Author: David Scott

Donor.  John  Mathieson Mathias (1906-1963)

John M Mathias donated four paintings to Glasgow in December 1951¹. Two are by French artist Andre Lhote   (Figures 1 and 2) and two are by English artist Mark Gertler(Figures 3 and 4) 

     https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/head-of-a-woman-84963

 Figure 1 .Head of a Woman by Andre Lhote   c1925   ©CSGCIC Glasgow Museums . Acc 2930 

 https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/nude-84964

Figure 2 Nude by Andre Lhote c1925 © CSGCIC Glasgow Museums. Acc 2931

The Paintings

 Figures 1 and 2  are  the work of  Andre Lhote (1885-1962). He was born in Bordeaux and trained first as a decorative wood carver before attending L’Ecole des Beaux- Arts in Bordeaux where he took up painting. He  moved to Paris in 1906  where his works were shown for example at the Salon d’Automne. Lhote originally painted colourful landscapes in the Fauvist style but his mature works were in the Cubist style.  Over the next few years Lhote’s works were shown all over Europe including in London in 1912 at the Second Post  Expressionist  exhibition at the Grafton Galleries  which was organised by Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group. He set up his own art school- Academie Montparnasse in Paris  in 1922. His most significant work however was not as a visual artist but  as a writer who articulated Cubist theories and as an educator who influenced a generation of French artists.²

We do not know at this point for certain  how or when these paintings were acquired by  John Mathias or the Mathias family. We do know that in November 1927 Andre Lhote held an exhibition of his own and his students work at the Claridge Gallery at 52 Brook Street in London ³ which was partly owned by our donor’s mother Ena Mathias . In the 1927 exhibition catalogue (Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Andre Lhote and His Pupils)  there is one work entitled Negresse  which is the title  given to one of two  Andre Lhote paintings which appear in the  1951 Catalogue of French Paintings  published by Glasgow Museums. The description and measurements  correspond to  Figure 1  Head of a Woman” above.  The original  title  was obviously changed at some point as it would not now be acceptable .There  are three works entitled Nu   in the 1927 exhibition catalogue any one of which could be our  Nude ( Figure 2) in the 1951 catalogue though there is no description or any measurements to support  this .⁴ It is possible  that both paintings were  bought by someone in the Mathias family from this exhibition.

 During the period of the  exhibition Andre Lhote gave a lecture at the home of Mrs Emile Mond  whose home was a centre of art and culture at the time. She was said to be a talented artist and musician .⁵ Emile Mond was a cousin of Robert Moritz Mathias, our donor’s father(See Appendix ) .    

Figures 3 and 4 are the work of English artist  Mark Gertler(1891-1939) )   who was born in Spitalfields of Polish -Jewish descent. ⁶ He attended the  Slade School of Art from 1908-1912 where he won several prizes. His  health was not good and he spent a lot of time in the South of France where he was influenced by Post -Impressionism. His style was highly individual with strong elements of Eastern folk art. He specialised in still lives, female portraits and nudes. He had a studio in Hampstead  and frequently exhibited in various London Art Galleries such as the Leicester Galleries. He was very successful until the nineteen thirties  when his popularity began to wane. He suffered bouts of depression and after  an unsuccessful exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in London in 1939 he committed suicide .⁷ We can only speculate  at this point as to how these two paintings came into the possession of John Mathias or the Mathias family or why they were given to Glasgow. We know that one  of Gertler’s patrons was Lady Ottoline Morrell, half -sister of the Duke of Portland. She was also a close friend of Ena Mathias. Another  link between Gertler and  the Mathias family is that Ena’s brother Robert bought one of Gertler’s paintings .⁸ Ottiline suggested that Gertler might exhibit at her friend Ena’s Claridge Gallery at a time when his finances were low but Gertler refused saying the Claridge was not prestigious enough and Ena could not offer him an advance payment. However in  November 1926 Robert Mathias did buy one of Gertler’s paintings  -possibly Pomegranates and Melon for £50 which  according to 

Gertler was ,’a Godsend’. ⁹  According to The Times  Gertler did exhibit at the Claridge Gallery at the end of 1926.¹⁰  Clytie and Autumn Leaves was exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1932.¹¹ A work called  After Giotto was exhibited in the Lefevre Gallery in London in May 1939 shortly before Gertler’s death . ¹²  These may have been our paintings  but we still do not know how they came into the hands of the Mathias family.

Figure 3 Clytie and Autumn Leaves  by Mark Gertler c 1932  © CSGCIC Glasgow Museums .Acc 2929

Figure 4 After Giotto(also known as Pieta) by Mark Gertler is  a study of a detail from Giotto’s Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ) c 1911-1939 © CSGCIC Glasgow Museums  Acc 2928

The Mathias/Wertheimer  Family

Our donor’s father   was Robert Moritz Mathias (1873-1961) and his  mother  was Helena(known as Ena) Wertheimer(1874-1936). 

