Robert Tressell

Life
?1870-1911; [b. Robert Noonan]; b. at 37 Wexford St., Dublin [not Belfast, as commonly believed; see note]; he became painter and decorator in Hastings; wrote The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (abridged 1914; 1918), set in “Mugsborough” and based on Hastings experiences, centred on Frank Owen, who lectures fellow-workers labouring to make money for employers who desport themselves on the continent; d. of TB, Liverpool; he left the MS of his famous novel to a dg., who succeeded in finding a publisher for the abridged version; the MS was rediscovered in 1945 and edited by F. C. Ball (1955); Tressell is quoted in Brendan Behan’s Borstal Boy; a repository of Tressell material is kept at Hastings Museum. OCEL

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Works
See reprints, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Lawrence & Wishart 2003), 634pp.; Tristram Hunt, intro., The Ragged-Trousered Philosophers (London: Penguin 2004), 747pp.

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Commentary
Cahal L. Dallat, in ‘Summer Books’, Fortnight 330, reviewing Dermot Bolger, ed., Ireland in Exile (New Island Bks. 1994), [Joseph] O’Connor identified the perceived absence of first person texts of Irish emigrant life, apart from Robert Tressell’s Ragged Trousered Philosophers. Dallat comments that Noonan/Tressell was, of course one of those who hid his roots (just one fleeting mention of Ireland, a reference to industrial action in Belfast, in the whole work) and wrote his bitterly socialists tract about English society, a strange evasion since Cobbett, Marx, and Engels all felt the condition of Ireland to be a central social issue in England.

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Brian Power, review of Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists [reiss.], in Books Ireland (March 2003): `[…] the novel highlights the hypocrisy of Christians as much as others who expoitled their fellows for personal gain. Surprisingly, however, it is not bitter, nor is it anti-religious. This is because the narrator is a character of sincere and passionate believs whose concern for others is as great as that for his own wife and family. After describing lay-offs, evictions, a culpabley avoidable fatal accident at work, a grotesque funeral, a hilarious “beano”, family illness and break-up, and some kind and charitable acts, the books on a determinedly optimistic note. In a sentimental and touching crescendo, the narrator and author succeed in transcending [imminent] personal tragedy in order to point towards the prospect of a brighter social future for everyone’.

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D. J. Taylor, ‘One for the Workers’, review, in Times Literary Supplement (15 Oct. 2004): The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists is essentially an acocunt of a working-class community’s exploitation at the hands of the most loathsome rattlers of the capitalist swill-bucket ever brought to print. The licensed swindle that is municipal government in Mugsborough has its echo in the decorating concern of Rushton & Co which cheerfully works its employees to the bone and throws them out into the street at a moment’s notice, while systematically cheating the customers who admit them to their houses. Despite the flaring surfaces - all the capitalists are merely brutal imbeciles - this allows for a fair amount of individuation at the lower end of the scale, and there are some sharp individual portraits, in particular the good-natured bachelor, Philpot, always ready to help a friend in trouble, who dies in a preventable accident, and the triangle of Easton, his wife Ruth and the seducing lodger, Slyme. / Without consciously advertising the fact, the novel also demonstrates why it was that the enticing Socialist horizon sketched out by Owen in his lunch-hour chats could never be reached. Class solidarity in Mugsborough turns out to be as rare as an ability to pay the rent, snuffed out by the division between skilled and unskilled labour and drowned in deep reservoirs of working-class deference. Interestingly, Noonan seems to have shared certain of these beliefs himself, taking pains, for example, to contrast the coarseness of the upwardly mobile town councillors with the graceful gentility of the coming young preacher, John Starr. / In the end The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists fits neatly into Chesterton’s category of  “good bad books” - works that are chock-full of faults but which strike some deep imaginative chord capable of cancelling out the clumsiness of the design. [...]’

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Quotations
The Ragged-trousered Philanthropists (1914): ‘As Owen thought of his child’s future, there sprang up within him a feeling of hatred and fury against his fellow workmen. They were the enemy - those ragged-trousered philanthropists, who not only quietly submitted like so many cattle to their miserable slavery for the benefit of others, but defended it and opposed and ridiculed any suggestion of reform. They were the real oppressors - the men who spoke of themselves as “the likes of us” who, having lived in poverty all their lives, considered that what had been good enough for them was good enough for their children.’ (Quoted on the Tressell website, online [accessed 09.02.2011].

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References
Margaret Drabble, ed., Oxford Companion of English Literature (OUP: 1985), notes that its debates on socialism, competition, employment, and capitalism are skillfully interwoven with a realistic and knowledgeable portrayal of skilled and unskilled labour; principle chars. include Frank Owen, socialist craftsman, Barrington, socialist son of wealthy father, and the inadequate but well-intentioned Eastons.

Website: The Robert Tressell Society (formerly The Robert Tressell Centre) is based at 4 Church Road, St.Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex,  TN37 6EF [online].

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Notes
Nag/Mug?: COPAC gives F. C. Ball, Tressell of Nagsborough (1951) but also Tressell of Mugsborough (1951) in caps [err.].

Birthplace: In the reference literature, Tressell’s place of birth is generally given as Belfast, or else he is stated to be ‘of Irish extraction’ implying that he was born in Britain. The birthplace 37 Wexford St. (Dublin 2) has been supplied by Sean Cruise in correspondence with this website. Sean lives at 36 Wexford St., and has a keen familiarity with the locale and its traditions.

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