'Jews in Lewisham Fight': a 1936 punch up with Hitler fans

A street fight in Avenue Road,  Lewisham in 1936 seems to have started out with a visit to the local Lyons coffee house where Jewish customers were subject to antisemitic abuse. Edward, Benjamin and Victor Ansell, brothers from Clapton, were out with Rene Low, a young woman from Rembrandt Road in Lee. They got into an argument after hearing remarks such as 'Fancy an English girl going out with Jews' and approving comments about Hitler. Edward Ansell was reported to have said 'I'll give you Heil Hitler' and 'Fascists or anybody else are not going to insult my fiancee'.

Avenue Road no longer exists in Lewisham - I believe it ran off the High Street, but was demolished to make way for the Shopping Centre. The Lyons coffee house was at 64 Lewisham High Street, next to the Joiners Arms (pictured below in 1951).

[story found at British Newspaper Archive]

 

'We demand the right to live a little longer' - The 1937 Bus Strike in South London

The London Bus Strike in 1937 saw Transport and General Workers Union members walk out demanding a reduction in the length of their working day from 8 to 7.5 hours. 30,000 bus workers were employed by the the London Passenger Transport Board (made up of private companies), and the strike was solidly supported, starting on 1 May. The Daily Worker summarised the strikers' case:

'"We demand the right to live a little longer" With this unanswerable claim the London busmen support their claim for a 30 minute reduction in their working day of eight hours... That the health of busmen is affected and their lives shortened by existing conditions of labour is not an exaggerated claim, but a plain statement of fact... during the five years ended 1935, 3,785 busmen left the industry... Of these 877 died at an average age of 52, while 1,006 were discharged through ill health at an average age of 46 years... This is the story of speeding up. To safeguard their health the bus-men ask that their working day be reduced by 30 minutes. In making this moderate claim the workers point out that the safety of millions of people, whose lives are daily placed in their hands, is bound up with the winning of this claim. The employers maintain that the claim cannot be met on financial grounds, yet last year alone a profit of £7,474,000 was made by the undertaking' (DW, 30 April 1937).

The Central Bus Committee of strikers called for tram and trolley bus workers to join the strike, but the Union Executive, headed by Ernest Bevin, refused this and called off the strike after four weeks without the main demand being  met.

In South East London, the union seems to have been organised in two areas. Division A1 covered the bus garages at Camberwell, Nunhead and Old Kent Road.  The Daily Worker reported on some of the activities that kept the strikers occupied:

• 'men are well occupied with concerts and whist drives. Mass  meeting on Friday at the Co-op Hall, Rye Lane (DW 14 May 1937)
• Cabaret and dance at Oliver Goldsmiths School, march  from Camberwell to Peckham planned (DW 20 May 1937)
• Demo planned from Wren Road, Camberwell Green. 'free hair cut service by local talent instituted in Nunhead' (DW 21 May 1937)
• 'The boys are all in good spirits. Holding cricket match this afternoon, Peckham Rye and a concert on Friday at the Co-op Hall' (DW 27 May 1937)

Division A3 covered the garages at Plumstead, Sidcup, Catford and Bromley. Activities here included a 'Splendid demonstration to Lewisham' from Eltham Green (DW 20th and 21st May 1937).

The site of the old Nunhead bus garage on Nunhead Lane, near to Peckham Rye:

A plaque on the building reads: 'On this site stood a Garage for the Steam buses whichh the National Steam Car Company Limited opened in 1911. The Clock tower is a replica of the one which existed until 1999' 

Nunhead Bus garage seems to have been quite a militant workplace. Workers there were active in the 1926 General Strike, with the Camberwell Strike Bulletin (10 May 1926)  reporting that 'On Sunday morning, about 400 strikers from the Nunhead Bus Garage paraded in military formation to the Central Hall, Peckham, where a Church Service was held. All the men wore 1914–18 War Decorations – many of them wearing as many as six medals'.  In 1935, an unofficial bus workers strike started at Nunhead and spread to involve 5,000 workers. The garage was closed by London Transport in 1954 though it continued as a private coach depot into the 1970s and was used as a location in the final series of  popular early 70s sitcom 'On the Buses'. The building was demolished to make way for flats in 1999.

Southwark Spain Shop, Walworth Road: anti-fascist solidarity in South London

Edith Tudor-Hart (1908–1973) was an Austrian photographer who studied at the Bauhaus. Born Edith Suschitzky, she came from a left wing Jewish background and fled rising fascism to move to London having married Alex Tudor-Hart in 1933.  They lived for a while in Brixton where she had a photography studio. Alex became a GP and later went to Spain during the Civil War as part of the anti-fascist British Medical Aid Unit. Edith developed her practice as a documentary photographer, not to mention apparently helping to recruit Kim Philby to spy for the Russians.

A recent display at Tate Britain features some of her work, along with photos by her brother Wolfgang Suschitzky (a photographer and cinematographer who worked on the 1971 film 'Get Carter' among others). Both of them captured/constructed some great images of London life, but one image in particular caught my attention:

Tudor-Hart's image shows something called the 'Southwark Spain Shop', with the caption stating that it was taken in 1937. As the shop in question is covered in posters there is quite a lot of information in the photograph itself. Messages include 'Spain is fighting for you', 'Buy a tin of food, we will send it it Spain', 'Arms and food for Spain', 'Please step inside and see what Spain means to you'. It is obvious that the shop is in support of the anti-fascist side in the then-raging Spanish Civil War. But where was it? And what was the local context for the shop?

In terms of location there are some clues in the photograph. Posters on the seemingly vacant property next door advertise a dance at Manor Place Baths, situated off the Walworth Road and a major venue for public meetings, dances as well as swimming.

