Peckham Rent Strike 1931

Alf Maunders

Born in Peckham in 1908, Alf joined the Communist Party in its founding years.

He was a local organiser of the National Unemployed Workers Movement and a comrade of Wally Hannington.

Amongst many struggles, he was involved in the occupation of the Cafe Royal by the unemployed and a number of fierce battles with the police in Hyde Park in the 1930s.

More notably, Alf organised the first successful rent strike of the period at the privately run Nigel Buildings, triggering a wave of tenant’s action in working class London boroughs and beyond.

The first decisive tenants’ battles had been in 1915, when a mass rent strike on the Clyde sparked a major movement across Britain, which was especially led by women. In the run up to the end of the First World War major actions followed in Leeds and Bradford followed suit. Within a year rent strikes were being called across Britain.

When strikes were called in Woolwich and parts of south London, in Handsworth and Lozells in Birmingham, munitions industry bosses were so worried that they forced Lloyd George to order local rents to be reduced. Some 1,000 tenants struck in Edmonton, and protests in Barrow against evictions led to copycat actions in Workington and Coventry. This movement won the first legal controls on landlords raising rents. The next decade saw a major growth in the social housing sector, which for a time diminished the need for such major tenants’ actions.

The Communist Party had been at the heart of this struggle fifteen to twenty years before Alf joined the Party. But, as a youth, he surely would have been more than conscious of the experience of the generation before him. As the recession bit hard in Britain, from 1931, private tenants saw racked rents and insufficient investment made slum conditions worse. The London Communist Party in particular once again thrust itself into tenants’ struggles and scores of epic struggles ensued.

This new phase began with the struggle to improve the lot of the tenants of the privately owned Nigel Buildings. These were a notorious run down series of tenement blocks that were infested with vermin in Peckham, south-east London, now in the borough of Southwark.

The landlord increased the rent by a penny a week and so Alf organised the tenants to withhold their rent. Barricades against the bailiffs were erected around the buildings and local people organised to bring in food and supplies. After several months (one source speaks of the longest of such strikes being of 21 weeks during, and this may well be the Nigel Buildings affair), unsuccessful attempts by bailiffs and police (including mounted police) seeking to storm the barricaded tenements, the landlords gave in and reduced the rent. Alf was arrested and imprisoned for assaulting a bailiff at some point in the struggle

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Copycat actions now spread across the capital, especially in London’s East End (Stepney). Women once again were at the heart of the tenants' fightback, during the course of which the Communist Party helped local tenants fight against slum conditions and extortionate rents. Future Communist MP, Phil Piratin, wrote, “Tens of thousands of working class men and women had organised themselves for common struggle ... committees were formed, and hundreds of people who had never been on a committee and had no experience of organisation or politics learned those things, and learned them well.”
Following Nigel Buildings, it became the norm in tenants’ struggles in London to barricade the housing blocks to keep out rent collectors, bailiffs and the police. Sentries were posted day and night. Tenants defended themselves with saucepans, rolling pins, sticks and shovels. The rent strikes were epics and gained national publicity, resulting in a wave of emulation around the country. A government feeling vulnerable on the eve of war once again had to give in to tenants' demands. Rents were cut and evictions halted

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A few years later, militant rent struggles were emulated by the Communist Party in Birmingham amongst thousands of council house tenants in 1939, and reprised in London and throughout the provinces in the squatters’ movement immediately after the end of the war in 1945.
Aside from his role in the tenants’ movement, Alf 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. I suspect it was he that threw the bottle at Joyce but he would never admit it!

Around 1935, after accepting a challenge from the local Tory MP to go to the Soviet Union he was offered a one way ticket! Alf travelled overland to Moscow and attended a reception within the Kremlin. He met Kalinin and Dimitrov, a fact of which he was very proud, and often recounted the story of how Stalin entered the room and walked by smiling. Alf joined a British trade union delegation in Red Square to watch a Red Army parade. He also met a young Mao Tse Tung on the platform. On returning to Britain, he had to travel secretly across Nazi Germany with the help of German CP members. Whilst in Hamburg, he was nearly captured by the Gestapo and was smuggled across the North Sea on a tug.

After serving in the RAF during the war, as a skilled carpenter/joiner in the post-war period he took part in many industrial disputes as a shop steward for the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, and was blacklisted on several building sites. Alf supported the Soviet Union over the 1956 Hungary and 1968 Czechoslovakia events, believing that an enemy of the Soviet Union was an enemy of the working class.

