Rebel Britannia

March 7th 1842:

It is a fact much noted by historians that remarkably few leaders of communist parties have represented their counties at cricket. The only one that comes immediately to mind is H.M. Hyndman, a right-handed bat who played 13 First Class games (for Cambridge University and Sussex) with a career average of 16.26 and a highest score of 62. This former Tory went on to found Britain's first avowedly socialist political party. He was the original populariser of Marxism in this country, and was a great admirer of Marx and Engels who, sadly, both thought Hyndman was a bit of a tosser.

Born to a life of plenty, Henry Mayers Hyndman (1842-1921) in due course graduated from Cambridge, played cricket, studied for the Bar, got bored with that, travelled the world and became a journalist and writer.

At some time in the late 1870s or early 80s he first read Marx (in a French translation, while in the Americas), and met the man himself in 1880. Having, rather predictably, failed to convert the Conservative leader Disraeli to the Marxist outlook, Henry became convinced that what was needed was a brand new political party which would represent the working-class in parliament. With himself as leader, of course.

The Democratic Federation was formed in a club in Soho in 1881, changing its name to the Social Democratic Federation in 1884 when it adopted an overtly socialist programme. It split that same year, thus establishing a tradition which left-wing parties worldwide have striven to maintain ever since. William Morris and several other leading figures in the London socialist scene denounced Hyndman as an autocrat, a jingoist and an opportunist, and went off to set up The Socialist League (which itself abandoned socialism for anarchism before disbanding in 1901).

It's true that Hyndman's political views seem eccentrically mixed now, but he was living in ideologically tectonic times when political traditions and divisions we take for granted were not yet fully settled. He always wore a frock-coat and a silk top hat when addressing rallies and dock-gate meetings, but he was a skilled and sincere orator, able to convey complex political theory in simple terms, and reliably drew large audiences of workers.

Hyndman had launched his new party in 1881 with a booklet, written by himself, in which he outlined the basics of Marxism, or at least his understanding of it. He did so without once mentioning the name "Marx," which, unsurprisingly, Karl took offence at, and whatever friendship had existed between the two men ended. (That Hyndman was a totally committed, outspoken and unrepentant believer in crackpot ideas concerning an international Jewish conspiracy to suppress socialism can't have helped.)

In the brief time when relations between Marx and Hyndman were happier, Henry records in one of his autobiographies that they would have long discussions at Karl's Hampstead home. They both had the habit, says Hyndman, of marching round a room when fully engaged in a debate: "Consequently, master and student could have been seen walking up and down on opposite sides of the table for two or three hours in succession." Marx found Hyndman a "complacent chatterbox," and his frequent uninvited visits wearying.

In the 1885 general election, Hyndman's SDF accepted money from the Tories to pay the expenses of its candidates, the Tories believing that the Social Democrats would split the anti-Tory vote. The result was doubly damaging for the SDF: taking Tory gold put them beyond the pale as far as most left-wingers were concerned, and at the same time they won laughably few votes.

By the time of his death, Hyndman had been through more political parties than can easily be counted. I don't claim that this chronological list is complete: Democratic Federation, Social Democratic Federation, Labour Representation Committee, British Socialist Party, National Socialist Party, and Social Democratic Federation (again.) He stood for parliament many times, under various banners, but never got in.

Mocked by Engels, Marx and later Lenin, Hyndman's lasting reputation has been largely that of a pompous clown, or a Tory with odd pink edges. More recently historians have tried to give a more thoughtful and evidence-based assessment of his place in the history of British socialism, though his mad anti-Semitism makes it impossible to warm to him.

(I've thought of another cricketer, albeit his connection is slightly peripheral. The socialist activist and pioneer of science fiction, HG Wells, was the son of Joe Wells, a professional bowler for Kent - in those days a humble and lowly-paid occupation - who was the first to take four wickets in four consecutive balls in a First Class match. Joe's sporting career ended when he broke a leg, allegedly falling from a ladder while helping his mistress to escape over a garden wall when his wife arrived home from church unexpectedly.)

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Sources:

Critics of empire by Bernard Porter (I.B. Tauris, 2008)

www.espncricinfo.com/cricketers/henry-hyndman-15096

A people's history of London by Lindsey German & John Rees (Verso, 2012)

Labouring men by Eric Hobsbawm (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2015)

A people's history of England by A.L. Morton (Gollancz, 1938)

Karl Marx by Francis Wheen (Fourth Estate, 1999)

The QI book of the dead ed. Lloyd & Mitchison (Faber, 2009)