Voltaire: writer living pre-Enlightenment

François Marie Arouet (1694-1778) was the son of a treas­ury of­ficial. In 1704, soon after his mother’s death, Arouet was sent to the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris for 7 years. He wrote poetry and performed in plays in Latin and French and when Arouet left Coll­ège at 17, the lad wanted to become a writer. Having already planned a law career for his son, dad forced Francois to be a lawyer’s assistant for two years, but the lad devoted his en­ergy to writing satirical poetry instead. So his father sent him to the country with marquis de Saint-Ange Louis de Caumartin, writing history.

When King Louis XIV died in 1715, Arouet went home. The king’s reign had been miserable, so things HAD to change for the bett­er, and he was welcomed into Paris’ literary society. In the Duchess of Maine's circle, Arouet again contributed to a libellous satirical poem ridic­ul­ing the Prince Regent Orleans. And as a result he was again exiled from Paris in May 1716! Was the young man truly reckless? Or just naïve?

Some "unacceptable" quotes by other writers were falsely ascribed to him, making him look worse. So soon he was back in Par­is’ infamous Bast­il­le prison. Inside he worked on a new play and this tragedy Oedipe was his 1st theatrical success. It was also in this prison that he began The Henr­iade, an ep­ic poem about Henry IV, and he adopted penname Voltaire. Voltaire was gaoled for a year for satirising politics & religion in La Henriade. Released in 1718, Oedipe was successfully perf­orm­ed in Paris, running for 45 nights estab­lish­ing Vol­taire’s fame as a great playwright at 23 and making money! And securing him a regent’s pension. In 1725 he conflicted with a powerful young nobleman, Chev­al­ier de Roh­an, who insulted Voltaire. Soon after, the writer was called outside while dining with a Duke and was beaten by Rohan’s thugs. Voltaire soon chall­enged Rohan to a duel, but was arrested that day and was thrown into the Bastil­le, again! 

copy of the pastel portrait of Voltaire, 1735

originally painted by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour

meisterdrucke

Af­ter prison Voltaire chose exile in Brit­ain for 3 years. New King George II was not a lit­erature fan, but Queen Caroline loved poetry and welcomed Voltaire into society. Quickly mastering English, he published The Henriade in English, dedicated to the Queen. And befriended a stimul­at­ing group eg Prime Min Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Boling­­broke, poet Alexander Pope & playwr­ight William Congreve. And he read the work of two of the great think­ers of the C17th: natural scient­ist Isaac New­ton and phil­os­oph­er John Locke.

In Britain Voltaire produced 2 works: Essay Upon Epic Poetry and Essay Upon the Civil Wars in France in 1727. He wrote that humans con­troll­ed their own des­t­iny, rejecting the idea that Divine Inter­vention guided history. After he'd been im­p­ressed by Britain’s free­dom of speech & religious tol­erance, Voltaire returned home in 1729 and saw the UK’s constitut­ional mon­archy as the more progressive. It was easy pub­lish­ing Lett­ers Concerning the Eng­lish Nation in Eng­lish (1733), but pub­lishing the Letters in French was not. The publ­isher was sent to prison and the book was burned publicly.

Voltaire met brilliant mathem­at­ician-scientist Emilie de Breteuil marquise du Châtelet in 1733 and at her invitation the wr­iter moved to Cirey in E France. There they began their 16-year affair. They were a perfect Enlighten­ment couple working together, stud­ying natural sciences, performing their own lab ex­periments, studying history and philosophy. They collected and studied 21,000+ books. Mme du Châtelet’s translation of Newton’s Principia and Volt­aire’s Elements of Newton’s Philosophy were key to in­tro­ducing the new natural philosophy ideas to the Continent
                                                       

Mahomet the Prophet, a five-act tragedy

by Voltaire, 1736.

Wiki

In 1740-9 Voltaire moved between Brussels, Cirey and Paris. His most successful play in the 1740s was Mahomet the Prophet, playing in Lille and then Paris. This study of religious fanaticism por­trayed Mohammed as a power-hungry intrig­ue but Cath­olic clergy saw it as a veiled attack on Christian fanat­ic­ism and burn­ed the book. So Vol­taire asked the Pope for his consent to dedicate Mohammed to him. By then many Frenchmen hailed Voltaire as the greatest writer; he was placed in Germany’s Hall of Fame and was elected a mem­ber of Britain’s Royal Society. But the Ac­ad­émie Fran­çaise rejec­t­ed him again. Only in 1746, with the King and the Pope behind him, was Voltaire fin­al­ly admitted.

Château de Voltaire à Ferney

Voltaire rebuilt the castle entirely from 1758.

Tiqets

Earlier Voltaire received a letter from Frederick Prince of Prussia, starting a long correspondence. In Sept 1749 Madame du Châtelet died in childbirth, devastating Voltaire. So eventually he accepted the invitation of the then-King Frederick to move. The move failed and after 2 years Voltaire was granted leave, leaving Potsdam 1753. Voltaire bought a stylish country house near Geneva in 1754. Having some weal­th then, he built a priv­ate thea­tre but Geneva had a law forbidding theatrical perf­orm­ances. In late 1758 he bought an extensive property on Lake Geneva at Ferney. There he spent his last 20 years, entertaining so­ciety and producing fine works.

The irr­ev­erent Cand­ide (1759) was a witty romance, but also a clear attack on France’s religious philosoph­y. 5 years after Candide, Voltaire published his greatest philosophical writings, Philosophical Dictionary in 1764 where the ideal religion taught morality & rej­ected dogma. Naturally his book was condemned in Paris, Amsterdam and Geneva!!

Candide

published in 1759

In 1778 after 20 years in Ferney, Voltaire longed to return to Paris. He had completed his last work, the tragedy Irene, its first per­formance being at Paris’ National Theatre. His niece-lover Madame Denis was also very keen to return home so they set out, arriving to a hero’s wel­come. The 83 year old man prepared for the opening of Irene, but became seriously ill and soon died. The Church refused to give Voltaire a Christian burial, so his body was taken secretly to an abbey in Champagne and buried.

