Farewell Steve Wilson

The funeral took place in Beckton on February 10th of Steve Wilson (1955-2017), who died recently after nearly two years of serious illness.

A man of multiple enthusiasms including Leonard Cohen, Crystal Palace FC, and folklore,  it was in the pagan/occult scene that Steve was most active. Among other things he was at various times an Archpriest in the Fellowship of Isis,  Archdruid in the Druid Clan of Dana, and SE London regional co-ordinator of the Pagan Federation, as well as working for a spell in the famous Atlantis bookshop. In his druid capacity, he was involved in the campaign for access to Stonehenge, and as described in this 1996 article in the Independent, helping conduct summer solstice ceremonies at Parliament Hill and watching the 'sunrise at Plumstead Common Burial mound'. I have seen mention of  his involvement too in the delightfully named Plumstead Occasional Druids.

In his book 'Robin Hood: The Spirit of the Forest' (Neptune Press, 1993), Steve mentioned another important campaign from that period, the successful fight to stop the construction of a major road through Oxleas Wood 'where once the King of England and his Queen, along with the Guilds of the City of London, once watched Marian and Robin in their Mayday Revels... By involving ourselves in these battles we can let the spirit of  Robin and his band live on in ourselves'.

I met him through his involvement in the South East London Folklore Society. SELFS was established in the early 1990s (I believe), starting out at Charlton House, and Steve was active in it from early on. In its first incarnation it was primarily a regular meeting (moot) of local pagans and fellow travellers. Although it has subsequently broadened out to include a wider range of folklore, local history and fortean themes, the format of a speaker on an interesting topic followed by beer and discussion has continued down to the present. Steve himself gave a number of SELFS talks over the years, including one on  'Chaos, Conjuring and Combat' at a 1999 SELFS conference in Charlton House ('Thee Event -Thee Last Magickal Conference ov thee So-Called Millennium') and another entitled 'The Brockley Thing' at a SELFS event at the Brockley Jack during the 2005 Brockley Max Festival. The latter touched on another of Steve's interests - the history of the Woodcraft Folk and associated youth groups such as the Kibbo Kift Kindred and the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry which he saw as linked to the 20th century neo-pagan revival - and in whose story SE London was an important focus.

Steve was a driving force and frequent MC at similar occultural 'moots' including Talking Stick, Secret Chiefs and The Moot with No Name (which he founded in 2003). He was thus a key contributor to the great London alternative university of esoteric talks in pubs - as well as organising and speaking he could always be guaranteed to have a question at the end of anybody else's talk! The debating and public speaking skills he no doubt first polished at Dulwich College were frequently put to use. He was a big man with a big voice.

Steve was an enthusiastic participant in the annual Deptford Jack in the Green/Fowlers Troop procession, including sometimes taking turns in the toughest job on the day, carrying the Jack - a heavy frame covered in foliage. The photos here are all of Steve in his May Day costume, the two below by Sarah Hannant.

May Day in South London: free pamphlet

For May Day 2011, Past Tense published my pamphlet, 'May Day in South London':

'For centuries people have been celebrating the height of Spring, and the first signs of Summer, at the beginning of May. This pamphlet examines the diverse ways they have done so in London South of the Thames. It is a story of milkmaids, chimney sweeps, kings, socialists, pagans, Christians, school children and anarchists...

...includes the stories of Walworth and Bromley May Queens, May Games in Greenwich Park, the Deptford Jack in the Green, demonstrations in Bermondsey and Woolwich, Horse Parades on the Old Kent Road, Maypoles in Kennington and  St Mary Cray, festivals on Clapham Common and at Crystal Palace, and much more besides'.

Contents include:

- Ancient Festivals
- The Merry Month of May – Middle Ages to Puritans
- Milkmaids, Chimney Sweeps and the Jack-in-the-Green
- Reinventing May Day in Victorian times
- The Workers’ May Day: origins to 1930s
- The Workers’ May Day After the Second World War
- The Counter-Culture and the Folk Revival
- Anti-Capitalist May Days
- 21st Century May Day


The printed version sold out shortly after May Day 2012, so in the spirit of May Day abundance I am making a pdf version of the full 50 page illustrated version available as a free download. You can download it here.
    