A firm Marxist-Leninist, he was not a great lover of the “British Road”, arguing that the capitalist class would never give up power by peaceful means. A lifelong reader and supporter of the Daily Worker and Morning Star, Alf passed away aged 84 in 1991.

Dick Maunders

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.

Note

The leader of the Stepney 1938-1939 strikers was Communist Councillor Maurice "Tuby" Rosen. the Stepney Tenants Defence League (STDL) had been established in 1936. with sporadic strikes from 1935

others included the Communist Party's Housing expert Michael Shapiro, Phil Piratin (later MP) Sarah Wesker, Bertha Sokoloff, Wolfy Millee. The STDL even had two full time CP organisers Harry Conn and Ella Donovan. by 1940 it had 11,000 members.

Tubby Rosen was also involved in the Communist inspired squatters movement after the War, notably at Duchess of Bedford House, Kensington High Street on September 8th 1946. This resulted in a famous Old Bailey court case against the leaders, Tubby Rosen along with Bill Carritt, Joyce Alergant, Stan Henderson and Ted Bramley October 30th to 31st 1946.

Simon Blumerfield's play "Enough of all this" is based on the strikes

Dod Street - Free Speech Fight
East London 1885


The Social Democratic Federation had been established in 1881 as Britain's first avowed Socialist Party. In 1884 a group which included branches from East London, Hammersmith and Leeds broke away and formed the Socialist League with William Morris, Ernest Bax, Edward Carpenter, Edward Aveling, Walter Crane and Eleanor Marx as some of its most high profile members of the Socialist League.

It was while leading the Socialist League that William Morris had become embroiled in the exploits of the Free Speech Vigilance Committee, formed with the Social Democratic Federation, the Socialist League and the Radical Union to defend their right to speak at what had become a traditional spot, at the corner of Piggot Street and Dod Street at Limehouse, East London. This densely populated factory area of East London was usually deserted and quiet on Sundays, and the open space afforded an ideal venue for open air meetings. Several leading lights in the socialist world addressed the crowds at Dod Street, including Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx and Lewis Lyons, Jewish Tailors’ Trade Union leader.

On 20 September 1885, at the end of a meeting, the police launched a violent attack on the speakers, arresting and charging eight men, among them Jack Williams and Lewis Lyons. The hearing was set for Tuesday 22 September. Morris wrote to his wife, “I did not go either to the East End meeting or the Parks on Sunday: but, as you will see by the papers, I felt bound to go to the police court today. My adventure there is pretty well told by the Daily News and the Pall Mall I send you.”

At the Thames Police Court, Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx gave evidence on the men’s behalf, nevertheless Lewis Lyons was sentenced to two months imprisonment. Morris, as he mentions in his letter above, was in amongst the spectators who cried “Shame,” when the sentence was passed. He immediately found himself under attack as the police turned their attentions on him, and two hours later he was in Thames Police Court in front of the magistrate on the charge of disorderly conduct. When the magistrate, Mr Saunders asked, “Who are you?” Morris replied, “I am an artist and a literary man, pretty well known, I think, throughout Europe.” This reply evidently impressed Mr Saunders who dismissed the charges against him.

This episode served only to strengthen the group’s resolve to defy the law and the next Sunday (27th September 1885), an estimated crowd of sixty thousand people turned up in Dod Street to hear Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx, amongst others, speak. So great was the gathering that it spilled over into East India Dock Road and down West India Dock Road.

This time the police kept away, on the orders of the Home Secretary, who did not want an incident which could be used to the advantage of the Government’s opponents during the run up to the elections, which were being held in November of that year.
Rosemary Taylor

NOTE

Lewis Lyons a member of the Social Democratic Federation was the leader of the 1889
"Great London Tailors Strike". This strike was amongst 6,000 Jewish tailors in the East End. Their strike headquarters was at the White Hart, Public House, Greenfield Road.

The strike began on the 29th August 1889 and received £100 donation from the Dockers also on strike. A huge march to Hyde Park was organised by the tailors.

A Federation of East End Labour (originally Federation of Jewish East End London Labourers) was established 1st December 1889. This was in a tradition of East End Jewish unions running back to the 1870's and the second Jewish Tailors Union was established as a shoot off of the Hebrew Socialist Union on 26th August 1876 at Gun Street.

Lewis Lyons, later established a London Tailors Council in 1909
Lewis Lyons, Socialist, trade unionist, tailor died July 1918.

