National Clarion Cycling Club 1895 ~ an association of Clarion Cycling Clubs
May 2023 MAY DAY GREETINGS TO ALL CYCLISTS AND TRADE UNIONISTS
THROUGHOUT THE LAND.
In 1894 Clarion cyclists spread Socialism with every turn of the pedal. The Clarion Cycling Club was the muscular front line of a political dream sweeping the world, giving new hope to millions.
May Day and the 8 hour day. The idea of using a proletarian holiday celebration as a means to attain the eight-hour day was first born in Australia. The workers there decided in 1856 to organise a day of complete stoppage together with meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favour of the eight-hour day. The day of this celebration was to be April 21. The first to follow the example of the Australian workers were the Americans. In 1886 they decided that May 1 should be the day of universal work stoppage after The Knights of Labor had adopted a resolution which asserted that ‘eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labour from and after May 1st 1886’.
On May 1st, 1886, 250,000 took to the streets across America to demand universal adoption of the 8-hour working day. The heart of the 8-hour movement was Chicago. The 1st of May demonstration in that city passed peacefully but, on the 3rd May fighting broke out between workers locked-out at the McCormick Reaper Works and scabs hired to replace them. The police moved in to restore order, leaving four unionists dead & many others wounded.
The anarchists, called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest about police brutality. The occasion proceeded without incident but as the last speaker was about to leave the platform the police marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. It was then a bomb was thrown killing one police officer and injuring 70. The city authority used this incident as an excuse to attack Trade Union activists and the anarchists in particular. Soon 8 of the city’s most active anarchists were charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket bombing. All eight were found guilty even though the State Prosecutor offered no evidence that any of the accused had thrown the bomb or had been connected to its throwing. He appealed to the jury, to ‘convict these men, make an example of them, hang them, and you save our institutions’.
On 11 November 1887, four of, them were hanged, another committed suicide in prison, the remaining three were released in 1893 when Governor John Altgeld pardoned all eight men. The Haymarket Incident figured prominently in the decision to make May 1st, 1890, a day of workers demonstrations throughout the world. By this period the Trade Unions and Workers’ movements across Europe had grown in strength, particularly so in Vienna, Paris and London. The most powerful expression of this movements progress occurred at the Congress of the Second International in Paris in 1889. The Congress, attended by four hundred delegates, decided that the eight-hour day must be the first demand. Delegate Lavigne of the French unions moved that this demand be expressed in all countries through a universal stoppage of work. The delegate of the American workers called attention to the decision of his comrades to strike on May 1, 1890, and the Congress decided on this date for demonstrations ‘in every country and in every town’ to ‘call upon the state for the legal reduction of the working day to eight hours’.
Engels writes the 1890 event in London to be “the most important and magnificent in the entire May Day celebration, the English proletariat, rousing itself from forty years’ winter sleep, re-joined the movement of its class”. May First soon became a public holiday in many countries (except Britain). An occasion when the Labour and Trade Union Movement reaffirms its commitment to the ideals of solidarity, equality, and a better life for all workers.
This May Day why not cycle to a demonstration or better still to a picket line and live the words of Tom Groom: ‘A Clarion cyclist is a Socialist utilizing his cycle for the combined purposes of pleasure and propaganda’
The German ‘Clarion’ Cycling Club
In May 1896, at the 4th Congress of Workers’ Cyclists, held in Offenbach am Main, delegates from 18 cycling clubs in 12 cities decided to unite to form the German Worker Cyclist Federation: “Solidaritat” the ARB, which stood for Arbeiter-Radfahrer- Bund. Three years earlier, in Leizig mostly socialist members had established a central organisation with an explicit political programme.
The ARB grew rapidily during the Weimar Republic and soon became the largest cycling association in the world with several hundred thousand members. The association had its own bicycle factory, its own bike shops and an extensive social security
system with accident liability, bike theft and legal protection insurance. Long standing members even received support in the event of death.