To dig further I spent some time looking through the online archive of the Daily Worker from this period, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It took a while, but I have confirmed the address. A report in the Daily Worker states 'Outstanding features of Southwark's Spain fortnight, which began yesterday, are a meeting at Manor Place Baths, February 13 and a dance at the same place a week later, and the opening of a Spain shop at 174 Walworth Road SE17'. The date of this article is 7 February 1939 so pretty sure that the date on photo caption is incorrect (of course it's possible that there was another shop in 1937 but seems unlikely and there's no trace of such in the Daily Worker).

A few days later the same paper advertised the 'Aid Spain' meeting at Manor Place Baths on 13th February with Ellen Wilkinson, Fred Copeman (Lewisham volunteer with the International Brigades) and Langdon-Davies, with an appeal to 'Bring food, clothes, money to meeting and to Spain Shop, 174 Walworth Road. Volunteers needed day or eve'. The same issue mentions another Spain Shop in Hackney at 122 Upper Clapton Road E5, as well as a 'Meeting for Spain' at Bermondsey Town Hall, also on 13th February to 'Welcome back International Brigade convoy' (Daily Worker, 11 February 1939). There was also a 'Help defend Spain in S.London!' rally at Lewisham Town Halll on 20th February (also with Copeman as well as Vernon Bartlett MP), and at Greenwich Baths on 10th February, like the Bermondsey meeting to 'Welcome International Brigade Convoy' (Daily Worker, 10 February 1939).

174 Walworth Road was just around the corner from Manor Place Baths, just up from the still standing Tankard pub at number 178 on the corner of Amelia Street.  The 1953 Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark shows that 174 Walworth Road was one of a number of ‘unfit and insanitary premsies’ demolished in 1953'.

Solidarity with Spain in South London

As is clear from above, the Southwark Spain Shop was just one aspect of a wider local anti-fascist Spanish solidarity movement which was of course part of an international movement that witnessed people travelling from many countries to join the fight. There are many other references in the Daily Worker to local events in this period, here are some examples:

- Southwark Amalgamated Engineering Union held a public meeting ‘Support Spanish Medical Unit’ showing the films ‘Defence of Madrid’ and Call to Arms (DW 20/3/1937)

- ‘Southwark! Support Spain by coming to CP Dance, Friars Hall, Blackfriars Road. Tonight, 8.0. Ritz Revels Band. 1s’ (DW 20/3/1937).

- 'With the object of rousing support for a Spanish Medical Aid Committee... Southwark Communist Party  is organising a meeting to be held at Manor Place, Walworth Road on April 5, at 8 pm. All Southwark workers are urged to attend' (DW 30/3/37)

- 'Lambeth and Southwark Ambulance for Spain - Meeting, Victory Place School, Walworth. Tuesday, May 25, 8 pm. Speakers: G.R. Strauss MP, Councillors L. Styles, Searson and Gillian' (DW 24 May 1937)

‘Lambeth and Southwark Ambulance for Spain – Dance, Sat. May 29, 7:30 to 11:30, Henry Fawcett School (opp. Horn’s), Kennington Road’ (DW 28/5/37)

‘Southwark and Lambeth Spanish Medical Aid Committee – demonstrate to Trafalgar Square from Kennington Church, Sunday July 11, 2:00 pm (DW, 10/7/37)

'Southwark supporters of Spain's fight have formed a branch of the International Brigade Dependants' Aid Committee... "Inspired by or 15 Southwark comrades who are fighting in Spain and in memory of J.B.Dunbar, who gave his life fighting for democracy in Spain"' (DW 27/1/1938)

'Southwark Aid Spain Dance, Manor Place Baths, Walworth Road tonight. 1s. Appearance of Teddy Joyce, Mayor of Southwark, Geo. Isaacs, G.A. Strauss, Lewis Silkin. Licensed Bar. 26 valuable prizes, including overcoat, frock, watches, table lamp etc' (DW, 25/11/38 - same issue also mentions Communist Party meeting on same day at Brockley Co-op Hall on 'Spain and Chamberlain's policy'.

In June 1939 the Dramatic Section of the Building Trade Workers' Sport Association put on a play adaption of socialist novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists at the Co-operative Hall, Rye Lane, Peckham to raise funds for the Aid Spain Committee. All the actors were bricklayers or carpenters. The lead was Alf Goddard, a brickie from Camberwell, and the producer Dan Telfer, also a bricklayer (Daily Herald 15/6/39)

Update: on twitter @catford_se6 has noted this old photo of the Tankard on pubmywiki. On the right of the photo you can see the stonework of the shop and the barbers pole visible on the shop photo - there was a Scott Hyman, hairdresser, listed there in 1915.

Related posts:

Bill Alexander, Sydenham International Brigadier
Jessica Mitford in Rotherhithe (and Esmond Romilly in Spain)

[The Edith Tudor-Hart photography show is at Tate Britain closed in November 2019]

Red Stage: the 1930s Workers Theatre Movement in South London

Some interesting material in the University of Warwick's digital archive on British Political Theatre 1930s to 1950s, including some newsletters from the 1930s from the Workers Theatre Movement, associated with the Communist Party. As mentioned here before, South London was a focus for this kind of theatre, with performances of agitational sketches and songs given in the streets, at meetings and at shows.


According to 'Class against class: the Communist Party in Britain Between the Wars', (Matthew Worley, 2002): 'Communist theatre groups had begun to appear throughouth the country by the turn of the decade [the 1930s]. In London alone, ten such troupes, including the Red Star Troupe of West London, Red Radio of Hackney, the Red Magnets of Woolwich, the Red Front of Streatham, the Red Players of Lewisham, the Red Blouses of Greenwich and the Yiddish-speaking Proltet, existed by 1931’.

