Saturday, April 10, 2021
Fenton Ogbogbo- murdered by racists in the Old Kent Road, 1981
Monday, March 29, 2021
Music Monday: Pinty at the Gowlett Arms
I heard 'Found it', the new single from South London MC Pinty, on Gilles Peterson's BBC6 Music show at the weekend. Wait a minute, does he actually mention legendary Peckham pub The Gowlett on this track? Yes indeed, my ears were not deceiving me.
It is in fact 'a love story set in his local pub, The Gowlett in Peckham. Produced by friend and collaborator Tomos, ‘Found It’ is a heady blend of dubby house and hip hop. Pinty's first memories of The Gowlett are being taken there after his father’s Royal Mail shift, sharing a pizza whilst his dad drank beer: “Weight of father’s shadow towers…”. On ‘Found It’ we find Pinty back in that pub as an adult, torn between taking his night elsewhere with his new love, or staying within the realms he knows so well. His first ever ‘love song’ it’s an unusual tale of love lost and then found: “Arm to arm, Bukowski types / Love was lost I found it / Are you around I’m about it / let’s French exit like it’s so crowded” (Pinty bandcamp).
I have had many a drink and a pizza there myself over the years and hope it won't be too long before we can all do it again.
Sunday, March 28, 2021
'Predatory culture' - challenge to Dulwich College continues
Boys boarding school Dulwich College has been rocked in the last week by allegations of a culture of sexual abuse and harassment amongst its students, targeting in particular young women attending local schools with which the College has links, notably James Allen's Girls School (JAGS). A demonstration planned for last Friday by pupils from local schools with supportive Dulwich College dissidents was called off after the school's head emailed parents stating that pupils could be prosecuted for taking part. The protest had been called 'against the predatory culture of Dulwich College and the school management [which] condones it'.
An open letter to the school put together by a recent ex-Dulwich student included around 100 personal accounts, mainly from current or former JAGS pupils. The dossier includes cases of rape, sexual assault and harassment, as well as allegations of homophobia and racism.
Although the protest did not go ahead on Friday, JAGS pupils staged a vigil and have put up posters on the railings outside the independent school on East Dulwich Grove.
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'Not all men but all women' |
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'End rape culture'/'No means no' |
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'we do not want to use the term harassment, what is happening today is sexual terrorism' |
Friday, March 26, 2021
Green Onions re-opens - Stefan Finnis (1974-2021) remembered
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Sunday, March 21, 2021
Vigil to remember victims of patriarchal violence - Telegraph Hill Park
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'We lay down flowers and light candles to hold our sisters in our thoughts, to remind us to love and protect one another, may they rest in peace and power' |
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'In the last year 1300 Lewisham women were referred to domestic violence services' |
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Haberdashers, Hatcham and Slavery
The Haberdashers' Aske's school in New Cross is reported to be considering the implications of the links between Robert Aske (after whom the school is named) and slavery, with press coverage suggesting that a change of name is being considered. A statement issued by the school's sponsor, the Haberdashers Company, states:
'The Haberdashers’ Company and its Schools in Elstree and South London have become aware that Robert Aske was a shareholder in the Royal African Company (RAC). All are clear that the role of the RAC in the slave trade was deplorable and sits in stark contrast with the values which underpin the activities and philosophy of the Company, its schools and beneficiaries today. The schools are already engaged in comprehensive reviews of culture, values and their brands and this matter will be included. The outcome of these fully consultative deliberations, including the future use of the Aske name, will be communicated when conclusions are reached and decisions made. The Haberdashers’ Company is proud of its ethos of benevolence, fellowship and inclusion, and the diverse nature of its membership'.
I have been looking into slavery and the New Cross area for a while, now seems a good time to summarise some of what we know - or ought to know.
Haberdashers and slavery
The Haberdashers' schools in South London and elsewhere have their origins in the Haberdashers' Aske's charity, established with funds bequeathed by Robert Aske (1619-1689) and managed by the Haberdashers company, one of the City of London livery companies.
