The Irishman whose novel stirred the English working class

Robert Tressell’s book stirred the masses who returned Britain’s Labour Party to power in 1945. But this was 30 years after his death. While he lived, he struggled to find someone who would publish it.

He was born on April 18th, 1870 in Dublin, the son of Samuel Croker and Mary Noonan. Reared by his mother in relative comfort, he enjoyed a good education until age 16. After she married, he was unable to get on with his stepfather and left Ireland for Liverpool. He emigrated to South Africa in 1890, and in Cape Town had one daughter, Kathleen, from a short marriage.

Once established as a signwriter in Johannesburg, and using his mother’s name Noonan, he began to write articles and sketches for local newspapers. The proceeds helped with Kathleen’s upbringing. These years in South Africa were his most successful, and it is not clear why he decided to leave. He may have come into conflict with British authorities after the outbreak of the Boer war. He opposed the war, and in 1896 he met John MacBride and Arthur Griffith in Johannesburg. He assisted in the formation of the Irish brigade, which fought alongside the Boers.

By early 1902, Noonan had returned to England and settled in Hastings, which he would later depict as Mugsborough in his novel. There he found regular work as a signwriter, house painter, and gilder. Some of his decorative paintings are in St Andrew’s Church. But he was continually dogged by fears of poverty, and, in an effort to make extra money, set up the short-lived South Coast Amusement Company.

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In 1902 he wrote and illustrated The Evolution of the Airship; neighbours recalled how he built a 6ft model, which looked like a cross between a spaceship and a Hindenburg, in his garden. Appalled by what he saw as the apathy of his fellow workers, he became politically active and was among those who in 1906 attended the inaugural meeting of the Hastings branch of the Social Democratic Federation, a forerunner of the Independent Labour Party.

He wrote manifestos, painted posters, and preached from a soapbox on the beach at Hastings. He subsequently concentrated on his novel, which, despite poor health, was completed in 1910. Written to provide "a faithful picture of working-class life", The Ragged -Trousered Philanthropists in its original form exceeded 400,000 words.

Having failed to secure a publisher for this weighty manuscript, he left it with his 18-year-old daughter, intending to emigrate to Canada. However, he fell ill in Liverpool, and died on February 3rd, 1911 from tuberculosis. He was buried in Walton Park cemetery among unmarked paupers’ graves, and his resting place was identified only in 1968.

The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists was intended to be a socialist document inspired by real lives, and its scathing portrayal of characters with names such as Botchit, Grinder, Leavit, Starvem, Slyme, and Sweater captured the imagination of generations of readers. The main character, Owen, describes his fellow workers as "benefactors in ragged trousers who willingly hand over the results of their labour ... to the rich".

In 1913 his daughter showed the manuscript to Jessie Pope of Punch, who ensured its publication in drastically edited form in 1914. A second edition was published in 1918, and it was this which was widely read and translated.

Stage adaptations ensured its growing popularity, and the Penguin edition of 1940 is said to have sold 100,000 copies. It was widely read by soldiers during the second World War. It is claimed the book’s influence in inciting rage at social injustice and bolstering working-class solidarity helped win the 1945 election for Labour.

In 1951 Fred Ball published a biography, Tressell of Mugsborough. Ball had the novel published in full, in its original form, in 1955. Fourteen reprints followed, and it was adapted for radio and television.

Though it had been presumed Kathleen had died, it emerged that she had moved to Canada. She confirmed the details of her father’s life that Ball had assembled.

In 1981 the Workers’ Education Association launched the Robert Tressell Lecture series, which ran until 1988. His papers were published in 1982. Following the identification of his grave, a campaign led by the Liverpool trades council achieved a memorial to Tressell and his nameless companions.

Based on Frances Clarke’s biography of Robert Tressell (edited for this article by Clare McCarthy) in the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography