Robert Blatchford

Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford (17 March 1851 – 17 December 1943) was a socialist campaigner, journalist, and author in the United Kingdom. He was also noted as a prominent atheist, opponent of eugenics, and English nationalist. In the early 1920s, after the death of his wife, he turned towards spiritualism.

Robert Blatchford was born 17 March 1851 in Maidstone, England. He was the second son of John Glanville Blatchford, a strolling comedian, and his wife, Georgina Louisa Corri Blatchford, an actress. Blatchford's father died in 1853, leaving him in the care of his mother. She continued her acting career for nine years, and Blatchford spent much of his early life close to the stage. To help support the family, Blatchford and his brother Montagu would perform with their mother, doing comedic renditions and dances for extra income. In 1862 the family moved to Halifax, where it was hoped that Blatchford and his brother could learn a trade. Blatchford was first employed as an odd job boy in a lithographic printing works, for which he earned a salary of eighteen pence a week. As a child he attended school only occasionally, firstly in Halifax and later in Portsmouth. Despite the brevity of his educational experience, it did provide him with enough insight to be able to label the education system as a 'cram' method.

Though lacking a formal education, Blatchford taught himself from the age of eight, reading the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and the works of Dickens. Throughout his childhood he was frail and sickly, and doctors suggested that he would not reach adulthood. This illness gave Blatchford time to read, something he would not have been able to pursue as thoroughly if employed. Around 1864 his mother secured full-time employment as a dressmaker and immediately apprenticed both her sons, sending Montagu to a lithographic printer and Blatchford to a brushmaker. At the brushmaker factory, Blatchford met Sarah Crossley, who he would marry in 1880.

By 1871 Blatchford left Halifax, though his reason for doing so has been the cause of debate. Laurence Thomson argues that the departure was due to a quarrel with his mother, but Blatchford's daughter Dorothea maintains that his decision to leave was caused by the difficulty of his life in Halifax. On May Day 1871, Blatchford walked to Hull, then continued on to London via Yarmouth.

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