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Crane Walter (1845-1915)
Walter Crane was born in Liverpool in 1845. Apprenticed as a youth to an engraver, he developed his artistic talents, especially strong in illustration and design. His employer was the former Chartist, William Linton, who introduced him to political ideas and also got him commissions with influential political figures. Crane became established as a ceramic designer, children's book illustrator and interior designer.
In the 1860s Crane became more politically active as a supporter of the radical wing of the Liberal Party and by the time of the Paris Commune in 1871, he was a socialist. He began long-time collaboration with William Morris in the 1880s, having common ground as designers and both appalled by industrial design over craftsmanship and artistry that was articulated in Morris's pamphlet Art and Socialism.
Crane and Morris joined the Social Democratic Federation in 1884 and he frequently contributed illustrations for the party journal Justice. After less than a year, disillusionment with the leadership of H. Hyndman left the SDF and joined the Socialist League formed by Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling, Morris, Belford Bax, where he drew illustrations for party's journal, Commonweal. In 1888 Crane, Morris and others founded the Art and Crafts Exhibition Society, in order to promote contemporary arts and handicrafts.
Crane's belief that socialism could be achieved through reforms led him to also join the Fabians for a time, where he associated with George Bernard Shaw and the Webbs, but broke with them later their decision not to oppose the Boer War. He continued to collaborate with Morris and others to produce art for the movement including events like Bloody Sunday in 1887, and also a series of illustrations depicting heroic deeds done by working-class people. It was during this time that he published his widely-read book, The Claims of Decorative Art, where he claimed that an unjust labor system inhibited the function and beauty of art.
In the 1890s' Crane drew his now famous May Day illustrations published in the collection, Cartoons for the Cause, as well as banners, posters, and pamphlets that could be seen throughout Europe. He published two books of lectures from his teaching, The Bases of Design in 1898 and Line and Form two years later, as well as providing illustrations for many socialist journals. Crane died in 1915, shortly after the shocking accidental death of his wife.
Further Reading:
Visual Arts: Satire: Walter Crane
The Donkey and the Common: A Fable
William Morris Internet Archive
Cremer, W. R. (1838-1908)
Joiner. First secretary of the General Council of the International. Cremer was an active member of the strike committee in the first great London building trades' strike, July 1859 to February 1860. (For Marx's reference to this strike see Capital, Vol. I, Chpt. 10: The Working Day, and for his reference to the London building industry, Vol. II, Chpt. 12 The Working Period.) Original member of first London Trades Council (1860) and a founder of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (1860), the second great trade union founded on the "new model." At the first Congress of the International (Geneva, September 1866), which voted for the abolition of standing armies and the general arming of the people, he took a pacifist line. After the Congress he failed, to his great surprise and disgust, to secure re-election as secretary (See Marx to Engels, September 26, 1866); he resigned from the Council and was not re-elected at the 1867 Congress. Identified himself with various pacifist organisations (secretary of the "Workmen's Peace Association"). He was knighted – Sir Randall Cremer – and in 1903 received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Croce, Benedetto (1866-1952)
Italian critic, philosopher, politician, historian.
Croce was born in Pescasseroli, Abruzzi, into a moderately wealthy land-owning family and was educated at a Catholic boarding school. In 1883 Croce lost his family in an earthquake and he went to live with his uncle in Rome and studied law at the university, but left without taking a degree and returned to Naples.
He traveled through Spain, Germany, France, and England. In 1893, influenced by the ideas of Gianbattista Vico and Giovanni Gentile, he turned to philosophy. His famous commentary on Hegel, What is Living and What is Dead in the Philosophy of Hegel, appeared in 1907.
Together with Antonio Labriola (1843-1904) and Georges Sorel (1847-1922), Croce introduced the study of Marxism to Italy. Croce regarded Marxism as deterministic, and leaned towards art rather than science as the central focus for his understanding of history. In 1903 he founded the magazine La Critica with Gentile, but when Gentile signed the ‘Manifesto of Fascist Intellectuals,’ in the 1920s, Croce denounced the paper. In 1910 he was made senator for life and in 1920-21 he was Minister of Public Instruction and planned school reform. Under Mussolini, Croce supported democratic principles, living in isolation as one of the major anti-fascist thinkers in Italy. After the war he was made a Minister without Portofilio.
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Cromer, Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer) (1847-1917)
Colonial administrator from a banking family who had also served as an artillery officer. He was installed as the effective governor of Egypt (the British 'Agent') by British forces in 1883 and remaining until 1907. He consolidated British economic and political control of Egypt and developed it as a strategic military base for operations against Sudan and later Turkey.
Cromwell, Oliver (1599-1658)
Puritan revolutionary of the English civil war of the 1640s. Defeated the Royalists of Charles I (and decapitating same) and established the English parliamentary system on stronger ground than any previous generation. While seeking to expand English trade and further develop English capitalism, under the guise of being opposed to the Roman Catholic Church he launched vicious wars of domination against mostly Roman Catholic Ireland, murdering thousands of Irish and establishing oppressive English colonial rule there.