3-085-631 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A Free Communist Colony in England: sketches at Clousden Hill Farm, Forest Hall, Northumberland, 1898. 'I. Stevenson's old coal pit; II. the farm house; III. the pond; IV. dinner; V. cooking the Christmas pudding. It will doubtless surprise many of our readers to learn that there is a Socialist colony in the North of England bent on proving that, to use the phrase of its promoters, "If the land could be cultivated as it should be, there would be no more any hungry inhabitant of the land." The colony...was founded by a young Czech named Kapr [sic, ie Franz Kapper], an Anarchist...Mr. William Key, the well-known co-operative enthusiast...[supplied] the land necessary for Kapr's experiment in Socialistic farming...The...main objects [of the the "Free Communist and Co-operative Colony" of Clousden Hill Farm] may be briefly summarised as the acquisition of a common and indivisible capital for an agricultural colony which shall demonstrate the superiority of Free Communist Association to modern competitive production; the assistance of members in poverty, ill-health, or old age; the mental and moral improvement of its members; and the attainment for all of a larger share of the comforts of life than is at present possessed by the working-class'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.