The Russian geographer, savant and revolutionary first came to England in 1876 after escaping from prison in Russia. Joseph Cowen (q.v.) was a friend of Kropotkin and invited him in 1881 to write an article on the Russian Tsar for the Newcastle Daily Chronicle. In July 1882, Kropotkin addressed the Durham Miners' gala. Two days later, he was enthusiastically received as he lectured in Nelson Street Newcastle.
Kropotkin settled in France, but in 1883 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment in Lyon for anarchism. He was released in 1886, quite possibly due to the efforts of Joseph Cowen. From then on Kropotkin lived in England, mostly in the London suburbs, but addressed Cowen's Sunday Lecture Club in the Tyne Theatre more than once. He returned to Russia in 1917. From 1895-97, the Chronicle supported Kropotkin's fellow-thinkers in the foundation of an anarchist community at Forest Hall in Newcastle.