Robert M Mathias was a watercolourist as well as a collector of art . He was born in Cologne ,Germany in 1874  and he  came  to Britain partly because of religious persecution against Jewish people at that time  and also  to work for his uncle Ludwig Mond(See Appendix )). He became a naturalised British citizen in 1910. The naturalisation papers were signed by Winston Churchill who was then one of the Principal Secretaries of State.¹³ His father was Mathieson Mathias (1823-1883) and his mother was Mathilde Mond (1845-1928).¹⁴ At the time of our donor’s birth in 1906 Robert Mathias was the managing director of the Mond Nickel Company .¹⁵ He does not appear on the UK Census of 1891 or 1901  but was in the UK by 1905 when he married Ena Wertheimer .¹⁶

Ena Wertheimer was one of the daughters of  successful London art dealer Asher Wertheimer (1844-1918) who had a gallery at 154  New Bond Street ,London which had been established by his father Samson Wertheimer, who was born in Germany but fled  to  Britain in the 1830s as a result of the  antisemitic persecution of that time.  A Family Romance  by Jean Strouse gives a detailed account of  Samson and Asher Wertheimer’s  very successful dealing in the British art world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when they bought from and sold to  prominent families in London society including the Rothschilds as well as British aristocracy and  became part of  London Society of the early twentieth century .¹⁷  The Wertheimers  moved to 8 Connaught Place  near Hyde Park, London  in 1884 . Connaught Place housed a mixture of titled aristocrats and wealthy Jewish families. Lord and Lady Randolf Churchill lived at 2 Connaught Place .¹⁸ 

Asher Wertheimer was a friend of  the artist John Singer Sargeant and commissioned him to paint twelve portraits of his family over a period of ten years including portraits of Ena and her sister(Figure 5). Nine of the twelve paintings were  bequeathed to the nation in 1918 after the death of Asher Wertheimer and were displayed in their own room in the National Gallery between 1923 and 1926. Many of these portraits are now in The Tate Gallery in London. When Asher Wertheimer died in 1918  his obituary in The Times described his involvement in the highest echelons of the world of art dealing and the respect in which he was held by the art world  during his life Asher Wertheimer left £1.5 million  in his will which was an enormous fortune at that time .¹⁹

Fig 5. Ena and Betty Werthiemer. John Singer Sargeant 1901 © Public Domain

  Ena had attended the Slade School of Art between 1902 and 1905 to study painting. ()Ena was said to be ,’an accomplished painter’ ²⁰  who  seems to have been something of a force of nature . She carried on the Wertheimer family’s presence in the art trade by opening the Claridge Gallery at 52 Brook Street London. This was not her fIrst commercial venture. 1923 Ena had opened a dress shop for girls and debutantes  which specialised in French dresses which  she obtained from Paris. The shop was called Poulain (foal) and was in  George Street in London’s West End. Russian emigrees and a manageress ran the shop which soon moved to larger premisses at 52 Brook Street. However an examination of the accounts showed that the business was deeply in the red partly because the manageress had been helping herself to cash.  Ena’s husband Robert commented that,

‘she might as well have given each dress away with a £10 note pinned to it.’

 The Mathias marriage was said to be tempestuous with the couple agreeing on nothing. ‘Ena was as extravagant ,strong-willed and impulsive as her husband was cautious and restrained’. Ena loved to entertain and gave lavish dinners, teas and musical entertainments with the help of a large household staff .²¹ Her activities were frequently reported in  the press as in 1912 when the Westminster Gazette reported her taking part in a pageant at the Allbert Hall to raise money for the University College Hospital ,London. The pageant consisted of the performance of a series of fairy stories in which Ena took part in the production of  Aladdin .The pageant was attended by the Prince of Wales and other members of the Royal Family .²² Her friends included prominent artists, poets and authors such as Somerset Maugham and  the Sitwells . Celebrities from   the world of ballet such as  Diaghilev  and from the art world such as Picasso had dinner in Montague Square. While he lived Ena had a close relationship with John Singer Sargeant and they wrote to one another frequently. It was even suspected by Robert that  they had an affair .²³

 After the demise of Poulain 52 Brook Street  was reconfigured as the Claridge Gallery which was said to appeal more to Ena’s cultural and artistic interests. The Claridge Gallery was opened  in  July 1925 with an  exhibition of the work of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)who had recently died. The proceeds of the sale of the exhibition catalogue were to go to the National Art Collections  Fund .²⁴

