1915 London Tram Strike in New Cross

A hundred years ago this week, tram workers in London were sacked for going on strike and sent off to war. The London tram strike was prompted by the rising cost of living - the 7,000 strikers demanded a 'war bonus'.  The response of the employer, London County Council (LCC), was to sack all men of military age, telling them to volunteer for the armed forces.

The strike of drivers and conductors started out on Friday 14 May as an unofficial walkout at the New Cross depot - now the bus garage on New Cross Road - and soon spread across London (Sunday Mirror, 16 May 1915). The strike united workers from two rival unions - the London and Provincial Union of Licensed Vehilce Workers (known as the "red button men" ) and the "blue button" Amalgamated Union of Tramway Vehilce Workers'  (Daily Mirror - Monday 17 May 1915).

Pickets at New Cross depot (Daily Mirror, 17 May 1915)

The trams were the main source of transport for many workers to the Woolwich Arsenal, and it was reported that  'The New Cross men have made an offer to the L.C.C., which has been refused, to work cars each day to Woolwich for war munition workers without pay. The one condition was imposed — that the Council should allow the men to travel free'  (Liverpool Echo - Tuesday 18 May 1915)

Some trams did run to Woolwich:  'Extraordinary scenes were witnessed in South London yesterday morning as a  result of the tram strike. Heavy rain had been falling since an early hour, and thousands of people waited at different points in the hope of getting omnibuses, but the majority were doomed to disappointment. At New Cross, where cars labelled ' War munitions workers only" were running to and from Woolwich, great resentment was occasioned when only those producing Arsenal passes were allowed to board the cars'  (Newcastle Journal, 19 May 1915).  Strikers picketed the New Cross depot throughout the strike.

New Cross Road in the strike, by the depot (Sunday Pictorial, 16 May 1915)

On the last day of the strike, 'At New Cross about 1,200 strikers attended the Hatcham Liberal Club, when a resolution was adopted expressing confidence in the joint committee of the unions and determination 'to fight to a finish'.  One speaker complained that what was started a a 'strike' had now been made a 'lock-out' by the Highways Committee of the L.C.C. The men were advised to go back in the belief that their grievances would be dealt at once, but the L.C.C. were really taking the place of the Government by insisting on conscription' (Birmingham Daily Post, 1 June 1915).  The Daily Herald also reported 'a meeting in the Five Bells, at New Cross, the storm centre of the tram-men's strike'  (Daily Herald - Saturday 22 May 1915)

The strike took place at a time of increasing social tensions. In the same week there were anti-German riots in different parts of the country, in which shops run by Germans (or those with German-sounding names) were attacked, including in New Cross and Deptford:  'One result of the riots is a severe bread shortage. Near New Cross Gate so many bakers’ shops have been smashed that the police had be called yesterday to regulate the crowd which surged round the only shop in the neighbourhood where bread could be obtained' (Birmingham Daily Post - Monday 17 May 1915).

Hatcham Liberal Club 1891: New Cross Meeting for Jailed Union Leader

From the Evening Express, 9 April 1891, a report of a public meeting held at the Hatcham Liberal Club, New Cross Road in support of Joseph Havelock Wilson (1859-1929), secretary of the Seamen and Firemen's Union. J H Wilson had been nominated as the Liberal parliamentary candidate for Deptford, but was unable to attend this meeting as he had been jailed for "unlawful assembly" after being arrested during a strike in Cardiff. The meeting was presided  over by Dr Richard M. Pankhurst, the Liberal Candidate for Rotherhithe (he was unsuccessful), founder of the Women's Franchise League with his wife Emmeline Pankhurst and father of suffragist militants Christabel and Sylvia. Richard Haldane MP, also there, was a Liberal then an Labour politician and one of the founders, with the Webbs, of the London School of Economics. Edward Grey MP was Liberal foreign secretary at the start of the First World War.

After release from prison, Wilson transferred his candidacy to Middlesborough where he was elected as an independent labour MP in 1892, though he later became a Liberal MP. 

(the Hatcham Liberal Club at this time was at Portland House, 202 New Cross Road, which I believe was more or less opposite what is now New Cross Gate station. Not sure when it moved to its later location on Queens Road)

Blavatsky and Blondie

Coming up next month at South East London Folklore Society:

'Gary Lachman will be giving a talk on the celebrated occultist, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s time as a resident of London. Author of “Isis Unveiled“ & co-founder of the Theosophical Society, Madame Blavatsky is a hugely influential figure in modern esoteric history. Gary Lachman is an author of books on the meeting ground between consciousness, culture, & the western inner tradition. His new book “Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality” is published by Tarcher/Penguin'.

