The Torch of Anarchy: 1890s meetings in Southwark Park

The Torch - sometimes known as The Torch of Anarchy - was an 1890s anarchist communist journal started by Olivia, Arthur and Helen Rossetti,  three young siblings from an artistic family (the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti was their uncle and the poet Christina Rossetti their aunt)

An issue from 1895 (April 18th) mentions that 'An Anarchist-Communist Group is being formed in Bermondsey' with open air meetings to 'be held in Southwark Park every Sunday morning at 11 am'. The contact give is C. Freestone, 5 Brandon Street, Bermondsey New Road'

A subsequent issue (18 July 1895) lists 'Anarchist Open-Air Propaganda' meetings in Southwark Park, Deptford Broadway and other London paces. The Torch is listed at being available from Devenny, 108 New Kent Road.

'Indoor Lectures' were also advertised at Deptford Workingmen's Educational Club, held at Smith's Cocoa Rooms, Deptford Bridge as well as at Liberty Hall in Wimbledon (Torch, 18 October 1895), 

See also: Bermondsey Socialist Club in the 1890s

 

May Day 1894: Peckham anarchists in Hyde Park

'The May Day demonstrations - The London anarchists - Violent scenes'

'A demonstration arranged by the Social Democratic Federation was held today in Hyde Park. The processionists, who did not exceed 3000 in number,  were for the most part orderly, and included contingents from Camberwell, Hammersmith, Bow, Bromley, Deptford, Greenwich, etc. Among the speakers were Dr Aveling, Messrs Keir Hardie, W Morris, J H Watts, P Curran. Congratulatory telegrams were sent to workers assembled throughout the world urging them to neglect no means towards their emancipation from wage slavery, and to work unceasingly for the establishment of the international co-operative Commonwealth, in which all the instruments of industry will be owned and controlled by the organised communities. The International Anarchist Communist group from Peckham brought a black banner inscribed "away with authority and monopoly, with free access to the means of life".

The Commonweal Anarchists held a meeting close to the Federation meeting place. At one platform a speaker was hurled from his place and the red flag was torn to pieces, but, protected by the police, the speaker managed to escape before receiving further injuries. Several disturbances occurred, but none of a serious character. There was a large body of police in attendance. After the excitement had subsided the anarchists restarted the meeting, when speeches were delivered by Samuels, Mowbray, and Louise Michel, who was followed by a man named Tochatti. He was frequently interrupted with cries of "shut up" and finally thrown to the ground by a crowd, by whom he was roughly handled. The police, after much exertion, rescued Tochatti and started him in the direction of the marble arch, where he was again set upon, and received several ugly blows on the head and face. The police again intervened, and to Tochatti was eventually placed in a cab in a very exhausted condition and driven away.

(Daily Express, 2 May 1894; James Tochatti (1852-1928) was a Scottish-born anarchist living in Hammersmith. For more on the Peckham anarchists of this period see Pressure Drop in Peckham by Nick Heath at libcom; the Paris Communard exile Louise Michel's time in South London is covered in this earlier Transpontine post; see also William Morris and South London)

My historical overview of 'May Days in South London' (50 page pdf pamphlet) is available as a free download here

An 1890s Indian Visitor to Crystal Palace - and New Cross?

The Reverand Thomas B. Pandian of Madras (sometimes known as T.B. Pandian or T.B. Pandiyan) was a Hindu convert to Christianity who came to England in 1893 to raise awareness of the plight of low caste 'Pariahs'. His travels in this country inspired his book 'England to an Indian Eye, Or, English Pictures from an Indian Camera' (1897), which is available to read for free at archive.org. It is  a work that includes lots of interesting observations such as his remark that 'the rage for cycling has taken full and fast hold of the people of England, as is evidenced by the fact that London is simply  over-run by "wheelers" of both sexes'. 

While describing London as 'the most remarkable city on the face of the globe' he did not overlook its miseries, such as the plight of the homeless: 'scores of such can, when darkness sets in, find no better resting-place than that afforded them by the doorsteps of public buildings, and obscure angles forming the junctures of adjoining structures  of one kind or another. Foodless, half-clothed, lying through the live-long night on the bare surface of these stony  bedsteads— so cold, so damp, so hard— life to the houseless poor of London must seem nothing more than an intolerable  condition of agonizing cursedness! What wonder, then, that so many of these wretched beings daily call in the angel  of death to relieve them before their appointed time, ending their earthly miseries by plunging themselves headlong into  the unclean waters of their Father Thames!'