 

Terry Liddle (1948-2012): SE London Socialist & Secularist

There's a memorial event next month (20th April) at Conway Hall for Terry Liddle, the veteran SE London radical who died in November 2012.

Terry grew up in Eltham, and lived for many years up until his death at 23 Sowerby Close on the Mottingham Estate. He died from a stroke at the age of 64 on 17 November 2012, with his funeral taking place at Eltham Crematorium on 10th December.

His first political involvement seems to have been in the Young Communist League in Woolwich in the early 1960s when he was a school boy at Bloomfield Secondary Modern School in Plumstead. According to his old friend Scott Reeve,  'he went to public speaking sessions led by Joe Bent, an old Stalinist who had a Communist Party speaking pitch in the East Lane market'. This was the start of an idiosyncratic political odyssey that seems to have taken him along the many highways and byways of the English left and libertarian scenes. At various times he was involved with the trotskyist Socialist Labour League,  the Labour Party, the Green party, Socialist Alliance, Solidarity, Social Revolution, The Workers League, the Movement for Workers Councils, the Republican Communist Network and for a while in the late 1960s an exotically named anarchist group called the Eltham Sons of Durruti. Evidentally a serial joiner more than a stayer! He was also very involved in secularism, including the South East London Humanists and the Freethought History Research Group.

I came across Terry a few times through my local radical history interests. Liddle wrote a number of texts on South East London, including a pamphlet on Deptford-born Chartist George Julian Harney, another pamphlet 'A radical history of Greenwich and Deptford' and 'Deptford Infidels', an article for Journal of Freethought History on late 19th century secularism in the local area.

In July 2004 he gave a talk based on his Deptford Infidels research to South London Radical History Group (which I was involved in) at the Use Your Loaf Centre for Social Solidarity (227 Deptford High Street). I also heard him give a similar talk for Lewisham Humanist Group at the Unitarian Meeting House in Bromley Road SE6.

The Memorial Event

The Freethought History Research Group in conjunction with the Conway Hall Ethical Society is organising a memorial meeting for Terry Liddle in Holborn. The event will take place on Saturday 20th April 2013, 2pm to 5pm, in the Brockway Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL.

They say ' All welcome to come and enjoy a few nibbles, a bit to drink and good comradeship in honour of Terry Liddle 1948-2012 In wild, but considered celebration of Terry Liddle’s maverick life of activism, Atheism, Socialism, Animal Rights, Republicanism, Trades Unionism, Temperance (sometimes), Deptford and the World. Bookstall on the day. A couple of speeches, with contributions from the floor and the Workers Music Association: Joe Hill; The Land it is the Landlords’; William Brown; Solidarity Forever; The Internationale'.

Among his poems, Liddle wrote his own 'Death Song':

DEATH SONG
Terry Liddle

Comrades when I’m dead and gone, no more than dust on the breeze
I beg you grant me one last wish, comrades do this for me please
Raise a glass of the blood red wine or a mug of the barley brew
Bid farewell to your comrade one of the foolish few
Who thought we could rearrange the world, dreamed we could make all things new

Kiss goodbye to my lovers, whose bodies I warmed with lust
My body once warm it is no more, naught but a whiff of dust
Remember how we fought the fight, lost and fought again
How we bound our bloody wounds, how we endured the pain
For we knew that like the phoenix our cause would rise again

The banners are tattered and faded, a paler shade of red
The devices writ upon them now can be hardly read
But we know every one of the words of hope, words of struggle and fight
A dream of a new and brighter dawn after the long dark night
A world reborn in liberty, a world we have put to right

Toilers of field and factory, workers of hand and brain
Will ye not rise like lions, sever the slaver’s chain
Will ye not cast down priests and kings and the money power crew
Remember we are millions and the tyrants but a few
Destroy their rule of exploitation and rebuild the world anew.

So sup your ale my comrades, drink deep of the heady wine
Cherish the sprouting barley, the grapes clustered on the vine
Say farewell to the old world, a world of grasp and greed
A world where poor folk hungered, a world of want and need
Raise a glass to your fallen comrade, who planted freedom’s seed

Other obituaries:
http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/terry-liddle-rip/
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2012/11/28/terry-liddle-1948-2012-fighter-freedom
http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/terry-liddle-1948-2012-comrade/

History Corner: The Fifth Monarchists, 17th century London religious radicals

In 1660, the monarchy was restored in England after 11 years in which the country had managed fine without a King. Charles II wasted no time in tracking down and killing the 'regicides' associated with the execution of his father, King Charles I, at the end of the English Civil War in 1649.

