Whiteway Colony is a

residential community A residential community is a community, usually a small town or city, that is composed mostly of residents, as opposed to commercial businesses and/or industrial facilities, all three of which are considered to be the three main types o ...

in the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds ( ) is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedroc ...

in the parish of Miserden near

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Sited below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

, United Kingdom. The community was founded in 1898 by

Tolstoyan The Tolstoyan movement () is a social movement based on the philosophical and religious views of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Tolstoy's views were formed by rigorous study of the ministry of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on the ...

s and today has no spare land available with over sixty homes and 120 colonists. At the beginning,

private property Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental Capacity (law), legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which is owned by a state entity, and from Collective ownership ...

was rejected and

personal property Personal property is property that is movable. In common law systems, personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In civil law (legal system), civil law systems, personal property is often called movable property or movables—a ...

shared; however, today the colonists' homes are privately owned and sold at market value. As the colony abandoned Tolstoy's philosophy it has been regarded by many, including

Mohandas Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British ...

who visited in 1909, as a failed Tolstoyan experiment.

History

The colony was set up in 1898 by a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

journalist, Samuel Veale Bracher, along with other Tolstoyans. Bracher purchased along with seeds, tools, materials and provisions. The colonists then burnt the property deeds on the end of a pitchfork in a symbolic rejection of the notion of

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

. Aylmer Maude led the founding board of trustees for the colony. According to Maude, the story by Leo Tolstoy that inspired the commune settlers to come together and found their colony was ''" Walk in the Light While There is Light"''. The early settlers had utopian socialist ideals, sharing provisions and going back-to-the-land. The founding colonists numbered about eight but over time the community rose to forty with anyone welcome. However Bracher, his family and other founders left the colony soon afterwards as they became increasingly frustrated with the other residents' idleness. Early life in the colony was spartan with some residents using a barn as shelter - piped water did not arrive until 1949 and

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

not until 1954. The site was originally open land surrounding Whiteway House but is now heavily wooded and home to a collection of mainly wooden buildings - as no one owns the land, mortgages could not be obtained so people had to build their own houses. A court ruling in 1955 established that nobody owns the legal title for the land. A communal hall was built by residents in 1924 to house social activities and a school, and a swimming pool was built in 1969. Whiteway Colony is still in existence today and houses, among others, descendants of its original settlers. Though it no longer has an explicitly

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

character, today's residents are aware, and proud, of its origins. Traces of them run through the community still, the best examples being the continued use and maintenance of communal facilities (hall, swimming pool and playing field). In addition, the governance of the community is still done by a general meeting of its residents. Over the years residents have included immigrant

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

s and

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s from the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

, as well as co-operative ventures such as Protheroe's Bakery, the Cotswold Co-operative Handicraft guild and the Co-operative Gardening Group. For a period the anarchist newspaper ''

Freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

'' was produced here by Thomas Keell.

References

External links

Utopia BritannicaGeorge Walford: Review of ''Whiteway Colony, the social history of a Tolstoyan community'' by Joy Thacker
{{authority control 1898 establishments in the United Kingdom Intentional communities in the United Kingdom Populated places established in 1898 Stroud District Tolstoyan movement Utopian communities Villages in Gloucestershire

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links