Pandian describes a visit to the Crystal Palace:

'No sight-seer will think of leaving London without looking in at the world-famed 'Palace of Glass' in Upper 

Norwood, where John Bull and all his household disport themselves in a hundred different holidays. The Crystal Palace hall is capable of accommodating several thousands of people, and it is here that popular 

concerts and musical entertainments, organised on a large scale, are held, and it is here also that monster meetings of all sorts take place, when they are intended to present the character and significance of a national demonstration. So grandly beautiful is the appearance of this magnificent structure that I could well imagine a Christian villager from India regarding the edifice as a prototype of one of the 'many mansions' he has been taught to believe in as being  'prepared' for those who follow the teachings of the Heaven-sent Master he has learnt to serve. In a word, the  Crystal Palace of London is best described as being a splendid exhibition in itself, such as cannot be found in any  other part of the globe. It is, moreover, a complete and comprehensive index to England's commercial wealth and greatness'.

In a post earlier this week I featured a photo taken in that period at the New Cross studio of photographer R.F. Barnes. I am wondering whether this might actually be T.B. Pandian himself. There's some discussion at a family history site which suggests a link between Pandian and this photo- the key is the book he is holding. On highest resolution I could see that the last word on title is 'Peninsula' and others have spotted that the other visible word looks like 'Heroes'. Pandian was the author of a book entitled 'The Ancient Heroes of South Indian Peninsula', published in the year of that visit to London - 1893. Why else would he be holding that particular book in the photograph unless he had written it himself?

(Pandian's account is mentioned in Sukhdev Sandhu's excellent 'London Calling: how Black and Asian writers imagined a city', Harper, 2004)

Goldsmiths Sayes Court Institute: for 'bona fide artizans and working people' only (1896)

In the late 19th century, the Goldsmiths Institute in New Cross had a satellite 'Sayes Court Institute' in Evelyn Street, Deptford. According to the 1896 Goldsmiths handbook (a copy of which is in the Special Collections archive in Goldsmiths library), the building (pictured)  included a gymnasium hall, reading room/games room and four classrooms.

Membership was restricted to 'bona fide artizans and working people' only, with the benefits including access to Goldsmiths Library and Swimming Bath as well as classes.Use of the building was offered by W.J.Evelyn, who was one of the Governors of the College. Evelyn, a descendant of the 17th century John Evelyn who lived at Sayes Court, bought the site from the Government in 1869 and created what is today Sayes Court park. The building offered for the use of Goldsmiths was a former dockyard building. I'm not sure how long the Institute continued.

The building, also known as Sayes Court Hall, was originally built as a model making facility for the dockyard. It is shown on this 1914 map in the north west corner of Sayes Court Gardens.

1914 Map -source: Sayes Court wikipedia

Louise Michel: a Paris Communard in South London

The International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam is probably the most significant archive of radical movements in Europe. Recently it has made accessible large parts of its archives in digital form, including the papers of Louise Michel.  This has enabled me to solve something that has been bugging me for a long time - where did she live in South London? As I wrote here before:

'Louise Michel (1830-1905) was a celebrated figure in 19th century French politics, an anarchist who fought at the barricades in the Paris Commune of 1871 and was subsequently exiled to New Caledonia. Returning to France in 1880 she was frequently in conflict with the authorities, and decided to flee France for London in July 1890, shortly after being arrested following May Day riots'.

 According to Edith Thomas's biography, Louise Michel lived at one point at '79 Arspley Terrace' in East Dulwich, an address I have never been able to find, but I now think may have been an error.

Louise Michel

I believe that Louise Michel's first visit to London was in 1880. After being released from New Caledonia, a French colony in the Pacific, she and other amnestied Communards were taken to Sydney, Australia, from where they travelled on the mail ship 'John Helder' to London. As the ship waited in the fog in the Thames Estuary to be guided to port, French exiles in London made their way to greet it in small boats, singing Communard songs to their comrades (Butterworth, 2011, p.62). On this occasion, Michel only stayed for a couple of days before returning to Paris, but she mentions that with her friends she smuggled five cats from Nouméa (capital of New Caledonia) 'down the gangplank in London' and that 'Once in London, in front of a fire, with an enormous bowl of milk my friends brought them, they began to stretch out, yawning' (Michel was a big animal lover).