The Rad-und Kraftfahrerbund Solidaritat, which with over 300,000 members and 5,000 local groups was the largest workers’ sports club in the Weimar Republic and played a major role in the organisation of the Frankfurt Workers’ Olympiad in 1925.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933 the whole of the German Trade Union Movement was banned and the same fate fell onto other Socialist organisations including the ARB. The fascists confiscated the property of ‘Solidarity’, closed the bicycle factory, the sales outlets, and fired the employees. The ARB was replaced by a Nazi organisation the ‘German Cyclists Association’. Many former ARB members fell victim to the Nazis due to their antifascist stance and their support for the courageous German Resistance movement.
In 1949 the association was re-established in Frankfurt and in 2015 it was renamed ‘Solidarity’ Germany 1896e.V. Today it has a membership of over 40,000.
(source: County Standard).
Leicester Easter Meet (and drink)
On Good Friday afternoon 23 Clarion cyclists assembled outside the City Centre Premier Inn which was the Easter Meet HQ. The ride planned and led by Richard Himan (London Clarion) was to the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field where in August 1385 Henry Tudor’s Lancastrian army faced the much larger Yorkist army of King Richard III. Comrade Himan had not only planned an excellent route he had also arranged fine and sunny weather for the entire weekend. The total meet attendance was 30: 25 cyclists and 5 non cyclists.
Leicester has a good network of cycle paths and with Richard’s guidance we were soon on the mostly traffic-free NCN63 out of the city to Glenfield. Here our route picked up the Ivanhoe trail to Ratby, following the route of the Midlands railway constructed by George Stephenson. It was then to be a combination of well surfaced suburban roads and lanes towards Bosworth. Our return to the city via Kirkby Muxloe we pick up another cycle track at Glenfield and then onto Leicester’s Secular Hall for the reception buffet prepared by Lyn Hurst and Margaret Jepson and the traditional distribution of Meet ribbon courtesy of London Clarion.
Easter Saturday’s route was again led by Richard Himan, This time we headed south out of the city by way of NCN6, which follows the former route Great Central Railway towards Blaby where we pick up a series of quiet lanes to our destination at Foxton Locks.
The ten locks on the Grand Union Canal at Foxton are the longest and steepest of the entire canal network. It takes about 45 minutes to raise barges the 75 feet from the lower canal to the upper canal. At the beginning of the 20th century faced by competition from the railways the canal owners employed an engineer to build a ‘boat lift’ in an attempt by-pass the locks and thereby speed up the transfer of barges.
The engineer Gordon Cale Thomas designed an inclined plane where a stationary steam engine would haul the loaded barges up a 1 in 4 incline in special water-tight tanks called caissons. Whilst his scheme worked well it only lasted for 10 years and all that remains today is the slope linking the two canals.
After returning to HQ via some rather busy roads through the Highfields district of the city there was just time for a quick shower and a bite to eat before the planned pub crawl. Charles Jepson led the group to what he had been assured were the five best pubs in the city: Duffy’s Bar, The Blue Boar, The Rutland and Derby Arms, The Two Tailed Lion, and The Wygston Arms. The general consensus was The Blue Boar won the Pub of the Meet Award; the only award necessary for a successful Easter Meet.
Easter Sunday’s ride was to be north of the city to Melton Mowbray for no other reason than David Bissett (Bolton Clarion) wanted to eat one or more of the pork pies for which this market town is world famous.
23 cyclists left Meet HQ at 10am prompt and quickly picked up a cycle path to Abbey Park, passing the statue of Cardinal Wolsey and the ruins of Leicester Abbey where he died in 1530. Then we followed the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal, passing the National Space Centre whose design resembles a giant condom and Abbey Pumping Station which houses four massive beam
engines. Next, we entered Watermead Park, a vast public park which has numerous lakes and many cycle paths around them. We picked up NCN48 alongside the canal to Cossington from where we followed quiet lanes to pick up NCN48 at Thrussington through to Asfordby and on to the Dickinson & Morris Pork Pie shop in Melton. After lunch we departed for Leicester via the famous Ankle Hill, where in the English Civil war ‘the blood ran ankle deep’. In the village of Scraptoft we had a beer stop at The White House to raise a toast by the portrait of General Thomas Cooper. Leader of the Leicester Chartists. During a pause between rounds the Comrade Jepson took the opportunity to announce the Annual General Meeting. He stated: ‘there was nowt to report’. The Club’s finances were sound and the Easter Meet 2024 would be held in Gloucester. Before any points could be raised from the floor the next round of drinks arrived and brought the meeting to a close. Easter Monday’s plan was to have a guided walk to three sites in the city centre linked to formers Clarion cyclists: Roy Watts, Chair of Leicester Clarion Cycling Club and International Brigade volunteer, Alice Hawkins, Clarion cyclists and a militant suffragette and Clarion member Amos Sherriff, former mayor and cycle shop owner.