Voltaire was the perfect Enlightenment man, spending much of his adult career in prison or exile. Alas Vol­taire's France was one in which the monarchy, nobility & clergy dominated. It was an era of book burning and imprison­ment by the ruling class. Ironically the time the French Re­volution began 11 years after Vol­taire died, ideas of universal humanity were popular and only then could Voltaire’s liter­at­ure and campaigning against injustice be truly valued.

State killings: Saudi Arabia, USA & Victoria

Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani in Feb 2014 for smuggling drugs.
Photo credit: Newsweek.

This article was written by the journalist Phillip Adams and published in The Weekend Australian (27-28 Sep 2014).  What has changed since?

When it comes to beheadings, ISIS are rank amateurs. In the past year the despotic Saudi Arabian regime has decapitated dozens. Enjoying favoured status as a US ally and provider of the good oil, this brutality has aroused no criticism. In Saudi, you can get the chop for everything from adultery to sorcery and minor drug dealing. We are talking public executions. Beheadings are a popular entertainment.

In 1995, Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk reported how 12 women of various South East Asian ethnicities had been executed after callous trials, including a mother and daughter who were beheaded in front of a male audience for murdering the woman’s abusive husband. Last year it was reported that more than 45 foreign maids were on death row in Saudi Arabia. The response from the West and its diplomats? As ever, deafening silence.

Phillip Adams became concerned by Saudi justice in 1980 when seeing the British film Death of a Princess screened, over Saudi protests and the regime’s threats of economic sanctions. A young member of their royal family and her lover had been executed for adultery. His praise for the doco-drama resulted in his first-ever death threat. No sooner had the broadcast began than the tv station received a bomb threat; the discussion continued on tv with the bomb squad and their dogs searching around.

But let’s not be eager to take the high ground. The huge death toll suffered in Iraq as a result of the Bush-Blair-Howard invasion, for example. But at least Australia (1973) and UK (1965) abandoned the death sentence. Not so the US where Texas leads the charge, having killed 600 people by lethal injection since 1982. Meanwhile 31 other US states continue to carry the death penalty, as leaders follow the example of former Texas governor George W Bush in demonstrating their Saudi-style manliness.

execution chamber Georgia Diagnostic Prison, Jackson. 2020

NBC News

Those executions are as political and cruel as the ISIS. And they serve as public entertainments for ultra conservative voters, in the proud tradition of American lynchings. And so often the chemical cocktail fails to do its job, leading to a death that is agonisingly slow. The US government is keen to talk up the savagery of the ISIS beheadings, but while many U.S states employ the death penalty so often, so arbitrarily and so clumsily, and in light of the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo and in secret rendition locations, the High Moral Ground seems totally inappropriate.

I agree with everything Adams said, except for the arbitrary nature of capital punishment in Saudi Arabia and in those American states that execute criminals. Saudi Arabia uses executions specifically to get rid of its problematic populat-ions: single women, married women who talk to men-not-their-husbands, foreign women, people who use guns to kill and drug dealers. Texas (to use Adams’ example) uses executions specifically to get rid of its problematic populations too: young black men, older black men, people who use guns to kill and drug dealers.

And one more statistic to make sense of. The 3 main countries that sent troops to invade Iraq in March 2003 were, as Adams noted, the USA, Britain and Australia. In the 3 weeks taken to complete the air strikes, 7,500 Iraqi civilians were killed by us Westerners, according to The Guardian. The 345 civilian executions in Saudi Arabia, carried out from 2007-10 by public beheading, seem puny in comparison.

Tens of thousands of people protested against the imminent execution of Ronald Ryan

Melbourne, 1967

Photo credit: Herald Sun newspaper

I recommend Dick Hamer: The Liberal Liberal written by Tim Colebatch and published by Penguin Books in 2014. Rupert Dick Hamer (1916-2004) was Premier of Victoria in the critical years from 1972 to 1981. This sympathetic biography was drawn from members of the Hamer family who shared with the author their stories, documents and photos. Colebatch also included details from personal and political diaries that Hamer wrote when he was a very young politician (1939-41). Since I am a paid up member of the Labour Party, it was incredible for me to have admired a conservative. But under this leader of the conservative party, abortion and homosexuality were decriminalised, anti-discrimination laws were introduced and protection of the environment emerged for the first time in legislation. What was there not to love?

Of all of Hamer's achievements listed in the book, focus on Hamer's strength on the abolition of capital punishment. Although opinion polls indicated that some Victorians still supported capital punishment, at least for particularly heinous crimes, Hamer allowed state MPs a free vote; he successfully legislated to abolish capital punishment in Victoria in 1975. This had been a risky move - in 1967 his predecessor Premier Henry Bolte had brutally ordered the execution of the last man in Australia to face the hang man. Ronald Ryan's execution devastated the state; remember the protest marches that brought the City to a standstill.

Was Victoria a leader of  Australian states in abolishing capital punishment? Hardly. Only W Australia (1984) and New South Wales (1985) were slower bringing in their legislation.

recent art thefts: Italian Villa Masterpieces

The theft discussed here was the latest in a series of robberies targeting major European museums, soon after a series of other high-profile heists. “Poppy Flowers” by Vincent van Gogh, stolen from Cairo's Khalil Museum in 2010, was never found. Neither was “Soldier on Horseback” by Anthony van Dyck, stolen from University of Oxford in 2020. The shameless day-light robbery of precious jewels from the Louvre in Paris in Oct 2025 was worth $102 mill. The Louvre had been the latest to be subject to a heist. The thieves in this robbery forced their way through the main Museum door, grabbing the art from the French Room on the building's first floor. The criminals escaped by climbing over a fence, according to public broadcaster TGR, which first reported the theft. They believed a structured and organised gang was responsible for the theft.

The Villa of Masterpieces is home to the Magnani-Rocca Foundation, one of the most important art institutions in Europe and one of the most active museums for its cultural programmes. The villa was surrounded by the Romantic Park, a large English garden displaying exotic plants, monumental trees and magnificent peacocks.

