Colin Ward | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 11 February 2010 | (aged 85)
Occupation |
|
Notable work | Anarchy in Action (1973) |
Movement | Anarchism |
Spouse(s) | Harriet Unwin (m. 1966) |
Colin Ward (14 August 1924 – 11 February 2010)[1] was a British anarchist writer and editor. He has been called "one of the greatest anarchist thinkers of the past half century, and a pioneering social historian."[2]
Life
Ward was born in Wanstead, Essex, into a family of Labour Party supporters. After leaving school, he worked for architect Sidney Caulfield before being conscripted and posted to Scotland. As a supporter of the radical journal War Commentary, he was a witness at the trial of its editors, John Hewetson, Vernon Richards and Philip Sansom in 1945.[1]
He continued to work as an architect after the war.[1] He also edited the British anarchist newspaper Freedom from 1947 to 1960, and was the founder and editor of the monthly anarchist journal Anarchy from 1961 to 1970.[3]
Until 1961, Ward worked as an architect. In 1971, he became the Education Officer for the Town and Country Planning Association. He published widely on education, architecture and town planning. His most influential book was The Child in the City (1978), about children's street culture. From 1995 to 1996, Ward was Centennial Professor of Housing and Social Policy at the London School of Economics.[4]
In 2001, Ward was made an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University.[5]
Thought
Anarchism
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Anarchism |
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Ward's philosophy aimed at removing authoritarian forms of social organisation and replacing them with self-managed, non-hierarchical forms. This is based upon the principle that, as Ward put it, "in small face-to-face groups, the bureaucratising and hierarchical tendencies inherent in organisations have least opportunity to develop".[6]
Anarchism for Ward is "a description of a mode of human organization, rooted in the experience of everyday life, which operates side by side with, and in spite of, the dominant authoritarian trends of our society".[7] In contrast to many anarchist philosophers and practitioners, Ward holds that "anarchism in all its guises is an assertion of human dignity and responsibility. It is not a programme for political change but an act of social self-determination".[8]
Education
Colin Ward in his main theoretical publication Anarchy in Action (1973) in a chapter called "Schools No Longer" "discusses the genealogy of education and schooling, in particular examining the writings of Everett Reimer and Ivan Illich, and the beliefs of anarchist educator Paul Goodman. Many of Colin’s writings in the 1970s, in particular Streetwork: The Exploding School (1973, with Anthony Fyson), focused on learning practices and spaces outside of the school building. In introducing Streetwork, Ward writes, "[this] is a book about ideas: ideas of the environment as the educational resource, ideas of the enquiring school, the school without walls...”. In the same year, Ward contributed to Education Without Schools (edited by Peter Buckman) discussing 'the role of the state'. He argued that "one significant role of the state in the national education systems of the world is to perpetuate social and economic injustice"".[9]
In The Child in the City (1978), and later The Child in the Country (1988), Ward "examined the everyday spaces of young people’s lives and how they can negotiate and re-articulate the various environments they inhabit. In his earlier text, the more famous of the two, Colin Ward explores the creativity and uniqueness of children and how they cultivate 'the art of making the city work'. He argued that through play, appropriation and imagination, children can counter adult-based intentions and interpretations of the built environment. His later text, The Child in the Country, inspired a number of social scientists, notably geographer Chris Philo (1992), to call for more attention to be paid to young people as a 'hidden' and marginalised group in society."[9]
Bibliography
- Talking Green (2012)
- Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: The Colin Ward Reader (edited by Damian F. White and Chris Wilbert) (2011)
- Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction (2004)
- Cotters and Squatters: The Hidden History of Housing (2004)
- Talking Anarchy (with David Goodway) (2003)
- Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard (with Peter Hall) (1999)
- Reflected in Water: a Crisis of Social Responsibility (1997)
- Havens and Springboards: The Foyer Movement in Context (1997)
- Stamps: Designs For Anarchist Postage Stamps (illustrated by Clifford Harper) (1997)
- Talking to Architects (1996)
- New Town, Home Town (1993)
- Freedom to Go: After the Motor Age (1991)
- Influences: Voices of Creative Dissent (1991)
- Talking Houses: 10 Lectures (1990)
- Undermining the Central Line (with Ruth Rendell) (1989)
- Welcome, Thinner City: Urban Survival in the 1990s (1989)
- The Allotment: Its Landscape and Culture (with David Crouch) (1988)
- The Child in the Country (1988)
- A Decade of Anarchy (1961-1970) (1987)
- Chartres: the Making of a Miracle (1986)
- Goodnight Campers! The History of the British Holiday camp (with Dennis Hardy) (1986)
- When We Build Again: Let's Have Housing that Works! (1985)
- Arcadia for All: The Legacy of a Makeshift Landscape (with Dennis Hardy) (1984)
- The Child in the City (1978)
- Housing: An Anarchist Approach (1976)
- British School Buildings: Designs and Appraisals 1964-74 (1976)
- Tenants Take Over (1974)
- Utopia (1974)
- Vandalism (ed.) (1974)
- Anarchy in Action (1973)
- Streetwork: The Exploding School (with Anthony Fyson) (1973)
- Work (1972)
See also
References
- ^ a b c Ken Worpole, "Colin Ward", The Guardian, 22 February 2010. Retrieved 20 February 2022
- ^ Krznaric, Roman (27 February 2010). "Colin Ward – an obituary and appreciation of the chuckling anarchist". outrospection.org. Archived from the original on 21 September 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2010.