In 1883 she returned to London on a speaking tour, where among other things she visited a workhouse in Lambeth. Her account in her memoirs shows that she had become quite a Londonphile: 'London! I love London, where my exiled friends have always been welcomed, London, where old England, standing in the shadow of the gallows, is still more liberal than the French bourgeois republicans are'. All this despite the weather - 'the black London winter on which a cloud of fog floated. Raindrops condensed in an unceasing mist and now and again came in broad sheets... a frozen evening in the large, cold meeting hall in front of a cold and correct audience drawn from the grand neighbourhood of immense palaces under which the wretches have holes like animals. But despite that, I felt an impression of human honesty persisting regardless of the accursed chains that people interminably fasten on each other' (Michel, p.148)

She did flee to London in 1890 and apparently stayed here until she returned to Paris in 1895, but she continued to spend time living in London on and off until her death in 1905. She definitely lived for some of the earlier period at 59 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square - an area where many radical refugees hung out. The earliest reference I have to a definite address n East Dulwich is from August 1894, when Louise Michel sent a letter to the artist Lucien Pissarro (son of Camille) from '15 Ardley Terrace, East Dulwich' (this letter is in Ashmolean Museum collection).

The IISH archive includes a letter written in 1897 or 1898 in Michel's own hand with this address: 15 Ardley Terrace, Placquet Road, East Dulwich:

There is also the envelope of a letter written to her here in July 1898. People do make mistakes when writing addresses which causes problems for later historians! This one does read more like Ardsley, and I wonder the 'Arpsley Terrace' false trail might have arisen from copying such a mistake. 

Placquett Road no longer exists, but the 1893-96 Ordnance Survey Map shows that Placquett Road was the East Dulwich end of what is now Copleston Road, which at that point hadn't been extended to join up with Copleston and hence renamed. Note that what is now Oglander Road was then Wildash Road. It seems that the houses on Plaquett Road were demolished and replaced with new housing in 1900s, so the building that Michel lived in is no longer there.

Thomas mentions that Michel was visited in East Dulwich by a number of French journalists and by fellow Communard Charles Malato, who found the then 62 year old Michel surrounded by cats, dogs and a parrot that cried 'Long live anarchy!'. Michel was 62 in 1892, so that would suggest she was living in East Dulwich by then, and perhaps at the Ardley Terrace address. She may also have been at that address when in December 1893 a United Press representative interviewed 'the notorious woman Anarchist, who occupies a little house at East Dulwich, a suburb of London' (New York Times, 19 December 1893):

'A union of the strong against the weak has existed since Governments existed. The masses can unite equally against a common enemy. They may rise like the springtide of the ocean, and overflow the world' (Louise Michel, interviewed in East Dulwich, 1893)

Houses at East Dulwich end of Copleston Road, originally Placquett Road

Thomas gives another East Dulwich address in her book, stating that when Michel returned to London in December 1899 'She was still living in East Dulwich at this point, though no longer at 25 Chesterfield Grove' - so she must have lived at the latter, still standing and in fact recently sold:

25 Chesterfield Grove, East Dulwich.

Thomas also states that Michel moved again in March 1900 to 'to join Charlotte's father at 8 Albion Villas Road, Sydenham'. Charlotte Vauvelle was Michel's long term nurse and companion, and her father was Auguste Vauvelle. The 1901 Census for 8 Albion Villas lists Auguste, Charlotte and her brother Achille, with Louise Michel as 'boarder' described as 'authoress. Achille Vauvelle is listed as a 'Chromo artist' (i.e. chromo-lithographic printer) - he later worked with Waddingtons.

The house in Albion Villas is still standing:

8 Albion Villas today

Finally the archive has some letters sent to Louise Michel at another address in December 1903, 53 Dahomey Street, Mitcham Lane.

This is now Dahomey Road, Streatham SW16. Must admit I haven't been there, but from Google streetview, I think this is the house:

53 Dahomey Road SW16

Louise Michel died in Marseille in 1905, this picture shows her in bed in Toulon in the previous year, with Charlotte Vauvelle at her side:

Here's a flyer form October 1896 for a meeting of 'London Anarchist Communists' to 'bid farewell to Louise Michel and Pietro Gori on their departure to America on a lecturing tour' (Gori was an Italian anarchist poet). The meeting at the Club & Institute Union Hall in Holborn also featured the prominent anarchists Errico Malatesta and Sebastian Faure, as well as Tom Mann (later of Brockley), one of the leaders of the 1889 dock strike in London.

