1958: Commonweal was established as an independent, specialist library devoted to nonviolent social change.
David Hoggett (1929-1975) was born in Bristol, later moving to Cheltenham, where he worked in the public library on leaving school. In 1947, aged 18, he was conscripted for National Service. Although he reached the rank of sergeant, he had been interested in ideas of pacifism from his early teens and decided to leave the army after reading “The power of non violence‟ by Richard Gregg. He refused further service, becoming a conscientious objector, for which he was interned in Wormwood Scrubs and later at a tribunal electing to work in forestry.
After National Service, he joined the International Voluntary Service for Peace, helping in work camps in post-war Europe.
In 1952, David travelled to India, where he spent three years, the first two with IVSP and a further year building houses. India was to have a huge influence on David’s thinking and later life, in particular the “Bhoodan” land gift movement, based on the Gandhian ideal of “Sarvodaya”, a transformed society based on non-violence.
On returning from India in 1955, David trained as a carpenter, believing that practical skills were a way to achieve such transformation and using these skills on his holidays to work for IVSP in Europe.
In 1956, he was building homes for refugees in Austria, when he fell twenty feet from a roof onto a concrete floor, fracturing his fifth cervical vertebra. He nearly died. However, he recovered, paralysed from the chest down, with some feeling and movement in the right hand. After a year in hospitals, David was able to return to the family home in Cheltenham, where he learned to type using rods attached to his arms, and became involved in the local work of CND and of the Direct Action Committee. He also read widely and built up a fine collection of books, journals and pamphlets on peace and nonviolence, appealing to his wide circle of contacts to donate more to form this library. Alfred Heslegrave, another volunteer with IVSP, became his lifelong companion and carer.
In 1958, David’s work on behalf of refugees was recognised by award of the Nansen Medal by the United Nations Association. David, typically, accepted it on behalf of all who did such work.
In 1959, Garthnewydd Community House in Merthyr Tydfil was established by David and friends from the Fellowship of Friends of Truth as “an experiment in applying the social philosophy of M.K. Gandhi, that is, in nonviolent living”. With David and Alfred came the growing collection of books, now supplemented by the library of the FFT and further donations from friends in the UK and in India.
By 1960, the collection comprised 400 volumes, “primarily of value to those interested in Sarvodaya, pacifism, philosophy, world religions and mysticism”. David called the library “Commonweal”, which he considered to be the best English-language equivalent of “Sarvodaya”. Soon requests to use this resource were received from peace activists across the country, and a postal library service began to take shape, masterminded by David, who arranged cataloguing and classification and sought donations from writers and publishers.
Eventually the Garthnewydd community dispersed. David and the Collection moved with one of the families from the community to a cottage nearby, where he stayed for three years. He organised the library to run very effectively on minimal resources – running expenses were just £1 a week in 1963.
1963: The Commonweal Trust was established.
In 1963, David had the vision to look beyond his own lifetime to secure Commonweal’s long-term future by creating the Commonweal Trust to ensure the survival of the library and its Gandhian ethos when he could no longer run it. The original Trustees were David himself, his cousin April Carter, and two friends, Donald Groom and Devi Prasad. David later moved back to the family home in Cheltenham, where he devoted himself to the work of Commonweal.
In 1965, David received a “POSSUM” typewriter, which he operated at first by a suck-blow mechanism and later by a rod attached to his hand. This wonderful machine freed him from reliance on others to type for him. With the help of Alfred and volunteers, David managed the loan system, wrote detailed and helpful replies to enquirers, appealed for donations of books and money, catalogued and indexed, and created bibliographies on key subjects. He also created the unique cataloguing system for Commonweal, still in use today.
In 1974, the Collection had grown from 800-900 volumes at the creation of the Trust Deed to 3,000 volumes.
In 1975, David fell very ill with a serious urinary infection: he died on November 15th. The power of the written word could be said to have changed his life, when he refused military service after reading Gregg’s book; the library he founded has continued to provide inspiration for others in the same way.
1975: The Collection moved to the University of Bradford.