The first of the regicides to be hanged, drawn and quartered was Thomas Harrison, who was executed at Charing Cross. He had been one of the Fifth Monarchists, a radical current who believed that the age of earthly kings was over and that Christ would soon return and bring about social justice.

In the aftermath of Harrison's execution, a group of Fifth Monarchists decided to stage an uprising.  On 6 January 1661, around 50 Fifth Monarchists headed by Thomas Venner (a wine-cooper), set off from their meeting house in Swan Alley, off Coleman Street in the City of London. Their manifesto 'A Door of Hope: or a Call and Declaration for the gathering together of the first ripe Fruits unto the Standard of our Lord, King Jesus' called for the abolition of imprisonment for debt, the end of the death penalty for theft, and other social reforms, as well as for the overthrow of the monarchy. After several days of fighting, they were defeated. Venner and ten others were hanged for treason.

In the aftermath of the rising, the government rounded up all kinds of religious dissenters, including Quakers, Baptists and Congregationalists. Their meetings were banned, and thousands were jailed: 'Some 400 Baptists and 500 Quakers were arrested in London alone... So many sectaries were committed at the Croydon sessions for refusing to take the oath of allegiance that Sir John Maynard wondered where they could be detained... According to Maynard, the leader of the Croydon sectaries, Dr Bradley, was allowed by the jailer to 'imprecate destruction on the kings and all the Royall Line, in that which they call there devoction"'.

Despite this repression, dissent continued - including in Southwark and Deptford. In 1661 it was reported to magistrates 'that dissidents were meeting daily at the Southwark home of George Tutchins. Having failed in Venner's attempt, he allegedly said, they would rise again on the next moonlit night, and this time would have the use of fifty five barrels of powder stored in Deptford'.

An intelligence report in March 1661 'noted that a Deptford radical was expending funds to win supporters in the army, while another report of about the same date indicated that ministers in the west who were managing a design were corresponding with the Congregationalist Ralph Venning, lecturer at St Olave's, Southwark'. There were clashes between radicals and conservatives at the time of parliamentary elections in 1661 (albeit elections in which many did not have the vote):  'in Southwark, where there was a long-standing radical community, the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers, under the leadership of Colonel George Thompson and Captain Samuel Lynn, were unable to prevent the election of four conservatives. Once their defeat was apparent, the radicals drew swords and fought with the supporters of Sir Thomas Bludworth'.

Another hotbed was Lee - then in Kent, now part of Lewisham. 'Because it was only a few miles southeast of London, it was easily accessible to radicals from the City. On 1 October [1661], a number of ex-Cromwellians were at Lee, including Colonels Robert Blount (or Blunt) and Thompson along with three other officers. The pulpit at Lee was open to virtually all comers. In the opinion of the informer Edward Potter, its congregation of more than a hundred would "prove as Dangerous to the government of England as any if They are not sudenly prevented". The minister at Lee, William Hickocks, contributed to such fears by preaching that the saints must be willing to die for God's cause'.

In 1662, 'Concerned about meetings of armed dissidents near Deptford in January, the king directed a constable with a band of volunteers to seize all concealed weapons in Blackheath Hundred. In March, London authorities discovered that the grocer Thomas Bone had some twelve pounds of powder and six bullets. Bone not only had ties to the Fifth Monarchist preacher Anthony Palmer, who told him "thes times cannot last long" but was also sending provision to men incarcerated in the Tower for treason'.

In another planned rising (the 'Tong plot' of 1662), conspirators considered a plan to seize the king 'at Camberwell on one of his biweekly visits to Henrietta Maria at Greenwich'.

Re-enactment 2013

Inveterate agitator Ian Bone and others are planning a film/history walk/re-enactment of Venner's 1661 rising early next year. He says:  'On January 6th we will be laying a wreath in Swan Alley off Coleman Street in memory of  Thomas Venner and  his fellow Fifth Monarchists who courageously rose  up here  against the return of the monarchy in 1661'. Meet in Swan Alley at noon - more details here.