Magnani-Rocca Foundation near Parma, Nth Italy

Artnet News

The Foundation was created in 1977 by art historian Luigi Magnani (1906–1984) whose special collection featured works by Gentile da Fabriano, Monet, Renoir, Goya, Titian, Dürer, De Chirico, Rubens, Van Dyck, Filippo Lippi, Carpaccio, Burri, De Pisis, Tiepolo, Canova, Cézanne and a large collection of Giorgio Morandi. And sculptures by Canova & Bartolini. The star painting, The Family of the Infant Don Luis by Goya was the emblem of this very fine collection.

Inside the villa, the old placement of furnishings was kept to maintain a lived-in home feel. Visitors can admire precious Empire-style furniture and objects, classy charm coming from its neo-classical and Empire-style furnishings by Jacob. Impressive also was Thomire’s large malachite cup, a gift from Tsar Alexander I to Napoleon. The restoration & transformation of the villa into a museum used most advanced standards set by the Italian Cultural Heritage & Landscape Code. This was to ensure the preservation of works and to suit hosting high-quality visiting exhibitions.

4 masked men entered Magnani Rocca Foundation Villa, near Parma in N. Italy, and made off with artworks in Mar 2026. They stole Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse paintings:

1.Fish by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1913
2.Still Life with Cherries by Paul Cézanne, c1886 and
3.Odalisque on the Terrace by Henri Matisse, 1885

Fish, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

news.sky

Odalisque on the terrace, by Henri Matisse

mirror.co

`

Still Life With Cherries, by Paul Cezanne

news.sky

The theft took place within 3 minutes at night worth c£7.8m. The thieves forced open the entrance door to get into a room on the first floor before escaping across the museum gardens. The criminal operation seemed well organised,  entering the villa at the night, and disguised themselves even more by wearing hoods and masks. Media reports noted the gang quickly carried out the operation because they were interrupted by the museum's alarm system. They had apparently planned to steal more than just 3 works but had not been able to go any further due to the surveillance system (both in the museum and in the neighbouring facilities) and the rapid intervention of police and security officers.  So they had grabbed the 3 paintings, forced open the door and ran across the lawn.

Villa of Masterpieces, Van Dyck Room. 

kreativehouse.it

Villa of Masterpieces, Goya Room

kreativehouse.it

What will happen to Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse? I hope they will be found because The Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Unit, a famous elite squad specialising in art theft, is actively inspecting. As is the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna. So it may depend on whether the thieves sold the paintings onto Italian auction houses, smuggled them to the USA, burned the works so searchers would find only embers, or left the paintings in their wills to their grandchildren. 

Italian news agency ANSA posted pictures of the stolen works on line, to alert anyone who might see the stolen art, so perhaps the auction houses will be cautious. Despite being investigated by Italy’s Carabinieri and the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna, nothing has been found yet. If I, Helen, was stealing a painting for my home (i.e not to sell), I would not have taken Matisse’s. Rather, I'd have preferred a Van Dyck. Enjoy finestresullarte and BBC.

 

Tolpuddle Martyrs tried to save workers

6 English farm labourers who were sentenced in March 1834 to 7 years’ transportation to an Australian penal colony for organising trade-union activities in Tolpuddle Dorset. Leaders George & James Loveless created a Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers’ lodge during the national wave of trade-union activity in 1833–4. The Whig government, alarmed at working-class discontent, arrested the Tolpuddle labourers for administering unlawful oaths: Loveless brothers, James Hammett, James Brine, Thomas Stanfield and his son John. Actually their crime was combining to protect their miserable wages. Convicted and sentenced by a hostile judge and jury, transportation was brutal.

Shire Hall was Dorset’s courthouse until 1955

inc 1834 trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs

Shire Hall, Dorset

From smoky, stinking cell below Dorchester's Court, the convicts were taken in chains to the Portsmouth prison-hulks. Hulks were condemned ships, holding 500-600 prisoners who were given coarse convict clothing and heavy irons riveted to their legs. Disease was rampant; cholera, dysentery and smallpox swept through the packed masses, resulting in tragic deaths in such fetid ships. 5 of the men were shipped in vile conditions to NSW where they were assigned as convict labour to landowners. George Loveless was too ill to travel after trial but by Ap 1834 he was declared fit and soon sailed to Tasmania.

poster, what year?

Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum Shop

Each Martyr described his experience of transportation in the Horrors of  Transportation. George Loveless wrote: “To enumerate the various miseries and evils which prisoners are subjected to, from landing in the colony until their death, is dreadful in the extreme. James Brine wrote: “I was employed to dig post-holes, and having walked so far without shoes, my feet were so cut I could not put them to the spade. I got a piece of an iron hoop and wrapped round my foot to tread upon, for six months. I went without shoes, clothes or bedding, and slept on the bare ground”.

Yet in U.K the men became popular heroes! There was an immediate public react-ion across the country, esp in London, where there were large demonstrations. The government largely ignored popular sentiment, and it was not until Mar 1836 that the sentences were remitted. News of the punishment spread and the UK fledgling unions knew their existence was under attack. They had to overturn the sentence and win the right to organise. Unknown to the 6 farm workers in Australia, their case was being taken to Parliament and onto London’s streets.

As news of the sentence spread, the young trade union movement organised a re-lease campaign. In Mar 1834, there was a meeting called by the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union at leader of the Grand Consolidated Union Robert Owen’s planning. 10,000+ people arrived! The agitation spread and The London Central Dorchester Committee formed to campaign for the pardon. A huge rally was held Ap 1834 when c100,000 people met near King’s Cross London. Fearing chaos, the Government took strong control: Lifeguards, Household Cavalry, detachments of Lancers, 2 troops of Dragoons, 8 battalions of infantry and 29 cannons were mustered. 5,000+ special constables were sworn into this “armed camp”.

By 7am protesters gathered by trade union stewards on horse. A grand parade with banners marched to Parliament. Citizens lining the streets & crowding the rooftops cheered. At Whitehall the petition, carried on unionists’ shoulders, was taken to the Home Sec Lord Melbourne’s office. He hid and didn’t accept the petition! The Government resisted, but agitation for the men’s release mounted. MPs questioned Parliament often; petitions came with 800,000+ signatures.

By mid 1835, 10 months after arriving in penal colonies, conditional pardons had been granted by Home Secretary Lord John Russell. But Russell was premature; legally a convict could not be conditionally pardoned under 4 years. The mail between Whitehall and Sydney & Hobart caused confusion and delay.