National Union of Railwaymen

The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS), later National Union of Railwaymen now called Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) was established on the 26^th August 1871 by a group of railwaymen who meet in Leeds, within a further two weeks meetings were held in London which enthusiastically endorsed the launching of the union. On March 2^nd 1872 its rules were finally registered with the Registrar of Friendly Societies.

Its first Annual General Meeting was held on June 24^th, 1872 in the Sussex Hotel, Bouverie Street, London and within twelve months of formation had 17,000 members.

The first railwaymen to join in West Middlesex were platelayers (Platelayers Union) in West Middlesex were those working as platelayers between Acton and Slough along the Great Western Railway track earning in 1889 just 18 shillings a week. (photo rail track workers 1908)

Mr W.J. O’Brien of Acton stated they were engaged as platelayers on the line and “upon their skill depended the security of travelers and the rolling stock of the company”, and they demanded 21 shillings per week.

As early as 1897 branches of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) had been established in Southall and Barnes, which meet on occasions together. (Southall Platelayers Union active from 1889).

At a meeting in November 1897 at the Coffee Tavern, Brentford, Mr Kates of Barnes ASRS introduced a Mr F. Kitley who explained about the principles of trade unionism and congratulated them on such a large attendance. He also referred to the treatment of staff working for the L&SW Railway when they had approached management, he said “the time had come for a united movement of all grades of railwaymen through the ASRS”.

At the same meeting Mr J. Mitchell Platelayers delegate to the recent Birmingham conference gave a resume of the proceedings , he said they had passed a resolution instructing the general secretary of the ASRS to write to several railway companies offering arbitration upon the national programme, meanwhile notices were to be prepared and signed by the men, with a view to handing them in to the companies of favourable replies were not forthcoming by a given date.

A Mr G.B. Whitby proposed the following resolution “That this meeting consisting of all grades of railway men employed on the line running into Brentford having heard the decision of the Birmingham conference pledge itself to support the ASRS.

In 1898 the Amalgamated Society of Railway servants meet at the De Burgh arms in West Drayton

(Picture ASRS Rickmondsworth,Hertfordshire 1912 first banner ASRS Neasden)

1911 RAIL STRIKE

During the 18^th -19^th August 1911 transport strike, over 200,000 railwaymen were on strike, paralysing West Middlesex.

Members in Southall, like all other branches of the union received the following telegram “Your liberty at stake all railwaymen must strike at once, loyalty to each

other means victory” signed by four rail union General Secretary’s J.E. Williams (ASRS), Fox, Louth and Chorlton.

According to the local Gazette the cry “they’re out “ the words flew from mouth to mouth

The local leader of the railwaymen was the imposing Councillor James Culley of Southall

The Southall railwaymens strike headquarters was at the Co-operative Hall, Kings Street, Southall at which a meeting of over one hundred assembled at 8:00 to discuss the strike but by 7:45 th

en already most men were on strike (I believe this was the evening of 17^th August). According to the local paper the meeting was full of enthusiasm and determination was writ large on the face of each of the hundred or more men present. One of the local rail union leaders stated

“They recognised the responsibility the immense amount of

inconvience and suffering to women and children that would happen should the strike be prolonged. But the companies and the autocratic methods and the non-recognition of their societies were responsible entirely for the present state of affairs. All kinds pf obstacles had been placed in the way to prevent the working of the Consolidation Boards”.

The meeting of Southall railwaymen carried the following resolution unanimously “That this meeting of railwaymen representing all grades heartily appreciates the action of our Executives in calling upon us at last to secure recognition of our Societies and pledge ourselves to faithfully abide by the decisions of those said Executives”

Before the meeting broke up the leaders appealed to the men not to do anything disorderly they had said the picket secretary had a reputation to uphold and wished to keep their hands clean, if the solders were called in they were to treat them as brothers.

All but two signalmen in Southall came out on strike, the two signalmen were place in two signal boxes one in the east signal box and one in west. The pickets furious at the “scabs” entered the box and turned off the lights preventing the men from working, the signalmen refused to move and the strikers with no desire to use violence, endeavored to persuade signalmen to strike (picture signal box 1911 strike sStockinford)

The pickets then established picket lines at various entrances to Southall station and sheds and large numbers of people assembled on the Southall railway bridge and also the iron bridge to look for “scab trains”. Scab workers often being reward not only in generous payments from management but also donations from passengers estimated at £10 a time to drive/work trains.