Not sure if Ian Bone is a descendent of the Thomas Bone mentioned above, or whether his current home in the borough of Croydon is anywhere near the haunts of the anti-Royalist preacher Dr Bradley.   (Most of the information above, and all the quotes, from 'Radical Underground in Britain, 1660-1663' by Richard Lee Greaves)

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.

Peckham Rosicrucians

'Why don't you join the Rosicrucians,

they can give you back your hope,

you can find your love with diagrams

on a plain brown envelope'

(Leonard Cohen, Dress Rehearsal Rag)

I've been intrigued for years by the Rosicrucian building in Waghorn Street, Peckham. According to Peckham History, the building was originally St Andrew’s Mission Church, 'built in 1903 to replace a temporary iron church on the site. It fell out of use in 1932 and was sold in 1948 to fund the restoration' of St John the Evangelist Church in East Dulwich Road, to which the Mission Church was linked. There's still a plaque on the building from when it opened which reads 'This stone was laid by Mrs Charles Ward, 7th January 1903'. The architect was J.Nixon Horsefield.

Today the building belongs to the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosæ Crucis (AMORC), a Rosicrucian order founded in the US in 1915. Rosicrucianism is a mystical current dating back, depending on what you believe, to the 17th century, 14th century or ancient Egypt. It has influenced secret societies (including branches of Freemasonry) and esoteric groups of various kinds. There are numerous Rosicrucian-influenced groups around the world, and it is common for them to claim that various philosophers, artists and scientists were members of the Rosicrucian order in the past, including Isaac Newton, Dante, Debussy and Francis Bacon - hence the AMORC building in Peckham being the home of the Francis Bacon Lodge.

AMORC describes itself as 'a non-sectarian body of men and women who study the elusive mysteries of life and the universe.  Since 1915, hundreds of thousands of students have used the Rosicrucian teachings, carefully preserved by mystery schools for centuries, to find their inner light and wisdom. Delivered in a series of weekly lessons, the Rosicrucian home study course presents the collective wisdom of humanity on topics such as metaphysics, mysticism, and philosophy'. 

I'm not sure when AMORC acquired the Peckham building, but I first noticed it about seven years ago. Some of the AMORC leadership had a dubious reputation in financial scandals in the 1990s, so I assumed it was simply a property investment. But it does seem to be in use as one of only two AMORC centres in Britain (the other is in Crowborough, Sussex), with free public talks taking place on the second Wednesday evening of every month.

Of course if you look around various dubious conspiracy theory sites, you will find allegations that the Rosicrucians are just a wing of the illuminati who secretly run the world (example from the very dubious Conspiracy Planet: 'Rosicrucian Illuminati have centres in the U.K. at places such as the Francis Bacon Lodge in Peckham, London') . Personally I quite like the idea that the world is actually being run from a Peckham back street - gives new meaning to the phrase 'South London run tings'

Austin Osman Spare Talk

The South London life of Austin Osman Spare, visionary artist and occultist, has been mentioned here before.

Next week at South East London Folklore Society Phil Baker, the author of a new biography of Spare, will be giving a talk about his life.

The talk is on Thursday, September 8, 8:00pm at The Old Kings Head, Kings Head Yard, 45-49, Borough High St, London, SE1 1NA

Austin Osman Spare: Fallen Visionary

This week is the last opportunity to see the fantastic (in every sense of the word) Fallen Visionary exhibition at the Cuming Museum in Southwark, featuring the work of Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956).

There's a nice historical continuity, as one of his first exhibitions was held in the same building in 1904 (the Cuming is the same building as the library), as reviewed in the Daily Mail from that year:

'Southwark does no go to the Royal Academy, but Southwark is, in its own way, interested in art and in a very particular way in the art of the youngest exhibitor at the Royal Aacademy, Mr Austin Osman Spare. For the benefit therefore of the dwellers in his native borough some sixity original sketches by the boy artist are now on view at the Newington Public Library in Walworth Road. Austin Spare hails from the neighbouring Kennington Road, is the son of a retired policeman, and is possessed of a versatile and often very erratic fancy... A weird fantasy runs riot in nearly all the sketches. Monsters of horrible form, decadent shapes and grotesque allegories fill the glass cases'.

The fantasy element developed over the years, with Blakean paintings featured magickal themes.

