Freepedia is a series of free encyclopaedias. We currently specialize in history but we intend to branch out into other areas. This section is about H. V. Nevinson.

Henry Nevinson, the son of George Nevinson, a solicitor, was born in Leicester in 1856. He attended Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he came under the influence of the Christian Socialists. After university Nevinson moved to London where he worked at Toynbee Hall and lectured on history at Bedford College.

In 1897 Nevinson was appointed to the staff of the Daily Chronicle. Nevinson obtained a reputation as an outstanding journalist for his reports of the Boer War. He was also a crusading journalist and his work exposing slavery in Portuguese Angola, was eventually published as a book, A Modern Slavery (1906). Nevinson worked in Russia (1905-06) and India (1907-08) for the Manchester Guardian. He also reported on the Balkan War for the Daily Chronicle and contributed articles to The Nation.

Henry and his wife, Margaret Nevinson, were both supporters of the Women's Social and Political Union. After a dispute with Christabel Pankhurst in 1907, Margaret joined the Women's Freedom League. Later that year, Henry Nevinson, Laurence Housman, Henry Brailsford, and 37 others, formed the Men's League for Women's Suffrage. Two years later, Nevinson and Brailsford both resigned from the Daily News when the editor refused to condemn forcible feeding.

Nevinson disagreed with the decision of the WSPU and the NUWSS to abandon the campaign for the vote during the First World War. Understandably rejected by the government as one of the six official war correspondents, Nevinson still went to the Western Front to report the war. He also accompanied the expedition to the Dardanelles where he was wounded during the Gallipoli landings. His account of the evacuation of Sulva Bay in December 1915, was held up by the censor for four months.

The father of the artist, Christopher Nevinson, Nevinson wrote over 30 books including Women's Vote and Men (1913), Essays in Freedom and Rebellion (1921) and three volumes of autobiography, Changes and Chances (1925-28). Margaret Nevinson died in 1932 and the following year Henry married the family friend, Evelyn Sharp. Henry Nevinson, who in 1939 became President of the Council for the Defence of Civil Liberties, died in 1941.

Forum Debate: Men's League for Women's Suffrage

 

H. W. Nevinson: Guardian

Wikipedia: H. W. Nevinson

H. W. Nevinson: Spartacus Educational

Forum Debates

War Propaganda Bureau

H. W. Nevinson

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(1) Philip Gibbs, The Pageant of the Years (1946)

My friend Henry W. Nevinson, always the defender of liberty, always a man of fearless courage, allied himself with the women's cause and marched with them when they advanced to the House of Commons, or spoke for them when they held meetings at Caxton Hall.

I was at the Albert Hall where the Suffragettes kept up constant interruptions of a big meeting where Cabinet Ministers were present. Nevinson's blood boiled when he saw one of the stewards clench his fist and give a knock-out blow on the chin to one of the militant women. Other women were being roughly handled. Nevinson jumped from the stage box, and fought half a dozen stewards at once until they over-powered him and flung him out.

 

(2) In The Nation H. W. Nevinson complained about the restraints placed on him while journalists such as Philip Gibbs and Hamilton Fyfe continued to report the war without official permission (12th September, 1914)

I have served as a correspondent for nearly twenty years in many countries and under all sorts of conditions. I think I know all the tricks of the trade, and I have seen many of them practised. But I cannot foresee how any correspondent could give away his country or do the smallest public injury under these regulations, even if he wanted to. Take things as they stand. Twelve of us have been selected to accompany the British Force. It is absolutely impossible to imagine men of this experience and quality giving away our country or making dangerous revelations or mistakes, even if they stood under no regulations at all. They simply would not do it. They would rather die.

We have all engaged servants, bought horses, and weighed our kit. Everything is ready, and yet we are kept chafing here, week after week, while a war for the destiny of the world is being fought within a day's journey, and others of our colleagues are allowed to go dashing about France in motors almost up to the very front. I do not make light of their splendid courage and resource. I can only envy their opportunities. The vivid pictures they send of panic and destruction, the stories they learn from wounded and refugees, are the only accounts that the British people have been allowed to hear of the reality of the war.

 

(3) H. W. Nevinson, The Daily News (12 March, 1915)

In the old days the war correspondent's rule was to ride as hard as possible to the sound of the guns. But now he moves under orders and goes by motor. It used to be said in irony that no action could begin till he came up. But now his presence is not exactly demanded, though I think the chief fear is lest the car should be a single moment delay the movement of reinforcements along the road.

 

(4) H. W. Nevinson, The Manchester Guardian (14th April, 1916)

After the strain of carefully organised preparations, the excitement of the final hours was extreme, but no signs of anxiety were shown. Would the sea remain calm? Would the moon remain veiled in a thin cloud? Would the brigades keep time and place? Our own guns continued firing duly till the moment for withdrawal came. Our rifles kept up an intermittent fire, and sometimes came sudden outbursts from the Turks.

Mules neighed, chains rattled, steamers hooted low, and sailor men shouted into megaphones language strong enough to carry a hundred miles. Still the enemy showed no sign of life or hearing, though he lay almost visible in the moonlight across the familiar scene of bay and plain and hills to which British soldiers have given such unaccustomed names.

So the critical hours went by slowly, and yet giving so little time for all to be done. At last the final bands of silent defenders began to come in from the nearest lines. Sappers began to come in, cutting all telephone wires and signals on their way. Some sappers came after arranging slow fuses to kindle our few abandoned stores of biscuits, bully beef, and bacon left in the bends of the shore.

Silently the staffs began to go. The officers of the beach party, who had accomplished such excellent and sleepless work, collected. With a smile they heard the distant blast of Turks still labouring at the trenches - a peculiar instance of labour lost. Just before three a pinnace took me off to one of the battleships. At half-past three the last-ditchers put off. From our familiar northern point of Suvla Bay itself, I am told, the General commanding the Ninth Army Corps was himself the last to leave, motioning his chief of staff to go first. So the Sulva expedition came to an end after more than five months of existence.

 

(5) H. W. Nevinson, The Daily News (10th August, 1918)

I have spent much of the day from early morning until noon walking over parts of the battlefield; having first the extraordinary experience of being able to pass in a motor-car not only over what yesterday was No Man's Land, but over the trenches of the front German system, and from my seat in the car look down on the enemy dead below. When the road became impassable by reason of the shell-holes made by our guns one could stray at large over the great deserted plain, while the guns thudded intermittently and our aeroplanes wheeled overhead.

 

 

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