A movement was a foot to raise a special volunteer (a forerunner of the 1926 strike breaking Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies -OMS) force to take duty on the railway lines in the immediate neighborhood.

Amongst the loco drivers (ASLEF) the strike was also solid , one striker stating “I am a socialist and proud of it ”15 working out of 570 between Slough only two and Paddington.

Southall was described by the local paper as being in a great sense of excitement and ferment, with other local employers voluntarily raising wages as the strike wave swept London, outside the epicenter of Transport.

The local Uxbridge paper reported tat “A well known local factory owner had an unpleasant experience on Friday, he had driven in a motor car to a certain strike infested area of South East London to collect certain articles loaned but the crowd which gathered made such a dire threats about overturning the car if he persisted in his businesses he drove off “.

In Southall it was stated the police were are taking all necessary precautions against untoward events and for this purpose about 100-150 specials” constables have been raised in Uxbridge.

Police were placed on guard and several stationed on the Southall bridges and the local paper claimed “possible” incendiary devices were discovered at Southall and attributed to the strikers.

Elsewhere, in the country there was also turmoil, In Llanelli, South Wales two innocent young men, namely Leonard Worsell and John John, who were shot down by soldiers on 18^th August 1911 during the Railway Riots in Llanelli 17^th and 18^th August 1911.

Meanwhile in Liverpool gunboats were anchored in the Mersey and 3,000 troops and several hundred police swamped the city during the 72 day City wide Transport strike. Two more innocent strikers Michael Prendergast and John Sutcliffe were killed by soldiers on the 15^th August

Meanwhile in Liverpool during the 72 day City wide Transport strike (including 15,000 railwaymen) which started on 5^th August, two more innocent strikers Michael Prendergast and John Sutcliffe had been killed on the 15^th August by soldiers.

The deaths murder of innocent strikers could not sway one prominent local resident, the Vicar of Harefield the Rev A.A. Harland stated in August 1911 that “All these strikes had been ruthlessly conducted against law and order….. The police, the custodians of public safety had been cruelly maltreated by rioting mobs of so called hooligans and the solders who had suddenly been called out to protect life and property and assist the police in the discharge pf their duties had been compelled much against their will to fire upon the more violent and savage wrongdoers”

Despite the railway companies being well prepared and confident prior to the strike and direct government intervention with the extensive use of the army and police. The Railway Companies were forced into meeting union representatives, the first great rail strike being terminated on the 19^th August 1911. The outcome was a new Conciliation Scheme and union recognition.

One legacy of the strike was the move towards the amalgamation of rail unions. The three main “general” unions, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, The United Pointsmen & Signalmen’s Society and the General Railway Workers Union agreing to amalgamate and this was completed on the 23^rd August 1913 becoming the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and by 1915 the new union had 267,611 members.

1919 RAIL STRIKE

The second national Railwaymen’s strike took place at midnight on the 26^th September 1919 primarily over the issue consolidation of war bonuses of 33 shillings. The strike being settled with the intervention of Downing Street on the 5^th October 1919 (pictiure Soldier at Slough 1919)

When the Hayes branch established 1922, a Mr W.T. Pollard of Hayes recalled he had walked many miles to attend branch meetings and that he had been a member since March 1900 “They had to fight in the dark and dare not come out into the open but they got things done”

A Southall Railway Women’s Guild was established by wives of husbands in the NUR by B (Barbara?) A. Chard the wife of a Southall signalman, also involved in the Women’s Railway Guild was Mrs Nottingham. (pictire WW1 women rail worker)

1926 GENERAL STRIKE

The third national rail strike took place during the General Strike in 1926 (3^rd-12^th May 1926)

1962 BEECHING STRIKE

The next (fourth) national rail strike was not called until thirty six years later in 1962, when faced with the Beeching Plans proposals to the closure of large sections of the rail network, stations and workshops. The NUR organised 189 meetings opposing the proposals and organised a strike on the 3^rd October 1962, This strike secured widespread public support. The union winning a number of concessions to the redundancy agreements

1968 WORK TO RULE

In 1968 the National Union of railwaymen opted for a work to rule which was conducted between the 24^th June and5th July 1968 over the issue of pay.

1989 ONE DAY STRIKES

The National Union of Railway under the excellent leadership of Jimmy Knapp conducted a series of six one day strikes in July/July 1989 which secured high levels of public support.