'Gaia with a Yellow Shawl'

The exhibition does justice to that side of his work, but also to the later paintings he did of local characters from the pubs, markets and doss houses of South London. Some of this work was actually displayed by Spare in pubs. For a show at the Temple Bar (284-6 Walworth Road) in 1949 he wrote: 'Why a show in a Tavern? My answer: it is democratic and gives a chance (where necessary) to people who normally have little time to visit the more orthodox places which often entail dress, tickets, fees, etc., and my other friends and clients might find it an interesting change.'

The writer Clifford Bax worried that South London was bad for Spare, writing in 1936: ''When we met at a Lyons teashop I recognised at once what an odd and charming person he is. I liked his brawny build and the thick tough strength of his hair. I noticed that he was pallid, and wondereed if the air and the food of the Borough were good for him'. But Spare lived on, surviving the destruction of his home during the Blitz.

Interestingly the exhibition features a painting of Joyce Cary (below). The Irish writer is believed to have partly based the artist character of Gully Jimson in his novel The Horses Mouth (1944) on Spare. As previously established at Transpontine, Cary spent his early childhood in New Cross (Kitto Road) and Nunhead.

(see previous post for more details of where Spare lived in South London; exhibition closes on Sunday 14th November.)

The Bones go Last: Austin Osman Spare film

The Bones go Last is a blog documenting progress towards making a new film about the South London artist and visionary Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956).

Spare's South London movements were traced a few years ago by my friend Chris Jones, who organised a Austin Osman Spare pub crawl around some of his old haunts. As a child's Spare's family home was at 15 Kennington Park Gardens, and from 1916 to 1921 he lived at 298 Kennington Park Road. From 1921 to 1933 his home and studio was on the Tabard Estate at 52 Becket House, then he moved to a flat at 56a Walworth Road, near Elephant and Castle. This was destroyed in a German bombing raid in 1941. In the immediate aftermath he stayed for a while at the Newington Reform Club at 86 Walworth Road., and then moved to a Brixton basement at 5 Wynne Road.

Spare drew much of the inspiration for his portraiture from the faces of the Walworth Road and East Lane market. He also exhibited his work in local venues. As a child artist some of his drawings were exhibited in Newington Library. After WW2 he staged shows in local pubs including the Temple Bar in 1949 (286 Walworth Road), the Mansion House Tavern in 1952 (46 Kennington Park Road) and the White Bear in 1953 (138 Kennington Park Road).

106 years after his exhibition at Newington Library, there will be a major exhibition of his work next door on Walworth Road at Southwark's Cuming Museum. Austin Osman Spare: Fallen Visionary will take place from Tuesday 14 September 2010 to Saturday 13 November 2010.

The makers of the new films have put out a request for any photos or stock footage of South London Circa 1880 - 1950: 'Kennington, Walworth Road, Snow Hill [in the City], Brixton and Bourough are what we are after really, we are an amateur production and so cannot pay a fee, but the film will be shown at a Spare exhibition later in the year and will receive full credit. This would be greatly appreciated if you could help us'. If you can help contact them at info@thebonesgolast.com

In the mean time here's a short psychogeographical ramble through some of the Spare's London - Spare Places by Jamie Gregory (2006):

Spare Places from Jamie Gregory on Vimeo.

Beatrice Offor of Sydenham

Tomorrow night (Thursday 10 June), Geraldine Beskin is giving a talk at South East London Folklore Society on 'The Women of the Golden Dawn'. It takes place at The Old King's Head, Kings Head Yard, 45-49 Borough High Street , London SE1 1NA . 8.00pm start, £2.50 / £1.50 concessions.

I don't think I can make it tomorrow, but I wonder whether Geraldine will cast some light on any of the South London connections to the story of this famous order of Victorian occultists.

Transpontine has previously covered the connection between Annie Horniman and the Golden Dawn, as a result of which the grounds of what is now the Horniman museum played host to mystically-minded luminaries including WB Yeats, Golden Dawn founder Samuel MacGregor Mathers, his wife Moina Bergson and AE Waite.




A looser connection is with the painter Beatrice Offor, born on the 21 March 1863 at Peak Hill Villa, Sydenham.

She attended the Slade School of Art and befriended Mona Bergson and Annie Horniman . They shared a studio together in Fitzrovia.

