Sandra Burchill
An Unlikely Socialist
Echo Books, 2022
Vilified as a ‘traitor’. Branded ‘a fanatical Feminist’. Praised as ‘a man of courage’.
This highly readable book examines an overlooked pioneer of British and Australian socialism and women’s suffrage, together with individual portraits of five significant women who help unravel the paradox of his life.
At first blush, Henry Hyde Champion was the very antithesis of a socialist. A descendent of Scottish nobility, his family traced their origins to Hereditary Sheriffs of the Norman Conquest. Schooled at Marlborough College, he entered the Royal Regiment of Artillery at Woolwich and, like his father before him, was commissioned into the British Army. He served in India and Afghanistan and a promising career beckoned.
On leave in England, a friend took him to see the overcrowded and squalid slums of London’s East End. He resigned his commission and became a founding member of the Social Democratic Federation. His radical activities led to the Trafalgar Square Riots and the Great London Dock Strike. Disillusioned after his wife’s death during his trial, he became a thorn in the side of radicals when he demanded the creation of a new, independent party that would work for the interests of labour.
About the Author
Sandra Burchill is a literary scholar and university administrator who retired from the role of Executive Officer to the Rector, UNSW Canberra, in 2018. Burchill holds the distinction of being the first female to be awarded a PhD from UNSW Canberra (1988), for her thesis on the novelist Katharine Susannah Prichard.
Prior to and following her doctoral project, Burchill worked for 20 years in the private sector and in various higher education administrative roles in Australia and overseas, including the University of Qld, James Cook University and the Australian National University, before returning to UNSW Canberra.
Whilst a UNSW student Burchill was an assistant to the eminent academic, scholar, critic, writer and poet Dorothy Green, undertaking research for several literary articles and Green’s collection of critical essays, The Music of Love. Ringwood: Penguin, 1984.