Book by Doc H Evatt, 1937

federal parliamentary leader of Labour Party

MP Wakeley presented 16 petitions to Parliament! The Tolpuddle men refused to accept conditional pardons and the Government finally agreed in Mar 1836 to a full pardon. By the King! Months passed before orders to free the men reached the Australian authorities but the farm workers would be coming home from penal colonies as free men!!

Few sent to the penal colonies ever returned, because they died OR couldn’t afford the journey home. The Martyrs didn’t return home until years after the infamous Trial. George Loveless was the first to arrive back in the UK in June 1837, welcomed by the London Dorchester Committee. George slipped quietly into Tolpuddle where he wrote The Victims of Whiggery, a strong statement against bad employment practices, and the profits went to the families.

James Loveless, James Brine, Thomas and John Standfield sailed by ship in Sept 1837. They were delayed in New Zealand as the ship took timber onboard, so exactly 4 years post-trial, the ship anchored in Plymouth Sound. People flocked to greet them from the quay and they were taken to an Inn before moving to the prominent local trade unionist James Keast’s home. The Committee of Trades organised a public welcome in March in Plymouth’s Mechanics Institute. The men went by coach to Exeter where another public meeting was held. They stayed in Dorchester at an inn with new clothes, then went to London for a grand Easter dinner at White Conduit House with c2,000 people.

James Hammett was the last returnee, arriving at New House Farm in Aug 1839. He was given a public welcome in Sept at the Victoria Theatre/Old Vic. Hammett did not write his experiences; he was the only one with a criminal record pre-arrest and he fell foul of the law in NSW. He remained in Tolpuddle, quitting farm work to become a builder’s labourer. His life story only emerged in 1875 when he was honoured by the Agricultural Labourers’ Union leader. 

Tolpuddle Martyrs plaque London Ontario, 2014

Wiki Commons

The London Dorchester Committee raised funds with public support to buy farms leases in Essex for the returning men. Five still campaigned for working men’s rights, supporting the Chartist movement. They organised a Chartist association in Greensted, based on The People’s Charter: 1. Manhood Suffrage 2. secret voting 3. MP payments 4. Annual Parliaments and 5. Equal electoral districts.

The Greensted Vicar in Essex preached against the Chartists’ activities, saying: the foundations of decent society were being undermined; paternal order where all knew his proper place had to be restored. He alerted the Home Office. Essex Standard said “George Loveless, instead of quietly fulfilling his station, is still dabbling in the dirty waters of radicalism and publishing pamphlets to keep up the old game”. Pressure from landowners forced the others to seek lives in Ontario Canada, as farmers.

Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum, Wiki

Portland stone sculpture in front by Dagnall, 2001

Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum was a library in Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Memorial Cottages, built 1934. The library had a collection of historical documents & collectables but in time, a display telling the Martyrs' story made it into a Museum about workers’ rights, trade unionism and human freedoms.

favourite U.K suffragette: Leonora Cohen

Police court summons and photo, Nov 1911

Photo credit: Leeds Museums & Galleries

Leonora Throp Cohen (1873–1978) was born in Leeds to Canova & Jane Throp. Her father was a stone carver but died in 1879 when Leonora was only 5, after he devel­op­ed TB of the spine. This left her widowed mother to raise the 3 young children. Her seamstress mother worked to provide for the family, especially difficult since Leonora also developed TB

Leonora apprenticed as a milliner and while she was working as a mil­l­inery buyer, she met Henry Cohen. He was a jeweller's assistant in central Leeds and the son of Jewish immigrants from Warsaw. Married in 1900, the couple's first child Rosetta died on her first birthday but thankfully in 1902, they had a healthy son Reginald. For the next nine years, the small family enjoyed a peaceful life as Henry's business as a jeweller and watchmaker flourished. 

Because her mother Jane had been a widowed seamstress struggling to raise the children alone, it was obvious to Leonora that her mum had few rights as a woman living in Britain. Life was hard because women had little control over their own lives. So it was her mother's lack of empowerment that had radicalised the young woman. 

At the time of Cohen's first job as a milliner, there was a campaign for better working conditions for women. This affected Cohen and her view of the treatment of women in the working world. Thankfully husband Henry was supportive of her fight for women's rights. 

Cohen later donated her scrapbook, many papers, craftwork, photos and other momentos to Abbey House Museum Leeds. Her scrapbook provided an insight into what inspired her to become a suffragette and indicated her interested in current affairs via an article about Nurse Edith Cavell's death

One cabinet from the Leonora Cohen section of Abbey House Museum.

The green dress is covered in Suffragette symbols, and the logo of the Women’s Social & Political Union

In 1909, she joined Leeds branch of Women's Social & Political Union/WSPU, founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. Later, Cohen was in The Bodyguard to Mrs Pankhurst.

In 1911, Cohen joined in a rally that was packed out with support­ers. And the mounted police. When she protested by throwing a rock at a government-building window, she was promptly arrested and placed in Holloway Prison for seven days. Spending time behind bars only in­creased her passion to fight for women’s right to vote. She de­fend­ed herself in court and even though found guilty, the authorities re­leased her. As Cohen began to take bolder steps as a suffragette, her family supporting her allegiance.

In 1913 Cohen took more vigorous action. At a protest at the Tower of London, she followed a group of school children inside, acting as a teacher. Hidden under Leonora’s coat was an iron bar, taken the night before and filed off for the purpose. Leonora used this bar to smash a glass showcase containing in­signia of the Order of Merit in the Tower’s Jewel House. She tied a note to the bar: My Prot­est to the Government for its refusal to Enfranchise Women, but continues to torture women prisoners. Deeds Not Words. 100 years of Constitutional Pet­ition, Resolutions, Meetings & Processions have Failed. Lenora Cohen 

Cohen was re-arrested, but decided to make a stand by going on a hunger strike, & not speaking out in anger. Because of the Cat & Mouse Act, Cohen was released from prison after a few days to allow her to recover from her hunger strike.

