Aylmer and Louise Maude: Translators of Tolstoys, Victorian Progressives, Fabians and Community Living

[rufuspollock]

Came across them by chance as translators of Tolstoy and his "Three Questions" short story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aylmer_and_Louise_Maude

Many of the British business people in late 19th century Russia prospered and were able to plan for early retirement; Aylmer Maude gave up his trading career before he reached 40. He, Louise, and family arrived in England in 1897 ready to live a different kind of life. At first the family stayed a short time in Croydon with the Brotherhood Church, a Tolstoyan group believing in co-operative ideals and non-violence. Their next home was in Essex at Wickham's Farm in Bicknacre, associated with the adjacent Brotherhood Church commune at Cock Clarks, Purleigh which they helped establish and to which they gave financial support[9] until it came to an end in 1899. At least two of their sons went to the Friends (Quaker) school at Saffron Walden.[10]

In 1898 Maude sailed from Liverpool to Quebec with representatives of the Doukhobors, a group supported by Tolstoy, who were persecuted in Russia for their beliefs and wanted to resettle in Canada. He confessed to the "un-Tolstoyan self-indulgence" of arranging a first-class cabin for himself. Maude wrote about this journey and the Doukhobors in Peculiar People (1904).

The Maudes soon moved to Great Baddow[11] near Chelmsford where they were members of the Fabian Society and co-operative movement. Aylmer was on the Fabian national executive from 1907–1912, lectured for the society, and wrote one of their pamphlets in association with George Bernard Shaw. His lecturing talents included a "pleasing smile, manly and unruffled demeanour" and a "beautiful voice" according to the writer William Loftus Hare, who also described him as a "lucid, confident, instructive, persuasive" speaker.[12]

Some years after leaving Wickham's Farm, Maude would express doubts about communal living, feeling it could only succeed with a strong leader or shared traditions, and he called the Purleigh commune a "queer colony."[13] "The really sad part of the Tolstoy movement was the terrible amount of quarrelling. . . ."[14]

Key points:

• Quaker background. Those Quakers are everywhere!
• Multiple [[Coliving]] experiments.

Especially noted that last paragraph:

Some years after leaving Wickham's Farm, Maude would express doubts about communal living, feeling it could only succeed with a strong leader or shared traditions, and he called the Purleigh commune a "queer colony."[13] "The really sad part of the Tolstoy movement was the terrible amount of quarrelling. . . ."[14]

Especially that point that

communal living ... could only success with a strong leader and shared traditions ....