Unfortunately, though it was raining rather heavily, a small and hardy band headed off for Peace Walk where there is a memorial to Roy Watts who was killed at Gandesa on the Ebro during the Spanish Civil War. Club Secretary read a letter Roy had written to his Clarion comrades shortly before his death urging them to fight fascism. Stuart Walsh (Yorkshire Coast) read a poem by an Australian nurse who had also served in Spain. We then honoured his name by singing The Internationale. By now everyone was thoroughly wet and cold, so it was decided to abandon the rest of the walk and end the Meet in the traditional manner by singing the Clarion hymn England Arise.
Tearooms, Cycle Cafes, and Clarion Caterers
Webb’s Tea Rooms by the Roman Lake close to Marple The roots of our traditional cyclist’s tearooms and cafés can be traced back to the growth of the railway network in the midnineteenth century, before the invention of the bicycle. It was the advent of cheap passenger trains that gave families of thousands of factory, mine and millworkers a passport to the countryside and the chance to breathe some fresh air away from the smoke, muck and grim that polluted the rapidly expanding industrial towns. Soon areas of local beauty, often by some water feature, or of some historical interest became popular destinations for hundreds, often thousands of day trippers. It was to meet this demand that the first teashops began to open, usually serving nothing more than cups of tea.
These premises took on a variety of forms, ranging from the front room of a spinster’s cottage; an out-building or kitchen of a farm; a converted or purpose-built wooden shed, the church hall, or even something as simple as a serving hatch in the door or an open window of an enterprising householder. Initially few would serve any form of food partially due to outlay costs and lack of storage added to which most visitors would being their own picnic lunch. Many of these would eventually go on to expand into the cafes and restaurants we see today, some retaining the name of the original, long deceased owner. ‘Wandervogel’ and the Interwar years Wandervogel, was the name given to a popular German youth movement at the end of the 19th century whose aim was to commune with nature by going hiking, camping and exploring the countryside. This movement grew rapidly after the First World War and soon spread throughout western Europe. In Britain, the inter-war years saw the introduction of cheap rail fares and excursions trains soon took thousands out of the towns and cities at weekends in a quest for the outdoors, fresh air, and adventure. This coupled with the government’s decision to build hundreds of miles of paved, protected cycle lanes opened areas of the countryside which once would have been beyond reach. Hiking, camping, cycling, and youth hostelling all expanded in the 1930s. It was in this period that cycling in Britain reached its peak and not surprisingly this boom to get out into the country led to a corresponding growth in tearooms and small cafes. At first the range of refreshments were very limited but once a regular customer base was established the fare on offer grew from pots of steaming tea and homemade drop scones or jam butties to cooked breakfasts of bacon and eggs or beans on toast. Mugs of Oxo or hot Vimto became popular drinks for thirsty cyclists.
In 1933 the National Clarion Cycling Club purchased 500 Clarion Caterer signs to be distributed to establishments known to give a satisfactory service to cyclists. By the end of the following year 49 of these red and white enamel signs had been distributed. The 1937 Clarion Handbook states: ‘Members are advised to mention that they belong to the Clarion C.C., in order that they may obtain any special facilities offered’ ‘The average charge for Tea is only 4d per head, and any higher charges should be reported to the Handbook Secretary.’ The Golden Age of Cycling and cafes Whilst cycling may have peaked in Britain in the 1930’s the Golden Age for road cycling was the period from the late 1940’s to the early 1970’s when weekly Club runs, often of 50 plus riders, would halt at least one café or teashop stop during the day.
