Eva Collet Reckitt (28 June 1890 – 24 September 1976) was the founder of the left-wing bookshop Collet's on

Charing Cross Road Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street) and then becomes Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direction of ...

, London, in 1933.

Biography

Reckitt was elected in 1927 to the executive of the

Labour Research Department The Labour Research Department (LRD) is an independent trade union based research organisation, based in London, that provides information to support trade union activity and campaigns. About 2,000 trade union organisations, including 51 national ...

. One of the heirs to the Reckitt family business, formerly

Reckitt & Colman Reckitt Benckiser Group plc, trading as Reckitt, is a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, England. It is a producer of health, hygiene and nutrition products. The company was formed in March 1999 by the merg ...

and now part of

Reckitt Benckiser Reckitt Benckiser Group plc, trading as Reckitt, is a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, England. It is a producer of health, hygiene and nutrition products. The company was formed in March 1999 by the merg ...

, she supported the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

from the 1920s to the 1950s. Her philanthropic efforts included being a shareholder for Plato Films Ltd, the body established in 1951 to provide the Left and in particular the Communist movement with films from the Socialist part of the world. Her political affiliations put her at odds with her brother, the

Anglo-Catholic Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches. The term was coined in the early 19th century, although movements emphasising the Catholic nature of Anglican ...

writer and editor Maurice B. Reckitt. Described by one

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...

officer as "the Communist Party's milch-cow," she was under surveillance from 1923 to 1953. In her obituary in the journal ''

History Workshop The ''History Workshop Journal'' is a British academic history journal published by Oxford University Press. ''History Workshop'' was founded in 1976 by Raphael Samuel and others involved in the History Workshop movement. Originally sub-titled "A ...

'', to which she had lent her support,

Raphael Samuel Raphael Elkan Samuel (26 December 19349 December 1996) was a British Marxist historian, described by Stuart Hall as "one of the most outstanding, original intellectuals of his generation". He was professor of history at the University of East L ...

described her socialism as "a living thing, a matter of thought, criticism and conviction," and built upon "personal loyalties nourished by a lifetime's activity."

Collet's

The bookshop was owned by the Eva Collet Trust, established by Eva Collet Reckitt in 1934 to import communist and radical publications. The bookshop at 66 Charing Cross Road already existed as a radical bookshop,

Henderson's Henderson's, better known as The Bomb Shop, was a bookshop at 66 Charing Cross Road, London known for publishing and selling both radical left and anarchist writing and modernist literature. The shop was founded in 1909, and was a father and s ...

, nicknamed "the bomb shop"; on the death of the owner, F. R. Henderson, in 1934 it was bought by Eva Collet Reckitt, and Olive Parsons became a founder director. In 1936 Collet's acquired the stock of the London-Soviet trading agency Arcos. After World War II Collet's expanded by opening branches in Manchester, Glasgow, Moscow, Prague and New York. In 1965 the head office moved to a new building in

Wellingborough Wellingborough ( ) is a large market and commuter town in the unitary authority area of North Northamptonshire in the ceremonial county of Northamptonshire, England, 65 miles from London and from Northampton on the north side of the River Nen ...

, Northamptonshire; by this time it had two shops in Charing Cross Road and a Chinese shop near the British Museum. In 1993 Collet's was acquired by Tybex Ltd (the holding company of Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd). Olive Parsons was then aged 101. According to the ''Radical Bookshop History Project'', Eva Collet Reckitt "had a broad policy on stock but drew the line at “those mysterious world religions” and “phoney psychology”. The entry for Collet's in ''Driff's Guide to All the Secondhand & Antiquarian Bookshops in Britain'' (1985–86) says "Colletts 52 Charing X Rd ...sml stk on s/h penguins ... there is also a small bsmt rm of political bks in the Collets ictwo doors along but rumoured to be closing". Collet's bookshop went bankrupt in 1993 and closed, though the nearby Russian Central and East European Bookshop, which purchased Collet's stock, remained open until 1997. "Haven for left-wing debate closes store doors in London", ''Deseret News'', February 9, 1997
Retrieved 15 January 2020

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reckitt, Eva Collet 1890 births 1976 deaths British booksellers British company founders British communists Reckitt family