Henry Halliday Sparling

Henry Halliday Sparling (1860 – 9 September 1924) was a British journalist and socialist activist.

Sparling became a socialist in 1878, and soon began lecturing on the topic. He began writing for Progress in 1884, and joined the Socialist League, serving on its executive, including a stint as secretary, and assisting William Morris with editing Commonweal from 1885 to 1890.[1] Sparling married Morris' daughter, May, in 1890, but their marriage broke down in 1894 when she had an affair with George Bernard Shaw, and the couple divorced in 1898.[2][3]

Sparling disassociated himself from the Socialist League along with Morris, as it became dominated by anarchists, and instead found work as a sub-editor for the People's Press, moving to the Worker's Cry in 1891. That year, he joined the Fabian Society, and served on its executive from 1892 until 1894, during this period also writing the "Fabian Notes" column for the Workman's Times.[1] He was also secretary to William Morris' Kelmscott Press in this period.[4]

In 1894, Sparling moved to Paris as a correspondent for the Weekly Times and Echo and also the Clarion, returning to London in 1910.[1] He later moved to California, then returned to Paris in the early 1920s. In 1924, his book The Kelmscott Press and William Morris was published, and he died later in the year.[4]

References

1. "Biographies of new candidates". Fabian News. April 1911.
2. "The William Morris Internet Archive : Chronology". Retrieved 2008-08-24.
3. Naylor, Gillian: William Morris by Himself: Designs and Writings, London, Little Brown & Co., p.317
4. Kelvin, Norman (1987). The Collected Letters of William Morris, Volume II, Part B: 1885-1888. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 447. ISBN 0691065012.

Party political offices
Preceded by John Lincoln Mahon	Secretary of the Socialist League 1885–1886	Succeeded by Henry Alfred Barker