  The Gallery did not follow the Wertheimer tradition  of exhibiting and  dealing in Old Masters, portraits and the art of the French ancient regime. Ena exhibited  twentieth- century art   giving  young artists an opportunity to show their works without having to pay the exorbitant fees and commissions charged by other west-end galleries. She exhibited established artists as well including Lhote, Mark Gertler, Raoul Dufy, Harold Squire and many others .²⁵

 Also   part owner  of the gallery was Walter Archibald Propert who as well as being a surgeon was a  devotee of ballet and art. He wrote a book on Russian ballet  and many of the exhibitions at the Claridge Gallery  concerned Russian  art and Russian ballet. He  had served as a surgeon in Russia during WW1 so perhaps his interest in Russia stemmed from then. He had been a friend  of the Mathias family for at least twenty years  and was one of the referees who supported John Mathison Mathias’s application to become a student at  The  Inner Temple in 1927(see below).²⁶ 

After several apparently successful years where visitors included Queen Mary in June 1930²⁷  the Claridge Gallery closed on December 18  1931. There appear to be two reasons for the closure. The Daily Mirror in December 1931 reported that the closure of the gallery would be regretted by many people  even though few bought paintings .²⁸ It is said Ena bought many works that failed to sell .²⁹ The Daily Sketch  reported that     a recent exhibition of the work of a popular young artist  had attracted 1800 people only six of whom  bought paintings. The Daily Sketch however also reported that the lease of the property was up .³⁰

The Mathias family lived at 15 Montague Square,  Marylebone,London at the time of our donors birth ³¹ and in the late nineteen twenties also  bought  Bury Manor, a country house  in the village of Bury in West Sussex .This was a house of fourteen bedrooms ,six bathrooms and several reception rooms.³² As we have seen the Mathias family, though Jewish were  not overtly so and were greatly involved in London society many of whom were frequent  guests at Bury Manor. The Mathias family was also involved  in  the community around Bury Manor and Ena especially was involved in many fundraising charity events,  those involving the creative arts being her greatest interest .³³

John Mathieson Mathias

John Mathieson Mathias was born on 4 September   1906.³⁴ He had four siblings:-

Diana Henrietta born 1908

Anthony Robert born 1910

Elizabeth Flora born 1912

David Frederick Archibald born 1913³⁵

As we have seen at  the time of his birth the family was living 15,  Montague Square ,Marylebone ,London. The 1911 Census  tells us that at that time of the  census John ,Diana and Anthony were staying at the home of his father’s cousin ,Robert Mond, eldest son of Ludwig Mond the chemist ,at Combe Bank, Sundridge in Kent. Also in the house were Robert Mond’s two daughters, Freda age 11 and Irena age 10 . Neither set of parents were in the house and it appears that all the children were being looked after by the governess ,Amy Allen and a house full of servants .³⁶ There is no trace of either set of parents in the 1911 Census  so perhaps they were abroad on holiday . Robert and Ena Mathias often travelled abroad to the Continent ,North Africa and the Middle East leaving the children with nannies and governesses .³⁷

There is little information regarding our donor’s childhood.  In a letter to his mother John Singer Sargent referred to him as ,

“the Greek God so shy and struggling  although possessed of magnificent aplomb” which appears to be something of a contradiction. ³⁸

  John  attended a school in Horsham ,West Sussex  but we do not know which one .³⁹ The 1921 Census sees the family still living in Montague Square together with a butler, cook and housemaid. John was fourteen at the time of this census and described as a full-time  student .⁴⁰ He appears to have matriculated in October 1925 when he would have been 17 years old.

John  was admitted to Trinity College Cambridge on 1 October 1925 to study for a BA in History  as a ‘pensioner’ which was the name given to regular fee-paying students. He was assigned historian Denys Arthur Winstanley as a tutor. For his first two years he lived at 11 Portland Stree,Cambridge ,moving to  Bishops Hostel where he remained until the end of his third year  at Easter 1928. His name does not appear in the residency lists after this point. ⁴¹

The University Records show that in 1928 he was granted leave to proceed to study for an  LLB but appears to have failed the Principal Examination in Law at the end of that year. However in 1929 he sat the Principal Examination in French and achieved a second -class grade finally gaining his BA in 1930. During his time at Trinity JMM appears to have been a member of the Magpie and Stump-a Trinity College debating Society and a member  of the Boat Club .⁴²

John’s career studying for his LLB was rather mixed. He was admitted to the Inner Temple on 22 September 1927 to study for the Bar while still attending Trinity College.  Between 1928 and 1931 he failed several exams at the first sitting  but eventually passed his Final Exams in the Hilary Term of 1931. He was called to the Bar  at the inner Temple on 17 November 1931.⁴³  He is listed as a member of the Inner Temple  in the 1932 Law List which is an annual record of solicitors and barristers .⁴⁴ His professional chambers were in the Goldsmith Building of the Inner Temple from 1932  while he lived at various address in the West End of London .⁴⁵ Unfortunately we have  no information about JMMs career as a barrister.

