the exiles from paradise were confronted with a fearful choice; to take the wrong step could lead to eternal damnation, yet along a different route might be the distant horizon of a new Eden. And there, in pursuit of hope, driven by the enduring image of a lost paradise and by a compulsion to regain it, lie the roots of a utopian tradition that defies boundaries of time and culture. Paradise lost and paradise regained, the lament of looking back and the irresistible desire to look forward, are just two sides of utopian thought; and the two sides unite around the idea of the world as it might be, in a perfect state. Sometimes, in this long history, ideas of perfection are matched by action, with attempts to turn them into reality. Usually, when this is done, idealists content themselves with the formation of a community, in effect a microcosm of the perfect world they seek, an end in itself but also a source of inspiration to encourage others. Utopianism and communitarianism may thus go hand in hand.

In England there is plentiful historical evidence of this conjunction of theory and practice, of utopian ideas and community experiments. Long before the modern period, peasants and aristocrats alike, religious devotees and secularists, artists and scientists, revolutionaries and romantics, had all at different times ventured into a little known world, seeking to create heaven on earth. In spite of their striking differences, in what they aspired to and in how they set about getting there, there is a common theme in all of the schemes. One feature they share is that they are all a product of their own specific time and circumstances. For utopias are in many ways like a mirror that is held up to the society in which they are conceived, exposing everyday frailties as well as outlining a picture of something better. Problems of hunger, poverty, political injustice, inequality and warfare are all addressed in different ways in utopian schemes. At different times different problems loom large and it is these that become defining features, ensuring that utopias can never be the same from one period to another.

Another feature is the very continuity of the tradition, with evidence of both ideas and experiments over a long period as a distinctive though still overlooked dimension of English history. Some of this evidence has remained hidden or relatively unpublicized until quite recently.² Almost by definition, it can often be difficult to trace: a product of ideas originating on the very margins of society, in opposition to mainstream thought, and disseminated in ephemeral leaflets and single essays, or even by word of mouth. Similarly, resultant communities emerge and disappear sometimes in quick order, deliberately eschewing publicity and leaving few written records. Gradually, however, hitherto missing pieces in this intriguing jig-saw have been pieced together, revealing a more or less coherent picture for the past five hundred years. Before that, the record remains more fragmented but sufficient to invite further work; the prospect of a still more detailed map of alternative England remains a tempting challenge for scholars.

Early images of perfection are to be found in legend and folklore as much as in written records, but are no less important for that in terms of their influence at the time or since. They proved sufficient in their different ways to arouse the popular imagination, just as they were in their own way to contribute to a collective sense of identity. Such images have been embellished and mediated over the years, and sometimes appropriated to support contrasting notions of Englishness. Thus, from this early history come two oppositional themes that have dogged the English character ever since, the ideal of a benign monarchy and that of a peasant republic. Of the former, powerful images have formed around the tales of King Arthur and his court. Set vaguely in southern England in the sixth century, Arthur is believed to have repelled the advancing Saxons and to have secured a period of peace. With his queen, Guinevere, he lived in the walled city of Camelot, which itself symbolized various aspects of his reign. But historical records are secondary to a legend which tells of recovered virtues, of chivalry and romance, of justice and of the inexorable triumph of good over evil, all set in an imaginary landscape of castles, lakes and forests. Perfect worlds are always more alluring when set against the dark outlines of earlier depravity, and a key element of Arthurian legend is to show how the one replaced the other, in this case his virtuous reign in contrast to previous chaos.

Successive writers have bestowed on Camelot legendary qualities, though drawing from it different meanings. Tennyson’s nineteenth-century poetry, for example, implanted it firmly within an established version of England, unlike contemporary alternative groups who find in the Arthurian tradition an entrée to a world of mysticism. Even the latter, however, find common ground in some of Tennyson’s enduring descriptions of the ‘many-tower’d Camelot’ set by a dreamy river, ‘four grey walls, and four grey towers, overlook a space of flowers.’³ In Idylls of the King, when the young nobleman, Gareth, and his two companions first sight the city rising out of the river mist they are overawed.

Here is a city of Enchanters, built
By fairy Kings …
Lord, there is no such city anywhere, but all a vision.⁴

Nor was it simply the outward signs of Arthur’s reign which attracted attention, so much as the king’s idealized qualities, ‘whose glory was redressing wrong … wearing the white flower of a blameless life.’⁵ And with his own death these qualities were lost, perhaps for all time.