In 1975 following David’s death, the Commonweal Trustees looked for somewhere else for the library to be housed. Three options were considered; split the library and distribute it between other peace libraries, move the library to a communal living project in Tenbury or move to the University of Bradford with its Peace Studies department. After much debate the last was chosen at least in part because of the security and continuity of the Collection, also because the “openness, sympathy and generosity of the librarians at Bradford is tremendous – they are really interested in it”. This support continues to this day.
The agreement was that the Trustees retained ownership of the materials, but that they were to be permanently deposited with the University. The title “Commonweal Collection” was to be retained and the Collection was housed separately within the library building. The University also undertook to provide a catalogue (once printed, now available online through the University catalogue) and maintain access for outside users, and that “the Collection would be available for research and study purposes within the University Library for anyone wishing to use it”. A “Joint Consultative Committee” of two Trustees and two representatives of the University was established to discuss matters concerning the Collection.
The integration of a radical collection with a “traditional” University library was not an easy one, and circulation and classification both posed problems. The move to the University saw the end of the postal loans service, but did allow continued access to the Collection through Inter-Library Loans.
In 1976 the Trustees appointed a part-time paid co-ordinator to oversee the move and re-establishment of the library in its new location.
From 1977 a workgroup of volunteers was established, this group, comprised of local interested parties and also students and researchers from the department of Peace Studies, continued much of the maintenance of the Collection. The use of a group to undertake much of the “work” fitted well with the decentralist philosophy of Commonweal (if the University library viewed it as “unconventional” library practice). As much of the group was constituted from a transient student population this worked with limited success, regularly having large sections of the workgroup experiencing essay crises and long vacations away from Bradford and the Collection.
In 1984 there was a five month period of having no co-ordinator. The day to day running of the Collection was then overseen by the workgroup co-ordinator (a paid role of only 10 hours per month), who could not realistically undertake to do more than answer post and organise the workgroup of volunteers to undertake the necessary maintenance tasks.
In 2004 Commonweal established a Children’s Mobile Peace Library funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The library was established to travel to children from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds. This aim was met through a series of community events and storytelling at the Bradford Central Library.
Also in 2004, funding for the Commonweal Co-ordinator’s post ran out. The co-ordinator’s role had always been funded by donations and grants obtained by the Trustees, and money had always been in short supply.
2005 to 2024: The Collection is run by volunteers
In 2005, the Commonweal Archives were formally transferred to the J.B. Priestley Library where much work has taken place on cataloguing and preservation. It is in keeping with Commonweal’s mission that, as with all the Special Collections, these archives are open to all. Commonweal had collected over seventy significant archive collections including those concerning the nonviolent direct action movement of the 1950s and 1960s; other strengths include the 1980s anti-nuclear movement, archives of organisations such as Peace News, and the archives of individual researchers. The archive is still being added to, the latest additions include papers from the International Peace Bureau donated by Colin Archer, the papers of Lindis Percy and the papers of Michael Randle.
In 2006 the Children’s Mobile Peace Library moved into a new home at Treehouse, the home of the Bradford Centre for Nonviolence, a fair-trade and organic café and meeting space. A portion of the Commonweal Collection was also housed there on long-term loan. Neither the centre nor Commonweal wanted to undertake a wholesale move, and it was decided to split the Collection between the more theoretical material and the more activist material. The more activist material was to be taken to Treehouse – the chance to relocate part of the Collection to a locus of activists seemed too good to miss! Storytelling continued at the public library.
In 2009 The PaxCat Project enabled the sorting and cataloguing of the Commonweal Archive so that they could be made available to researchers. Archivist Helen Roberts managed the project.
In 2012 the Collection was moved into its present location on the first floor of the JB Priestley Library. Due to uncertainty about the future of Treehouse, the adult books on loan from Commonweal were retrieved and added back into Commonweal stock and the Children’s Peace Library moved to its new home at the Peace Museum.
In 2017 the new Commonweal website and logo was launched. Supported by Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and Network for Social Change.
Without paid staff, the Commonweal continued to be used by a small number of Peace Studies students and academics but its visibility decreased both locally or nationally.
