Harry William Hobart (1854-1941) was a lifelong social democrat. Heavily involved with trade unions, he took part in many of the attempts that took place at the end of the nineteenth century to gain better rights and protections for workers.
Hobart was born in Walworth, south east London. His interest in radical politics seems to have been a family trait: an entry in The Labour Annual stated that Hobart’s grandfather had been a Chartist. His parents were Henry and Mary Ann Hobart. His father was a printer, and Harry later followed his father into the trade.
Hobart married his wife, Lydia Ann, at the Archway Road Wesleyan Chapel, Upper Holloway in 1876. They had five children: four sons and one daughter. A committed Methodist, he was also a lifelong teetotaller. By 1897, the family had moved from Islington to Ashford in Middlesex. The family are believed to have moved away from London in an attempt to aid the health of their eldest son, who died in 1899.
Hobart’s family often suffered hardship as much of his income went to supporting the union and the social democratic cause. He acted as promoter of the rights of gas workers, navvies (unskilled workers employed in the building of roads and railways) and other workers. He represented his union, The London Society of Compositors, at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) several times, and there is a record of him speaking in 1908.
Hobart was also a member of Social Democratic Freedom (SDF) – the first British socialist political party. He was the party’s Organising Secretary and represented the party at the International Workers’ Congress at Paris in 1889, where he spoke about the formation of the Gas Workers’ Union in London.
In 1889, he unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for East St Pancras in the first London County Council elections. He was also the SDF Parliamentary candidate for South Salford, Manchester in the 1895 general election, polling 813 votes.
He wrote a number of articles for the SDF’s newspaper Justice, many of which were on educational matters. Additionally, he published a political treatise pamphlet entitled Social-Democracy: or Democratic Socialism.
He was an active supporter of the London matchgirls’ strike, which took place in 1888. He borrowed a hall on Bow Road to act as strike headquarters and provide a location where the striking workers could sign a register to receive strike pay. He also assisted in the handing out of the strike pay.
A number of letters and articles about the strike appeared in the national press. On the 13th of July 1888, The Daily Chronicle published a letter from Hobart, in which he corrected earlier factual inaccuracies written about the strike. He was keen to counter any claims by the press that the workers were close to giving up, writing: ‘All who struck are still out, and express their determination to stand firm.’ He was also mentioned several times in The Link newspaper, which was the first publication to bring attention to the exploitation of the matchgirls.
His support of striking workers continued after the successful end to the matchgirls’ strike. On March 31st 1889, he spoke at a meeting held at Canning Town Hall during the dockworkers’ strike.
Hobart was committed to the socialist cause and supporting his fellow workers. He helped to publicise the labour movement by making speeches, writing for the press, standing for election, and supporting striking workers. He died at home in 1941 of a coronary thrombosis, at the age of 87.
By Gill Whitney, a U3A Shared Learning Project researcher for the Citizens Project
Sources:
John Charlton, ‘It Just Went Like Tinder’: The Mass Movement and New Unionism in Britain, 1889 (London: Redwords, 1999).
H. W. Hobart, Social-Democracy: or Democratic Socialism [1907]
TUC Library Collection, www.unionhistory.info
- The Link: A Journal for the Servants of Man
- Records of Strike
- The Matchgirls Strike Fund Register
William J. Fishman, East End 1888 (Nottingham: Five Leaves, 1998).
Louise Raw, Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and Their Place in History (London: Bloomsbury, 2011.
National Archives Online, Learning Curve, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/.
East London Observer, June/July 1888, Colindale Newspaper Library.
Header image: Cover of H. W. Hobart, Social-Democracy (author’s collection).