The current Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College (as it is now known) was built on Pepys Road in New Cross in 1875 expanding on to a second site in Jerningham Road in 1889. The Haberdashers Company owned most of the land in the New Cross area at this point. A 19th century statue of Robert Aske stands in the forecourt of the school's Pepys Road site.
It is now well established that Robert Aske was one of the early investors in the Royal African Company, holding £500 of stock. According to historian William Pettigrew, the RAC 'shipped more enslaved African women, men and children to the Americas than any other single institution during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade' (Freedom's Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672-1752, 2013) including more than 150,000 slaves forcibly transported to the British Caribbean.
Aske was neither the first nor last member of the Haberdashers' Company to invest in slaving. For instance William Garrard (1507-1571), sometime Lord Mayor of London, helped develop the slave trade by funding the early slaving voyages of John Hawkins.
A contemporary of Aske's, Jeremy Sambrooke (died 1704) was a director of the Royal African Company as well as a member of the Haberdashers Company. In the same period at least two masters of the Haberdashers Company were also directors of the RAC: John Lawrence (died 1692) holding £1,600 of stock and Arthur Ingram (1617-1681) holding £1500 of stock. Both were also directors of the East India Company which was likewise involved in slavery in this period as well as beginning its colonial expansion in India which the Company was eventually to rule (see more at Reclaim EC1 on slavery and the City of London).
The Haberdashers' Company was also involved with the early 17th century Ulster Plantation, whereby land confiscated by the Crown from its Irish owners was given to City Livery Companies. Their mission was to clear Irish catholic tenants and replace them with English and Scottish protestant settlers who it was hoped could be relied upon to be loyal to the Crown - paving the way for centuries of sectarian conflict.
In short an honest assessment of the links between the Haberdashers Company, slavery and colonialism would have to look a lot wider than the technical details of Robert Aske's share holding in the Royal African Company.
The Lucas family
Haberdashers' Aske's is not the only local place with a slavery connection. To give just one further example for now, the St John's area of Lewisham was developed in the 19th century on land largely owned by the Lucas family - hence the name Lucas Street SE8 and Lucas Vale Primary School.
Jonathan Lucas II owned slave plantations and hundreds of slaves in South Carolina, where his father (also Jonathan Lucas) had become wealthy through his rice mill business. 'Lucas and his family were at the centre of Charleston's cosmopolitan society' but following the suppression of a planned slave uprising there in 1822, 'Jonathan II settled his family at Hatcham Grove House in New Cross, where the family lived from 1824 to 1834' (R. Williams III & A.L. Lofton, Rice to Ruin: The Jonathan Lucas Family in South Carolina, 1783-1929). This was a mansion in its own grounds situated between what is now Erlanger Road and Pepys Road at the bottom of Telegraph Hill. This Lucas died in 1832 and his wife shortly after, but his son and other descendants continued to own land locally and played a major role in the development of Deptford New Town (now St Johns) from the mid-19th century.
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Hatcham Grove House, sometime home of the Charleston slave plantation owner Jonathan Lucas. In the 1850s it became a school for the children of Warehousemen and Clerks |
It is sometimes argued that it is anachronistic to criticise those involved in slavery in the past, on the grounds that we are applying modern moral standards to different times. The implication is that nobody knew that slavery was wrong at the time.
In fact there were opponents of slavery from very early on - not least the slaves themselves of course! Deptford's John Evelyn, also connected to the slave trade, mentions a planned slave revolt in Barbados in his diary for 1692. He also discusses the ethical question of whether slaves should be baptised, something opposed by many slave masters as they feared even this recognition of their captives' humanity.
