Robert Tressell

Robert Tressell wrote The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, a socialist novel that still irritates and inspires because it refuses to look away from the people buildings and roads are made for. He lived in Hastings and St Leonards, where the sea air and working streets may have sharpened the book’s anger and humour. A memorial in County Dublin keeps his name alive far from the English coast, proving that a life written in ragged trousers can travel further than marble or gold.