The Lewisham Red Players performed in Lewisham High Street and elsewhere, with their group chorus going:

“There is a word you mustn’t say – revo-lution
All the same it’s on the way – the workers’ revolution
Every day the world turns round - revo-lution
A few more turns, it will resound - revo-lution
It’s coming here, it’s coming there - revo-lution
The ground is tumbling everywhere – the workers’ revolution”.

(source: Raphael Samuel in  Performance and Politics in Popular Drama: Aspects of Popular Entertainment in Theatre, Film and Television, 1800–1976, edited by David Brady, 1980)

The Red Players included in their ranks Charlie Mann,  son of the veteran Communist and trade unionist Tom Mann, the latter who lived in Brockley in the 1920s  (in 1927 his address was 1 Adelaide Road).


Charles B Mann (1905-1989) was editor of the Workers' Theatre Movement journal 'Red Stage', with his address given in the November 1931 issue as 61 Sydenham Park SE26.

Red Stage (November 1931) mentions new groups being set up in Croydon and Woolwich and 'the revival of the Deptford Group',  and open-air 'Red Radio' shows in Bermondsey and Greenwich. The January 1932 issue includes a report from the Streatham-based 'Red Front Troupe, South London' stating that it had 'nine effective members, three of whom are women' and that in November 1932 they had given five shows and set up an unemployed troupe linked to the National Unemployed Workers Movement. The South London 'Red Players' reported that they had helped set up new groups in Croydon, Woolwich and Camberwell and were planning 'full WTM shows in Croydon, Lewisham and Woolwich'. The folowing month's issue (February 1932) includes reports from Red Blouses in Greenwich, Red Magnets (Woolwich) - planning a big show at Plumstead Baths - and Red Players, planning shows in Croydon, Lewisham and elsewhere.




The movement, which argued that 'Our theatre awakens the masses', presented theatre that condemned capitalism and promoted the workers movement, but there were disagreements about the best way of doing this. Within the pages of these publications we see some healthy debate about the role of the theatre and other issues. For instance the Jewish communist theatre troupe Proltet mounted a strong defence of doing performances in Yiddish, against criticism from some in the Party (WTM Monthly Bulletin, February 1933). There was a debate about jazz, with a letter arguing that 'it seems a great pity that, when so  many fine revolutionary and other great melodies are available, it is found necessary to descend to the level of the American jazz exploiters' (Red Stage, January 1932) and a response that to reach the masses it was necessary to use tunes from popular culture - 'jazz brings us nearer to the workers' (February 1932).


A critical review in the Communist Party's Daily Worker attacked the tendency to 'individual self boosting' in the Workers Theatre Movement, provoking a firm response from the Red Players of South London: 'If Comrade Bennett's ideal state is one in which the individual is prohibited from personal expression, then that is not the state we are fighting for' (Red Stage,  January 1932). There is a tragic historical irony that in Stalin's USSR - celebrated by the Workers Theatre Movement - such views could lead to the Gulag in this period.

Red Stage, January 1932 giving contact addresses for the Red Front troupe (16 Buckleigh Road, SW16 and for the Red Players (S. Banks, 22 Campshill Road, SE13)

'Pride, Prejudice and Peckham' - John Beckett, from Labour MP to Nazi apologist

I have been peering again into  the murky waters of the history of the far right in South London.  One of the more depressing specimens is John Beckett (1894-1964).

After the First World War, in which he served, Beckett joined the left wing Independent Labour Party and following a period as a Hackney councillor he became the Labour MP for Gateshead in 1924, and then for Peckham in the 1929 General Election. He seems to have created some dischord such that in the 1931 election three Labour candidates stood against each other, all of whom lost to the Conservative candidate as a result (draw what contemporary lessons you like from that...)

'Pride, Prejudice and Peckham'
'This time... it is the Socilaists who have quarrelled, and they have quarrelled so violently that they are bringing into the field not two candidates, but three. Mr John Beckett - who created disunity at Gateshead, where he was once returned with a majority of more than none thousand - came to Peckham in 1929. He seems to have created as much disunity there'
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Thursday 22 October 1931

Beckett subsequently moved rapidly to the right, and in 1934 joined Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF). Beckett became the BUF's Director of Publications, editing its paper, but after falling out with Mosley founded the even more openly anti-semitic National Socialist League with William Joyce. Joyce, from Dulwich, ended up being executed for his role as Hitler's 'Lord Haw Haw' propagandist. Beckett, along with other nazi sympathisers, was interned from 1940 to 1943 - for some of the time in Brixton Prison. After the war he resumed his fascist activities with the British People's Party before dying in 1964. His son, the writer/journalist Francis Beckett, later wrote about him in the book 'Fascist in the Family'. 

For those intrigued/horrified by the politics of left-right crossover - in which sometime leftists co-operate and ultimately become indistinguishable from the extreme right - the case of Beckett and some of his associates is a salutary lesson. Among his comrades in the British People's Party were Ben Greene, a Quaker pacifist and former Labour candidate, and St John Philby (father of Russian spy Kim Philby), another former Labour supporter who converted to Islam and helped the Saudi family to power in what became Saudi Arabia - before standing as a fascist candidate and being locked up for a period in the Second World War. What a bunch of eejits.

1939 Evacuation - 2,000 children leave New Cross Gate in two hours

I'm sure many of us returning to work after the Christmas holidays are not looking forward to getting back on trains and buses. Spare a thought though for some previous travellers... On 1 September 1939, at the start of the Second World War, the mass evacuation of children from London and other cities started. As these reports show, 2,000 children left New Cross Gate station alone in less than two hours. Two still existing New Cross schools are mentioned specifically - Childeric and Waller Elementary (now Edmund Waller Primary School):

'Greatest Evacuation Has Begun - 3,000,000 persons on the move - Exodus of Bible Dwarfed - Cheerful Youngsters at London Stations

Britain today began the giant four day task of evacuating 3,000,000 children, mothers, blind and maimed. From the big cities of the land there began an exodus on a scale without precedent in human history... Nearly half of the three million are from Greater London...