The long opposition to slavery is documented in a book largely written in New Cross more than 200 years ago. The History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade (1808) was written by the slavery abolitionist Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), much of it while staying as a guest of the Hardcastle family at Hatcham House in New Cross (grounds bordered by what is now Hatcham Park Road). Clarkson was one of the founders of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787, and among other things had travelled to Paris after the French Revolution in an effort to persuade France to abolish slavery. Clarkson is unsparing in documenting the cruelties of slavery and denouncing 'the oppressors of the African race'. He also traces the history of opposition to slavery right back to the start of the slave trade in the 16th century. Among the arguments he quotes is an 18th century text by Humphry Primatt: 'It has pleased God to cover some men with white skins and others with black; but as there is neither merit nor demerit in complexion, the white man, notwithstanding the barbarity of custom and prejudice, can have no right by virtue of his colour to enslave and tyrannize over the black man'. Anti-racism was not invented in the 20th century!
There is a plaque on the Haberdashers' school site in Jerningham Road to the poet Robert Browning, whose family home was on the grounds of what later became the school. Browning's father, who lived there, had once been sent to St Kitts to manage a family owned plantation with slaves, though apparently he returned home unhappy with the cruelty of the plantation system (see Browning and Slavery).
The 'Black Lives Matter' movement has highlighted some of these historic connections and its supporters have been accused of wanting to rewrite history. But much of the history of slavery and its role in British society has never been written in the first place.
Still at least in New Cross the statue of Olaudah Equiano - once forced back into slavery in Deptford - stares across Telegraph Hill Park on the other side of which stands the statue of Robert Aske. As to which of these two should be honoured by children in a 21st century multi-cultural South London school I leave that to you to judge.
Of course there's a whole lot more to be said about slavery and South London, here's a few previous pieces:
Paul Hendrich on the statues on Deptford Town Hall in New Cross
'South London and Negro Emancipation' - 1863 anti-Slavery meeting at the Elephant & Castle
Friday, March 05, 2021
SAFA House, Arklow Road SE14 - Lady Flo's and more
If you haven't been down Arklow Road for a while you might be in for a surprize, the new Anthology Deptford Foundry housing development is complete and lived in with little trace of the former industrial landscape.
A statue on site of a human figure with propellors hints at its former use as the location for J. Stone and Co’s Brass, Copper and Iron Works, Deptford.
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Stone's factory in Arklow Road, SE14 in 1885 |
By the start of the First World War, Stone's had 1,350 workers and was making propellors for the Royal Navy as well as other metal items for ships. In World War Two it made more than 2,200 propellors for the Royal Navy, and at its peak in the 1950s expanded further with 4,000 staff spread between its Deptford site and another in Woolwich Road, Charlton. Like much local industry though it was to decline through the 1960s and the Arklow Road factory closed in 1969. Incidentally, comedian Spike Milligan worked at Stone's in Deptford in the 1930s.
Most of the site has been redeveloped, but there is though an original building remaining at 28 Arklow Road, albeit it in very poor condition. This was most recently known as SAFA House but was originally known as the Welcome Institute, sometimes referred to as the Welcome Coffee Tavern and Institute (Kentish Mercury, 6/4/1894). Opening in 1890, it catered primarily for the Stone's workers and comprised ‘a concert room and gymnasium, a reading room and library, a coffee bar and two dining rooms’ (The Engineer, 26 February 1892).
The Stone's workers had a wide social and cultural life. There were Welcome Institute cricket and football teams, draughts and chess clubs, and a swimming club who swam at the baths in Laurie Grove SE14 (Kentish Independent, 21/9/06). A Welcome Institute Athletic Club held a very healthy sounding 'smoking concert' there in 1904 with 'several scientific wrestling bouts':
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A Welcome Institute Rowing Club was out on the Thames by 1890, though it seems to have faltered by 1895 when former members set up a new Deptford Albion Rowing Club (Sporting Life, 17/4/1895). However the Welcome Institute Rowing Club 'composed chiefly of the employees past and present of Messrs Stone's Engineering Works, Deptford' was relaunched in 1901 (S.Life, 21/8/1901). This was the ancestor of the still thriving Greenwich-based Globe Rowing Club, which started out as the Stone's Rowing Club before moving to the Lord Clyde pub (when it became the Clyde Rowing Club) then the Globe pub in Greenwich where it assumed its current name.
