Tanner, Jack, 1889-1965

"a young English engineer , with high cheek-bones and a thoughtful face." Quoted in Thorpe. W. The workers themselves

“Jack Tanner was an out-and-out syndicalist. He thought a political party was unnecessary although he agreed that the mass had to be led by the minority and the minority should get together.” J. T. Murphy

“Many of the " Freedom" Group Anarchists objected when I said that Tanner would not last the distance but would degenerate into the usual trade union leader.” Guy Aldred

Jack Tanner was born on 28th April 1889 in Whitstable. His father had a job as sports manager at Alexandra Palace, so Jack moved as a young boy to London. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to an engineering firm in Southwark, but tiring of this he joined the Merchant Navy and travelled around the world. He acquired the nickname of "Handsome Jack" because of his looks.

On his return he worked as a fitter and turner. He joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and became active in it, also joining the Social Democratic Federation. He read Kropotkin and became an anarchist, subsequently involving himself in syndicalist activity (he frequented the shop of the anarchist tailor James Tochatti in Hammersmith and may have first been introduced to anarchism by him).. He had a part in the foundation of the National Federation of Women Workers. During the 1910s he was active in the Industrial Syndicalist Education League, subsequently joining the Industrial Democracy League in 1913, and contributing regularly to its paper Solidarity, which first appeared as a fortnightly in September of that year, gradually taking more and more of an editorial role. He became a coordinator of anarchist meetings in London after a meeting in August 1911. He spoke regularly at anarchist pitches and was for a while a member of the anarchist group in Marylebone formed in 1912 after a series of anarchist open air meetings in Regents Park. His brother Percy, older by six years, was also heavily involved in anarchist communist activity in this period.

In a viciously biased article in the Fulham Chronicle of 28th June 1912, meetings of anarchist communists in Fulham and subsequent police attacks and prosecutions was depicted. "At length the Fulham police have been compelled to take definite action in regard to the frequent obstruction and disturbances at the "Anarchist meetings in North End Road. For some years past the members of a party calling themselves "Anarchist Communists have held meetings at the rear of St. John's Church." On 26th June, a meeting attended by 500, and addressed by Edward Roche, a house painter, and Bankhurst, were arrested, and together with two others fined, for insulting and disorderly language. A protest meeting took place the following evening, again attended by an audience of 500, where Roche said that the police had lied in court, and that the only disorder was from them. Inspector Emerick then warned Roche that the meeting must end, and he stepped down, to be replaced by Percy Tanner, "a regular North End-rend spouter", continued the meeting. He was then arrested, with the police attacking the crowd. The following day, in Fulham Police Court, the unfortunate Albert Grice, a 24 year old labourer, was sent down for two months hard labour, for hitting a policeman. He collapsed in the dock and cried out, "Oh, my poor mother!" Justice Fordham was keen to believe the lies of the police, rather than the testimony of Grice, who attested that he had been hit by the cop, and whilst on the ground, had been kicked by other policemen. Jack Tanner, described as "a respectably dressed young man wearing a navy blue suit" and as a "mechanical instrument maker" was bound over for 12 months, His brother had charges against him dismissed.

In December of that year, a Social Defence Committee was set up with Jack Tanner as secretary, with an address at the Morris Studio, 2 Adie-road, The Grove, Hammersmith. This was "to carry on a comprehensive agitation in defence of the right of political asylum, and freedom of expression and action, initiated by the arrest of the anarchist communist Pierre Ruff,in France, on the charge of writing an article in the paper Le Mouvement Anarchiste, inciting sabotage against the French war preparations. Three other syndicalists, who had printed off 100,000 copies of the article as a leaflet, were also arrested, whilst Henry Combes ( see the article A rose by any other name: a radical history of Manette Street, London, here at libcom), sought asylum in Britain.

In 1913 Jack Tanner was secretary of the Ettor-Giovannitti Protest Committee, to defend two Wobblies imprisoned in the USA, speaking alongside anarchist Errico Malatesta. Later in the same year, he was secretary and treasurer of the Malatesta Release Committee after the famous Italian anarchist was arrested by the British police. He was shortly replaced in this role by Guy Aldred.

Also in 1913 he chaired the first International Syndicalist Congress in London, attended by delegates from twelve countries. Interviewed by the Daily Mirror on that occasion, he was reported as saying: " " Syndicalists are preparing for revolution. It will undoubtedly come, and there will be fighting."

He was involved in the Amalgamation Committee movement. Around this time he met Will Lawther, down from Durham ( he was to take a similar trajectory to the right as Tanner- though speedier) and they both contributed to the anarchist paper The Voice of Labour. He also contributed regular Letters from London to La Vie Ouvriere, paper of the French syndicalist Confédération Générale du Travail. During World War One he worked as an engineer in the Paris suburbs and was active in the Confédération Générale du Travail. He returned to London in 1917 and worked at the Royal Aircraft factory in Farnborough.
The black American writer and activist Claude McKay mentions meeting him at the International Socialist Club in Shoreditch during the war, along with Aldred, George Lansbury, A.J. Cook, Sylvia Pankhurst, etc. The Club was located at 28 East Road off of City Road.

He wrote a pamphlet, The Social General Strike, in 1919. He became active in the Shop Stewards and Workers Committees Movement, and in 1920 attended the Second Congress of the Communist International in Moscow as one of its delegates. He expressed classic syndicalist views at the conference such as :“A number of those who are active in the shop stewards’ movement are not greatly concerned about the formation of the party, because they have been convinced from their experience in other parties that it was a loss of time to share in the work of such parties." He met Lenin there, and on his return joined the Communist Party, although his membership only lasted eight months. In this period he worked in activity for the expansion of the Red International of Labour Unions serving on its London District Committee (the London RILU, interestingly, produced a short-lived paper called Solidarity). After he left the CP he had an ambivalent attitude towards it. He was active within the National Minority Movement (a Communist Party front established in 1924 to work within the reformist trade unions) and served on its executive.

He obtained work at the Evening Standard and by 1930 was the London District Committee Organiser of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. He became its President in 1939 and served as such until 1953. He remained in an ambiguous relationship with the CP. He welcomed the Second World War enthusiastically. He saw eye to eye with the CP for the need for Joint Production Committees and economic planning in industry in the war years. His increasing right-wing trajectory saw him become President of the Trades Union Congress in 1954. After his retirement in that year he became director of the right-wing Industrial and Research Information Services (IRIS) which reported on and worked against Communist Party activities in the unions.

He died on 3rd March 1965.

Nick Heath

Sources
Dipaola, P. Italian anarchists in London 1870-1914
Quail, J, The slow burning fuse
Thorpe, W. The workers themselves: revolutionary syndicalism and international labour, 1913-1923
Mates, L. The syndicalist challenge in the Durham coalfield before 1914. PDF at
www.anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/.../ Mates%20Syndicalist%20challenge%20in%20the%20Durham%20c.