I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.⁶

Utopianism is replete with golden ages that were lost for all time, and this was one. In striking contrast, another early tradition was based not on the achievements of the nobility, the utopia of rulers, but on the yearnings of the peasantry, the utopia of the ruled. As with Arthurian legend it is only loosely rooted in historical fact, and has been variously interpreted by later generations and in different cultures to answer different needs. The most helpful explanation of its place in English utopianism is provided by the historian, A.L. Morton, who uses an early fourteenth-century, English poem, The Land of Cokaygne, to illustrate a timeless theme of peasant desire.⁷ Here, without subtlety, the world is turned upside down, and everyday afflictions that were the lot of an oppressed peasantry are replaced by the stuff of dreams; in place of hunger there is abundant food, in place of toil there is rest, in place of exploitation there is equality. Cokaygne, the poem asserts, is better even than Paradise, for in the latter there is a marked lack of material pleasures. In Cokaygne, by contrast, the rivers flow with milk, honey and wine, and ‘tasty larks fly down men’s throats, dressed in most excellent stew and sprinkled with gillyflower and cinnamon.’⁸ Nor are the pleasures only material, since it would be a world, too, without conflict and the constant threats to life that dogged everyday existence: ‘all is day, there is no night, there is neither quarrelling nor strife, there is no death but eternal life.’⁹ Priests are mocked, and tellingly the earthly paradise of Cokaygne is sited somewhere to the west, in common with Celtic mythology and unlike the Christian orientation of holiness to the east.

The poem was expressive of common desire that was also evident in other forms, in pageant and festival, in folklore and legend. Through the means of utopian imagination, partly obscured by the fantasy of its images, a serious message was being conveyed. After years of tacit acceptance, an awareness was evolving that the peasant burden was by no means inevitable, and in this awareness lay the seeds of insurrection. The first major uprising was in 1381, but before that the peasant leaders, John Ball and Wat Tyler, were travelling through the countryside, arousing emotions and encouraging specific demands. The poet, Robert Southey, later recalled their historic mission and imagined the words and impact of John Ball with his strident and revolutionary call for egalitarianism.

Ye all are equal: nature made ye so.
Equality is your birthright …
Boldly demand your long forgotten rights,
Your sacred, your inalienable freedom.¹⁰

Southey was just one of a generation of romantics who returned to the late fourteenth century, lured by the guild organization in the towns as well as by the dream of a peasant republic, to locate their own utopian ideas. John Ruskin and William Morris, too, both believed that in that lost age were elements that could be recovered to transform modern society. In A Dream of John Ball, Morris evokes the exploits of the legendary peasant leader, to stir thoughts of a world of equals. In a speech to a gathering in his native Kent, John Ball questions the clerical doctrine that happiness would follow death: why not, he asks, ‘have your reward both on earth and in heaven’?¹¹ And would anyone miss their masters if they were not there? The fields would still be there to be tilled by them, as would the houses they had built themselves, and their own woven clothes. utopian thought, disguised in this case as a dream, is used to ask simple but direct questions that strike at the very roots of a hierarchical society.

From one period to the next this process of fundamental questioning continues, although it does not in itself necessarily lead to utopianism. In his book, Utopia and the Ideal Society, which looks at the post-mediaeval period, J.C. Davis argues that the idea of utopia tends to be too loosely defined. He takes the view that it is, in fact, only one form of ideal society and would not include, for instance, the Land of Cokaygne. Thus, he starts from the premise that it is only from the late fifteenth century that utopianism emerges from its slumbers, after lying dormant for a thousand years or more. So long as popular thought was contained within a straitjacket of religious doctrine which focused on the divine and eternal, there was little prospect of thinking in other ways. But from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a revival of classical republicanism, first in Italy and later in England, creates new political possibilities. Once the prevailing belief in absolute monarchy was shaken, all kinds of other situations became possible, most of which revolved around radical changes to the constitution. While recognizing Davis’s more restrictive definition (which also excludes, for instance, schemes for the perfect moral commonwealth), it is understandable that the removal of longstanding obstacles was sufficient to liberate an unprecedented flow of new ideas. Some of these took the form of satirical critiques of existing society, and others were more contemplative, with clearly articulated visions of alternative realities.

Significantly, the first major work in this period, Thomas More’s Utopia, in reviving the classical use of the term gave its name to the whole genre.¹² More was, of course, railing against the inequities of English society, and used the utopian device of constructing an imaginary alternative as a means of critique. The island of his imagination put right the ills of his own society, but, as with all utopian schemes, very much on his own terms. Having spent four years in monastic orders, More was motivated to revive within society a more fundamental version of Christian morality, and yet he combined this with a humanist view of institutions. The result was a description of an imaginary world that, like most utopias, is riddled with contradictions. It was, in one sense, an attempt to describe a fairer society, yet More leaves within it the subservience of women, colonial superiority, the existence of slaves, and the legitimacy of war in certain circumstances. It was also an attempt to describe a freer society, yet the author falls into the inherent utopian trap of being over-prescriptive, seeking to define the rituals of human existence down to the very last detail. The islanders dress in the same colourless clothes, live in identical houses, and all work and sleep for the same number of hours. Yet, in another sense, More broke the bounds of mediaeval thought, using his utopia to visualize a wholly different form of society. Utopia was, for a start, a r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Quest for Perfection
• Chapter 2: The Land of Utopia
• Chapter 3: Cities in the Sun
• Chapter 4: The Art of Community
• Chapter 5: Sacred Places
• Chapter 6: The Politics of Nowhere
• Chapter 7: The Place of Imagination
• Chapter 8: Twentieth-Century Conundrum
• Bibliography
• Index