Housmans
Housmans is a bookshop in London, England, and is one of the longest-running radical bookshops in the United Kingdom. The shop was founded by a collective of pacifists in 1945 and has been based in Kings Cross, since 1959. Various grassroots organisations have operated from its address, including the Gay Liberation Front, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and London Greenpeace. Housmans shares its building with its sister organisation Peace News.
The bookshop
Housmans' not-for-profit shop specialises in books on feminism, anarchism, anti-racism, anti-fascism, LGBTQIA+ politics, socialism, and nonviolence. It also stocks radical and socially engaged fiction, children's books, graphic novels, magazines, zines, and poetry alongside new and second-hand books, Housmans stocks cards, calendars, White Poppies, and merchandise from Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. An online store was launched in March 2010.Housmans is managed by a trust and is a National Living Wage employer.
Reading groups
Current book groups include Housmans' Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club, Housmans' Queer Book Club, the Fuse Book Club, and Self-care as an act of warfare: a Black women's reading group.Peace Diary
Housmans launched its first Peace Diary in 1953. The diaries are published annually and include an international peace directory listing more than 1,400 organisations around the world.Live events
Regular live events are hosted at Housmans including panels, book readings, and musical performances. These are streamed on Housmans' YouTube channel and include appearances from Naomi Klein, Emma Dabiri, and John Sinclair. Guests from the performing arts include Maxine Peake and Christopher Eccleston.Founders and pacifist origins
Housmans' origins began in the 1930s with key players in the British peace movement connected to the pacifist organisation Peace Pledge Union and one of its projects: the pacifist magazine Peace News.Temporary bookshops affiliated with the Peace Pledge Union existed as early as 1936 with one at 36 Ludgate Hill, London. By 1946 a bookshop was operating within the Peace Pledge Union headquarters at Dick Shepherd House, 6 Endsleigh Street in Bloomsbury, London, but its business lacked a shop window.
A plan for a permanent bookshop was envisioned by a key sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union, the pacifist author and playwright Laurence Housman. After World War II, Housman proposed a shop that would promote "ideas of peace, human rights and a more equitable economy by which future wars, and all their inherent suffering, might be avoided."
The name of Housmans was given to the bookshop in Laurence Housman's honour and its cofounders include staff and sponsors of the Peace Pledge Union and Peace News. Directors appointed to the original company limited guarantee include the pacifist writer Vera Brittain, London bookseller Llewelyn Kiek, and literary critic Hugh I'Anson Fausset. Further cofounders include Peace Pledge Union staffers John Barclay and Trefor Rendall Davies, and the business manager of Peace News, Harry Mister. Mister would go on to work as Housman's business manager until 1976.
Housmans is an anarchist bookshop.
History of the premises and business
Early days at Shaftesbury Avenue
The original Housmans bookshop was located at 124 Shaftesbury Avenue, London and opened for business on 26 October 1945. The building had been repaired after bomb damage.Attendees of the shop's opening ceremony included Laurence Housman, the anarchist author Herbert Read, editor of The New Statesman Kingsley Martin, the campaigner Irene Barclay, Howard Whitten, Patrick Figgis, Doris Figgis, Trefor Rendall Davies, Llewelyn Kiek, Hugh I’Anson Fausset, Harry Mister, Eileen Ager, Geoffrey Gilbert, Henry Rutland, Duncan Christie and John Barclay.
Endsleigh cards
In 1948, business manager Harry Mister launched Endsleigh Cards, named after the original street location of the Peace Pledge Union offices. Endsleigh Cards was a trading brand of Peace News and its greeting cards were stocked in Housmans.Loss of premises
In 1948, an increase in lease renewal costs prompted the Peace Pledge Union to close the physical shop and pass ownership of its trading name to the Peace News company. Housmans continued to trade as a mail-order bookselling business and lacked physical premises until 1958.Relocation to Kings Cross
In 1958, a freehold building at 5 Caledonian Road in Kings Cross was acquired after a £5,000 gift from Reverend Tom Willis of Hull and further donations from other Peace News supporters. Peace News moved into the 100-year-old building's upper floors, while Housmans resumed business on the lower floor.The renovated premises were opened by bookshop manager Dora Dawtry on 21 November 1959. In attendance were Vera Brittain, editor of Peace News Hugh Brock, British pacifist Myrtle Solomon, George Plume, Peace Pledge Union chairman Stuart Morris, Roy Fry of Pacifist Youth Action Group, Peace News trustee Ian Dixon, pacifist and suffragist Sybil Morrison, Harry Mister, Sue Mister, Val Mister, and Ivy Mister. Also in attendance was Reverend Tom Willis.
In 1961, Peace News and the Peace Pledge Union separated and Housmans remained associated with Peace News. The Peace News office continues to be located at Housmans and operates as a sister organisation.
Nuclear disarmament and the peace symbol
From the late 1950s and early 1960s, Housmans stocked material from organisations advocating nuclear disarmament including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Committee of 100.In 1958, artist and designer Gerald Holtom, presented early designs of the nuclear disarmament symbol within the Peace News office at Housmans' address. According to peace campaigner Michael Randle, Housmans business manager Harry Mister saw the peace symbol on Peace News leaflets and said: "What on earth were you, Pat and Hugh thinking about when you adopted that symbol? It doesn’t mean a thing and it will never catch on!" Peace News says that, "to his credit, for the rest of his life Harry was never to be seen without a badge bearing the symbol on his lapel."
The Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War were based in a small office in the building.
Bombings
1974 London pillar box bombings
At 5:50pm on 25 November 1974, an IRA bomb exploded in a pillar box outside Housmans as part of the London pillar box bombings. No injuries were sustained and the shop windows remained intact, but the explosion destroyed the Campaign Against Arms Trade first newsletter, which had been posted ten minutes prior to the incident. Peace News reported that the attack was one of several warning bombs that followed an announcement from then Home Secretary Roy Jenkins of emergency powers under Section 8 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974.1978 letter bomb
On 4 July 1978, the Peace News offices received a letter bomb. Housmans worker, Stewart Porte, was hospitalised for burns sustained to his face, hands, and chest. The letter bomb was alleged to have been from the neo-Nazi organisation Column 88. Similar attacks were made on the Socialist Workers Party and Anti-Nazi League offices in the months prior to the attack on Housmans.Housmans' address had received a threatening letter three months before the explosion. The letter read: "Watch out you're next" and its use of fascist symbols and the figure "88" led to further suspicions that Column 88 were responsible for the letter bomb. Housmans had alerted the police of this threat, but the police did not investigate until after the letter bomb had exploded at the bookshop.
1970s and 1980s gay liberation
Housmans has a long affiliation with the gay liberation movement whilst its cofounder, Laurence Housman, was openly homosexual. In the 1970s and 1980s Housmans was one of a few bookshops in the UK that permitted gay and lesbian literature on its shelves.Gay Liberation Front and Switchboard
The Gay Liberation Front's offices were located at 5 Caledonian Road in the 1970s. Graffiti from this era was discovered in Housmans' basement in 2020. Messages include: "Run your own Life", "Homosexuals Unite", and "Gay is good so don’t be scared to tell anybody".From 1974, The London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard was based on the premises for nearly 20 years. Switchboard volunteers on the premises included Mark Ashton and Mike Jackson, co-founders of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, and Switchboard's director Diana James, the first transgender person to join Switchboard. In her interview with the 5 Cally Road research project Diana James recalled a feminist protest outside Housmans against the bookshop's decision to stock On Our Backs, the first women-run erotica magazine and the first magazine to feature lesbian erotica for a lesbian audience in the United States.