- ^ "Anglia Ruskin University". anglia.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 28 July 2008. Retrieved 13 July 2008.
- ^ "The Times & The Sunday Times". The Times.
- ^ "Anglia Ruskin University, profile". anglia.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 28 July 2008. Retrieved 13 July 2008.
- ^ « in small face-to-face groups, the bureaucratising and hierarchical tendencies inherent in organisations have least opportunity to develop », Colin Ward, Anarchism as a Theory of Organization, 1966.
- ^ Colin Ward, Anarchism as a Theory of Organization, Freedom Press, London, 1988, p. 14
- ^ Colin Ward, Anarchism as a Theory of Organization, Freedom Press, London, 1988, p. 143
- ^ a b Mills, S. (2010) 'Colin Ward: The ‘Gentle’ Anarchist and Informal Education’ at the encyclopaedia of informal education.
Further reading
- Crouch, David (2017). "Lived Spaces of Anarchy: Colin Ward's Social Anarchy in Action". In Ferretti, Federico; Torre, Gerónimo Barrera de la; Ince, Anthony; Toro, Francisco (eds.). Historical Geographies of Anarchism: Early Critical Geographers and Present-Day Scientific Challenges. Routledge. pp. 153–164. ISBN 978-1-315-30753-4.
- Goodway, David (2013). "The Anarchism of Colin Ward". In Worpole, Ken (ed.). Richer Futures: Fashioning a New Politics. Routledge. pp. 3–20. ISBN 978-1-134-06078-8.
- Paola, Pietro Di (2011). "'The man who knows his village' Colin Ward and Freedom Press". Anarchist Studies. 19 (2): 22–41. ISSN 0967-3393 – via Gale.
- Wilbert, Chris, and Damian F. White. Autonomy, solidarity, possibility: the Colin Ward reader. AK Press, 2011.
- Levy, Carl. Colin Ward: Life, Times and Thought. Lawrence & Wishart, 2013.
- Remembering Colin Ward (Five Leaves Press 2011)
- Richer Futures. Fashioning A New Politics (Earthscan, 1999)
- Goodway, David. Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. PM Press, 2012.
- Honeywell, Carissa. A British Anarchist Tradition: Herbert Read, Alex Comfort and Colin Ward. A&C Black, 2011.
- Levy, Carl. "Introduction: Colin Ward (1924-2010)." Anarchist Studies 19.2 (2011): 7–16.
- Goodway, David. "Colin Ward and the New Left." Anarchist Studies 19.2 (2011): 42–56.
- Price, Wayne (2015). "Colin Ward's Anarchism". Anarcho-Syndicalist Review. 63.
- White, Stuart. "Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism, and the anarchism of Colin Ward." Anarchist Studies 19.2 (2011): 92–104.
- White, Stuart. "Making anarchism respectable? The social philosophy of Colin Ward." Journal of Political Ideologies, 12:1 (2007): 11–28, DOI: 10.1080/13569310601095580
External links
- Colin Ward archive at RevoltLib
- Colin Ward, Anarchism as a Theory of Organization (1966)
- Colin Ward, Harmony through Complexity (1973)
- Daily Telegraph obituary, 29 March 2010
- Guardian obituary, 22 February 2010
- The Good Life of a Gentle Anarchist, Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, 19 February 2010
- Colin Ward, Pioneer of Mutualism
- Obituary at Outrospection.org Archived 21 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: The Colin Ward Reader
- Center for a Stateless Society on Ward
- Ward and Five Leaves publishers
- Ward and the Essex plotlanders, The Guardian, 7 March 2010
- Inveterate anarchist with a plan to put roofs over the rural poor, The Guardian, 10 July 2002
- Colin Ward interview by David Goodway
- A friendly market-anarchist view of Colin Ward, by an editor of Reason, 'the magazine of free minds and free markets'
- Anarchy in the UK? It could be the best government we’ve had, Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, 03 April 2015