To what extent Offor herself shared her friends' occult leanings I do not know, but certainly some of her paintings suggest some kind of interest, even if only in the associated imagery. The bottom painting is entitled the 'Crystal Glazer' (don't know the name of the top painting.

Offor lived in Tottenham in later life, and died in 1920.

Her family seemed to have been quite interesting all round. She was one of ten children born to George and Emma Offor, though not all lived for long. Her brother William died as a baby before she was even born. A George Offor of Peak Hill Villa (presumably Beatrice's father, or possibly a brother) was listed in 1887 as a member of the Shelley Society.

Peak Hill, for those who don't know the area, is just around the corner from Jews Walk, where Eleanor Marx lived and died.

Dark Monarch

The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art is an excellent exhibition exploring the influence of folklore, mysticism, mythology and the occult on the development of art in Britain. It was first displayed at Tate St Ives last year and has now moved to the new Towner gallery in Eastbourne. There are no plans for it to come to London as far as I know, so if you want to see it you will have to take a trip to the south coast before 21 March, when it closes.

The reason I mention it here is because it includes works by a number of visionary artists associated with South London, including in no particular order:

Graham Sutherland, Cray Fields (1920)

(artist studied at Goldsmiths in New Cross)

Derek Jarman, Sulphur (1975)

(one of a series of super 8 films made when he was living on Bankside)

Austin Osman Spare, The Dawn (1920)
(artist lived in Walworth Road)

The Four Queens Find Launcelot Sleeping - David Jones (1941)

(artist grew up in Brockley)

The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke - Richard Dadd (1864)
(painted in Bedlam asylum, St George's Fields, Southwark)

Samuel Palmer, The Lonely Tower (1979)
(artist grew up in Walworth)

Damien Hirst - The Child's Dream (2008)

(artist studied at Goldsmiths in New Cross)

Well worth a trip to the seaside, these images don't really do justice to the works, for instance the drawing by David Jones includes an incredible amount of detail as does Gadd's painting.

AE Waite at the Horniman

We have discussed before at Transpontine the interesting connection between the Horniman Museum and Victorian occultism, specficially the fact that Annie Horniman was a member and patron of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and that through her Order founder MacGregor Mathers and his wife Moina Bergson (sister of the philosopher -pictured) came to live on the site. WB Yeats was among those who visited and took part in magical experiments.

Another visitor was the occultist/mystic Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942) and his wife Ada Lakeman, known as 'Lucasta'. In fact they were both initiated into the Golden Dawn in a January 1891 ceremony at the Mathers' house, Stent Lodge, in the grounds of what is now the Horniman Museum (source).

Waite (pictured)doesn't seem to have been entirely happy with the ceremonial magic of the Golden Dawn, preferring his own mystical take on esoteric Christianity. When the Golden Dawn broke up into acrimonious factions, Waite started the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross which declared that it "has no concern whatsoever in occult or psychical research, it is a Quest of Grace and not a Quest of Power”.

Waite wrote over seventy books on subjects incuding Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, the Holy Grail and the Kabbalah, but is probably best known today for his part in the creation of the Rider Waite Tarot Deck, with the cards illustrated by the artist Pamela Colman Smith under his direction.

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!

The McMillan Sisters and Rudolf Steiner in Deptford

McMillan Street, Rachel McMillan Nursery School and Children's Centre, and Margaret McMillan Park in Deptford all mark the long term influence of the McMillan sisters on this part of South East London.

Margaret (1860-1931) and Rachel McMillan (1859-1917) grew up in Scotland before moving to London in the 1880s, where they became active in the socialist movement. They met William Morris, the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, and the Paris Communard Louise Michel, and were involved in supporting the 1889 London dock strike.

Margaret McMillan

In 1910, Margaret helped establish a pioneering child health clinic (called the School Treatment Centre) in Deptford Green, later moving it to Evelyn House (353 Evelyn Street). In 1911, the nursery started on a small scale in the garden of Evelyn House, where there was also a 'night camp' for children over eight years of age while little children were received in the day time. In 1914 the 'camp' moved to a shelter on London County Council land on the Stowage site where the Rachel McMillan Nursery School stands to this day. In the war it was mainly used by the children of munitions workers. New buildings were erected on the site in 1917, with further buildings opened by Queen Mary in 1921. Rachel died in 1917, and so Margaret named the Nursery School after her. Margaret continued to have some involvement in it until her death in 1931.