In 1913 suffragettes Annie Kenney & Flora Drummond asked for WSPU members to speak to leading politicians David Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey at Westminster. The delegates described the terrible pay and working conditions that they suffered and their hope that a vote would enable women to challenge the status quo. Voting women would have power to demand higher wages, just as men had done.

During WW1 Leonora threw herself into the war effort, without other distractions. She worked in a munitions factory where she set up a trade union branch for women workers and defused strikes. She also established a charity, raising money for surgical appliances for women who had been injured in munitions factories.

A coalition government passed the Representation of the People Act 1918, enfranchising all men, and women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications. The Conservative gov­ernment passed the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, giving the vote to all women over the age of 21 on equal terms with men. 

Cohen, a dedicated trade unionist, became the Leeds district org­aniser of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers and served a term as president of the Leeds Trades Council. By 1923, Cohen became the first woman president of the Yorkshire Federation of Trades Councils. In 1924 she was appointed a magistrate, one of the first women appointed to the bench and a JP for decades. In 1928, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

Blue Plaque on Leonora Cohen's home 

Leeds, Wiki

Suffragette Memorial honoured those fighting for women's suffrage,

unveiled in 1970

in the Christchurch Gardens, London

Leonora Cohen retired to north Wales. In 1970, she attended the unveiling of the Suffragette Memorial in London, along with other famous suffragettes and Labour politicians. Since Cohen lived to 105, long enough to become a role model for the 1970s feminists and Coh­en was brought back into the public eye. Brian Harr­ison inter­viewed 200+ people, including Cohen, as a part of his project Oral Evidence on the Suffragette and Suffragist Movements.

Before she died in 1978, Cohen donated all her mem­orabilia to Abbey House Museum, Leeds. The Times newspaper pub­lished her obit­uar­y, covering The Tower Suffragette’s imprisonment and hunger strike, and long career as a trade unionist and magistrate. She was seen as a regional act­ivist who was willing to be gaoled for the cause. And that later she became a very important trade unionist and magistrate

Tyrannicide Brief: he sent Charles I to die

Read Tyrannicide Brief: Story of the Man Who Sent Charles I to the Scaffold by Geoffrey Robertson. Charles triggered the tragic civil wars (from 1642) when 1 in 10 Eng­lish­men died. But in 1649, Parliament struggled to find a law­yer with guts to pro­secute a king who claimed to be above the law.

In the end, they chose the radical lawyer John Cooke (1608–60) whose Pur­it­an consc­ience, pol­itical vis­ion and love of civil liberties made him stand out. Cooke might have been just an average lawyer but he was an impressive reformer. Robertson said that in the 1640s, Cooke had been the first to assert that poverty was a cause of crime. Cooke was already arguing for: a nat­ional health service; a national legal serv­ice; end most capital punishment; probation for those who stole out of hunger; and an end to the use of Latin in court.

Geoffrey Roberston's book

Note the execution of King Charles I on the front cover

Cooke was a criminologist who wrote frequently. Ev­ery­thing that came off the presses in this 1640-60 era was collected and placed in a special room in the British Library, in­cluding all the transcripts of the trials and public­at­ions. Robertson gave the Puritans the credit for the good years, all the more note­wor­thy because they had suff­ered the king’s destruction of their relig­ious beliefs. Some left for the USA, but those who remained for­ged a belief in the literal Bible and in Magna Carta, civil liberty and bills of rights. Robertson was most impressed with their fierce belief in civil lib­er­ties, but I was not. Where was the historical evidence?

What the Puritans achieved in the 1640s was the abolition of Star Ch­am­ber. They created the principle of no taxation without repres­en­t­­­at­ion, and were keen on the separation of church and state. They fought in the civil wars that the king started. The king was also guilty, as Cooke later showed, of supervising torture of prisoners of war, and of encouraging plunder by the royalist forces.

In 1649, after Oliver Cromwell's army took Charles I pris­­on­er, the new regime had to decide what to do with the king. They could have killed Charles, but a fair trial was seen as more ethical. Cooke was asked to prosecute him, esp after other suitable lawyers hid away from their Inns of Court.

In Par­liament's brief to Cooke, the judge had to end the immunity of the head of state. But the divinely appointed king WAS the law, so prosecuting him seemed impossible. Thus Cooke had to invent the crime of Tyranny (aka War Crimes today). He put Charles on trial in Jan 1649, charging him with abolishing peop­les’ civil liberties and with mass murd­er­ing citizens. In Westmin­ster Hall, as this improbable trial was starting, the king was brought in and Cooke delivered the charges.

John Cooke

The king did the right thing at his trial, asking by what lawful auth­ority the state disregarded sov­ereign imm­unity and put a king on trial? Cooke answered that, be­cause there were certain crimes that were so heinous they dimin­ished the whole state, a king COULD be put on trial.

The decision to execute the king was the judges to make, but perhaps they didn’t predict that the executed royal would become a martyr. King Charles I was taken to the scaf­f­old and beheaded later in Jan 1649, and for the next ten years he was remembered kindly. Executing him only inflamed the civil war further.

Cromwell appointed Cooke as a reforming Chief Justice in Ireland where of course he made very progressive rulings. Naturally the wealthy land-owning lords hated Cooke.

In 1653, at the head of an army, Oliver Cromwell marched into Parliam­ent and dis­mis­sed the members.

King Charles II returned from France in 1660 and the monarchy restored. Cooke was the very first to be arrested, suff­ering a rigged trial at the Old Bailey when Charles II avenged his father. The ex-judge was taken to Charing Cross and made a very fine gallows speech: 'We are not traitors; we would have secured the lib­erty of the people and the whole groaning creation if the country had not pref­er­red servitude to freedom.' He was hung, drawn and quartered.

Cooke and other regicides were executed. Cooke’s heart and genit­als were fed to street dogs, and his head was shown at West­min­ster Hall. Samuel Pepys travelled to see some of Cooke's colleagues executed, but found that the exec­ut­ions had been sus­pended. App­ar­ently Charles II’s advisors saw the crowd turning nasty. They would have to detain republicans without trial, despite the fact that habeas corpus laws were in place. So it was decided to put all the repub­lic­ans on off-shore islands (eg Jersey) where habeas corpus wouldn't reach. Does this remind us of Guantanamo Bay?