The  Mathias  country home Bury Manor had been owned by the Mathias family since at least 1928 .⁴⁶  As already stated the family involved themselves in the local community for example opening the gardens of Bury Manor each year to raise money for local causes and ran an annual bazaar to raise money  for the Bury and District Nursing Association .⁴⁷ Ena Mathias was very hospitable and generous. According to the West Sussex Gazette ,’ she had in its highest and best sense the artistic temperament -an acute and sensitive love of beauty unmixed with any trace of pose or affectation’ .⁴⁸  and The Times reported that ,

‘at her charming house in London and at her lovely little manor house under the Sussex Downs it was her delight to entertain her friends .’⁴⁹

John Mathias’s mother, Ena died in a London nursing home on 24 March  1936 of stomach cancer. According to the local press she was much missed by the people of Bury most of whom attended a memorial service for her in the local church to which she had donated two brass candlesticks .⁵⁰

On 9  November 1937 John married Ludmilla Krassin who was the daughter of the late Leonid Krassin ,Russian  Ambassador to the United Kingdom before his death  in 1926. Leonid Krassin was a prominent Bolshevik .The marriage took place in the Chelsea Registry Office. ⁵¹ It is not known how John and Ludmilla met.

Before being Soviet Ambassador in London Leonid Krassin  had been Soviet Ambassador in Paris where he lived with his wife and three daughters. In 1925 he was appointed to the post in London but died in 1926 leaving a vast fortune according to rumours of the time but which turned out to be a myth. ⁵²  There were numerous reports in newspapers about Ludmilla  Krassin’s  romantic entanglements . One that she had secretly married M Gaston Bergery, a lawyer who had been secretary to a former Prime Minister of France . The marriage was reported to have taken place in the Soviet Embassy in Paris in August 1927 but was later denied by M. Bergery who said they were merely engaged. The second rumour going around in 1927  was that Ludmilla was to marry the French Duc de la Rochefoucaud . The newspapers emphasised  Ludmilla’s beauty  and wealth .⁵³ However neither’ romance  ended in marriage as Ludmilla was described as a spinster on the certificate of her marriage to John Mathias. Perhaps finding out that Ludmilla had not inherited a fortune affected her previous romances.

 In 1938 John and Ludmilla  were living at 27 Donne Place in  the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea,London. They later moved to 3 Sterling Street in Kensington which remained their London home until around 1958 /1959 when they moved to a flat at 23 Rutland Gate, London  SW 7.⁵⁴

At the time of the 1939 Register John and  Ludmilla together with father Robert   and sister Elizabeth were living at Bury Manor  while still retaining  town houses in London. The sister of Robert Mathias , Theresa Said -Ruete was also there. Also listed was Dorothy Braddell whose husband was the son of Sir Thomas Braddell ,Chief Justiciary to the Federal Malay States. Dorothy was there with her daughter Virginia who was in her twenties.

  There were  twenty three people listed as  living at Bury Manor , five of whom were servants .⁵⁵ Those who were not either family friends or relatives  may have been evacuees.  2 September  1939 saw the beginning of Operation Pied Piper ,the name given to  the British Government plan to evacuate mothers with babies as well  as school age  children  from the threat of bombing in London at the outbreak of war. West Sussex saw the arrival of thousands of evacuees to the Petworth area which was near Bury Manor. ⁵⁶ Listed in the 1939 Register as living at Bury Manor were Rosina Linton with her daughter Doreen who was only a few months old and Irene Linton with her son Anthony who was about a  year old .⁵⁷ They had all previously lived in London. The 1939 Register was taken at  the end of September 1939 giving time for evacuees to be listed .⁵⁸

We have little information regarding life  at Bury Manor during World War 2  apart from Robert Mathias being  fined £1 for not immobilising his car according to wartime legislation. ⁵⁹  Robert remarried in December 1942. His bride was Mary Branch who had  lived at White Webbs Cottage in Bury .⁶⁰ Another wedding in the family was that of Elizabeth Mathias, John’s sister, to Captain Robert Guillaumet of the Fighting French. ⁶¹ 

Whether John and Ludmilla spent the war living at Bury Manor or lived in London is not known at this point. They did not have any children. John Mathias does not seem to appear in any military records of the period. The 1939 Register tells us that Ludmilla was involved with ‘W.S Red Cross’ which may be an abbreviation of West Sussex Red Cross. However  the inhabitants of Bury Manor played a part in fund- raising for various causes during the war. One example is a Garden Fete held to raise funds for the Bury and Amberley District Nursing Association in which the new Mrs Mathias participated .⁶² She  also organised a whist drive and dance in the tithe barn of Bury Manor  in 1944 in aid of The Agricultural Fund of the Prisoners of War Fund .⁶³