Rachel McMillan

In the early days it was known as an open air nursery school, as there was a strong emphasis on playing, learning and sleeping outside. Although sleeping outside passed from fashion, outdoor play remains at the heart of the nursery schools movement which Margaret McMillan helped inititate.

Margaret McMillan’s writings on childhood criticised schools for just preparing working class children for unskilled work. At a time of rigid discipline she opposed corporal punishment and stressed the importance of free play. In Deptford she tried to put into practice her vision of the school as 'a garden city for children', with children playing, learning and sleeping outside. Her description of children sleeping under the stars has an almost mystical quality: ‘sleepy eyes looked from their pillows at points of starry fire in the indigo blue depth; the night wind cooled their little heated bodies, and a primrose dawn called them awake. Will these children ever forget the healing joy of such nearness to the earth spirit as is possible even in Deptford?’ (quoted in Steedman).

The nursery and the clinic were both practical efforts to answer the question McMillan herself posed: ‘We all hate the poverty – and the riches – of capitalist society. But the real poverty goes deeper than wages. It is in the starved, cramped, diseased bodies and minds: the eyes that do not see; the ears that do not hear: how can we change them?’ (quoted in Steele, 1999).

Rudolf Steiner visits Deptford

McMillan's progressive ideas about children and education were shared by the Austrian thinker Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). In August 1923, Steiner visited the nursery school in Deptford at the invitation of Margaret McMillan. He described this visit at the time:

'Today I was able to accept her invitation to visit the nursery and school established by her at Deptford, London. Three hundred of the very poorest population, from the ages of two to twelve, are wonderfully cared for there by her... one sees at work in the various classes youngsters who are spiritually active, happy in soul, well-behaved and growing healthy in body. It is an equal pleasure to see these children at play, to see them learning, eating and resting after meals'.

Mentioning that some of the older children were performing a Midsummer Night's Dream, Steiner remarked: 'The institution lies near the spot where once upon a time the court of Queen Elizabeth stood, who herself lived at Greenwich nearby. Shakespeare apparently acted for the royal household almost in the identical place in which his works are now being so delightfully interpreted by these little ones' (quoted in 'Rudolf Steiner speaks to the British: lectures and addresses in England and Wales', Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998).

Rudolf Steiner

As well as an educationalist, Steiner was an occultist with his own doctrine of Anthroposophy combining elements from Theosophy, esoteric Christianity, and Rosicrucianism. This spiritual side of him seems to have appealed to McMillan, judging by her account of his visit to Deptford. She wrote to her friend Margaret Sutcliffe: 'He came here and everything seemed new and wonderful as he entered the room... The whole world is a whispering gallery to him, and vibrations reach him for which we have no name'. She later recalled 'how in walking with her round the school he kept telling her, very concretely, of the spiritual presence of her sister Rachel with whom she had begun this work - whose death not long before had been a very heavy blow for her' (according to George Adams, cited in 'A man before others: Rudolf Steiner remembered', Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993).

Steiner's educational ideas are still applied in the Steiner-Waldorf schools, the first of which in the UK opened in Streatham Hill in 1925. And judging by a conversation I had recently with a Brockley allotment gardener, his biodynamic agriculture ideas are being applied in South East London to this day.

Margaret and Rachel McMillan are both buried in Brockley Cemetery.

Sources other than those already referenced: Jess Steele (ed.) The Children can’t wait: the McMillan sisters and the birth of nursery education (London: Deptford Forum, 1999); Carolyn Steedman, Childhood, culture and class in Britain: Margaret McMillan, 1860-1931 (London: Virago, 1990).

Camberwell and Crowley

Straycation, South East London Folklore Society's walking festival, strolls off tonight with Scott Wood as your guide 'around the mythological sites of Camberwell. There'll be ghosts, folklore, saints and Aleister Crowley's father-in-law. Meet on Camberwell Green, junction of Camberwell Road & Camberwell Church Street'. It starts at 7 pm and there is no charge.

