Sweetlove, Tom (1879-1964)

Born in 1879, Thomas Sweetlove was to marry Mary, niece of the Tolstoyan publisher C.W. Daniel, and a suffragist active in the Women’s Freedom League, and who was later involved with her uncle’s publishing venture.. He was a member of the Anarchist Education League, founded in 1913, alongside Mabel Hope and Fred Dunn, but, according to Heiner Becker, dropped out of it before 1918 in a ‘fit of depression’.

In 1916, he appeared as an objector to military service before the Southend Tribunal. He was described as an accountant and auditor, aged 37, and residing at 1, Grange Gardens, Southend.

He informed the Tribunal that ‘he could not undertake combatant non-combatant service, as by undertaking non-combatant service would be guilty of being an accessory to the fact. He was of the opinion that the Government should not allow fighting. The Tribunal were not satisfied as to his conscientious objection and dismissed him’. He told the chairman of the Tribunal that he had held anti-war views since the Boer War. He also informed the Tribunal that he had no religious views, but was a member of the No-Conscription Fellowship'. 'He was opposed to all forms of militarism, whether Prussian or English.’
Called back by the Tribunal, he was asked if he would take on work of national importance, and he rejected this, saying that would mean that he would recognise the Military Service Act. The Tribunal decided that he should take non-combatant service unless within a period of days he obtained work of national importance. He agreed to this, otherwise he stated that he would go into the Army as a ‘resisting conscientious objector’. (Southend Standard and Essex Weekly Advertiser, September 28th, 1916).

In 1923-1924 he was involved with Germinal, 'a monthly magazine of modernity’, edited anonymously by Sylvia Pankhurst, which was described as a literary magazine for working people, offering “Good Stories, Pictures, Poetry & Reviews". Only two issues appeared.

In 1925 he was treasurer of the British Committee for the Defence of Russian Revolutionists imprisoned in Russia, working alongside Emma Goldman. He and Mary were the witnesses at the wedding of Emma Goldman and James Colton.

Apart from these activities, Sweetlove was a poet, writing in Ido, a reformed version of Esperanto. His works included Koro-kanti e kansoni en Ido, (choir songs and songs in Ido) , 1927; Probo-flugi sur Pegazo, (Attempt to fly on Pegasus), 1928; and Al modern yunino, (To the modern girl), 1928. He also wrote, in English, Sonnets and songs, of liberty, of love, of life, published in 1961.

He died at Southend General Hospital on 25th September, 1964; according to the Belgian Ido poet Andreas Juste, as a result of a road accident. He was then residing at Oprodan, The Chase, Rochford, Essex, which had been the home of CW Daniel until his death in 1955.