Conclusion The key years 1640-60 was an era when extra­ordinary prog­ress was made in human rights. The sovereignty of parl­iament, indep­end­ence of the jud­ges, separation of church and state all go back to this short, important era.

The Hon Michael Kirby believed that the King Charles' trial was by legal stand­ards a dis­creditable affair. This seemed indisputable, until Robertson dug out a very old edition of the State Trials. Rob­ert­son was surpris­ed to find that Charles’ trial was far from discreditable - on the con­trary it app­eared for its time as an oasis of just­ice and fairness."

Rob­ert­son said Cooke's trial was actually the dis­cred­it­able affair. The defendants had been locked up for months in plague-filled prisons, and were brought to the Old Bailey in leg-irons to be viciously taunt­ed by pro-Charles II judges. The Cooke events, Robertson proposed, showed that a person was more likely to get a fair trial in a repub­lic­an court, than in a monarchical court. And provided a model for modern trials of criminal national leaders. 

The devil sits with 11 men: 9 regicides and 2 chaplains who supported Charles I's execution

Wikiwand

Robertson showed that some important 1640s men have been white­washed out of history by British historians, both conservative and liberal, for pol­itical reas­ons. These extra­ord­inary men, who had taken on King Charles I, were later ex­ec­ut­ed at the Old Bailey in 1660. Thus Robert­son concluded that the king’s execution was necessary to est­ab­lish Parl­iament's sovereignty and that the regic­ide trial victims should be seen as national heroes. I can agree with his first conclusion but his second conclusion sounds like a barrister, not like an historian  

Latvian shoot-up London 1910-1

Few places in the world were as infamous for murders as the East End of London. Jack the Ripper, The Krays and 1811 Ratcliffe Highway murders were all frightening. But the Latvians threatening London’s East End were UNexpected. They arrived from the Russian Empire against an intense debate about the large numbers of struggling immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Matching the earlier horrors were 2 events in Dec 1910-Jan 1911. Houndsditch is a mainroad running from Bishopsgate to Aldgate High St. Located at 120 Houndsditch was an import business run by Max Weil. In mid Dec 1910 Weil arrived at #120 to find his sister and housemaid in a state of agitation. They heard noises coming from the jeweller’s shop next door, as if someone was breaking at the rear.

Latvian revolutionaries aka Leesma weren't revolutionaries; later research found the c13 members carried out robberies to fund Lenin and his Bolsheviks.

Home Secretary Churchill, watching the Siege close up

Wiki

#119 backed onto a flat at 11 Exchange Buildings. Weil alerted the police of a likely break-in to the Exchange Buildings jewellers. He returned with Constable Piper who knocked on #11’s door. Piper had a brief talk with the man who answered the door and then left to summon help. Fritz Svaars & Josef Sokoloff were from Latvia in the Russian Empire. They’d fled the country after a failed attempt to overthrow the Tsar in 1905. Robbing jewellers was to raise funds for their cause.

Cons. Piper returned with 3 sergeants and 5 constables. Sgt Bentley hit on the door which was answered by the same man who had spoken to Piper. After another brief talk, the man tried to shut the door in Bentley’s face. However the sergeant pushed his way into #11 and chaos erupted. Bentley received two gunshots in the neck. He staggered back through the doorway and died. Standing behind him, Sgt Bryant now saw the gun being turned on him, hitting him in the chest. Constable Woodhams ran to his assistance only to fall to a bullet in the thigh. Both Bryant and Woodhams survived their wounds but were invalided out of the police force. Sgt Tucker was shot in the heart by a man in doorway #11 and died. The killer ran from the building, followed by other men and a woman. As they fled, Cons. Walter Choat jumped out of the darkness at them, grabbing an escapee who fired bullets into his leg. A gang-member came behind Choat and shot 2 bullets in his back. Choat fell.

Murdered police officers, 

London Museum

The gangster who’d been shot by his own cohorts was found dead in his room a day later. George Gardstein had been the de facto leader of the gang of Latvian revolutionaries in Leesma! After Russia’s revolution, one Leesma member Jacob Peters was 2nd in command of Cheka, the feared Bolshevik secret police. Perhaps Latvian Peters had killed Englishmen Bentley, Tucker & Choat, and injured Bryant.

Metropolitan & City Police launched an operation to hunt down the surviving revolutionaries and by that year Peters & others were caught. In Jan 1911 a figure slipped at night into London City’s police headquarters in Old Jewry. Although not officially identified he was perhaps Charles Perelman, former landlord to some Leesma members. Perelman had important information: Svaars & Sokoloff were hiding in a 2nd floor room in Sidney St, armed with Mauser pistols.

On 3rd Jan a file of police officers wound through the silent East End to Sidney St, from Commercial Rd to the northern junction of Whitechapel and Mile End Rds. The officers hadn’t been told about the mission, but they knew that it was dangerous; married policemen were excluded! Some were armed but their weapons were antique, as compared to the powerful hand-guns the Latvians carried. On getting to Sidney St, the police evacuated the first two floors of #100 and by daybreak the stage was set.

Svaara & Sokoloff were soon alerted to their danger. The front door was banged and stones were hurled at the revolutionaries’ window. They answered with some shots. Det Sarg Leeson fell gravely wounded but like Bryant & Woodhams, he survived. Battle commenced, and despite being so heavily outnumbered, it was Svaars and Sokoloff who won the firefight. Equipped with rugged handguns, they easily beat the police’s inferior weapons.

Hours passed, so the police appealed to Scotland Yard for assistance and they in turn sought help. Home Secretary Winston Churchill permitted the army to respond and soon 20 Scots Guards arrived, changing the situation. And the fire brigade arrived, to prevent fire from spreading.

Firing line of Scots Guards. Sidney Street Siege

gravelroots

Now the soldiers elevated their efforts, shooting into #100’s windows. Sokoloff peered at the maelstrom but the burning house collapsed. The ceiling killed him, ending Sidney St’s siege. And one more death. On entering #100 District Fire Officer Charles Pearson was hit by falling masonry, severing his spine and dying 6 months later. A honour plaque to the dead first responders was unveiled there much later.