Before dawn nearly 200 children assembled at Myrdle street School, East London. Among them was nine years-old Freda Skrzypce, who arrived with her parents from Danzig on Sunday. She has a companion in Ruth Rosenzweig, aged nine, a Jewish girl. The dexterity with which children were shepherded through arriving masses of morning workers at Waterloo Station was a perfect piece of organisation. At Myrdle school, which is in a poor part of East London, children were told to be at the premises at 5:30 am, but before the gates were opened at five, some were already waiting outside... As one little girl was leaving here mother, she asked pathetically, 'I wonder if I'll ever see you again mummy - here or anywhere else?'.

.. In less than two hours nearly 2,000 children had left New Cross Gate Station on the Southern Railway. 'The discipline of the children was astonishing' a reporter was told 'and I had not one case of a difficult child. The children behaved as though they had been prepared for this for months. I wish all our passengers were as easy to manage'.  'A triumph of co-operation' was how a London County Council official described the evacuation. Children, teachers and railway employees worked in perfect harmony.

A cripple girl of eight, who has had eleven operations, was evacuated from St Thomas Hospital. Clutching a dolly, she pointed proudly to the foot of her bed saying 'My gas mask is there'.

(Express and Echo - Exeter, Friday 1 September 1939)

'Nearly 800 children left New Cross Gate Southern Railway Station at 8:50 am. Mothers and fathers gathered in a goods yard and waved good-bye with handkerchiefs and newspapers as trains moved out. None of the children knew their destination. 'I hope it is going to be the seaside' said one boy. 'I have brought by bathing costume along with me'

(Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Friday 01 September 1939)

'Activity at New Cross Gate Station, one of the big London entraining centres in the scheme, began soon after 8 a.m., with the arrival of tiny tots from Childeric Road Infants’ School. Hand-in-hand, with the requisite belongings, including gas-masks slung over their shoulders, they followed the instructions of their teachers. These children were quite cheerful — it was apparently a great adventure. Scores of mothers, despite appeals to go no further than the schools at which the children assembled, went to the station, but were not allowed on the embarkation platforms.

The first trainload to leave was practically all infants —and 95 per cent, delighted infants. Glorious weather and a train ride into the country— perhaps to the sea. It was great. Many took precious toys with them. Two little girls left together, each hugging teddy bears. There were dolls in plenty, and the tinier the children the happier they were. Two mothers changed their minds outside the station. They had walked at the side of the procession from one of the schools, but at the last moment, as their children were approaching the barrier, they caught them up in their arms and took them home again...

A master at Waller Road Elementary Junior School, who saw pupils off to-day, gave very remarkable figures of a timing test they had had at the school for putting on gas-masks. He said that from the moment the order was given every mask was on in 31 seconds, and one infant of four years had put it on in 15 seconds. A cheery Cockney going in the direction of New Cross Gate Station with a vegetable barrow hoisted a couple of youngsters on to his potatoes and pushed them to the station. The cheerful co-operation of London workers in travelling early did much to lessen delay and congestion. About 20 children arrived in a furniture van—singing!'

(Bristol Evening Post - Friday 01 September 1939)

Woolwich Rent Protest 1939

From the Daily Herald Archive at the National Media Museum:

'A photograph showing residents creating a road blockade as part of a rent protest in Woolwich, south London, taken in July 1939 by John Topham for the Daily Herald'.  Great photo, unfortunately I don't know any more about the context. The placard reads 'we the tenants of these flats do not intend to pay  any rent till something is done'. But about what?

Peckham Rent Strike 1930s

In the 1930s, Peckham was the scene of a successful rent strike. The focus was the Nigel Buildings tenements, which I think were situated roughly where the Troy Town flats are now off Nigel Road SE15. I found this account online, source seems to be an article (undated) in The Morning Star and I believe the author is Dick Maunders:

'Fifty dilapidated flats, which had been condemned by London County Council a year before, constituted the Nigel Buildings tenements, situated behind the White Horse pub in Rye Lane. They were privately owned. The tenants' homes were being overrun with sewer rats and other vermin. The working-class residents were at the end of their tether, having to suffer daily living in these appalling conditions.

Time to declare my interest - the man they approached to raise the problem was my father, Alf Maunders, who they'd seen speaking at a Communist United Front meeting in Rye Lane. Together with the Camberwell branch of the Communist Party, Peace Union and the National Unemployed Workers Movement, Maunders organised a meeting of all the tenants that same evening. They formed a tenants' defence league and unanimously backed a call for a rent strike.

A glance at the Daily Workers from the time, now available online, gives you ample evidence that this was not an overreaction. The paper for October 22 that year carries an item: 'Rats at her throat - Peckham girl's terrifying experience'. Other families were going through the same horrifying experiences. "One tenant had her food eaten by sewer rats as it stood on the table."  Another woman "killed no less than six rats" in her kitchen in one week. There was a worker "who used to go out and get boozed from sheer dread of the rats who were his sleeping partner ... the rats drove people out of their beds and made racecourses of their rooms." Other reports detail "39 children covered in sores" and the nasty skin conditions babies developed due to living in such filthy homes.

The landlord was a Mr Himmelschein, who had not been paying the rates to the council, even though they were included in the rents he charged tenants, which varied from 13s6d to £1 a week. (That's from £40 to £61 in today's money). Four tenants had been summonsed by Camberwell borough council for non-payment of rates they had already paid to Himmelschein. When 30 women from Nigel Buildings marched on the court to demand a meeting with whoever had brought the action, the council withdrew the summons, though only for a month. So there were plenty of grounds for a rent strike. On the first day of the strike the rent collector was met by an angry crowd of women who refused him entry and chased him away.