The talk takes place on Thursday, October 11, 2012, 8:00pm at The Old King's Head, Kings Head Yard, 45-49, Borough High St., London SE1 1NA, all for less than the price of a pint ( £2.50/£1.50 concs).

The Norwood Connection

There should be some good South London content in this. When Blavatsky moved to London in 1885 she lived at Maycot cottage in Upper Norwood (Crown Hill), where she spent her final six years writing The Secret Doctrine. WB Yeats describes a visit there: "I found Madame Blavatsky in a little house at Norwood, with, but, as she said, three followers left" (having been exposed for some fraudulent practices). Yeats was surprised that a cuckoo hooted him from a clock that had apparently stopped: "I wondered if there was some hidden mechanism and I should have been put out, I suppose, had I found any, though Henley had said to me, 'Of course she gets up fraudulent miracles, but a person of genus has to do something' (Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil, 1922).

Another visitor recalled: 'I first met dear old “H. P. B.,” as she made all her friends call her, in the spring of 1887. Some of her disciples had taken a pretty house in Norwood, where the huge glass nave and twin towers of the Crystal Palace glint above a labyrinth of streets and terraces. London was at its grimy best. The squares and gardens were scented with grape-clusters of lilac, and yellow rain of laburnums under soft green leaves. The eternal smoke-pall was thinned to a gray veil shining in the afternoon sun, with the great Westminster Towers and a thousand spires and chimneys piercing through. Every house had its smoke-wreath, trailing away to the east' (Charles Johnston, Theosophical Forum. 1900)

One of Blavatsky's best-known followers was Annie Besant, the well known feminist, birth-control advocate, and political radical. Annie Besant had also lived also lived not far away in the 1870s, at 39 Colby Road SE19. Another leading Theosophist was the American Colonel Olcott. On September. 29 1889 he gave a lecture at the Hatcham Liberal Club, New Cross described as his 'largest audience of the season'.

Touched by your presence dear

Oh so what's the Blondie connection? Well the first time I heard the word 'theosophy' was in their 1977 hit 'I am always touched by your presence, dear' which includes the line 'Coming into contact with outer entities, We could entertain each one with our theosophies'. The song was written by early Blondie bassist Gary Valentine, who also wrote another Blondie favourite, X-Offender, and played on their debut album. Valentine left the band in 1977 when they were on the verge of internaional fame, and went on to be a writer under the name Gary Lachman... the very same, all the way from CBGBs to the Old Kings Head in Borough High Street.

Blondie in 1977, Gary Valentine Lachman on the right.

Hatcham - Still No Action

Still no sign of any action at the Hatcham Liberal Club in New Cross (369 Queens Road), shamefully empty more than two years after it closed. For over 100 years it was a place for drinking, socialising, music and much else. In its last few years alone the hall out the back hosted Exploding cinema film nights, jazz nights, private parties and more - in fact I DJed there a couple of times myself.

I've mentioned before its earlier radical history, and a quick google search shows that all kinds of alternative and radical currents flowed through the place from when it opened in around 1880 to at least the time of the First World War. Annie Besant lectured on socialism there, as did George Bernard Shaw and the Fabian Sidney Webb ( on 'Socialism and Cooperation'). The latter owed his political career as a London County Councillor to the club - in an 1891 letter he stated that 'B T Hall of the Hatcham Club wants to propose me as LCC Candidate for Deptford'.

Shaw also records in his diary that on November 15 1887 there was a 'Debate on Vegetarianism at the Hatcham Liberal Club between Dr. Drysdale and W. S. Manning'. There were meetings on the Irish situation too. Remarkably The Brisbane Courier (27 February 1882) carried a report of a meeting there: 'Miss Helen Taylor, who has returned from a tour in Ireland, recently addressed the members of the Hatcham Liberal Club on the condition of the country... she asked were English working men prepared to send 50,000 soldiers to Ireland to force the Irish to emigrate and leave the land desolate? She did not believe two thirds - certainly not one-half - of the Irish could pay their rents... the police were the masters of the lives and liberties of the people in Ireland'.

On Sept. 29 1889, Colonel Henry S. Olcott, a leading member of the Theosophy Society lectured at the Hatcham Liberal Club - it was apparently lthe argest audience of the season.

