Raymond Postgate | |
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 Postgate in April 1970 | |
| Born | 6 November 1896 Cambridge, England |
| Died | 29 March 1971(1971-03-29) (aged 74) Canterbury,Kent, England |
| Occupation |
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| Language | English |
| Parents | John Percival Postgate and Edith Allen |
| Relatives | Oliver Postgate(son) John Postgate(son) Margaret Cole(sister) |
Raymond William Postgate (6 November 1896 – 29 March 1971) was an English socialist, writer, journalist and editor, social historian,mystery novelist, and gourmet who founded theGood Food Guide. He was a member of thePostgate family.
Raymond Postgate was born inCambridge, England, the eldest son ofJohn Percival Postgate and Edith Allen. He was educated atSt John's College, Oxford, where, despite being sent down for a period because of his pacifism, he gained a First inHonour Moderations in 1917.
Postgate sought exemption from World War Imilitary service as aconscientious objector onsocialist grounds, but was allowed only non-combatant service in the army, which he refused to accept. Arrested by the civil police, he was brought before OxfordMagistrates' Court, which handed him over to the Army. Transferred toCowley Barracks, Oxford,[1] for forcible enlistment in theNon-Combatant Corps, he was within five days found medically unfit for service and discharged.[2] Fearful of a possible further attempt at conscription, he went "on the run" for a period. While he was in Army hands, his sisterMargaret campaigned on his behalf, in the process meeting the socialist writer and economistG. D. H. Cole, whom she subsequently married. In 1918 Postgate marriedDaisy Lansbury, daughter of the journalist andLabour Party politicianGeorge Lansbury, and was barred from the family home by hisTory father.[3]
From 1918, Postgate worked as a journalist on theDaily Herald, then edited by his father-in-law, Lansbury. In 1920, Postgate publishedBolshevik Theory, a book brought toLenin’s attention byH. G. Wells. Impressed with the analysis therein, Lenin sent a signed photograph to Postgate, which he kept for the rest of his life.[4] A founding member of the BritishCommunist Party (CPGB) in 1920, Postgate left theHerald to join his colleagueFrancis Meynell on the staff of the party's first weekly newspaper,The Communist. Postgate soon became its editor and was briefly a major propagandist for the communist cause, but he left the party after falling out with its leadership in 1922, when theCommunist International insisted that British communists follow the Moscow line. As such, he was one of Britain's first left-wing former communists, and the party came to treat him as an archetypalbourgeois intellectual renegade. He remained a key player in left journalism, however, returning to theHerald, then joining Lansbury onLansbury's Labour Weekly in 1925–1927.[5]
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Postgate published biographies ofJohn Wilkes andRobert Emmet and his first novel,No Epitaph (1932), and worked as an editor for theEncyclopædia Britannica.[6] In 1932, he visited the Soviet Union with aFabian delegation and contributed to the collectionTwelve Studies in Soviet Russia.[7] Later in the 1930s, he co-authored with his brother-in-law G. D. H. ColeThe Common People, a social history of Britain from the mid-18th century.
Postgate edited the left-wing monthlyFact from 1937 to 1939, which featured a monograph on a different subject in each issue.[8]Fact published material by several well-known left-wing writers, includingErnest Hemingway's reports on theSpanish Civil War,[9]C. L. R. James's 1938 "A History of Negro Revolt"[8] andStorm Jameson's essay "Documents".[10] Postgate then edited the socialist weeklyTribune from early 1940 until the end of 1941.[11]Tribune had previously been a pro-Soviet publication: however, the Sovietfellow travellers atTribune were either dismissed, or, in Postgate's words "left soon after in dislike of me".[12] Under Postgate's editorship,Tribune would express "critical support" for theChurchill government and condemn the Communist Party.[13]
Postgate'santi-fascism led him to move away from his earlier pacifism. Postgate supported theSecond World War and joined theHome Guard near his home in Finchley, London.[1][14] In 1942, he obtained a post as a temporary civil servant in the wartime Board of Trade, concerned with the control of rationed supplies, and he remained in the Service for eight years.[15] He continued his left-wing writings, and his question-and-answer pamphlet "Why You Should Be A Socialist", widely distributed among the returning military as the war ended, probably contributed significantly to the Labour Party's post-war landslide victory.
In the post-war period, Postgate continued to be critical of Russia underStalin, viewing its direction as an abandonment of socialist ideals.[16][17]
Always interested in food and wine, after World War II, Postgate wrote a regular column on the poor state of British gastronomy for the pocket magazineLilliput. In these, inspired by the example of a French travel guide calledLe Club des Sans Club, he invited readers to send him reports on eating places throughout the UK, which he would collate and publish. The response was overwhelming, and Postgate's notional "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Food", as he had called it, developed into theGood Food Guide, becoming independent ofLilliput and its successor,The Leader. TheGuide's first issue came out in 1951; it accepted no advertisements and still relied on volunteers to visit and report on UK restaurants.[18] As well as democratising ordinary eating out, Postgate sought to demystify the aura surrounding wine, and the flowery language widely used to describe wine flavours. His "A Plain Man's Guide To Wine" undoubtedly did much to make Britain more of a wine-drinking nation.[19] In 1965, Postgate wrote an article inHoliday magazine in which he warned readers againstBabycham, which "looks like champagne and is served in champagne glasses [but] is made of pears". The company sued for libel, but Postgate was acquitted, and was awarded costs. His distinctly amateur writings on both food and wine, though highly influential in Britain in their time, did not endear him to professionals in the catering and wine trades, who avoided referring to him; however, his activities were much appreciated in France, where in 1951 he had been made the first British "Peer of the Jurade of St Emilion".[20]
He continued to work as a journalist, mainly on the Co-operative movement's Sunday paper,Reynolds' News, and during the 1950s and 1960s published several historical works and a biography of his father-in-law entitledThe Life of George Lansbury.
Postgate wrote several mystery novels that drew on his socialist beliefs to set crime, detection and punishment in a broader social and economic context. His most famous novel isVerdict of Twelve (1940), his other novels includeSomebody at the Door (1943) andThe Ledger Is Kept (1953). (His sister and brother-in-law, the Coles, also became a successful mystery-writing duo.) After the death ofH. G. Wells, Postgate edited some revisions of the two-volumeOutline of History that Wells had first published in 1920.
Raymond Postgate died aged 74, on 29 March 1971; his wife Daisy committed suicide a month later.[21]
Postgate's younger son,Oliver Postgate, also a conscientious objector though in World War II, became a leading creator ofchildren's television programmes in the UK includingBagpuss,Ivor the Engine andThe Clangers. Oliver's brother was the microbiologist and writerJohn PostgateFRS.
| Media offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Editor ofThe Communist 1921–1922 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Editor ofTribune 1940–1941 | Succeeded by |
