Clarion movement
The Clarion movement was more a loose affiliation of like-minded organisations than an organised movement. First came The Clarion newspaper, founded by Robert Blatchford and a group of friends and family in 1891. This inspired the setting up in 1895 of the National Clarion Cycling Club with the aim of combining the founders’ love of cycling with their love of socialism. The Scout was also launched in 1895 to promote, and report on, the activities of the different Clarion groups (of which there were many), and to provide activists with information which would assist them in “making Socialists”. Together with the political and social welfare work, the Scout covered the camera clubs, the field studies and the drawing groups, and each issue had a song sheet insert. The Clarion also published a series of Clarion pamphlets giving a socialist perspective on a variety of subjects.
The library has a collection of Clarion movement publications including issues of The Scout, Clarion Cycling Club handbooks and Clarion pamphlets. We also have a collection of Sheffield Clarion Ramblers handbooks dating back to 1915. And if you want to visit the library to look at the material you could even sit on a Clarion Club chair to do so!
National Clarion Cycling Club archive
The also library holds the National Clarion Cycling Club’s archive. The collection is mainly paper based and gives a fascinating insight into the workings of the club through its meeting minutes and papers, correspondence, reports etc. But it does also contain Easter Meet ribbons and photographs and complements our existing Clarion Cycling Club material. For example, the archive details the races put on by the club and the trophies handed out and by co-incidence the library already had an early Manchester Clarion Cycling Club silver trophy for the annual 10-mile time trial championship in the collection.
The races were hotly contested and even sometimes attracted controversy. A selection of the 1955 correspondence shows an allegation against the third-place rider in a race of ‘pacing’ in contravention of the race rules. The allegations were thoroughly investigated, and the complaint was not upheld and the result stood.
Several notable figures have been involved in the National Clarion Cycling Club. The logo of the Club was designed by the noted socialist artist Walter Crane who also proved cartoons for the general Clarion movement paper The Clarion.
Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst joined the Manchester Clarion Cycling Club in 1896 and the collection includes a transcript of an article Sylvia wrote for The Clarion in March 1931 describing her time as a Clarion cyclist.
Beryl Burton, the champion cyclist who reputedly offered a male cyclist a liquorice allsort as she passed him on her way to setting the 12-hour time trial record in 1967 (the record was not broken by a man until 1969!), was a guest of honour at the Heanor section annual dinners in 1969 and 1971 and the archive holds the menu and programme for both events.
The hero of the Kinder Mass Trespass, Benny Rothman, was also a Clarion cyclist and the library has several taped interviews with him where he talks about the Club.
And of course, Bury Clarion Cycling Club can boast that they fostered the careers of the now professional cyclist Yates twins. Adam and Simon were already winning trophies with the club whilst still in their early teens and the national Club magazine Boots and Spurs makes mention of their accomplishments.
Finally, an existing part of the Clarion Cycling Club collection are two scrapbooks from the Bolton Clarion Cycling Club which contain press cuttings, photographs, ephemera and race programmes. Unfortunately, one is too fragile to be handled, but an electronic copy is available to be viewed via our online catalogue at https://wcml.org.uk/the-collection/catalogue/search-the-catalogue/ where you can also search for our other Clarion related material.
You may also be interested to know that the National Clarion Cycling Club is still active today and their website is at www.clarioncc.org