On 9 August 1952 Ludmilla and John set sail from London   for Vigo  on the south west coast of Spain presumably for a holiday. They travelled  First Class on the Highland Monarch ⁶⁴ which was  a combined cargo and passenger ship of the Royal Mail Line which had been built in 1928 by Harland and Wolff for the Nelson Line and  transferred to the Royal Mail Line in 1932. ⁶⁵   The Highland Monarch covered the South American route calling at Vigo ,Lisbon, Las Palmas ,Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Monte Video and Buenos Aires .⁶⁶

The Mathias family appear to have continued their interest in art as in July 1960 John Mathias was one of the sponsors of a posthumous exhibition of the works of local artist Harold Squire of Henfield in West  Sussex . Robert Mathias owned two of Squire’s works which he loaned to the exhibition which was held in aid of the Chilean earthquake  relief fund. Harold Squire was born in Chile. ⁶⁷

Robert Mathias died in London on 25 January 1961 aged eighty-nine leaving over £184,000 in his will .⁶⁸ John Mathiesson Mathias died at Bury Manor on April 18 1963 aged only fifty-seven. He left over £230.00 in his will .⁶⁹ He also bequeathed a painting to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The work was  Mongol Archer on Horseback described as  an ink on paper painting by an unknown artist from the Ming Dynasty(c 1368-1644) and is in the East Asian Collection .It had been exhibited at Sotherby’s Gallery in January 1940 which may have been when it was bought by a member of the Mathias family.⁷⁰

Figure 6. Mongol Archer on Horseback  c15th-16^th century artist unknown © V&A

After the death of John Mathias Bury Manor was put up for auction ⁷¹ and became Dorset House Preparatory  School which it remains to this day .⁷² The former tithe barn which saw fundraising events during WW2  is now a popular wedding venue .⁷³

Appendix
The Mond Family

 Mathilde Mond ,our donor’s grandmother, was the sister of the chemist Ludwig Mond (1839-1909) who was responsible for setting up the Brunner Mond Company in 1873 to produce soda ash. Brunner Mond  eventually became part of  Imperial Chemical Industries  in 1926. Ludwig was also a collector of Italian art .He   set up  the Mond Nickel Company in 1900  which was licensed to mine nickel in Canada   which was then sent to Britain to be purified by the carbonite process patented by Ludwig Mond.  Robert  Mathias ,our donors father ,was a director of  the Mond Nickel Company.   Alfred M Mond  was a son of Ludwig Mond who was involved in the various family businesses, became a Liberal MP in 1906 and was elevated to the House of Lords  as  first Baron Melchett of Landford in 1928.⁷⁴(1869-1936)( Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

