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Blogcd's in production ( 06 December 2008 ) Pleased to have finished the album About The Hammerman Alfred Williams (1877 – 1930) was a self taught classical scholar who became a nationally celebrated poet and writer .He grew up in the vicinity of Swindon, Wiltshire. His most famous work, Life in a Railway Factory (1915), is a unique account of life as a factory worker in the GWR works in Swindon . He wrote this at night after completing a gruelling days work in the steam hammer shop and was hence nicknamed ‘The Hammerman Poet’. Alfred was born in the village of South Marston, and grew up in poverty after his father abandoned his wife and eight children. . When he was only eight he became a 'half-timer', working part of the day on a farm and the rest at school, and left school altogether three years later to become a farm labourer. This suited his intense love of the countryside .At 15 years old , in search of a living wage, he entered Swindon railway works, where he worked in the Stamping Shop for the next twenty-three years. He Married Mary Peck in 1903,after a prolonged courtship, Mary’s parents did not approve of her marrying a factory worker. Alfred had a deep love of literature and was inspired by the countryside of Southern Central England. He pursued a demanding schedule of full-time work and private study, and taught himself Literature ,Greek , Latin and French while working at the forge. He often used to inscribe his furnace with Greek characters in an attempt to memorise vocabulary. He published his first of book of poems in 1909, Songs in Wiltshire. Despite initially thriving in the factory , and being an admired and respected worker , his health gradually declined. Although the poor conditions in the factory were partly to blame , it seems likely that the demanding self imposed schedule of learning ,and an obsessional creative drive were also to blame and he left the factory in 1914. His frank treatise on harsh working conditions made him unpopular with the GWR management , who publically admonished him and dismissed him as a disaffected misfit. History has judged otherwise, largely thanks to Alfred’s keen perception and expressive ability combined with the honest common sense attitude expressed in ‘Life in a Railway Factory’. Alfred did not identify with the Socialist worker’s movements of his time but was highly critical of the inhumanity and small mindedness of the GWR hierarchy. Ironically ,although his account is honest to the lived experience of the people around him, he shunned Socialism and voted Tory. Life in a Railway Factory remains to this day a key source for socialist historians and is considered to be ‘the most important literary work ever produced in Swindon, about Swindon’’ At the time, the town of Swindon, with a population of about 50,000, was almost entirely dependent on the railway works for its survival and prosperity. This enormous industrial complex then employed 12,000 people (almost all men), In 1914 , He was initially rejected as an army recruit due to his poor state of health, but was finally accepted for service in 1916, when he was transferred to India in order to prepare for service in Afghanistan. Although never called upon to fight he embraced the culture of the subcontinent, and taught himself Sanskrit , eventually translating classic Sanskrit poetic works into English. He returned from the war to South Marston ,with no job , no home and no prospects. Earlier literary successes had not earnt enough fame or fortune to sustain Alfred and Mary . He even had to go about acquiring bricks from a disused lock , in order to build his own house , which he named ‘Ranikhet’ after the hill village where he was stationed in India. His survival at this time was thanks to market gardening , from the produce grown on land to the rear of his house, and the charity of some of his aristocratic patrons. He was determined to archive the cultural heritage of the Upper Thames region , and set out to record for posterity, the songs and poems enjoyed by villagers in the region, which characteristically were never recorded in written form. Alfred Williams produced a total of thirteen books but died in poverty in 1930 in South Marston. He and his wife were childless . Only three weeks before his death , he had become nationally recognised once again , this time by the Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald , who awarded him a Civil List Pension. Sadly , he did not survive to receive any of it . This musical diversion does not aim to assess the impact and achievements of this unusual Wiltshire character, rather it is a tribute to a man who found inspiration in the rural environment which still surrounds us , who derived satisfaction and pride from a hard day’s work , and whose indomitable spirit and creativity in the face of adversity can be an inspiration to us all . He should not be forgotten , and through the medium of song I hope to keep his memory alive. John Cullimore Wanborough, Wiltshire December 2008 |
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 There
is a little surplus in the fund , and we intend to use this to help
with alterations to one of the internal courtyards in GWH in order
to transform it into the ‘Mother and Baby courtytard garden' |