For those who weren't able to attend the fascinating and inspiring talk
by the grand-daughter of the influential anarchist activists Esther and Charlie
Lahr (of Muswell Hill in the early/mid 20th century), we can now offer her text and
accompanying powerpoint presentation!
Around 100
people crammed into Bruce Castle Museum for the detailed talk and to join in
the discussion.
The full, just-published, book by their daughter Sheila about the Lahrs:
"Yealm - a sorterbiography" is not to be missed and is available from
Housmans Bookshop at 5 Caledonian Rd, N1 - ISBN:
978 0 9926509 4 0 Published: Sep 2015, 524pp
It is also available in full online: http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/yealm/CONTENTS.htm
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The entry in Wikipedia for Carl (Charles) Lahr..
Carl Lahr was born at Bad Nauheim
in the Rhineland, the eldest of 15 children in a farming family. He left Germany
in 1905 to avoid military service and went to England.
In London he
encountered the anarchist Guy Aldred (1886–1963), while working as a baker.[1]
He was soon (1907) under police observation.[2] He joined the Industrial Workers
of the World in 1914; at that time he had a bookshop in Hammersmith.
In
1915 he was interned for four year as an enemy alien in Alexandra Palace. In
1920-21 he was briefly a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. His
interest in politics led him to befriend many left-wing thinkers, several of
whom went on to establish important left-wing groups in the UK. In 1921 he took
over the Progressive Bookshop, in Red Lion Street, Holborn. From there he would
branch out into publishing, and establish many literary friendships (including
H. E. Bates, Rhys Davies, T. F. Powys) and D. H. Lawrence. At one point when
Lahr was in financial difficulties his writer friends gathered a collection of
stories together and published these as Charles Wain (1933).
He married
in 1922 Esther Argeband,[3] (at that time Archer), whom he had met at the
Charlotte Street Socialist Club, of a British Jewish family (Lahr was not
Jewish). They were close friends of William Roberts, the artist, and his wife,
and William's portrait of Esther is in the Tate Gallery.
From 1925 to
1927 Lahr published The New Coterie literary and artistic magazine. In 1931 he
founded the Blue Moon Press, a small press amongst the books he published was
the first edition of a small book of poems by D. H. Lawrence called
Pansies.
In subsequent misfortunes Lahr was convicted in 1935 on a charge
of receiving stolen books, and was sentenced to 6 months in prison.[4] In a
short story from Something Short and Sweet (published 1937), H. E. Bates
describes the court case with Lahr called "Oscar" in the story. The bookshop was
bombed in 1941. He moved its premises several times in London.
He died in
London in 1971. His funeral was attended by many representatives from left wing
groups in the UK.
There is substantial further information on Lahr in a
book authored by his daughter Sheila. This is called Yealm and can be read in
its entirety on the Militant Esthetix website, run by Lahr's granddaughter
Esther Leslie.
Lahr's papers are held by the University of London.
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