Himmelschein went to the flats "to try to reason with the tenants" - and came in for a nasty shock when the residents "transformed his visit into a public trial," held in the courtyard of the building. After hearing the case against him, the assembled tenants "found Himmelschein guilty and told him no more rents would be paid for the rat and bug-infested premises."In the face of this workers' democracy Himmselchein had no choice but to leave. The tenants organised barricades at the entrances and took over control of the estate. That was the start of an eight-week saga that reminds us even today of the value of people power.

On one occasion the landlord tried to placate the tenants with some repairs and fumigation. The Daily Worker reports that he sent two men, neither of whom was in a trade union. He was paying them one shilling and threepence (£3.76 nowadays) an hour, below the union rate.The tenants would have none of it, telling him that because of the state of the flats the job needed 12 men to make them anywhere near habitable - and insisting they all be trade union members. Himmelschein refused and threatened court action. Meanwhile the tenants had approached Camberwell borough council, which sent along some men to fumigate the flats.But they only sent a five-gallon drum of insecticide, costing a shilling a pint, which was only enough to cover five flats. The council's rat-catchers estimated that it would cost £21 to rid the buildings of rats and more to block up the rat holes.

The action enjoyed the support and solidarity of the local community, the Communist Party and unemployed workers. The tenements remained barricaded for the whole eight weeks, with the residents united behind the action. They had to face enemies other than the landlord - Oswald Mosley's blackshirts tried to exploit the situation because Himmelschein happened to be Jewish. They attempted to march on the flats but were stopped and driven off by the tenants, who wanted nothing to do with anti-semitism. "They knew they were fighting landlordism, not Jews," the Worker reported. Such was the residents' tenacity that in the end an exasperated Himmelschein withdrew his court action to evict the tenants and gave up on collecting £200 of unpaid rent. In the face of all the adverse publicity London County Council agreed to rehouse all the tenants in new council estates at East Dulwich and Brockley. It was a complete victory over the landlord and the council. My father told me the Nigel Buildings rent strike was the first successful one in the capital, if not the country'.

There's more on this at Hayes People's History. It mentions there that 'In 1931 a Workers Defense Movement (a left wing grouping) was established in Camberwell it was active in preventing evictions, most notably during the 1932 Rent Strike at Wakefield House, Goldsmith Estate, Peckham. The Camberwell WDM was also active in support of Hunger Marchers and unemployed'. An article about Peckham-born Alf Maunders (1908-1991) at Communist Biogs (written by his son Dick) says that he'was also part of the Communist anti-fascist organisation at the battle of Cable Street. He also helped to organise anti-fascist actions in Camberwell and Peckham against Mosley’s Blackshirts and William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw). He always enjoyed telling the story of how Joyce, when climbing on a lorry to speak at the Heaton Arms in Peckham, was swiftly felled by a flying bottle and carried off unconscious never to return'.

There's a bit of confusion over the date - the Morning Star article says the Peckham rent strike was in 1935, the Hayes People's History site has it down as 1931. I think 1935 is probably correct as the author had plainly been consulting Daily Worker archives, so must have known the dates (plus Mosley's British Union of Fascists wasn't formed until 1932). The 1931/32 rent strikes were in council housing elsewhere in Peckham, including on Goldsmith Road.

(photos sourced from Hayes People's History, some great 1930s Peckham faces)

History Corner: Jessica Mitford in Rotherhithe

The Mitford sisters became notorious in the 1930s and 1940s as aristocratic socialites who pursued widely divergent political paths. Unity and Diana both became Hitler enthusiasts, the latter marrying British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley.

Jessica Mitford (1917-1996) on the other hand ran away to Spain with her boyfriend Esmond Romilly to back the republic against Franco's fascist rebellion. Back in London and married, they ended up in 1937 living at 41 Rotherhithe Street in a large house 'wedged between warehouses' on the river. The house belonged to Roger Roughton (1916-1941), surrealist poet, who also stayed there. Another frequent guest was their friend the writer Philip Toynbee (Polly's dad). They held 'bottle parties... frequented by a motley crowd of journalists, writers, night-club singers, students' and spent a lot of time arguing about the merits of joining the Communist Party (Toynbee and Roughton did).

It's easy to mock the idea of a couple of upper class lefties slumming it in SE London, and indeed there is some condescension in Mitford's account: 'The bus ride from Rotherhithe to more familiar parts of London (Kensington, Hyde Park, Oxford Street) takes well over an hour. It winds past miles and miles of workers’ flats with such incongruous sounding names as Devon Mansions, Cornwall Homes. Five or six storeys high, these gloomy red-brick structures house a shorter and paler race of people than the inhabitants of London's West End. In appearance, dress and speech they form so radical a contrast as to give the impression of a different ethnic group'.

According to a 2002 Southwark Council Rotherhithe history map the former 41 Rotherhithe Street is now on Fulford Street,
the 'sole remaining terraced house from a whole row lining Thames'. So pretty sure this is it - or it could have been one of the now demolished adjoining buildings, where the Londonphile notes John Betjeman, Marlene Dietrich, Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret and Noel Coward variously hung out!

Nevertheless, despite living in a comfortable house, Mitford and Romilly were largely cut off in disgrace from their family wealth and struggled to get by. To an extent they did share some of the life of local working class people, eating 'fish and chips at the nearest Lyons teashop' and getting involved in the local Labour Party:

'The Bermondsey Labour Party was much more to our liking. At the monthly meetings, held in a shabby hall not far from Rotherhithe Street, vigorous discussions would take place on the important political events of the day. Tired, white-faced dockers and their wives would join in "The Red Flag", a popular Labour Party anthem in that part of London. Fund-raising campaigns for milk for Spanish orphans or for aid to Hitler’s Jewish victims were planned and carried out, often in defiance of the wishes of Transport House [Labour Party national HQ]. If they lacked the glamour and the special, high-flown language of some of our Communist friends, these members of the local Labour Party branch seemed to display a seriousness of purpose and a down-to-earth understanding of issues that quickly won our respect. The Labour Party in that section of London was considerably more militant than the Party's official spokesmen. It was said that the schoolchildren lined up to boo Princess Mary, symbol of hated charity, when she made her infrequent expeditions to the local orphanage.