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Welcome Institute Rowing Club race from Limehouse Pier to Greenwich, 1891 |
There was a W.I. brass band, flower shows and a debating society. The venue was used for wider community initiatives too. New Cross and Deptford Amateur Gardeners Society met there (KM, 3/2/1893) and a concert and meeting was held there to establish New Cross and Deptford People's Co-operative Society (KM 7/12/1894).
In the 1920s, the building was bought by Lady Florence Pelham-Clinton and renamed Florence House as part of her charitable work in the area. Lady Florence, who lived at 38 Wickham Road (Pall Mall Gazette, 7/10/20) had originally been involved with the Deptford Fund and Albany Institute, but split away after a disagreement to establish the Lady Florence Institute which as well as the site on Arklow Road also had premises on Deptford Broadway (today home to the 999 club). The Institute's use of the building seems to have come to an end in the 1970s.
In the 1980s it became an African Caribbean club and boxing gym. A former attendee recalls 'I use to go there all the time. It was a small community centre in the week with a pool table and on Friday and Saturday night it was a music venue. It was just called simply 'Arklow Road' (I have also seen it referred to as Arklow Road community centre). It was known for its weekend reggae/dub sessions; Jamaican artist Nitty Gritty performed there once but there was plenty of local sound system talent from Saxon, Ghetto Tone and Jah Shaka (I assume that the footage on youtube and elsewhere of Shaka playing in Arklow Road in 1986 was filmed here, though he also played in other nearby spaces). On the sleevenotes to the Young Disciples 'Road to Freedom' album in 1991, the producer Demus (Dilip Harris) gives thanks to 'the Dub Basket (Arklow Road)' so wonder if that was a name used for club nights.
In the early 1990s the then empty building was squatted by people including the Conscious Collective, a group who put on free parties/raves and gigs. According to Deptford historian Jess Steele 'They cleared the building out, re-decorated, re-plumbed, re-wired, re-glazed, patched the roof and installed a coffee bar. The group of performers, clowns, jesters, bands and dancers ran arts workshops, provided rehearsal space for local groups and organised a series of performance events' (Turning the Tide: the history of everyday Deptford, 1993). The squat was known as Lady Flo's. The great 90s+ gigs, squats and parties site has a flyer for a Co-Creators gig there and for the 'Flo's Farewell' Eviction Party in April 1992. According to an article about the Collective by Camilla Berens, 'On the day of the eviction from Lady Flo's the Collective held an impromptu street party outside the building. A bemused bailiff was greeted with tribal rhythms emanating from drums, bongos and a grand piano' (Independent, 30 July 1992). The Collective had tried to negotiate a deal to stay with Lewisham Council who by then owned the building, but the Council sold it off and its 100 year history as a social/cultural/sporting venue more or less came to an end.
The Conscious Collective moved on to squat 'The Canteen' for a while, formerly the canteen for Deptford power station workers and they were also one of the groups responsible for the 1990s Deptford Urban Free Festival which attracted tens of thousands of people to Fordham Park in New Cross.
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From 90s+ gigs, squats and parties |
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photo by Scott Barkwith at Deptford Folk. |
The building was sold in 2017 and Murky Depths reports that planning permission was granted in 2018 for the conversion of the building into flats, or more precisely for the frontage of the building to be retained wrapped round new build housing with the remainder demolished, possibly with a coffee shop on the ground floor. That would be some kind of return to original usage, though a long way from the engineers' social club of 100 years ago.
There's still a lot more to be told about SAFA House I am sure. For a start does anybody know what SAFA stands for? Would also like to know more about what went on there during the Lady Florence Institute period (1930s-1970s?). Stone's deposited extensive papers with Lewisham archives when the factory closed, and there is information held there about the Welcome Institute that would no doubt be worth checking out.
