Housmans
Housmans was first opened in 1945 on Shaftesbury Avenue, central London by the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), who also published the pacifist newspaper Peace News (established 1936). Housmans was named after the PPU sponsor, writer, illustrator and activist Laurence Housman, who also campaigned for women’s suffrage and gay rights.
Housmans closed as a physical shop between 1948 and 1959, but it carried on as a mail order business from the Peace News offices above a shop in Finsbury Park, north London.
In 1959, 5 Caledonian Road, a narrow, terraced building around the corner from King’s Cross station in London, was purchased to be the home of Peace News and Housmans bookshop. At first, the building was envisioned by its long term manager Harry Mister as a peace ‘movement centre’ that would provide space for Peace News to be written, packed and distributed. Housmans has remained at the same address since 1959, occupying the lower floors while various community and campaigning organisations have also made use of the building for meeting and office space.
Housmans was seen partly as a fundraising venture to support Peace News, although it did also publish and distribute peace movement literature itself. As well as selling peace literature, Housmans raised money through more commercial activities such as producing the first range of charity Christmas cards, Endsleigh Cards, and selling stationary to local people and businesses. Since 1953 Housmans has published the Housmans Peace Diary, which includes a directory of peace organisations around the world. In 1961 Peace News and its associated projects separated from the Peace Pledge Union.
In 1971 Housmans became a separate company. Between 1974 and 1994 when Peace News moved out of 5 Cally Road Housmans became more independent and in the 1980s developed its own, separate identity as a radical bookshop. From 1981, after Harry Mister retired, the shop has been managed by a collective of bookshop workers.
On 4 July 1978 a letter bomb addressed to 5 Caledonian Road, and thought to have been sent by the far right, exploded, injuring bookshop worker Stewart Porte. Stewart was hospitalised with burns for several weeks before recovering and returning to work in the shop.
In the 1980s bookstalls at festivals, Pride and peace movement events became an increasingly important aspect of Housmans’ activity. They made links with the anarcho-punk scene, often providing bookstalls at Crass gigs. In 1982 they joined the Federation of Radical Booksellers.
The 1990s were a period of financial hardship for Housmans due to the planned redevelopment of the area, the wider recession and other challenges such as the Net Book Agreement faced by radical bookshops at this time. After 2007, the area began to slowly revitalise and the situation for Housmans also slowly improved under the stewardship of Malcolm Hopkins. In 2015 part of the shop’s basement was renovated, expanding the shop into the old coal vaults below the road.
In 2011 Housmans staff formed the Alliance of Radical Booksellers (ARB) as a successor to the defunct Federation of Radical Booksellers, and under the ARB banner initiated the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing, the Little Rebels Childrens' Book Award and the London Radical Bookfair.
Sources:
Rosa Schling. Peace! Books! Freedom The Secret History of a Radical London Building (2023), On the Record.
https://5callyroad.org/home/ [online, accessed 19.06.2025]