On May Day the entire community turned out, men, women and children, home-made banners proclaiming slogans of the "United Front against Fascism" waving alongside the official ones. The long march to Hyde Park started early in the morning, contingents of the Labour Party, the Co-ops, the Communist Party, the Independent Labour Party marching through the long day... Everyone took lunch in a paper bag, and there was much good-natured jostling and shouting of orders, and last-minute rounding up of children who had darted away in the crowd. Philip and Roger taught us some new songs to sing on the way- parodies on Communist songs: “Class conscious we are, and class conscious we’ll be, And we'll tread on the necks of the the bourgeoisie !”, "Oh, ’tis my delight, of a dirty night to bomb the bourgeoisie!”, and a sarcastic version of "The People's Flag": "The People's flag is palest pink, It's not as red as you might think."

We had been warned that the Blackshirts might try to disrupt the parade, and sure enough there were groups of them lying in wait at points along the way. Armed with rubber truncheons and knuckle-dusters, they leaped out from behind buildings; there were several brief battles in which the Blackshirts were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the Bermondsey men'.

Sadly, they shared another feature of local life - the tragedy of infant mortality. In December 1937, Mitford gave birth to a daughter, Julia: 'She became the centre of my existence. Esmond gleefully watched her grow, learn to smile, learn to wave her feet and catch them with an unsteady hand. We planned her future, growing up among the rough children of Rotherhithe Street, born to freedom and May Day parades, without the irksome restraints of nanny, governess, daily walks and dull dances'. Within six months however the baby had died in a measles epidemic.

Later in 1938 they were forced to move out of Rotherhithe Street when they couldn't afford to pay their electricity bill, and the following year they moved to the United States. During the Second World War  Romilly, who had fought with the International Brigades as a teenager in Spain, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was killed in action in 1941. In the same year, Roughton committed suicide in the midst of despair about the Nazi-Soviet pact. Mitford remained in the United States where she lived a long and fruitful life as a writer and civil rights activist.

Esmond Romilly and Jessica Mitford

Source: Hons and Rebels - Jessica Mitford, 1960

A Music Hall Night out in Woolwich 1932

Browsing through some old theatre programmes at Haynes Lane market in Crystal Palace last week, I came across this from December 1932. The Royal Artillery Theatre in Woolwich was converted from the Recreations Rooms of the Royal Artillery Barracks. Damaged by bombs in World War Two, it closed in 1956 and was then demolished (there's a history of the theatre and details of its exact location at the Arthur Lloyd theatre history website).

In 1932 the Theatre lessee was Frank Littler, and the managers were his step-children Blanche and Prince Littler. The latter two were the children of Jules Richeaux, a second-generation French Londoner who had started out running a tobacconist  in Camberwell and ended up running the theatre in Woolwich. When he died, his wife Agnes took over the theatre before marrying Frank Littler. Prince, Blanche and their brother Emile became in 'the 1930s and 40s the most powerful figures in the theatrical world of the West End and Provincial theatre, with almost a total monopoly in producing musicals and pantomime in the United Kingdom' ('It's Behind You'). Blanche later married the music hall star George Robey.

Headliners for six nights in December 1932 were 'the wireless stars' Alexander and Mose, a 'black face' duo made up of comedians Albert Whelan and Billy Bennett - who also appeared on the programme under their own names. Other acts included The Juggling Demons, Angela Guilberte ('The Singing Accordionist'), Rogers and Lascelles with Ann ('The popular dancing trio'), Wheel & Whoa ('comedy cyclists') and Val Vett ('Rag-Time, Rag-Picking Rag-Painter').

The programme tells us that the 46 tram to New Cross and Brockley went to the door of the theatre, and also advertised the forthcoming pantomime, Dick Whittington.

Programme printed at the Perfecta Press, 154 Camberwell Road, SE5.

History Corner: the Prendergast Murals

In the main hall at Prendergast girls school on Hilly Fields SE4 there is a set of striking pastoral murals dating from the 1930s.  At that time the school was called Brockley County and was a boys school (if you go into the Brockley Mess cafe today they have a large photo of boys eating at the school).

The painting was undertaken by a group of students from the Royal College of Arts - Evelyn Dunbar, Mildred Elsie Eldridge and Violet Martin - along with their tutor Charles Mahoney (aka Cyril Mahoney, 1903-1968). They started the work in 1933, with the finished results being officially opened in February 1936. Dunbar (1906-1960) went on to be the only official female war artist in the Second World War, noted for her paintings of Land Girls and nurses (including at St Thomas' Hospital).

The five panels were loosely based on the fables of Aesop and other writers, in addition to s 39-foot panoramic view of the school and Hilly Fields. It was Dunbar who painted 'The Country Girl and the Pail of Milk (above)', with her sister Midge as the model. M.Elsie Eldridge painted 'Birdcatcher and the Skylark', and Mahoney 'Joy and Sorrow'. They were painted directly on to the plaster in wax.

