bury a time capsule in Liverpool Cathedral’s foundation stone, with a message addressed to a “future socialist society”.


It’s a message that’s as resonant then as it is now.


It read, “We the wage slaves employed on the erection of this cathedral to be dedicated to the worship of the unemployed Jewish carpenter, hail ye! Within a stone’s throw from here, human beings are housed in slums not fit for swine.”


So began Fred’s powerful missive railing against the “money trusts that today own us”.


“We can only sell our labour power, as wage slaves, on their terms,” the note continued.


But Fred’s righteous anger gave way to a clarion call of hope, addressing a future society who live in a “happier existence.”


“See to it…that ye, too, work for the betterment of all, and so justify your existence by leaving the world better for your having lived in it. Thus and thus only shall come about the Kingdom of God or Good on Earth.”


Signed “a wage slave”, the message was destined to never see the light of day. Two weeks later, King Edward the VII laid the foundation stone over the hidden tin in a ceremony that drew thousands of Liverpool’s wealthiest.


It wasn’t until 20 years later that Fred revealed the secret in his book. The revelation caused a scandal both in Liverpool and nationally, and Fred was decried in some papers as a Communist extremist. The Cathedral authorities attempted to discredit his story, repudiating that he’d even buried his time capsule to begin with.


And this suppression worked – for a time. Fred would go on to live out his days in poverty in the village of Heswall, eventually succumbing to the stonemason’s disease silicosis. It’s this same disease that killed an unknown number of workers who built the Cathedral. More would die from falls at height and other entirely preventable accidents. Still other building workers would never come home from the Second World War, during which work on the Cathedral stopped because of labour shortages.


Liverpool Cathedral was eventually completed in 1978. By this point, Fred had died more than 30 years prior, and his autobiography had long been out of print.


But a series of coincidences led historian Ron Noon to uncover Fred Bower’s forgotten story, and Ron and his friend and colleague Sam Davies worked tirelessly to bring it back to life. In 2015, Rolling Stonemason was republished.


In 2004, the year of Liverpool Cathedral’s centennial, Ron worked with the newly formed Merseyside Construction Safety Campaign (MCSC) and the Liverpool TUC to set up an Alternative Centennial. About a hundred trade unionists and activists gathered by the foundation stone to remember the unknown workers who died building the Cathedral, and to pay tribute to Fred Bower’s message of hope.


And again, last summer, two decades after that first Alternative Centennial, with the backing of Unite and the Casa, another commemorative event was held. Ron and others involved raised greater public awareness of this annual tribute. They also highlighted a separate memorial held at Fred Bower’s gravestone in Heswall on his birthday, December 6.


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Commenting, Ron Noon told buildingWORKER, “Our celebration of Fred Bower and the secret he’d buried under the foundation stone was a slice of history literally from below – a people’s history for what has been described as the “people’s cathedral” in the Royal Mail’s stamp advertising campaign.


“On the 20th anniversary of our Alternative Centennial, I had the honour of speaking, concluding with this powerful sentence from Deacon John Davies from 2004: ‘Buried deep in the brick of this vast monolith to faith and capital is a people’s protest, a whisper of defiance and hope for those whose history has been buried until now’.”


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Buy the Rolling Stonemason from the News from Nowhere bookshop for £14.99 www.newsfromnowhere. org.uk


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Images: Alamy


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