Detectives inspect the 100 Sidney St house, post-siege

Gravelroots

Other Latvian anarchists, Jacob Peters, Yourka Dubof, John Rosen & Nina Vassileve were tried for the Houndsditch murders in the East End but 3 of them were acquitted. Only Vassileve was found guilty of a minor offence, later quashed. Gardstein, Svaars and Sokoloff were “probably guilty”.

The police soon tracked other revolutionaries, offering rewards for the capture of named suspects. Well covered by the press and captured on newsreels, the Siege also had lasting impacts for the scared communities living in the East End’s early C20th: political refugees, socialists & ex-Eastern European Jews, including my Russian Jewish grandmother.

Read Devilish Kind of Courage: Anarchists, Aliens and the Siege of Sidney St, 2024, by Andrew Whitehead 

"The Stamp Thief" a good documentary

The Stamp Thief was a documentary investigating a Holocaust event: that some unknown Nazi stole priceless stamp collections from concentration camp victims and buried the stolen stamps in a small town in Poland. Producer Gary Gilbert set out to confirm the story and recover the stamps. His approach: do a fake film shoot. His goal: to deliver justice by returning the stamps to their rightful owners or community.

The Stamp Thief documentary was written by Gary Gilbert, 2025

Reddit

The film chased the story of a rogue Nazi officer tasked with cataloguing the valuables of Jews sent to concentration camps. Apparently he seized the chance to steal millions of dollars worth of rare stamps and buried them in his home, now in Poland. In a real-life mission, Gilbert embarked on a daring quest to uncover the truth and recover the stamps. Disguising his investigation, Gilbert sought to return the stamps to their rightful heirs or to a museum, delivering a small yet powerful act of justice 75+ years post-Holocaust. This true tale unfolded in the suspenseful documentary.

Director Dan Sturman was an investigative journalist and is now noted L.A-based director, writer and producer who created Academy Award-winning documentaries. Sturman has since filmed many subjects, his works including quality documentaries shown at classy festivals eg Twin Towers.

Sturman and Gilbert debated about finding stamps stolen by the Nazi officer and buried in a basement in Legnica Poland. Stamp Thief set out to find the stamps after hearing the story from his fellow screen writer, David Weisberg. Who could invent a more intriguing premise? David's father, psychiatrist   Paul Weisberg treated a fireman married to the daughter of the Nazi who allegedly stole the stamps from a concentration camp. 

Nazi Trio, found by producer Dylan Nelson

Film Freeway

Stamp Thief was a probing search: while the Nazis occupied Poland in WW2, the Nazi officer whose job was to catalogue valuables belonging to Jews sent to camps saw his chance. Sadly this was not the case of a hero who disobeyed orders and tried to help the victims of the Holocaust. The Nazi officer, who decided to pocket millions of dollars worth of stamps stolen from the victims, buried them in the basement of his home. Thanks to the discovery of a detailed map showing the approximate location of the stamps, a group of Americans flew to Poland.

 When the L.A television writer-producer learned that an SS officer probably stole stamps from Jewish concentration camp prisoners and hidden them in a Polish basement, the American launched a long quest to find the rumoured box of treasures, despite the minimal chance of locating them.

Sample of stamps from pre-WW2

JIFF

How Gilbert found about the stamps was an unlikely tale. It began with a psychiatrist who happened to have a patient in the 1970s. The patient told the story of the missing stamps, and the psychiatrist became so intrigued, he helped devise an elaborate retrieval plan to dig them up behind the Iron Curtain. He never followed through, but he shared the plan with his son, who happened to be an avid stamp collector. As the film unfolded, the pieces fell into place and the story became increasingly engrossing. The team that went to Poland in 2015 grew more invested in returning the stamps to their rightful owners. So does the audience!

The mission was steeped in symbolism. For Gilbert, a single stamp not only represented the many thousands of stamps stolen from Jews, but the 6 million who’d never reclaim their personal treasures. Gilbert knew the second he heard the story that he was going to go, because the only thing crazier than going would be to not go. What’s craziest was how Gilbert tried to retrieve the stamps. The more he talked to lawyers, the more he realised how difficult it was to get seized Jewish property out of Poland. So he planned to access the basement by pretending to use it as a film set for a fake historical drama. [It was hard labour, digging 4+’ into the basement ground that had been solid since WW2]. The Poland expedition meant deceiving the Polish building manager, residents and film crew, and members of the U.S team had to grapple with the ethics of their dishonesty!

The team included Sturman as well as Gilbert’s personal contractor who posed as the set designer. But Sturman really came to supervise the surreptitious dig for the stamps during fake rehearsals in the basement. Those involved all hoped that once the truth emerged, the misled people would see that the deceit happened to right a greater wrong.

Instead Polish reactions to discovering the truth were largely scary, but an unknown hero emerged in Polish crew member, Sylvia. She chose to fully support the Americans and their mission. Her decision as a Polish person was that each Polish person should have been self-responsible.

There were no criticisms in the on-line reviews, but here's my own feedback. I didn’t know the film was going to be about research and although that was my own fault, it was occasionally annoying. I wasn’t fascinated in their endless interviews, phone calls, meetings and letters. It might have been a fictional adaptation of the normal story of Nazis taking gold wedding rings & gold dental crowns from victims before they went into the gas chambers. And although I knew exactly why the team acted secretly and illegally as they did, the immorality of Lying for a Good Cause was barely tackled. 

I already knew that many modern Poles were still denying their nation’s part in the Holocaust. But the intractable mistrust between some Poles and Jewish Polish survivor families was not really challenged in the film.

Gary Gilbert, Judy Kirshner Gilbert, Elizabeth Malloy, Dan Sturman

in Hollywood, April 2025, 

Larchmontbuzz

 

massacre at 1972 Munich Olympic Games

Only a few decades after the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games debacle and the WW2 Holocaust ending in 1945, West Germans hoped they’d rehabilit­ate their reputation with splendid Olympic Games in Munich 1972. Not­hing would symbol­ise the new Germany more than the particip­ation of a keen Isr­aeli team and a light blue Olympic em­blem that embod­ied fresh­­ness. Even the friendly safety guards at the 1972 Games were largely unarmed.