On 21 Feb 1912 there was a meeting in support of women's suffrage there, chaired by CW Bowerman, MP with the main speaker, Mrs F Swannick.

Now - nothing (apart from the memory of its name carried far afield by Hatcham Social). Is it going to be left to crumble just because nobody can make money from buying it? The place is crying out to be an occupied social centre, come on people!

Hatcham Social

Indie band Hatcham Social are taking the memory of that lost New Cross watering hole across the world. A article in the US Paste magazine explains the SE14 connection:

'The members of Hatcham Social used to live in London neighborhood New Cross. New Cross used to be called Hatcham, and it featured a watering hole called The Hatcham Social Club. The band took the name without asking, and now the club is for sale. Hatcham Social bassist Dave Fineberg, 28, says he’d like to buy it if his career ever takes off, but for now he’s living in Northwest London with his parents. “None of us really have any money,” he explains.
Perhaps that’ll change once his band’s debut, You Dig The Tunnel, I’ll Hide The Soil, starts circulating stateside. It’s an old-fashioned post-punk record that echoes the classic British bands of yore. “We like the trebly sound on the guitar,” Fineberg says. “And I play the bass, but I like to have a more trebly sound on the bass, because I think you get more clarity in the notes.” The angular “Hypnotise Terrible Eyes” sounds like an early Smiths outtake, the jangly “So So Happy Making” could be mistaken for Orange Juice, and the album’s woozy lead track is called “Crocodile,” sharing its name with an Echo & the Bunnymen album'.

Mark Ronson at the Hatcham

The Hatcham social club in New Cross has been closed for over a year and still seems to be for sale, but I notice that the video for Mark Ronson's version of Oh My God (featuring Lily Allen) was filmed there. It's a cartoon Lily in the video, but Ronson was evidently really there, as were The Kaiser Chiefs, who did the song originally.

George Livesey and the Gasworkers

The Livesey Museum for Children at 682 Old Kent Road was closed down by Southwark Council last week, part of a package of funding cuts (opponents of the closure are seen here picketing a Council meeting at the Town Hall in February). A Friends of the Livesey Museum group has been established and aims to talk to the Council about securing charitable funding to re-open a museum in the building. When a building like the Livesey closes is not just a service that is lost, but a link to history.

The museum building was donated for the use of local people by George Livesey in 1890 and was originally 'Camberwell Public Library, No. 1'. Damaged by bombs in World War Two, it was repaired and continued as a library until 1966. In 1974 it was reopened by Poet Laureate John Betjeman, as an interactive children's museum.

George Livesey was a philanthropist, but we should also acknowledge that much of his wealth was created by working people in South East London. Livesey was the Chairman of of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, with works on the Old Kent Road and in Deptford. It was a major employer in the area, and the workers organised themselves to improve their conditions. On 11 May 1889 a half mile long procession of gas workers, with brass band and silk banners, converged on Deptford Broadway calling for an eight hour day, in place of the then current 12 hour shift system.

Although the eight hour day was achieved, in December 1889 the workers refused to agree to a ‘no strike’ clause. The management brought in strikebreakers including workhouse inmates and prisoners, who lived in corrugated iron huts inside the works. There were frequent clashes between strikers on the one hand and police and 'scabs' on the other. In one incident there was a fight in the Dover Castle pub on Deptford Broadway, where one of the strikers, William Derry, was accused of taking two herrings and a haddock from a strikebreaker’s pocket.

Support in the local area for the strike included a ‘grand dioramic and vocal entertainment’ put on by Deptford Social Democratic Federation and a concert at Trinity Hall, Deptford, featuring the Greenwich gas stokers’ brass band. The strike was called off in February 1890 at a mass meeting at the Hatcham Liberal Club, with the management gaining the upper hand.

The Camberwell Public Library building opened shortly afterwards, and another long-lasting consequence of the strike was the development of Telegraph Hill Park in New Cross. As the programme for its 1895 opening put it, George Livesey, the Chairman of the gas company, had initiated the laying out of the park with ‘a sum of money which he had received as a testimonial to the energy and resources by which he had maintained the supply of gas during the severe strike of gas workers’. In the aftermath of a brutally managed dispute, this was a gesture he presumably hoped would restore his philanthropic reputation. When we walk in the park today, or pass the empty museum building on the Old Kent Road, we might want to spare a thought not just for him but for the nameless local gasworkers whose sweat and toil left this legacy for future generations.