References

1. Minutes of the Corporation of Glasgow November 1951-May 1952 p.1351

2. www.britannica.com/biography/AndreLhote

3. Westminster Gazette 04/11/1927 p8

4. Glasgow Art Gallery. Catalogue of French Paintings.  Glasgow Art   Gallery and Museums, 1953

5. op cit  ref 3

6. Sunday Times 2/11/1965

7. Time and Tide 01/07/1939 pp21-22

8. Strouse, Jean  Family Romance; John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers   

    Farrar Strous and Giroux 2024 .p196

9. McDougall, Sarah  Mark Gertler.  John Murray 2002. p245

10. Strouse p 198

11. Time and Tide 15/10/1932 p1114

12. The Times 13/05/1939  p12

13. www.ancestry.co.uk Statutory Births . John Mathieson Mathias

14. www.ancestry.co.uk  Geanet Community Trees

15. op cit ref 13

16. Strouse  pp146-9

17. Strouse.  Chapter 4

18. as above p 72

19. The Times 12/08/1918

20 .South of England Advertiser 2/04/1936 

21. Strouse p p 198-201

22.  Westminster Gazette 05/12/1912 p6

23.  Strouse pp201-2

24. Strouse. p 191

25. as above

26. Strouse p194-5

27. Scotsman 13/06/1930 p8

28. Daily Mirror 7/12/1931 p11

29. Strouse p.198

30. Daily Sketch 18/12/1931 

31. op.cit ref 13

32. West Sussex County Times  20/09/1963 p21

33. op cit ref 20

34. op.cit  ref 13

35 .www.ancestry.co.uk  Statutory Births

36. UK Census 1911

37. Strouse p 201

38. Strouse p.150

39. archives@trin.cam.ac.uk

40. UK Census 1921

41.  op cit ref 39

42. as above

43. cpilkington@innertemple.org.uk

44. Law List 1932

45. www.ancestry.co.uk  UK Census and Electoral Rolls

46. Worthington Gazette 05/09/1928 

47. West Sussex Gazette 31/10/1935 p4

48. West Sussex Gazette 02/04/1936 p3

49. The Times  27/03/1936 

50. op cit ref 48

51. Daily News 10/11/1937 p11

52. Daily Express  22/08/1927 p2

53. Daily News 20/08/1927 p7. Illustrated Police News 18/08/1927 p2

54. www.ancestry.co.uk  Electoral Registers 1938-1963

55. 1939 Register

56. iwm.org.uk/history/second-world-war/the-evacuation-of-children

57. op cit ref 55

58. www,nationalarchives.gov.uk

59. Littlehampton Gazette 19/09/1941 p3

60. West Sussex Gazette 17/12/1942 p2

61. as above 11/03/1943

62. as above 29/07/1943

63. as above 06/01/1944

64. www.ancestry.co.uk  Passenger Lists 

65. http://www.mastermariners.org.au/stories-from-the-past/6218-mv-highland-monarch-1928

66. op cit ref 64

67. West Country Times 07/04/1960 p19

68. www.ancestry.co.uk Index of Wills and Administrations 1858-1985

69 as above

70  https://collections.vam.ac.uk

71. West Sussex County Times  20/09/1963 p21

72. The Observer  15/05/1964 p6

73. https://burymanorbarn.co.uk

74.  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Harry McShane, Socialist Activist 1891 – 1988

                             Harry McShane 1891-1988 Socialist Activist

                                           Artist – Stanley Bell,1981

                                         National Gallery of Scotland

‘He became a revolutionary Marxist in 1908 and he died a revolutionary Marxist in 1988.’

Thus Paul Foot described Harry McShane, going on to call Harry an agitator in the struggle between the classes. ‘He made up his mind very early on that the socialist society he wanted was not going to be made by anyone for the workers, it was going to be made by the workers or not at all’. (1) 

Harry McShane lived in Glasgow for almost a century, living and working within the city throughout most of this time, witnessing first hand and being actively involved in many of the significant events of the movement. 

Early Life

Harry McShane was born on 7 May 1891. (2)  His father, John McShane, was from an Irish Catholic family. McShane’s paternal grandparents came from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. His mother, Janet Sanson, was from a family who were originally from Edinburgh. They were a Protestant family. The couple met and married in Glasgow. Janet worked in a fish hook factory in Glasgow. John was a mason’s labourer. (3)

Harry McShane wrote about the problems facing those who entered into mixed marriages in the 1900s. Both Catholics and Protestants disapproved of such marriages. When he was a few months old his parents separated and his father took him to live with his grandparents. Harry stated that the differences in the marriage were about status as well as religion. Harry’s father and grandfather were builders’ labourers. His maternal grandfather, Tom Sanson, was a blacksmith, a skilled worker, and was also a member of the Church of Scotland. McShane stated that Tom Sanson was very anti Catholic. 

The separation between Harry’s parents did not last long.  John McShane went back to his wife and they went on to have ten more children. They never separated again. Harry, however, stayed with his grandparents and rarely saw his mother, although his father came regularly to visit him at his grandparents and took him out a lot. He was brought up as a Catholic. (4)

Family Life

Compulsory education in the 1890s began at six, but Harry started school at five. He remembered that he wore shoes to school, while most of the other children had bare feet. Harry had a shaky start at the local school in the Gorbals – ‘ My first day, I saw a teacher hitting a boy’s bare leg with a cane. Then, to make matters worse I lost my road home.’ His grandparents decided not to send him back to that school. They moved from Gorbals to Tradeston, to a house where Harry could have his own bedroom, and he was sent to St Margaret’s in Kinning Park, where Harry got what he described as his ‘meagre Catholic education’. He described a cruel regime at the school, although he acknowledged that there were some good teachers there. Harry’s father’s influence on his education was significant. He encouraged him to read and also influenced what he read, steering him away from boys’ stories to more serious reading, such as the essays of Macauley. 

Harry describes buying books to read: ‘ There  was a string of barrows right along the riverside then, with second-hand tools and books – this was before Barrowland grew up in the East End of Glasgow’. 

                                      Book Barrow in Greendyke Street c 1916

                                          Glasgow City Council.  Glasgow Museums

Harry also remembered being told at school that for his knowledge of English he should read Macaulay’s essays and the Glasgow Herald. Many of his grandparents’ generation were illiterate, not uncommon at the time, as many of that generation would not have attended school as children. He described people coming to his grandparents’ house so that Harry could read reports from the newspapers to them. (5)

Harry started a relationship with Jean Johnstone when he was aged eighteen. She lived in the next close to him and Harry described her as ‘the best-looking girl in the whole place’ Their social life consisted of visits to music halls and theatres, with an occasional visit to a restaurant. They married in 1915. (6)  His wife attended Communist Party Meetings when they were first married.