To whet your appetite, here's the tale of Camberwell's connection with the famous occultist Aleister Crowley.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the vicar of St Giles Church, Camberwell, was the Reverend Frederick Festus Kelly. He moved with his family from Paddington to there in 1880 and remained vicar for the next 35 years. His children, Gerald and Rose, played a major role Crowley's life.

Gerald Festus Kelly (born 1879) met Crowley at Cambridge University in 1898. They became friends and possibly lovers. After leaving Cambridge, Kelly moved to Paris and established himself as an artist. Crowley visited Paris in 1902, and it was via Kelly's connections that he met the sculptor Auguste Rodin and the writers Arnold Bennett and W. Somerset Maugham. The latter used his Paris encounters with Crowley as the basis for his novel 'The Magician' (1907).

In July 1903, Crowley met Gerald's sister Rose in Scotland. Seemingly to rescue her from a marriage being arranged by her mother Blanche, Crowley proposed to Rose. By the 17 August they were wed and the marriage was registered. The marriage of convenience soon became for real as Crowley fell in love with, in his own worlds, 'one of the most beautiful and fascinating women in the world'.

Crowley and Rose Kelly spent their 1904 honeymoon in Cairo, where Rose played a key role in the genesis of Crowley's best known work 'Liber Legis' (The Book of the Law). Crowley spent several days invoking ancient Egyptian deities and came to believe that Rose was relaying messages from the Gods to him, including one that he should wait in his temple on a given date and write down whatever he heard. Crowley did so, writing Liber Legis which he always maintained was dictated to him by Aiwass, his Holy Guardian Angel . Crowley came to regard Rose as a Scarlet Woman, in his postive sense of a woman in touch with the gods. He wrote several poems for her, including Rosa Mundi (Rose of the World).

Their marriage did not end happily. Their first child died of typhoid contracted while travelling around China, and Rose became an alcoholic. The couple divorced in November 1909, at which time Rose was back living in the family home in Camberwell. Rose remarried but died of alcohol-related causes in 1932. Rose Kelly and Aleister Crowley had a second child, Lola Zaza, but after the divorce Crowley rarely saw her. Gerald Kelly went on to become president of the Royal Academy, although by this point his friendship with Crowley was over.

Rose, Lola and Aleister Crowley

Crowley mentions a visit to Camberwell in his book Magick Without Tears: 'I remember sailing happily in to breakfast at Camberwell Vicarage, and saying cheerfully, in absolute good faith: "A fine morning, Mr. Kelly!" I was astounded at the reply. The dear old gentleman - and he really was one of the best! - half choked, then gobbled at me like a turkey! "You're a very insolent young man!" Poor, tiny Aleister! How was I to know that his son had driven it well home that the hallmark of English stupidity was that the only safe topic of conversation was the weather. And so my greeting was instantly construed as a deliberate insult!'

Source: Booth, Martin, A Magick Life: A Biography of Aleister Crowley (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2000); Crowley, Aleister, Magick Without Tears.

Horniman Museum and the Forest Hill Visions

New Year’s Day was spent walking the dog in Horniman gardens and then a quick visit to the café and museum. I haven’t been for a couple of years, it really is a fantastic place. The new aquarium is excellent, worth a trip to just to see the Moon Jellyfish floating in blue light. I am also a big fan of the collection of musical instruments from round the world, and I am looking forward to Utsavam, an exhibition of music and dance from India which runs there from 9th February with a programme of free events throughout the year.

The Horniman Museum was founded by the 19th century tea merchant Frederick Horniman, whose house stood in the grounds of the present building. Through his daughter Annie Horniman, it also also played a role in the unfolding of 19th century occultism.

Annie Horniman was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and it was through her that one of the Order's founders, the colourful Samuel MacGregor Mathers, was introduced to her father and appointed by him to help curate his growing collection. Mathers and his wife Moina Bergson were housed at Stent Lodge on his estate in Forest Hill in the late 1880s. The house was used 'to host metaphysical salons and evenings of psychic experimentation', attended by the Irish poet WB Yeats among others (Yeats was initiated into the Golden Dawn in 1888). Moina's vivid Forest Hill Visions were interpreted by her husband as past-life experiences.

Annie Horniman also helped found the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester.

Source: Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses: Maud Gonne, Moina Bergson Mathers, Annie Horniman, Florence Farr by Mary K. Greer