Woolf Wess (also known as William Wess or William West; 1861
23 May 1946
) was an Anglo-
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
,
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
organizer, and newspaper editor notable for his involvement with the International Working Men's Educational Club and the
Freedom Press.
Before London
Wess was born in 1861 in
Ukmergė
Ukmergė (; previously ''Vilkmergė''; pl, Wiłkomierz) is a city in Vilnius County, Lithuania, located northwest of Vilnius, with a population of about 20,000.
Etymology and variant names
The city took its original name ''Vilkmergė'' from th ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
(now
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
), to a
Hasidic
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...
baker. At the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. He also worked as a factory machinist in Dvinsk (now
Daugavpils
Daugavpils (; russian: Двинск; ltg, Daugpiļs ; german: Dünaburg, ; pl, Dyneburg; see other names) is a state city in south-eastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city gets its name. The parts of the c ...
,
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
). In 1881, Wess immigrated to
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
to avoid military service.
Activities in London

After arriving in London, Wess joined the
Hackney branch of the
Socialist League and became one of the founders of the International Working Men's Educational Club, which was located at 40 Berner Street (now called
Henriques Street
The Whitechapel murders were committed in or near the largely impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London between 3 April 1888 and 13 February 1891. At various points some or all of these eleven unsolved murders of women have b ...
) in the
East End
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
. He later became its secretary and the overseer in the printing office there. In 1888, he was the first witness called at the inquest into the death of
Elizabeth Stride
Elizabeth "Long Liz" Stride ( Gustafsdotter; 27 November 1843 – 30 September 1888) is believed to have been the third victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated at least five women in the Whitecha ...
, a victim of
Jack the Ripper.
Wess became heavily involved in the local
labour movement
The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other.
* The trade union movement ...
and "
..played an important part in the Jewish trade-union movement in Britain. He helped to establish almost all of the Jewish unions in the 1880s and 1890s."
In one case, he was the secretary for the strike committee of a group of East London tailors during their strike from 27 August to 2 October 1889. As secretary, he ensured that the strikers and their families had their basic needs fulfilled by obtaining donations from philanthropists and other trade unions, including £100 from the dockers' union. The next year, Wess became the founding secretary of the East London Workers' Unions, later becoming the secretary of the International Tailors, Machinists and Pressers' Trade Union and the United Ladies' Tailors and Mantle Makers' Association. He also helped to set up a Jewish
cooperative
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
bakery on Brushfield Street in
Spitalfields
Spitalfields is a district in the East End of London and within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The area is formed around Commercial Street (on the A1202 London Inner Ring Road) and includes the locale around Brick Lane, Christ Church, ...
.
In the same year, he began to help in the typesetting of ''
Freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
'', an anarchist newspaper started in 1886. He became the manager of the
Freedom Press in 1891 and went on speaking tours alongside
Pyotr Kropotkin
Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (; russian: link=no, Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activ ...
,
Errico Malatesta
Errico Malatesta (4 December 1853 – 22 July 1932) was an Italian anarchist propagandist and revolutionary socialist. He edited several radical newspapers and spent much of his life exiled and imprisoned, having been jailed and expelled from ...
,
Louise Michel, and
Saul Yanovsky
Saul Yanovsky (1864–1939) was an American anarchist and activist. He is best remembered as the editor of the periodicals ''Freie Arbeiter Stimme'' (1890–1977), Arbeter Fraynd (1885-1914), '' Di Abend Tsaytung'' (1906) and the monthly literary ...
. When Yanovsky left for the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, he was briefly replaced by
Jacob Kaplan as the editor of ''
Arbeyter Fraynd
The Worker's Friend Group was a Jewish anarchist group active in London's East End in the early 1900s. Associated with the Yiddish-language anarchist newspaper ''Arbeter Fraint'' ("Worker's Friend") and centered around the German emigre anarchi ...
'' (''Worker's Friend''), a weekly
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
anarchist newspaper. Kaplan, however, was quickly replaced in October 1895 by the more experienced Wess.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Wess' participation in the Jewish trade union movement had been reduced. He took up a job as a bookkeeper in a tobacco factory and in 1904, he stayed with
Tom Keell
Thomas Henry Keell (24 September 1866 – 26 June 1938) was an English compositor who edited the anarchist periodical ''Freedom''. In 1907, he attended the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam, where he was hailed by Emma Goldman as " ...
, the compositor and new manager of ''Freedom''. In February 1906, Wess and
Lilian Wolfe
Lilian Gertrude Woolf, better known as Lilian Wolfe (22 December 1875 in London – 28 April 1974 in Cheltenham), was an English anarchist, pacifist and feminist. She was for most of her life a member of the Freedom Press publishing collec ...
(Keell's partner and another member of the ''Freedom'' publishing group), were setting up the Arbeyter Fraynd Club on Jubilee Street,
Whitechapel. By June of that year, he and
Rudolf Rocker were serving on another tailors' strike committee.
Wess spent 1928–1929 rebuilding the London Freedom Group, only for it to close down in 1931. By the late 30s, Wess had revived it again and had become involved in solidarity work for the
Spanish Revolution with
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
. By 1946, he was still active as a speaker within Jewish radical circles in London, making a speech to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the first publication of the ''
Freie Arbeiter Stimme'' (''Free Worker's Voice''
or ''Free Voice of Labor''). He died on 23 May of that year at the age of 84 and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. In his obituary, he was noted as an atheist, as a number of anarchists were at the time.
References
External links
Catalogue of Wess's archives held at the
Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wess, Woolf
1861 births
1946 deaths
British trade unionists
English anarchists
Jewish anarchists
Jewish atheists
Jewish anti-fascists
Lithuanian Jews
People from Ukmergė
Anarcho-syndicalists
Lithuanian emigrants to the United Kingdom