Sources: Mary Mills, The Gasworkers of South London, South London Record No.3, (South London History Workshop, 1988); Arthur Arnold , Opening of Telegraph Hill, Hatcham (London County Council, 1895, reprinted by Telegraph Hill Society, 2001)

Last dance at the Hatcham?

Last Friday saw the last Jazz at the Cross at the legendary Hatcham Liberal Club in New Cross. It was packed out as people came to savour not only band Big Chief but the unique ambience of this formica wonderland - note the lights and the curtain. The final song played was 'I wish I knew how it felt to be free'. Not quite the final curtain for the Hatcham - I know that Southwark Unison secretary John Mulrenan is having his leaving do there - but possibly the last public event before the place closes.

Jazz at the Cross - last call for Hatcham

Jazz at the Cross has been running on an on and off basis for a few years at the Hatcham Liberal Club in New Cross. On 23rd February 2007 the club will be happening there for the very last time, featuring Big Chief.

Even if jazz isn't really your thing, you might want to go along and take this final opportunity (for now?) to savour this music venue with its classic 70s decor. The building is in the process of being sold - rumour has it to a church.

Goodbye to the Hatcham?

The Hatcham Liberal Club (also known as the Hatcham Social Club) in Queens Road is the latest New Cross music venue under threat, with 'For sale' signs up outside. The building pictured is an old working men's club and is apparently a listed building. Probably not listed, but a great space in its own right is the hall out the back where many gigs, parties and film shows have taken place (including among the latter a great Exploding Cinema show I went to where Mark Perry ex-Alternative TV performed).

Ben Gidley of Goldsmiths has written of the development of a ‘proletarian public sphere’ in 19th century London, with working people developing their own clubs and institutions where they could meet, talk and socialise on their own terms. Among the examples he gives is the Hatcham Liberal Club 'one of the largest working men’s clubs, where Fabian and SDF socialists debated with secularists, progressives and radicals’ (see The Proletarian Other: Charles Booth & the Politics of Representation). The Hatcham was also, incidentally, the venue for Charlie Chaplin’s mother’s last public performance (she had been a music hall singer) and of course has given its name to a current indie band - Hatcham Social. It has a past - but does it have a future?

Films Going On Underground

Today Philbin, my polished ivory and steel clockwork magpie, brought me the following in her little metal beak:

"Exploding Cinema, London's most notorious and longest running Underground Filmclub, returns in ten daysfor a night packed with low budget and underground gems, great decor, prizes and general fun.

NEXT EXPLODING CINEMA SHOW:Friday 3rd MarchThe Hatcham Social ClubHall Entrance (on right hand side)369 Queen's RoadNew CrossLondon SE14DOORS 7.30pm. £4 entry (no concs)

Buses: 36, 171, 53

Tube: New Cross GateRail: New Cross Gate or Queens Road Peckham (6 mins from London Bridge)"

Directors & Map

Rock Out Against Racism

LOVE MUSIC HATE RACISM presents OLYMPUS MONS (fresh from Babyshambles UK tour support) + LONG WEEKEND (baggydelica (remember that?)) + NATIONS VIBRATIONS (roots rock reggae) + SOUND SYSTEM with local MCs on Saturday 28 Jan 006 within the hallowed rooms of the Hatcham Club, Queens Road, New Cross SE14 .

Doors 8pm-1am late bar. Entry £5 + £2 concessions Info 020 8314 1303 / 077 3094 4159

Exploding Cinema back in New Cross

Latest communique has been received from the Exploding Cinema crew:

"We're back! Along with Springtime, little lambs and all manner of frisky animals the Exploding Cinema returns! With a host of gems mined from the homeground underground - films, videos, performance - we're starting our new season on Saturday April 16th at The Hatcham Social Club Hall 369 Queens Road, New Cross London SE14(New Cross Gate Tube + Queens Road Peckham BR, Buses: 36, 53, 171) Doors open at 8pm, entrance £4.

My Eyes My Eyes

New Cross is just getting too busy. As well as the promising Angular night at the Venue, 'My Eyes My Eyes'are holding a short film/performance event this friday (March 18th) at the Hatcham Social Club. As well as DIY short films there will be live performances from Liz Bentley with 'Dennis'; LepkeB premieres his dazzling 60s girl-group tribute; Duncan Reekie delivers his latest rant and a short and totally memorable slice of 'Grief Lite' for your discerning delectation. Doors 8pm til midnight.