In 2023, the Trustees successfully applied to the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust for funding for a new project “Growing the Movement”, in partnership with The Peace Museum.
2024 to 2025: Growing the Movement
In 2024 Commonweal appointed two part-time paid workers with the aim of getting the ideas, inspiration and strategies embodied in the books and resources into the hands of activists to grow and sustain social movements.
The Collection (now numbering 14,000 books and pamphlets) was extended and refreshed including a complete re-organisation with new shelving, re-labelling across the Collection making it easier for users to find what they are looking for, the cataloguing of 1,500 periodical titles that were previously missing from the online catalogue, and the creation of a new section for poetry, fiction and art in response to feedback from users. A new section on Disability Rights, which was completely missing from the Collection, has been added. The website has also been refreshed and developed to include a range of online resources including reading lists.
Awareness and usage of the Collection grew – the number of readers, volunteers, Trustees, and supporters all increased, demonstrating how nonviolence crosses boundaries between different movements, as people encounter new resources and ideas, and uncover a wealth of support for their struggle.
The Outreach Worker organised many events, including regular “Commonweal Connections” sessions, talks and seminars, all backed up by Commonweal reading lists and other resources. The outreach programme welcomed a wide range of people into the Collection, including from Rotary International, the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), Yorkshire CND, Bradford & Shipley TUC, The Prem Rawat Foundation Peace Education Programme, Leeds Sanctuary, Bradford Literature Festival, Bradford 2025, and individuals including a Phd Student from the University of Sheffield researching peace poetry, and local artists and creative practitioners.
Staff, Trustees and volunteers started to look at decolonising the Collection (Whose Peace? Whose Justice?) exploring approaches to decolonising a radical library.
Growing the Movement coincided with The Peace Museum moving to its new location in Salts Mill, in Saltaire, allowing a new “shop window” for Commonweal.
The Joint Consultative Committee continued to oversee the relationship between the J.B. Priestley Library and the Commonweal Collection.
In 2025, Commonweal celebrated 50 years of being based in Bradford.
2026 onwards: Future plans
A funding application was submitted in August 2025 for a new project which aims to foreground the diversity of voices and traditions found in the history of nonviolent action and in current movements for social change, respond to today’s information habits by developing emotionally engaging resources on nonviolence, so that people learn practical ways to pursue change and maintain hope and develop and enact an effective digital strategy.
People
Commonweal owes a great debt to everyone who has contributed over the years – staff, Trustees and volunteers.
Staff have included:
- Bob Overy – Coordinator (1976-1978)
- Mark Dunn – Assistant Coordinator (1976-1977)
- Peter Todd – Coordinator (1977-1979)
- Brenda Thomson – Coordinator (1977-1979)
- Bill Jones – Coordinator (1979-?)
- Karen Spencer – Coordinator (1991-1996?)
- Pam Crook – Administrative Assistant
- Timmon Wallis – Coordinator
- Isobelle Guillou – Development Worker (1996)
- Heather Blakey
- Sally Fildes-Moss (2003 – 2005)
- Noa Kleinman (2003 – 2005)
- Peter Moore – Children’s Mobile Peace Library project (2004 – ?)
- Donna Craine – Outreach Worker (2024)
- Sue Easterbrook – Collection Development Worker (2024 to current)
- Emma Goodway – Outreach Worker (2024 to current)
Trustees have included:
- Nigel Young (1960s to 2005)
- Chris Arber (to 2009)
- Bob Overy
- Andrew Rigby
- Brenda Thomson
- Dominic Linley (2012 to 2014)
- Matt Hannam (2016 to 2018)
- Professor Paul Rogers (2012 to 2024)
- Michael Randle (to 2025)
- Susan Mottram (2015 to 2025)
- Heather Blakey (from 2005)
- Ellie Clement (from 2005)
- Jen Fox (from 2011)
- Ute Kelly (from 2020)
- Rachel Julian (from 2020)
- Shabina Aslam (from 2025)
- Matt Dunne (from 2025)
- Blessing Onwudiwe (from 2025)
Sources:
https://www.commonwealnonviolence.org/blogs/a-library-for-peace-the-commonweal-collection