Thomas Spence

Spence, Thomas (1750-1814). Artisan radical reformer and bookseller from Newcastle whose ‘Plan’ argued that all land should be publicly owned. Local hostility and personal misfortune in 1787 caused him to move to London, and from 1792 he was an active member of the London Corresponding Society. His numerous radical pamphlets and token coins attracted government attention, and he was arrested and imprisoned in 1792, 1794, 1798, and 1801. Spence originally hoped to effect his plan by education, and indeed advocated language reform.

Scottish journalist and scholar of the occult who took a particular interest in the Atlantis theme. Born November 25, 1874, in Forfarshire, Scotland, he was educated privately and at Edinburgh University before following a journalistic career. He was copy editor of the newspaper The Scotsman, (1899-1906), editor of The Edinburgh Magazine (1904-05), and copy editor of The British Weekly (1906-09). About this time he took to serious study of mythology and folklore, with special reference to Mexico and Central America. He published some important books on the subject, including his own study of The Popul Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Quiché Indians of Maya (1908) and A Dictionary of Mythology (1910).

He also published more than 40 other works dealing with mythology, folklore, and the occult, including the Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920) the first comprehensive work of its kind and ultimately one of the primary sources of this Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology.

He contributed articles to the Hibbert Journal, the Glasgow Herald, and The Times. An ardent Scottish nationalist, he contested North Midlothian as a candidate in 1929. He also found time to write romantic poetry. He was a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and was vice president of the Scottish Anthropological and Folklore Society. In 1951 he was awarded a royal pension for services to literature.

He is best known, perhaps, for his books exploring the Atlantis myth. He also edited the journal Atlantis Quarterly in 1932. His Magic Arts in Celtic Britain (1945) was used extensively in the early years of the modern neo-pagan witchcraft revival. He died March 3, 1955.

Sources:

Spence, Lewis. Atlantis in America. London: E. Benn, 1925. Reprint, Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1972.

——. British Fairy Origins. London: Watts, 1946.

——. The Fairy Tradition in Britain. London; New York: Rider, 1948.

——. The History of Atlantis. 1926. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1968.

——. The Magic and Mysteries of Mexico. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1930.

——. The Occult Causes of the Present War. N.p., 1940.

——. The Occult Sciences in Atlantis. London: Rider, 1943. Reprint, New York: S. Weiser, 1970.

——. The Problem of Atlantis. 1924. Reprinted as Atlantis Discovered. New York: Causeway Books, 1974.

——. The Problem of Lemuria. London: Rider, 1932.

——. Scottish Ghosts and Goblins. N.p., 1952.

——. Second Sight: Its History and Origins. London; New York: Rider, 1951.

——. Will Europe Follow Atlantis? N.p., 1942.

For the American Congressman, see Thomas Ara Spence.

Thomas Spence.

Thomas Spence (June 21, 1750 – September 8, 1814) was a Radical democrat^{[citation needed]} and advocate of the common ownership of land. He was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England and was the son of a Scottish net and shoe maker.

A dispute in connection with common land rights at Newcastle impelled him to the study of the land question. His scheme was not for land nationalization but for the establishment of self-contained parochial communities, in which rent paid to the Parish (wherein the absolute ownership of the land was vested) should be the only tax of any kind. His ideas and thinking on the subject were shaped by a variety of economic thinkers, including his personal friend Charles Hall.

His pamphlet, The Real Rights of Man, which was first hawked in Newcastle under a different title in 1775, appeared in London in 1793. It was reissued by Henry Hyndman under the title of The Nationalization of the Land in 1795 and 1882. In the pamphlet, he developed "Spencean Philanthropy."

• All land would be held in common by each parish
• Profits from the rents were to be used to support the administration, public libraries and schools of the area
• Each parish would choose a representative for a national assembly
• Every adult male would be a member of the militia

Spence later left Newcastle for London, where he kept a book-stall in High Holborn. In 1784 he spent six months in Newgate Gaol for the publication of a pamphlet distasteful to the authorities, and in 1801 he was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for seditious libel in connection with his pamphlet entitled The Restorer of Society to its Natural State. He died in London on 8 September 1814.

His admirers formed a "Society of Spencean Philanthropists," of which some account is given in Harriet Martineau's England During the Thirty Years' Peace. ^[1] The African Caribbean activists William Davidson and Robert Wedderburn were drawn to this political group.

Spence explored his political and social concepts in a series of books about the fictional Utopian state of Spensonia.

Contents 1 Selected Publications 1.1 Periodicals 2 References 3 External links

Selected Publications

• The Real Rights of Man (1793)
• End of Oppression (1795)
• Riqhts of Infants (1797)
• Constitution of Spensonia (1801)
• The Important Trial of Thomas Spence (1807)

Periodicals

• Pig’s Meat (1793-5)
• The Giant-Killer (1814)

References

1. ^ See also Davenport, Life, Writings and Principles of Thomas Spence (London, 1836)

• Bonnett, Alastair (2007) The Other Rights of Man: The Revolutionary Plan of Thomas Spence. History Today 57(9):42-48.
• O. Rudkin, Thomas Spence and His Connections (1927).
• T. M. Parssinen, "Thomas Spence and the Spenceans: a Study of Revolutionary Utopianism in the England of George III" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1968).
• T. M. Parssinen, "The Revolutionary Party in London, 1816–201", Historical Research 45 (2007) 266 - 282 doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.1972.tb01466.x

External links

• The Thomas Spence Society
• Thomas Spence, The Real Rights of Man, 1775.
• M. Beer, ed., The Pioneers of Land Reform: Thomas Spence, William Ogilvie, Thomas Paine, 1920.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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