Died 9 August 1938 | ||
Walter William Strickland (b. Westminster 26 May 1851- d. Java 9 August 1938 ) was the son of Sir Charles Strickland, 8th Baronet (1819–1909). The family estate was at Hildenley Hall in Yorkshire.
He married Eliza Vokes (1860–1946) in 1888 and became known as the ‘anarchist baronet’ because he wandered around the world for much of his life espousing radical causes. They had no children and the title passed to a cousin once removed, Sir Henry Strickland-Constable.
He wrote several books and pamphlets [1] and translated works of the Czech poet Viteslav Halek. He has been linked with the Voynich manuscript.[2] He may have met Voynich during his first years in London, when Voynich was directly involved in the political activities of Russian refugees in London, under the leadership of Stepniak - Kravchinskii, who founded the SFRF (Society of Friends of Russian Freedom) and the RFPF (Russian Free Press Fund).
He spent some time in Russia and in 1923 became a citizen of Czechoslovakia, renouncing his British citizenship and the Baronetcy.
In 1931 he moved to Java where he died in 1938. [3]
Strickland had libertarian, socialist and atheist ideas. He helped Guy Aldred, founder of the Glasgow Anarchist Group. As related by Albert Meltzer: " After the publication of Hyde Park in 1938 support for Aldred in London fell off and he had burned his bridges in London and Glasgow, but then an extraordinary chance ended his days of poverty. Sir Walter Strickland, a millionaire whose family practically owned Malta, had during the First World War taken to him and was disgusted with the British Government after the Versailles Treaty. In acknowledgment of the newly created State of Czechoslovakia, the first fruits of League of Nations liberal idealism, Strickland became naturalised Czech (1923), though he never went to that country. In 1938 Strickland died and left a fortune to Aldred, who promptly formed the Strickland Press, bought a hall, bookshop and machinery and proceeded reprinting all his old pamphlets, before actually getting the money. Then the Strickland relatives brought a suit saying the will was invalid. Strickland had said in his will he left the money to Aldred "for socialist and atheist propaganda", illegal under Czech law. There was a complicated legal case which ended as such things usually do, with the money in the hands of the lawyers. Aldred, used to defending his own cases personally and handling courts with ease on matters of obstruction and sedition, found himself outgunned among the moneyed lawyers ".
According to John Taylor Caldwell[4]: "Walter was an eccentric. He preferred books to the pursuits of normal young men of his class, and had no interest in sport, drink, gambling or women. His father was disappointed and disgusted. One day when he was having it out with Walter (probably not for the first time) about his unsatisfactory life-style, and the fact that he was nearing forty and still not married, Walter rose from the table and, so the story goes, proposed to the first girl he met, who happened to be the kitchen maid."
In the early 1890s Strickland went to live abroad. After 1912 he did not live in England. Eventually he settled in Java and became a strong opponent of imperialism.
In 1923 he renounced his title and became a Czech citizen.
He gave Sun Yat Sen £10,000 "to help him start a revolt against the Emperor of China" [5]
In 1909 Guy Aldred was sentenced to twelve months hard labour for printing the August issue of The Indian Sociologist, an Indian nationalist newspaper edited by Shyamji Krishnavarma. Strickland heard of Aldred's action and sent him a telegram of congratulation to the prison and a cheque for £10.
During the First World War donated £10,000 to his friend Tomáš Masaryk's Czechoslovakian Independence Movement.