Editing Freedom Press (section)

=== 1886–1918 ===
The core group which went on to form Freedom Press came out of a circle of anarchists with international connections formed around the London-based radical firebrand [[Charlotte Wilson]], a Cambridge-educated writer and public speaker who was in the process of breaking from [[Fabian Society]] orthodoxy.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4237/1/WRAP_THESIS_Thomas_1998.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4237/1/WRAP_THESIS_Thomas_1998.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|title=Paths to Utopia: Anarchist countercultures in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain 1880-1914|last=Thomas|first=Matthew Jame|date=July 1998|website=wrap.warwick.ac.uk}}</ref> Among this founding group were Nikola Chaikovski, [[Francesco Saverio Merlino]], and as of 1886, celebrated [[anarchist-communist]] [[Peter Kropotkin]], who had been invited to Britain by Wilson after his release from prison in France in January of that year.

Wilson led a group of anarchists in founding Freedom as a [[social anarchist]] and anarchist communist group in September 1886, just a month after losing a vote in which the Fabians formally backed the parliamentary route to socialism. Alongside starting ''Freedom'' newspaper as a monthly beginning in October, the group also produced other pamphlets and books, primarily translations of international writers including [[Errico Malatesta]], [[Jean Grave]], [[Gustav Landauer]], [[Max Nettlau]], [[Domela Nieuwenhuis]], [[Émile Pouget]], [[Varlaam Cherkezov]], [[Emma Goldman]], [[Alexander Berkman]] [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]], [[Mikhail Bakunin]] and of course, Kropotkin himself. Discussion groups and public meetings were also begun early on.<ref name="Freedom History" />

In the early years of the paper Wilson funded and edited it out of a number of different offices while Kropotkin became a regular writer and provided its star turn. In 1895 Wilson resigned after a long series of personal difficulties<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Rooum|editor-first=Donald|title=Freedom, a hundred years : October 1886 to October 1986.|year=1986|publisher=Freedom Press|location=London|isbn=0-900384-35-2|pages=10–11|edition=Centenary}}</ref> and [[Alfred Marsh]], a violinist, took over.

Marsh solidified the press alongside close collaborator [[Woolf Wess|William Wess]], and they were joined by ex-members of the defunct [[Socialist League (UK, 1885)|Socialist League]]'s publication, ''[[Commonweal (UK)|Commonweal]]'' – [[John Turner (anarchist)|John Turner]], [[Thomas Edward Cantwell|Tom Cantwell]], and Joseph Presburg. Marsh was able to acquire more permanent premises and printing facilities at 127 Ossulston Street in 1898.<ref name="libcom">{{cite web|last=Heath|first=Nick|title=Marsh, Alfred 1858-1914|url=https://libcom.org/history/marsh-alfred-1858-1914|work=Website|publisher=Libcom.org|access-date=9 June 2013}}</ref> ''Freedom'' collective member [[Donald Rooum]] notes:

"Freedom Press stayed in Ossulston Street for the next 30 years. The hand-operated press dated from about 1820, and needed three operators; two to load the paper and pull the handle, and one to take the paper off."

With the acquisition of its own press, albeit an elderly one, the group was able to publish more often, and in 1907 started a second paper, ''Voice of Labour'', which allowed former [[The Spectator|Spectator]] compositor [[Thomas Keell]] to become a permanent collective member, eventually taking over editorial duties at the paper in 1910 as Marsh's health declined.<ref name="Information for Social Change">{{cite journal|last1=Rooum|first1=Donald|title=A short history of Freedom Press|journal=Information for Social Change|date=Summer 2008|issue=27|url=http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC27/articles/5%20Freedom,%20Freedom%20Press%20and%20Freedom%20Bookshop.pdf|access-date=8 July 2014|archive-date=27 September 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927074042/http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC27/articles/5%20Freedom,%20Freedom%20Press%20and%20Freedom%20Bookshop.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

''Freedom'' became one of the most widely read anarchist publications in the period leading up the [[World War I|First World War]]; however, the collective split in 1914–15 over how anarchists should respond to the conflict, with Keel's anti-militarist position winning the backing of a majority of the national movement and Kropotkin leaving after he came out in favour of an Allied victory, a stance which would see him put his name to the ''[[Manifesto of the Sixteen]]'' in 1916. Keell and his companion Lilian Wolfe would go on to be imprisoned for the paper's staunch opposition to the war in 1916, though Wolfe was quickly released.