“During the Second World War, there must have been more than a hundred community efforts up and down the country, each with their own little group of folk, each building their own Jerusalem. Their histories have not been written, but one day, diaries and journals might be available, and when they are, we can learn much of the effort and idealism poured out by groups of all kinds.”

‘Community Life’, Joe Watson, c.1949

The Essex Record Office is proud to announce the launch of a new archive that sheds light on one of Britain’s largest and longest-running pacifist communities: Frating Hall Farm, active from 1943 to 1954.

About Frating Hall Farm

Featured in Ken Worpole’s acclaimed book No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen (Little Toller Books, 2021), Frating Hall Farm was one of many pacifist communities established in Britain during the Second World War.

The origins of the community lay in the Adelphi Centre at Langham, which became a hub for socialist and pacifist thinkers in the 1930s under the leadership of the writers John Middleton Murry and Max Plowman. After the centre disbanded, a small party led by the charismatic Consett steelworker Joe Watson left to build ‘their own Jerusalem’ at Frating Hall Farm.

Over the next decade, the farm became a home, sanctuary, and gathering place for dozens of people, from those who lived and worked there to the many pacifists, refugees, writers, poets and musicians who visited. As member Leila Ward wrote in 1946, it was a place of ‘comradeship amongst the frozen cabbages’, which drew people together through their shared commitment to cultivating a new way of life on the land.

“From north, south, east and west we come to Frating… The politician is here and the intellectual; the musician and the poet; the worker and the-one-who wants-a-bit-of-a-push-now-and-then; in fact, we are a seemingly haphazard collection of individuals, with all the usual failings of humans and with their capacity for being great at odd times.”

Frating Hall Community (1949)

About the archive

The newly assembled archive gathers together a wide range of material, including:

• Frating Hall Farm Society reports, accounts and publications; a yearly record of the joys and challenges of managing the farm and the contributions of individuals involved
• Over 750 letters, offering an intimate window into the people and relationships that shaped the community, as well as their connections to the wider world
• Dozens of photographs, capturing everyday life at the farm in addition to the busy – and much-loved – calendar of festivals, celebrations, and performances
• Biographical writing, including the papers of Joe Watson
• Ken Worpole’s interviews with people who grew up in the community at Frating

Together, the archive offers a deeply personal insight into the lives of members of the community and the broader currents of pacifism, co-operative farming, and communal life in the mid-twentieth century.

“We wanted to found a pacifist, socialist and Christian community and demonstrate to the world that cooperation, and sharing could produce greater happiness and blessedness than individual strivings – that all you threw into the melting point would be returned to you sevenfold.”

Letter from Trevor Howard to his daughter Katherine, 1962

The archive includes contributions from the families of:

Joe and Doris Watson, whose papers span their early married life in County Durham in the 1930s to their time at Prested Hall, near Colchester, in the 1950s. Includes a significant collection of correspondence, with letters from John Middleton Murry, Frank Lea, Jack Common, Shirley Williams, and the composer William Wordsworth. Reference: D/DU 3663

Derek Crosfield and Marian Thomas, who met in the community and took over the management of the farm in the 1950s. Highlights include reports and letters from Frating Hall Farm Society, family photographs, and a detailed map of the farm. Reference: D/DU 3491

Trevor Howard and Enid Whitmore, a young couple who married at Frating in 1943 and raised their family there. Includes family photographs and over 50 letters between Trevor and Enid while Trevor was helping to establish the community. Reference: D/DU 3492.

Helen Johnson, a Cambridge student who volunteered at Frating during university holidays. Comprises 8 letters about her time at the farm in 1950, sent to her future husband Arthur Fox. Reference: D/DU 3493.

“Jeanne showed me up to my room after supper, a nice one only recently vacated by the marriage of its occupant, with a clean white cloth on the dressing table, a pot of geraniums in the window, a vase of sweet peas on the cloth and a ring bowl of some sort of red blossom with shiny dark green leaves on the other chest of drawers… It’s very pleasant to have a sort of second home to come to, even if one does have to work rather hard.”

Letter from Helen Johnson, 13 June 1950

Accessing the archive

You can search the Frating archive on our online catalogue, Essex Archives Online. The catalogue gives a description of each item in the archive and includes digital images of key reports and publications, as well as some photographs and letters.

Original material can be accessed in the searchroom at the Essex Record Office, on Wharf Road in Chelmsford. It is free to visit the searchroom and there is no need to book an appointment in advance, but you do need an Archives Card to order items to look at.

To find out more about visiting us, visit the Essex Record Office website: www.essexrecordoffice.co.uk

With thanks

The archive exists thanks to the generosity of the depositors – Pat Smith, Katherine Weaver, Martyn Thomas, and Andrew Fox – and the dedicated research and ongoing support of Ken Worpole.

It was catalogued by Rielly Kitchener, an MA Placement student funded by the University of Essex and the Friends of Historic Essex, and Essex Record Office volunteers.

“We have grown in stature and I believe our roots are taking firm hold in this plot of earth we call ours. Joy we have had in full measure, trials and tribulations to keep us humble, but also to bind us together. Children to comfort and plague us, new members to strengthen our bulwarks, old friends to be glad to join us – and good crops to maintain us.”

Doris Watson in ‘Three Years A-Growing’, 1946