Mahoney's sketch for Joy and Sorrow panel, painted on paper in 1933
(from Liss Fine Art)

Dunbar was chiefly responsible for the balcony panorama. According to Dr Gill Clarke, Dunbar's biographer:  'In order to complete her preliminary sketches, which took 3-4 months, and to get the best view of the extensive buildings, Dunbar had to ascend the water tower of Lady Well Institution. In the Kent Messenger (January 1935), she described how she had to squeeze through a small trap-door and climb on to the top of an extremely narrow shaft, which led on to a tiny railed platform on the edge of the lead roof of the water tower, more than 100 feet above the ground. 'It was like being on a gas stove', Miss Dunbar told a Kent Messenger representative, 'and it was so hot with the sun beating down mercilessly that the water in my paint nearly boiled'' (Clarke's biography is entitled 'Evelyn Dunbar: War and Country').


Panorama of Hilly Fields and School



The murals gained national recognition at the time, and more recent appreciation led to them being listed in the 1990s. They were unveiled on February 21 1936 by the then education minister, Oliver Stanley. The Times reported: 'An example that might well be followed has been set by the Headmaster of the Brockley County School, Hilly Fields, SE4 [Dr G.I. Sinclair], who some time ago offered to Sir William Rothenstein, then Principal of the Royal College of Art, an opportunity for some of his students to execute a series of mural paintings in the school hall... The work has taken about three years to execute, the expenses of the artists being paid out of a small fund created from the profits on meals at the County School'.

Detail of panorama of Hilly Fields and School (photo from Decorated School blog)
- note schoolboy reaching over fence

In his speech, Stanley talked of painting on walls as 'the oldest form of artistic expression' and joked that 'in no other school in the country had the boys the opportunity of  using that form of expression in any other way than in the caricature of the headmaster on the wall' (Times, 22 February 1936).

Detail of panorama of Hilly Fields and School (photo from Decorated School blog)

The murals are quite hard to get decent photographs of - I tried and failed, and found some online. So if you get the chance to see them in situ, take it.

Further appreciation of Dunbar at Paint Drops Keep Falling and of the murals at the Decorated School.

Dunbar at work in the School,
(from St Barbe Museum & Art Gallery)

Ladywell water tower, Dressington Ave SE4, from where Dunbar sketched Hilly Fields.

Built 1898-1900 for St Olave's Union, home to 'aged and infirm'

designed  by Ernest Newman, the founder of the Art Workers Guild

(photo by Mike Quinn at Geograph)

History Corner: Harry Brookes, Musical Navvy

Much of the urban landscape of London - and indeed much that we imagine as the 'natural' surrounding rural landscape - was built by 'navvies', many of them Irish, who dug out tunnels and laid out railways lines and roads with pick, shovel and hammer. In Victorian times in particular their working conditions were generally appalling, and indeed the situation faced by workers on the railway from Lewisham to Tunbridge Wells was used as an example by Karl Marx in 'Capital' (chapter 25):

"We turn now to a class of people whose origin is agricultural, but whose occupation is in great part industrial. They are the light infantry of capital, thrown by it, according to its needs, now to this point, now to that. When they are not on the march, they “camp.” Nomad labour is used for various operations of building and draining, brick-making, lime-burning, railway-making, & c. A flying column of pestilence, it carries into the places in whose neighbourhood it pitches its camp, small-pox, typhus, cholera, scarlet fever & c. In undertakings that involve much capital outlay, such as railways, the contractor himself generally provides his army with wooden huts and the like, thus improvising villages without any sanitary provisions, outside the control of the local boards, very profitable to the contractor, who exploits the labourers in two-fold fashion — as soldiers of industry and as tenants... One example will suffice. In September, 1864, Dr. Simon reports that the Chairman of the Nuisances Removal Committee of the parish of Sevenoaks sent the following denunciation to Sir George Grey, Home Secretary:

'Small-pox cases were rarely heard of in this parish until about twelve months ago. Shortly before that time, the works for a railway from Lewisham to Tunbridge were commenced here, and, in addition to the principal works being in the immediate neighbourhood of this town, here was also established the depôt for the whole of the works, so that a large number of persons was of necessity employed here. As cottage accommodation could not be obtained for them all, huts were built in several places along the line of the works by the contractor, Mr. Jay, for their especial occupation. These huts possessed no ventilation nor drainage, and, besides, were necessarily over-crowded, because each occupant had to accommodate lodgers, whatever the number in his own family might be, although there were only two rooms to each tenement. The consequences were, according to the medical report we received, that in the night-time these poor people were compelled to endure all the horror of suffocation to avoid the pestiferous smells arising from the filthy, stagnant water, and the privies close under their windows'".

The Musical Navvy

The stereotype of the hard working, hard drinking, hard fighting navvy became a fixture of popular culture, but over time so did a more romantic notion of the uprooted peasant carrying with him the culture of his agricultural past, with a twinkle in his eye and the gift of the gab. Among the music hall acts of the early 20th century was Harry Brookes from Lewisham. Mentioned in the Bexhill Observer (1912) he was 'billed as “the musical navvy,” [and] does not belie the terse description. Garbed in the typical attire of the role, with pickaxe on shoulder, he indulges in some humorous patter. As a player on the banjo, mandolin and other stringed instruments, he proves himself a capable master, exhibiting a great deal of skill. He succeeded in eliciting rounds of applause on Monday night for his really clever performance'.

There are a number of photographs in existence of him from 1936. The Getty caption to this one states:  '1st May 1936: Lewisham labourer Harry Brookes (centre) plays the banjo for a group of friends, while a cameraman films them for the Gaumont magazine'. The same image at Corbis is captioned: 'A camera operator films Harry Brookes, who is wearing the trilby, who claims to be the original musical navvy. Mr Brooks used to tour the music halls and he makes his own instruments'

'Harry Brookes, a builder from south London shows off a tiny banjo he has made, believed to be the smallest real one in the world. His hobby is making and playing instruments, and he has appeared on stage as 'the musical navvy':

'Musical navvy Harry Brookes playing his musical pickaxe while a cameraman films him for the Gaumont magazine'.

