Robert Tressell
Robert Tressell, born Robert Philip Noonan on April 18, 1870, in Dublin, Ireland, was an influential figure in early 20th-century socialist literature. He was raised in a working-class family and received a decent education before moving to South Africa, where he married and had a daughter. Tressell worked as a skilled sign writer and later as an interior decorator, aligning himself with the struggles of the working class, particularly during economic downturns. His experiences motivated him to write a protest novel titled *The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists*, which critiques capitalism and advocates for socialism as a solution to poverty and unemployment.
Despite initial rejections from publishers, an abridged version was eventually published in 1914. Tressell also created a notable mural for a church in Hastings, though much of his work has been overshadowed by his literary contributions. He passed away on February 3, 1911, in Liverpool, leaving behind a legacy that has been celebrated by various socialist movements and is recognized as a significant influence on social justice discourse. His novel was later adapted for television, further solidifying his impact on British cultural history.
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Robert Tressell
Author
- Born: April 17, 1870
- Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
- Died: February 3, 1911
- Place of death: Liverpool, England
Biography
Robert Tressell was born Robert Philip Noonan on April 18, 1870, in Dublin, Ireland. His father was Samuel Croker, a Royal Irish Constabulary inspector and later magistrate, who was married with one child to a woman named Jane and had a liaison with Mary Noonan, Tressell’s mother, who had three other children. Tressell received a relatively good education for a child of a firmly working-class family. He was living in London by the time he was a young man and by 1891 had moved on to South Africa, where he married eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Hartel in Cape Town. They had one daughter, Kathleen, in 1892; Elizabeth died of typhoid fever in 1895.
Tressell worked as a proficient and prosperous sign writer, his sympathies with the Boers against the British not adversely affecting his fortunes. He and his daughter moved back to England, this time to the town of Hastings, in 1901, where he worked as an interior decorator for first one and then another construction company. Socialist and labor groups were proliferating in England at the time and Tressell, who had always related to the problems of the working class, became more militant when Hastings experienced a building trades recession and increased unemployment. Although Tressell was first a painter and craftsman, he undertook writing a protest novel. By 1920, the book was complete, his one written work. He titled it The Ragged Arse Philanthropists, “arse” being a working-class pejorative. Later the title was changed to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. He changed his name to Robert Tressell, a phonetic spelling for “trestle,” a basic painter’s equipment, more closely identifying himself with workers.
His manuscript, 1,700 pages long and handwritten, described what happens to people who must struggle against the kind of poverty and unemployment Tressell himself experienced in Hastings. He presented socialism as the only remedy to cure such circumstances. The book, autobiographical in some details, has many flaws but still communicates Tressell’s concern for those exploited by capitalists and social injustice. Initially turned down by three publishers, an abridged version of only 150,000 words was finally published in 1914. World War I diminished the popularity of this version. Then in 1955, a 250,000-word edited version was published.
Tressell’s health had been steadily declining since before 1910; he was working less and sliding into poverty. He did manage to produce one other artistic achievement: he painted a forty-foot-by-twenty-foot mural on the St. Andrews church chancel in Hastings. Though the church has since been demolished, a four- foot-by-three-foot panel from the mural was saved and is preserved in the Hastings museum. Tressell died in Liverpool on February 3, 1911, of bronchial pneumonia. Eric Heffer, a Labour Party member of Parliament, has called Tressell “the greatest socialist writer Britain has ever produced.” His novel was telecast on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1967.