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© F.Coakley , 2026
[from A.M Harrision's Descriptive List of Insular Societies]
The Isle of Man Ruskin Society was founded on 3 November 1896 at a meeting of ladies and gentlemen in Douglas, just over three years before Ruskin's death in January 1900 and some twenty-five years after the beginning of his work as a practical social reformer [Isle of Man Examiner, November 1896].
An active interest in the works and life of John Ruskin, summed up in the Concise Dictionary of National Biography as 'author, artist and social reformer' and described otherwise as 'the most purple of all great masters of English' was late to develop in the cultivated circles of the Island, the circles themselves, now occasionally infiltrated by notable women, being of arguably late appearance. By 1896, however the requisite motivation to take part in 'the study and circulation of the works of John Ruskin', the object of the Society, had led a sufficiently large number of men and women to its launch at the Higher Grade school, Douglas. John Taylor, the Librarian of Douglas Public Library, presiding, spoke on the value of such a society and the role it should take, and Frank Gale, a Ruskin enthusiast, read letters from many other supporters, including Hall Caine, the Rev. John Quine and Egbert Rydings.
Two forces merged in the making of the society. The first, the launch of the Manx Socialist society in October 1895 and an increasing public interest in radical social reform from any political direction including the ideas of Ruskin . 'Socialism is, as the saying goes, in the air, Take up the syllabuses of debating and mutual improvement societies and you generally find this subject on the list'. John Taylor was a long-serving Secretary of the Socialist Society, and gave hospitality to Tom Mann on his visit to the Island in November 1897. The second force was that of personal connection. Hall Caine wrote of his early involvement with Ruskin, 'taking a prominent part in the formation of what I suppose was the first of Ruskin societies, which then had its headquarters in Manchester' the stimulus of Ruskin's works, his great help and encouragement and 'the pleasantest recollections of a beautiful and noble personality'. The Rev. John Quine, Vicar of Lonan, and author of a currently successful Manx-based novel, 'The Captain of the Parish', offered a lecture on 'Some Oxford reminiscences of Professor Ruskin' and Egbert Rydings was to open the society's first session with 'The Life and Teachings of John Ruskin'.
Rydings' connection with Ruskin was by far the most significant of the three. A silkweaver from Lancashire, living in Laxey with his family, from the early 1860's he was deeply influenced by Ruskin's writings, notably his industrial reform pamphlets, Fors Clavigera, and his work on personal financial discipline, Munera Pulveris , and lived under the stringent and ascetic lifecode advocated by the Master. In 1876 he was entered as a companion of the Guild of St. George, the group designed to carry out Ruskin's industrial experiments for bringing back prosperity to England. In close correspondence with Ruskin and a visitor at his Coniston home, Brantwood, he established the St George's Woollen Mills at Laxey, built and run on the principles of the Guild, and recognised by Ruskin on 10 July 1881 as the 'first achievement of the Saint George's company in Romantic Architecture'. Ruskin, in delicate health in later life, never visited the Island but applauded the realisation of his high-minded rule of life and one of the only two industrial experiments according to his principles in operation .
Rydings and Taylor both died in 1912.
M.N.H.L., Isle of Man newspapers, ut supra;
'Ruskin and Egbert Rydings; Letters', Mannin, vol 2, no.3, May 1914;
'Ruskin-Rydings Letters, concluded', Mannin, no.7, 1916.
Egbert Rydings, 'John Ruskin and the Laxey Woollen Mills'. The Young Man, July 1895.
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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
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