[There's some historical detail on building in archaeology survey for planning application]
Friday, February 26, 2021
Harold Moody & W.E.B. Du Bois - Queens Road SE15 as international anti-racist clearing house
The League's international signficance is attested to in some of the Harold Moody material available in the online W.E.B. Du Bois archive hosted by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Du Bois was a founder of the NAACP and the pre-eminent American Black intellectual of his time. His correspondence with and about Moody largely concerned plans for a Pan African Congress to be held in Britain at the end of World War Two. The Congress went ahead in Manchester in 1945 bringing together opponents of British colonial rule and campaigners against racism in the USA and elsewhere. Moody did not personally attend, but does seem to have been involved in formulating and developing the idea.
In April 1944, Du Bois wrote to singer and actor Paul Robeson seeking his support, stating ''I have had within the last month two interesting communications. One was from Amy Jacques Garvey, widow of the late Marcus Garvey living in Jamaica; the other was a telegram for Dr Harold Moody from London. Dr Moody as perhaps you know is a black West Indian, long resident in London and recently elected Chairman of the old and celebrated London Missionary Society. Both these communications asked for my cooperation looking toward a post-war conference to consider needs and demands of Negroes'. In the same month Du Bois wrote to Moody in Peckham about plans for the Congress:
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Recent radical street art (New Cross, Brockley, Deptford)
Monday, February 15, 2021
A Lewisham transgender marriage in 1954
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Wednesday, February 03, 2021
Bring back the White Hart SE14
Sad to see the White Hart in New Cross Gate closed and empty. Leaseholders Patrick and Joseph Ryan, whose efforts had reinvigorated this iconic pub over the last few years, shut up shop for good on New Year's Eve. They have concluded that the pub will no longer be viable for them as a result of plans to convert the rooms above the pub into flats.
The building is owned by the Wellington Pub Company and their planning application to convert the upper storeys was turned down by Lewisham Council in August 2019 after more than 3,000 signed a petition. A major reason for the refusal was that with flats above it was unlikely that the pub's late night licence and music would be able to continue, a key element in making it a viable business.
The owner/developer appealed against the decision and in October 2020 the Planning Inspectorate overruled Lewisham Council and granted planning permission. The Inspectorate accepted that the changes would mean an end to amplified music at any time, and with only 'live acoustic music (excluding non-handheld percussion)' allowed, and then only before 11 pm. But they argued that it would be possible for a pub to continue.
The current building, which is Grade II listed, dates back to around 1870 but there was an earlier building on site with a pub operating there from the 1850s if not earlier. The pub must be one of the most photographed buildings in New Cross over its long history, occupying as it does a commanding location at junction of two ancient trackways - the road from Dover to London (now New Cross Road) and the road coming off this to head towards Peckham and ultimately Westminster (now Queens Road, but known as Peckham Lane until later in the 19th century). When the pub first opened it was next to the tollgate that gave New Cross Gate it's name.
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1855 - The Hatcham Society meets at the White Horse - nearly 170 years later its successor, the Hatcham Conservation Society were campaigning to save the pub |
The pub went through a bit of low ebb in the noughties, including a short lived attempt to turn it into a strip joint that prompted protests by Goldsmiths feminists and others. Lately it's been great, I loved the very high quality Irish music sessions and Sunday Roasts but alas no more.
The bigger picture here is that no matter what community value a pub like the White Hart may have, to giant pub companies who own the buildings they are just a line on a spreadsheet of property investments. The Wellington Pub Company owns more than 700 pubs and is owned in turn by the Reuben brothers, one of the country's wealthiest families (joint number 2 on the Sunday Times rich list). They were criticised earlier in the pandemic for their rent policies and must now be sitting on may empty properties, including locally both The White Hart and the former Rose of Lee/Dirty South on Lee High Road. We need to make sure that Covid-19 doesn't become an excuse for closing pubs permanently - we still need them, whether they are economically viable in future will depend on lots of factors, not least how much rent the landlords charge the people running them.
(At this end of New Cross not only is the White Hart closed, but the nearby Montague Arms just over the SE15 border has been empty for a while and a planning application has been put in to demolish it)
The heritage statement produced as part of the planning application has some interesting building detail, though flawed as commissioned by developers.
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Blackheath Modernist Houses Walk
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(detail from map) |
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Morden Road SE3 |