KENNAWAY HENDERSON: Artist, Editor, Conscientious Objector

In 1965 the Canterbury WEA library acquired eight volumes which contain an almost complete run of the radical independent journal Tomorrow, published in Christchurch from July 1934 until May 1940. Tomorrow had strong links with Christchurch’s lively literary scene, was printed by Caxton Press and supported by the well-known academics Frederick Sinclaire and H Winston Rhodes. Editor of the journal, was the artist and cartoonist, Kennaway Henderson, a man of strong principles who had been imprisoned as a conscientious objector during World War I.

In this presentation Margaret Lovell-Smith, whose most recent book was a study of Christchurch’s peace activism during World War I, will discuss Henderson’s life and achievements, including the significance of Tomorrow, whose readers and writers have been described by historian Andrew Cutler as ‘the writers, intellectuals, and politicians of the New Zealand left’. The volumes of Tomorrow will also be on display at the presentation.