Sid Rawle
| Sid Rawle | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
1 October 1945 Bridgwater, Somerset, England |
| Died | 31 August 2010 (aged 64) Rodley, Westbury-on-Severn, Gloucestershire |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Campaigner, organiser |
Sidney William "Sid" Rawle (1 October 1945 – 31 August 2010) was a British campaigner for peace and land rights, free festival organiser, and a former leader of the London squatters movement. Rawle was known to British tabloid journalists as 'The King of the Hippies', not a title he ever claimed for himself, but one that he did eventually co-opt for his unpublished autobiography.
He was born at Bridgwater, Somerset, and was the son of a horse-dealer on Exmoor, known to locals as "Dealer Rawle". His parents separated when he was a child. He was raised by his father and educated at Exton Village School and Minehead Comprehensive School. Dyslexia hampered his education, leading to him dropping out of school. He then lived for a time with his mother in Slough, where he worked as a park attendant, became active in his trade union and radical politics, and organised a strike in a local factory and a love-in in the municipal gardens.
After spending some time in St Ives, Cornwall, in the mid-1960s, he moved to London and became involved in the alternative scene. He was noted in those circles for his refusal to take drugs. Initially involved with a group called Tribe Of The Sun, he formed the Hyde Park Diggers who campaigned on the issues of land use and land ownership, concerns that were central to the rest of his life's actions. He formed the Digger Action Movement, with Barry Norcott and John Gillatt, which brought him into contact with John Lennon.
During the early 1960s, Rawle became increasingly involved in the London squatting scene (living for a period in a recently vacated vicarage in Gospel Oak). In 1969, he was one of the squatters of the London Street Commune who occupied a 100-room mansion at 144 Piccadilly and had to be evicted by Police. He was also involved in the free festival movement, as an organiser of the Windsor Free Festivals, and the 1974 Stonehenge Festival. After re-printing, as publisher of International Times, an article similar to the leaflet which had led to the imprisonment of Windsor Free Festival organiser Bill 'Ubi' Dwyer, Rawle was himself jailed for three months in 1975 to prevent him publicising that year's festival.
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