Political Awakening

Growing up, Harry would have been aware of working life around him. He recalled playing around the Kingston Docks near to where he lived in Tradeston. Harry’s father and grandfather were both involved in the union movement. Originally they were members of the Workers’ Union, which eventually merged into the Transport and General Workers Union after the First World War. Harry had an awareness of politics, both British and Irish, and the union movement from an early age. He attended meetings and debates from his early teenage years onwards. Glasgow Green on a Sunday was where debates and speeches would be heard. Large numbers of people would attend these gatherings, which began at noon and went on until nearly ten o’clock at night. Harry described hearing arguments during these debates and following them up by visiting the Mitchell Library to find books on the issues he had heard discussed. When he left school, the priest and others tried to persuade him to go to St Mungo’s Academy, but he resisted as he wanted to start work. His grandparents agreed with him and they and his father encouraged him to try for an engineering apprenticeship. They did not want him to be a labourer or a handyman as they had been. Harry began an engineering apprenticeship in 1907, aged sixteen.

Harry’s engineering apprenticeship involved attending evening lectures twice a week. A normal day was getting up at 5.30 am to attend work, then going to his lectures in the evening. Harry described his status as an engineer, which had been so important to his grandparents and father: ‘ They (engineers) weren’t the highest paid men. The joiners, masons and bricklayers were better paid than we were, but we had much greater security’. (7)

Working hours were long at the beginning of the twentieth century. Up to 1914 the working week was 54 hours. Working people, including boys and girls started the day at 6.00 am and finished at 5.30 pm and worked until noon on Saturdays. Harry McShane described working at Dalmuir during the war and having to leave the house before 5 a.m. to get the ferry to Anderston Cross and the train to Dalmuir.

Harry had joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1909 and left the Catholic Church shortly afterwards, in spite of pressure from local Catholics and the priest. This pressure served only to strengthen Harry’s decision to break with the church. The decision to join the ILP seems to have been influenced by the slump of the early 1900s. By 1908 unemployment in Glasgow was very high and there were mass demonstrations about unemployment, which took place in George Square every week until they were banned by magistrates. One of the leaders of these meetings became legendary in Glasgow history – John Maclean. (8) John Maclean was a Glasgow teacher who believed that Marxism had to be accepted as the only way to look at socialism. He established regular classes to teach Marxist economics. These classes were held every Sunday afternoon at the Central Halls in Glasgow and were regularly attended by several hundred people. Harry believed these meetings led to a transformation of the Labour movement in Glasgow. 

McShane was a member of the Tramp Trust Unlimited, a small group of unemployed people who travelled around the country spreading ideas of militant socialism. The Tramp Trust Unlimited was formed by John Maclean and campaigned for a minimum wage a six hour working day and full unemployment benefits.  

                                      Hayes People’s History Michael Walker 2013 (6)

Political activity at this time was associated with self-improvement.  Harry McShane wrote of John MacLean: ‘ He educated the Socialists of Clydeside and of Scotland. Let me say that he had a greater influence on me than any man I have ever known.’  (9)                                             

In September 1914, Harry enlisted in the army with the aim of doing propaganda work with his fellow soldiers. He joined the Royal Engineers. He became a sapper and learned how to handle explosives and build bridges and pontoons. He never intended to take part in the war and he returned to Glasgow on leave and never went back to the army. Harry was sheltered by friends and tried to get work under an assumed name, but every time he got a job he would be recognised and have to move on. (10)

Union Activism

After the war, unions were keen to see a reduced working week, some suggesting 47 hours. The engineering workers took up the fight to reduce the working week to 40 hours. A strike to support this was called on 27 January 1919. The strike caused significant unrest in the city centre. Harry McShane was present during most of it. He described the aim of the strike as reducing the working week from 54 to 40 hours. It was believed that the reduction in the working week would lead to improved chances of work for soldiers returning from the war. When the strike ended on Monday 10 February an agreement for a 47 hour week had been made and the workers started work at 8am. The 40 hour week did not come into being until after the Second World War. (11) 

                   David Kirkwood and Willie Gallagher being arrested. George Square 1919

 

                                         George Square 1919  Herald and Times Group

In 1920/21 Harry McShane became involved in working with the unemployed. He continued to work as an engineer, moving south to England where he worked during the 1920s. In 1928 he moved briefly to America and Canada, working in the Yukon. In 1930 Harry discovered that his marriage had ended. The only other evidence found of the ending of the marriage is on Harry’s death certificate which states that he was divorced. (12)

Harry McShane joined the Communist Party in 1922, which led to a break in his friendship with John McLean. Harry remained a member until 1953, when he decided he could no longer agree with the party’s leadership. During his time in the Communist party, he was the main Scottish spokesman for the National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM) and led many marches and demonstrations throughout the UK. During the Second World War he joined the staff of the Daily Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party.