Victims' names and their sports, Flickr

Top: Amitzur Shapira, David Berger, Eliezer Halfin, Josef Romano, Kehat Shorr.

Bottom: Moshe Weinberg, Mark Slavin, Jacob Springer, Josef Gutfreund, Andre Spitzer. 

Absent Ze'ev Friedman. 

The German authorities were aware of security threats, noting the Red Army Fact­ion, And­reas Baader, Ulrike Mein­hof's leftist group and the far-right Nat­ional Demo­cratic Party of Germany. Nonetheless they believed a killer Palestinian group was improb­ab­le.

Black September originat­ed in the long 1948 Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Jordan-Palest­in­ian Lib­eration Organ­isation/PLO con­f­lict. The post-war UN partition plan of Palestine envisaged both an Arab and a Jewish state, but after the 19­48 Arab-Israeli War, only Is­rael exist­ed with many Palestinians dis­pl­aced. From 1964, P.L.0’s goal was self-determination for Palestine, especially after the 1967 war, in what the Palest­in­ians called The Cat­astrophe.

Jordan’s King Huss­ein ruled more Palestinian refugees than Jordanians and he feared the PLO. His army killed thousands of Palest­in­ians in Sept 1970. Black September, an affiliated extremist wing of the PLO, was formed in 1971 to av­enge the sl­aughter, assassinating the Jord­anian Prime Min­ister. Japanese terrorists rec­ruited by a Pal­est­in­ian group mass­acred 26 at Israel's Airport May 1972. But killing young, world athletes in a distant country would be a new obscenity.

The Munich Games in Sept continued for 10 days without incid­ent, and security officials relaxed. But on Sept 4, while the Israelis enjoyed their Vil­lage flat, some Palestinians planned an operation under Palestinian Commander Issa. At 4am partying at­hletes help­ed the track-suited fed­ay­een over the Vil­lage fence, car­ry­ing Kal­ash­nik­ovs and gren­ades in duf­fel bags. These Black Sept­em­berniks were linked to the PLO. 

Black September terrorists on the balcony

outside the Israeli athletes' flat

Olympic Village Munich

As West German authorities scrambled to respond, the Gam­es continued normally; it was 7 hours into the sit­uat­ion bef­ore anyone saw the cr­isis. This became the first time terrorism had rea­ched a live global audience. Despite the Israeli wr­estling judge blocking them, the ter­ror­ists pushed in. Two men escaped out the back window, but 11 other team­mates were shackled. Josef Romano and Moshe Wein­berg were killed grabbing the ter­ror­ists’ guns.

When the Olympic Village woke, officials locked the gates and flats. At 7am, papers signed by Black September fl­oated from a window detailing the terrorists’ demand: release of 234 terrorist prisoners in Israel and 2 in West Germ­any, or an Isr­aeli hostage would be exec­ut­ed every hour. The freed terrorists would be taken to an Arab count­ry.

As German officers negotiated, Israeli P.M Golda Meir trusted West German officials to protect her athletes on German soil. Alas their re­scue attempts failed eg German pol­ice officers went onto nearby roof­­tops. But as the world watched on live TV, so did the terr­orists inside the flat. As the Ger­mans stalled, Issa grew impatient, threatening to kill all the athletes. A truce was reach­ed: the terr­orists and hostages would be flown to Für­sten­feld­bruck mil­itary airfield Munich where a Boeing 727 would fly to Cairo.

That night the 8 terrorists and the surviving hostages arrived at the airport. Is­sa inspect the Boeing and found an empty plane waiting. 13 German police officers dressed as flight crew for a plan­ned amb­ush i.e to kill the hostage-takers as they emerged from the heli­c­opters to board the plane. But the police had no trained snipers, little equ­ip­ment and no data on how many Black September memb­ers were there.

As Is­sa and his mate returned from the deserted plane, police sharp shooters fired from a rooftop. The scene descended into chaotic cross­fire and the airfield pl­unged into blackness. The West Germans shot  5 of the 8 terrorists, but not before the terrorists mass­ac­red all of the rem­ain­ing Israeli hostages, and a West Ger­man police­man. Three of the Black September members escaped and were soon capt­ur­ed. Only at 3am did the ABC announce to world audiences that the athletes had all been killed. The well-intended German rescue attempt was a tragic failure. 

The flag was flown at half mast

to honour the murdered athletes

at Munich's main stadium, NPR

The Olympic Games had been suspended for 34 hours, with a mem­orial for the Israelis held in the main stadium the next morning. But Pres. Avery Brundage (International Olympic Committee) declared that the Games must go on. Only Israeli sur­­vivors and coffins flew home. 

The nation stood in silence

when the Israeli athletes' coffins arrived at Lod Airport, 

Sept 7, 1972. Origins

Global coverage sh­ock­ed the world, affecting pub­lic opinion on non-state violence as a pol­it­ical tool. Germans had tried to save the athl­etes, but were seen as unprepared because sec­urity was in the hands of State (not Fed­eral) authorities i.e people without expertise in hostage situations. And West Ger­many's post-war const­itution limited the dom­estic use of the army in peacetime. Meanwhile some Germ­ans blamed the Israelis for ignoring the terror­ists’ de­m­ands.

Many Palestinians saw the terrorist attack as bringing welcome, world­wide attention to their struggle, despite denunciations for the terr­orists’ methods. But the Munich massacre in Sept 1972 had lasting rep­er­cussions on an international scale, waking up Western govern­ments to the threat of terrorism, showing the power of live broad­cast and set­t­ing the stage for future violence.

Later tensions worsened when Black September sympath­isers hijacked a Lufthansa flight in Oct 1972, dem­an­ding that the 3 Black September members in West German det­ention be freed. The West Germans complied! The 3 surviving Munich killers arr­iv­ed as her­oes in Libya, saved by Moammar Gadd­afi. Golda Meir and all the Jews were devastated. Spouse and I had already left Central Europe and were safely in London, but we never fully recovered.

The development of counterterrorism forces grew so that new special forces could respond to hostage sit­uations and te­rrorism eg in Entebbe (1976) and Somalia (1977). Now read One Day in September by Simon Reeve (2005) and Munich 1972: Tragedy, Terror and Triumph by David Large (2012) .