The Clarion: newspaper and popular movement
In 1891 Robert Blatchford and several of his colleagues resigned from the staff of Manchester's Evening Chronicle. They wished to advocate socialism, something the Chronicle's proprietor was not so keen on.
They set up and launched a new paper they called the Clarion. An impromptu distribution network developed by its readers became the Clarion Cycling Club. The paper aimed not just to report events and advocate socialist solutions. Its readers groups formed clubs dedicated to leisure and educational pursuits. This led to a new monthly publication, The Scout, whose purpose was to support the activists of the cultural movement which its readers were developing. Included here are some articles from the Scout.
The Clarion movement thrived in the 1890s and early 1900s, but Blatchford's support for British militarism in the First World War disenchanted much of its readership. The paper was published until 1934 but after the war it never regained its significance as a creative force in the socialist movement.