Speaking to some friends at the Radical Bookfair at the Bishopsgate Institute last weekend, we came up with the idea of doing something over the summer to mark Louise Michel's time in the area, possibly linked to some kind of Sydenham/Forest Hill radical history walk finishing with a picnic and some Communard songs. Let us know in comments or by email if you're interested.

Update September 2015:

In August 1897, Louise Michel spoke at a public meeting in Southwark Park in support of anarchist prisoners in Spain (Reynolds's Newspaper, Sunday 08 August 1897):

Notes:

Butterworth, A. (2011), The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents, London: Random House,p.62.

Michel, L. (1981), The Red Virgin: memoirs of Louise Michel, Alabama: University of Alabama Press.

Thomas, E. (1980), Louise Michel, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980.

[updated July 2020 - earlier version wondered whether current houses in Copleston Road included Louise Michel's former Placquett Road house, but comment pointed out that street seems to have been rebuilt since she lived there]

Frederick Wiedhofft - New Cross Photographer

I recently stumbled across a fine photograph Graeme Brooker posted on twitter with the caption '1920. New Cross. George & Nelly Rumble. My great-great aunt & uncle'. The photo was in a frame bearing the name 'F.Wiedhofft, 338 New Cross Road', and a quick search across family history and photography sites will locate many pictures attributed to this photographer.

His own life has been documented at a Wiedhofft family history site, so we know that Frederick Wiedhofft, the grandchild of German migrants, was born in Clerkenwell in 1854. He started off as an  'oil and colourman' in the 1870s, moving his business over the next 20 years from Grays Inn Road to Notting Hill and then Balls Pond Road in Dalston. An oil and colourman would have sold paints, lamp oil, etc.from their shop.  It wasn't until 1897 that he moved into photography, opening up a studio at 338 New Cross Road - where he was listed as living when he got married in 1899. Near to New Cross station, this has most recently been an Indian restaurant (Monsoon).

On the 29th July 1910 Frederick died of pneumonia at his then home at 358 Romford Rd. Forest Gate, but the business seems to have continued a while longer. In the 1914 Post Office directory the New Cross Road shop has been joined by two other branches in Holland Park and Junction Road in Islington. Photo London states that he was succeeded at the New Cross studio by Percy John Blackbeard. 

The picture above of George and Nelly Rumble has 'July 1920' written on the back so studio may have been going as long at that - though that date could have been written in error at a later date:

'F. Wiedhofft, Art Photographer'

"John James Pay, on his retirement from the Metropolitan Police June 12th 1910 after 25 years service"

A reference to the 'late J.J. Avery' -
Wiedhofft seems to have taken over his business in Holland Park

1890s (?) map of Brockley/New Cross/Nunhead/Lewisham

A friend gave me this old Brockley-centred street map. It is printed one-sided on folded card, so was presumably a stand alone map to carry in the pocket rather than part of a book. But it is clearly one of a collection as it refers to other sheet numbers for adjoining maps.

But when was it printed? I am guessing late 19th century, probably 1890s. Most of the streets, railways and parks familiar to us now are already laid out, including Telegraph Hill Park which opened to the public in 1895. Strangely St Catherines Church in Kitto Road isn't shown, this too opened in 1895, so unless it has been mistakenly omitted the map must date to around that time (perhaps when the park had been laid out but the church not yet completed).  There are also other significant gaps, with hardly any roads shown in Brockley west of the railway line - no St Asaphs Road for instance. The houses there can't be any later than about 1910.

You can click on the map to enlarge. The section below shows the still extant Brockley footpath before the houses that now surround it were built, heading alongside Nunhead cemetery, following the line of Merttins Road and then across undeveloped ground to Brockley Road, then towards Ladywell via the grounds of Brockley Hall (a large home demolished in 1931). Note too the bandstand and cricket ground on Hilly Fields, now more often used for children's football.

A few other curiosities I noticed on main map (no doubt you will spot others):

- the bottom half of Drakefell Road was called Penmartin Road - now it's all Drakefell all the way down (apparently it was renamed in 1902, which again suggests this map dates to 1890s);

- part of Peckham Rye was still Homestall Farm - this was bought by London County Council in 1894 and incorporated into the park, with the farm buildings demolished in 1908; 

- there was a children's playground in the grounds of Goldsmiths.
- there was a fireworks factory by Honor Oak Park Station.

The existence of this coloured street map with a grid pattern at this early date may surprize those who have heard the popular myth that no such London maps existed prior to Phyllis Pearsall's  London A-Z in the 1930s.