John William Lloyd

Who was John William Lloyd?

J. William Lloyd was an American individualist anarchist from 1884 to around 1904. He was born in Westfield, New Jersey; he later moved to Kansas, then Iowa, then to experimental colonies in Tennessee and Florida, before returning to New Jersey in 1888. He based his anarchism upon natural law, rather than on egoism as Benjamin Tucker did. His first book, "Wind-Harp Songs", was published in 1895. He founded an anarchist group, The Comradeship of Free Socialists, in 1897. His work, "The Red Heart in a White World: A Suggestive Manual of Free Society; Containing a Method and a Hope," formed the basis for it. Lloyd later modified his position to minarchism.

His life changed when in that year, reading Edward Carpenter while riding on a train to N.Y., he mystically experienced "Cosmic Consciousness". This inspired his book, "Dawn-Thought on the Reconciliation: a Volume of Pantheistic Impressions and Glimpses of Larger Religion".

He founded his magazine, "The Free Comrade," which first ran from 1900 to 1902. There he championed anarchism, free love, Whitman and Edward Carpenter. In 1902 and 1904 were published his two utopian novels, "The Natural Man: A Romance of the Golden Age" and "The Dwellers in Vale Sunrise: How They Got Together and Lived Happy Ever After. A Sequel to 'The Natural Man,' Being an Account of the Tribes of Him."