In the early 1940s, the NUWM had closed down and he started working on the Daily Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party. A Scottish edition was being published and McShane and a small group of others were responsible for producing the weekly paper. He worked there, apart from a brief closure, until 1953. (13)

Scrutiny by the State

Between 1930 and 1939 there is evidence in the National Archives at Kew, London that Harry McShane was under scrutiny by the state. This included warrants to intercept his mail, where some correspondents discussed use of arms and spreading of discontent leading to possible uprisings. McShane’s articles were also scrutinised. His passport was limited to the UK. No commonwealth travel was permitted. A record of McShane’s court appearances, mostly for incitement to breach of the peace, was kept.

The warrants stated that they were issued by one of His Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State. The reason given for the warrant was that he was an official or leading member of the Communist Party of Great Britain…… and may have been engaged in different open or underground phases of communist work.  Some of the letters he received were considered suspicious. Programmes of meetings he attended were kept and he was being followed, as reports were made of his movements around the UK. When he tried to join the army at this time, he was turned down as unsuitable. There were suspicions that the intention was to enlist for the purposes of obtaining weapons. Correspondence with someone known as Winged Spur suggested to McShane that he and others should enlist in the territorial army for the purposes of obtaining weapons, which Winged Spur claimed were held in drill halls throughout the country. Winged Spur argued that these weapons could then be used to carry out an uprising. 

McShane’s marches were also closely monitored. On 28 September 1932 a memo gave information that McShane had been instructed by the HQ of the National Unemployed Workers’ Union to call at the GPO in each town on the march to pick up material or instructions. The GPO was provided with details of the route and asked to intercept the mail and examine the correspondence when it arrived. (14)

Later Life

In 1953 Harry left the Communist party and became unemployed. He took work in the shipyards and worked there until he could claim his old age pension at 69.

After his retirement aged 69, Harry McShane remained active. In his eighties he was still writing pamphlets, lecturing at Saskatchewan University and taking part in right to work marches. In his nineties he saw off an attempt to evict him from his Church of Scotland Nursing home because he was an atheist.  He also supported the staff at his nursing home in an industrial dispute. In 1987, the year before he died, he addressed the May Day rally in Glasgow. 

In 1984 Harry McShane was given the Freedom of the City of Glasgow. It was noted jokingly during the Ceremony that Harry had cost the city a great deal of money over the years. First, when he led the unemployed, the cost of policing the City Chambers to keep him out. Years later, when he finally got in, there was the cost of the banquet to celebrate his freedom of the city. During that day, the red flag flew over the City Chambers and instead of the National Anthem the guests sang ‘I Belong to Glasgow’. (15)

‘We all know that great men and women don’t make history, but we also know that working class history would be a mean thing if it were not enriched by great men and women’. (16)

Harry McShane’s archive is held in the City Archive in the Mitchell Library (17)

References

1.  https://www.marxists.org//archive/foot-paul/1988/mcshane.html

2.   http://www.scotlandspeople.co.uk  Statutory Registers of Births 644/12733 1891

3.    http://www.scotlandspeople.co.uk Statutory Registers Marriages 644/12733 1893

           4.  McShane H and Smith J.  No mean Fighter. Tramps Trust Unlimited 1977. p3

           5.   Op cit pp 5-7

           6.   http://www.scotlandspeople.co.uk Statutory Registers Marriages 644/1821

           7.   McShane H and Smith J.  No mean Fighter. Tramps Trust Unlimited 1977. p20

           8.   https://www.marxists.org/archive/mcshane//1958/10/maclean.html

       Harry McShane: John MacLean 

9.   McShane H and Smith J.  No mean Fighter. Tramps Trust Unlimited 1977 pp 67-70

10.  ourhistory-hayes.blogspot.com Hayes People’s History, Michael Walker, 2013

 11. Glasgowlife.org.uk. The Battle of George Square – Times Past

 12. http://www.scotlandspeople.co.uk Death Certificate 1159 5531

 13. The Times London April 16 1988

 14. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk KV 2/3588

 15. The Times London April 16 1988

  16. The Harry McShane Collection https:/libcat.cs.glasgow.org/web/arena/mcshane

             17. https://www.marxists.org//archive/foot-paul/1988/mcshane.htmlf