Club Cottage, Burnham Green, Herts (now closed) Sadly, many of these traditional café have now fallen victim to the converted farmhouse restaurants or garden centre cafés with gifts shop, barista coffee and herbal
teas. Yet others have survived like The Dalesman in Gargrave still used by Road Clubs from both west Yorkshire and east Lancashire.
Why not join us on Clarion Sunday, June 11th at Clarion House for a pint pot of tea (cost 70p) served the traditional way as it has been every Sunday since 1912?
Cycle Café spotters guide:
1. Vintage steel frame bike, you wished you
owned, hanging from the ceiling. 2. Framed jersey of famous racing cyclist who
once allegedly called in for a Latte. 3. Walls plastered in 1950’s Tour de France
cycle posters. 4. A very expensive range of coffees, some
with marshmallows and herbal teas. 5. Strava user, checking his heart rate and
searching for some ego boosting kudos. 6. The Café pros who always occupy the
warmest, most draught free seats and chat. 7. The serious riders who really have just done
90 miles and still look fresh! 8. The cyclists dressed and talking like serious
riders having done just under 10 miles needing every one of their 36 gears. 9. The veteran cyclists, recognisable by the
racing caps and lace up leather shoes. 10. The sad ‘Billy No Mates’ cyclist sat alone
with his mobile phone, longing for a call.
Laterne Rouge Hurrah for the Clarion Scout
May 13th With Banners Held High Festival: Wood Street, Wakefield June 2nd to 4th London Clarion Camping Weekend: Plumpton Green, Lewes. 3 rides in memory of Comrade John Howell. contact(alex.southern.as@gmail.com) June 4th Socialist Sunday School Whit Walk from the Socialist Institute, Vernon Street in Nelson to the ILP Clarion House. Assemble 10.30am for 11am start. 3 mile walk suitable for all the family. June 11th Clarion Sunday at Nelson ILP Clarion House, Jinney Lane, Newchurch in Pendle BB12 9LL, Annual Mass gathering for all Clarion cyclists and supporters. June 22nd/26thAnnual Dieppe Cycle Raid for details of the Clarion’s presence at this fantastic weekend event of cycling and bounderising (alex.southern.as@gmail.com)
June 23rd/25th Annual York Cycle Rally For camp site booking and further information see: yorkrally.org. Oct.20th//22nd Autumn Meet in Bedford. March 29th to April 1st 2024 EASTER MEET IN GLOUCESTER
In Memory Melvyn Hirst It is with great sorrow we must record the sudden and unexpected passing of Comrade Melvyn Hirst. Melvyn, from North Lancs Clarion C&AC was an enthusiastic supporter of the Nelson ILP Clarion House, he died suddenly at home over Christmas. In recent years Melvyn, along with his son Mark, made a significant contribution to the Movement by researching the history of Clarion Club Houses. See: http://clarionclubhouses.cambrianmoons.com
The photograph shows Melvyn, in his student days at Loughborough University, riding his Hill Special bicycle at a local hill climb event.
Alan Ramsbottom Professional racing cyclist and member of North Lancs Clarion C&AC, Alan Ramsbottom died on 5th April 2023 just short of his 87th birthday. The Club mourns the passing of a comrade who could rightly be described as a legend in his time having competed against the likes of Simpson, Denson, Elliott and Anquetil. Alan was one of the country’s top amateur road racing cyclists in the late 1950’s. Turning professional in 1961 he moved to Troyes in France where he became a member of the Pelforth-Sauvage team.
He finished 45th in the 1962 Tour de France and a year later he was up to 16th. In 1964 he moved to Ghent in Belgium to join the Peugeot team to ride alongside Tommy Simpson. Financial circumstances caused him to return to England towards the end of 1965 where he continued to race professionally for the Viking Cycles. Alan passed over peacefully in an Accrington care home close to the place of his birth.
contact: national.clarion1895@gmail.com