Anybody know anything about Harry Brookes? Would love to find out more.

(h/t Hutnyk for the Marx/Lewisham quote)

History Corner: Nights Out in South East London 1939

Last week on Deptford Market I found a crumpled copy of the South London Advertiser dated April 21st 1939. War was in the air, and indeed the paper reported that 'When Ellen Hamilton Williams (72), a widow, of Lawrie Park Road, Sydenham, heard over the wireless that the Italian troops has occupied Albania she was upset. Later she took an overdose of medinal and died'.

But still, people needed to enjoy themselves and the paper's adverts give a fascinating snapshot of South East London social life in that period.

The Cinema

Going to the cinema seems to have been the popular option. One of the biggest in the area was the New Cross Kinema (now the Venue nightclub) which had a cafe restaurant and a Palais de Danse as well as showing films. Like most cinemas it has a Saturday morning 'Kiddies Club'.

The East Dulwich Odeon was next to where Goose Green Primary School now stands on Grove Vale.

The Gaumont Palace in Lewisham was on Loampit Vale had live performances as well as films - with Billy Cotton and his Band playing at this time - they were one of the biggest dance bands of the period.

Peckham cinemas included the Odeon (on the High Street near to the current Job Centre) and the Tower cinema on Rye Lane (part of the latter building is still there).

Camberwell Odeon was on Denmark Hill near the Coldharbour Lane junction. It later became Dickie Dirts jean store in the 1980s and then was squatted for a while before demolition in 1993.

Forest Hill cinemas included the Astoria on Wastdale Road and the Capitol - the latter now the Weatherspoons pub on London Road.

The paper reported that a new organist was starting at the Capitol - Rudy Lewis, apparently far famed after stints at Lewisham Gaumont, Luton, Dagenham and Grimsby (where he said he was mobbed by autograph hunting girls). He wrote his own songs: 'The number - the words are his own -which he has been playing much to the delight of the Capitol audiences this week is "Doing the Gas Mask Walk"'. Born Rubin Lipshitz, he seems to have ended up in Washington DC where he died in 1990. I suspect he was also responsible for Rudy Lewis and The Sputniks who released a single in 1960 (not to be confused with a different Rudy Lewis who was in The Drifters).

The Rink cinema in Sydenham was on Silverdale. It was originally opened as a roller skating rink, then converted to a cinema. It closed at the start of the war and never re-opened, though the building survived until the 1990s.

Going to the dogs

There was greyhound racing in New Cross three nights a week. The stadium was near to the present Millwall football ground, off Ilderton Road (see photo here). 

There was also greyhound racing at Crayford and Charlton.

Theatre

The New Cross Empire was a theatre and music hall. In April 1939 The Court Players were performing Lot's Wife, 'A saucy comedy about charming people'. The paper reported 'Now that the Players have settled down at New Cross they are growing increasingly popular with the patrons and many people go week by week mainly to see their favourite performers'. It interviewed 'Leslie Handford, who is making a great success in light comedy parts at the New Cross Empire' following stints in the army and with the circus as a clown. He went on to have minor parts in 1950s TV and cinema. 

Eating Out

The Amersham Hotel (now the Amersham Arms) was advertising 'four course luncheon' in its restaurant and a 'first class snack bar... for those in a hurry... something tasty always ready'

In Forest Hill, The Swiss Cottage was advertising 'The Luxury and Comfort of the West End in the Suburbs'.

Politics

Politics everywhere was dominated by the question of war and peace. A meeting was held at Lewisham Town Hall called by the 'Congress of Peace and Friendship with the USSR'. The speakers included Hewlett Johnson, the famous 'Red Dean' of Canterbury Cathedral and Arthur Skeffington, later a Labour MP for Lewisham. Johnson has been accused of apologetics for Stalinism as he loyally followed the twists and turns of Soviet foreign policy in this period, though ultimately his call for Britain to ally with Russia against Germany was to become government policy in the Second World War.

Anyone know more about R.W. Usher, the organising secretary who lived at 257 Sydenham Rd?

[source for all the above: South London Advertiser, 21 April 1939]

Elephants on the rampage in New Cross

There are many hazards today in the New Cross Road, but being attacked by elephants is no longer one of them. Not so in the days when the New Cross Empire music hall stood on the corner of Watsons Street and New Cross Road (more or less opposite Addey & Stanhope School), as these two stories show:

‘Seized by an Elephant’


'Mr Thomas Race, of Speedwell Street, Deptford, who is 62, was walking past the New Cross Empire last night when an elephant which was to appear in a turn there and which was standing in a passage seized him round the waist with his trunk and threw him to the ground. Mr Race was taken to the Miller Hospital, Greenwich, and detained’ (Times, January 10 1934)

‘A Trunk Call'

'A five-year old elephant escaped from the New Cross Empire in south-east London yesterday. It was recaptured by circus hands in New Cross post office. An assistant at the post office said: ‘We had quite a queue of old-age pensioners. There was a loud trumpeting, and through the swing doors appeared an elephant. Our queue disappeared like magic into telephone boxes and on, to and over the counter. We didn’t lose even a stamp’ (Times November 16 1951)

Incidentally there are some fantastic 1930s family photos from Deptford at Lewisham Family Album, as I have mentioned before. There is mention there of circus animals sometimes being kept at Murray's Alley stables off Comet St, Deptford - either for circuses up on Blackheath or for the New Cross Empire. Somebody commenting there recalled 'Circus Elephants were once taken through the grounds of Speedwell and Comet House from the Murrays Alley Stables, I think to the New Cross Empire for the stage circus. One Elephant charged into the New Cross Post Office and a person was tragically injured. I think that was in the late l940's. Most of the children in the flats followed them through the grounds'.