King Mob (Hibbert)

King Mob was an English radical group based in London during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Influences on the group included the Situationist International and the New York City group Black Mask / UAW/MF. It derived its name from Christopher Hibbert's 1958 book on the Gordon Riots of June 1780, in which rioters daubed the slogan "His Majesty King Mob" on the walls of Newgate Prison, after gutting the building.

Background

On 21 December 1967 Timothy Clark, Christopher Gray and Donald Nicholson-Smith were excluded from the Situationist International. Charles Radcliffe had resigned from the SI a couple of months before this. These four had constituted the English Section of the SI and subsequently formed King Mob with twin brothers David and Stuart Wise, who had recently arrived in London from Newcastle.

Activities

The group published five issues of its journal ''King Mob Echo'' as well as many posters and leaflets.

One of King Mob's first actions took place in April 1968. Members of the group, including one dressed in a gorilla costume and two in a pantomime horse outfit, led a procession of local people to Powis Square where the fences enclosing a private garden space were demolished in protest at a lack of play areas for children in the area. Several arrests followed, but the action resulted in further protests culminating in the local council purchasing the square for public use.

In December 1968, inspired by the New York-based Black Mask's "mill-in at Macy's", King Mob entered the Selfridges store in London, with one member, dressed as Father Christmas, attempting to distribute all of the store's toys to children. Police subsequently forced the children to return the toys. This action involved Malcolm McLaren who reputedly applied the group's situationist ideas in the promotion of the Sex Pistols.

King Mob also allegedly made plans for a series of other actions, including blowing up a waterfall in the Lake District, painting the poet Wordsworth's house with the words "Coleridge Lives", and hanging peacocks in Holland Park, London. However, none of the aforementioned plans were executed.

Graffiti attributed to King Mob was observed in many places, particularly in the Notting Hill area, including, "I don't believe in nothing - I feel like they ought to burn down the world - just let it burn down baby." The most celebrated graffiti attributed to King Mob was the slogan which was painted along a half-mile section of the wall beside the tube (railway) commuter route into London between Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park tube stations in west London:

:"Same thing day after day – tube – work – dinner – work – tube – armchair – TV – sleep – tube – work – how much more can you take? – one in ten go mad – one in five cracks up."

Legacy

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters claimed that the "Same Thing Day After Day" graffiti inspired the song "Time" which appeared on the group's 1973 ''Dark Side Of The Moon'' album.

In their book, ''Sex Pistols: The Inside Story'', Fred and Judy Vermorel assert that King Mob had a significant influence on the punk group:

King Mob was the inspiration for the principal character of the same name in the 1990s comic strip series ''The Invisibles'' by Grant Morrison.

An anthology of the original ''King Mob'' journal titled ''King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International''
was edited by Tom Vague and published by Dark Star and AK Press in 2000.

David and Stuart Wise continued to publish material under various guises including BM Bis, BM Blob and then the Revolt Against Plenty and Dialectical Butterflies websites.

See also

* Anti-art
* The Angry Brigade

References

Sources

* "The End of Music", a pamphlet written by David and Stuart Wise in the mid- to late-1970s and published in Glasgow. The text was later reprinted by AK Press in the 1990s as part of Stewart Home's book ''What is Situationism? A Reader''.
* ''King Mob. Nosotros, el Partido del Diablo'', Spanish compilation of King Mob texts, edited by La Felguera Ediciones in 2007
* ''The Situationist International in Britain: Modernism, Surrealism, and the Avant-Gardes'' (Routledge 2016)
* King Mob : A Critical Hidden History by David Wise, Stuart Wise and Nick Brandt (Bread and Circuses 2014)
* Lost Texts Around King Mob by Dave and Stuart Wise with contributions from Ronald Hunt, John Barker, Fred Vermorel, Chris Gray and Phil Meyler (BPC Wisebooks Series No. 1 2024 )
* Dialectical Butterflies: Ecocide, Extinction Rebellion, Greenwash and Rewilding the Commons - an Illustrated Dérive by and Stuart Wise (BPC Wiseebooks Series No. 2–12 March 2024)
* King Mob: The Negation and Transcendence of Art: Malevich, Schwitters, Hirst, Banksy, Mayakovsky, Situationists, Tatlin, Fluxus, Black Mask bt Dave and Stuart Wise (BPC Wiseebooks Series No. 3 2024)
* A Newcastle Dunciad 1966-2008: Recollections of a Musical and Artistic Avant Garde by Dave and Stuart Wise (BPC/Wisebooks Series No. 4)

Introduction by David Black to King Mob: The Negation and Transcendence of Art. By Dave and Stuart Wise

{{UK far left

Anti-consumerist groups
British artist groups and collectives
Underground culture
Situationist International
Newgate Prison