LOCAL NOTES

Mrs B.A. CHARD

Councillor Mrs B (Barbara) A Chard came to Southall in 1898, helped found the Women’s Co-operative Guild and the Women’s Railway (Union) Guild.

During the World War 1 she helped women munitions workers, in groups of up to eighty to find accommodation in Hayes and

Southall area.

Elected as Southall Labour Councillor in 1919 and onto the Board of Guardians, became Chairman of Southall Urban District Council in 1926

Mr Albert J Chard was her husband, also a Labour JP a railway guard

Positive this is Barbara Chard born in 1872 at Cardigan, Wales aged 29 at 1901 census

NOTES

Hayes National Union of Railwaymen's branch established in 1922. At Hayes their was a railway estate built for workers on the Great Western Railway and a Mr Doubbley was the leader of the West Drayton/Uxbridge National Union of Railwaymen who played a key role during the 1926 General strike. In the 1940’s a Mr Slade was the active in Hayes Trades Council

In January 1929 a Rail Minority Movement (Communist Party) was established with branches from Perth, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Derby, Keig

hley, Birmingham, London and Exeter represented. Soon prominent members of the RMM were elected into senior branch roles in Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby and Leytonstone. The RMM also had an important group as Stratford, London's largest rail cleaning and repair depot.

Mr W.C. Loeber (NUR) being important leader of rank and file railwaymen, he was a carriage cleaner from Hornsey. He joined the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants in 1912 and by 1924 was Chairman of the Wood Green & Hornsey branch of the NUR. NUR Executive member 1938-1940. Close friend of Harry Pollitt, Loeber was a Communist Party member and national executive member. He retired from the Railway's aged 65 in 1956. "He saw the Minority Movement as the only way to prevent a decline in working class conditions, and the Communist Party as the only way to bring Socialism nearer (The Railway Vigilant September 1932)

Newsletters included "The Signal (Manchester), Hornsey Star, The LMS Rebel and Kings Cross Star.

The Railway Minority Movement merged with the Railway Vigilance Movement (named after the Vigilance Committee's established during WW1. (and various Railway Vigilance Committees had continued after the war)

At the first conference of the Railway Vigilance Committee held on 3rd December 1932 with 35 NUR branches, 31 ASLEF and 18 Depot committees represented

The objective of the Railway Vigilance Committee was....."a movement organised in the local depots and branches and embracing all workers irrespective of grade or union division.....(which)..... can be a most powerful means of defeating the wage cuts demands of the companies


Its newspaper "The Railway Vigilant" appeared in November in November 1932 and circulation peaked at around 12,000

London County Council (LCC) Progressive Party

The London Progressive Party

The Progressive Party in London was formed in 1888 by Liberal’s , Trade Unionists, Fabians and Socialists. It contested the first London County Council (LCC) election’s in 1889 and secured around 70 of the 118 seats.

It was also successful at following the 1892 election, Eventually winning six elections in a row before losing control in 1907 to the Municipal Reform Party (run effectively by the Conservative Party) who controlled the council until 1934.

The growth and consolidation of the Progressive Party in East and South London is undoubtedly linked to the rise of the “New Unionism” movement, which evolved from the London Dock strike of August 1889.

However, according to Harry Gosling first real attempt to get Labour men elected to the London County Council was in 1895.

The Labour Group on the London County Council after the 1898 election consisted of

H.R.Taylor, W.C Steadman (Barge builders union) Harry Gosling (Riverboat lighter man) George Dew (Carpenter) John Burns(engineer), Charles Freak (Bootmaker), Will Crooks (Cooper), C. W Bowerman, Ben Cooper (Cigar makers union)

Above picture of Labour Progressive councillors elected in 1892

Harry Gosling stated of the Progressive Party on the LCC, that ....

“The early propaganda of the progressive Party in the London County Council both before my time and in the early years of my membership was as good as anything the Labour Party has been able to do”

“The Progressive Party stood then in municipal matters exactly where the Labour Party does today”

“It had vigor, vision and enthusiasm it believed in a fine and healthily London with fine thorough fares and fine bridges".

“The Progressives were citizens who were honestly progressive in their ideas and did the utmost to put them into practice”

Harry Gosling “Up and Down Stream” 1927

Labour secured control of the London County Council at the elcetion held on 8th March 1934. Labour winning 69 councillors and 11 Aldermen compared to Municiple Reform/Tories 55 Councillors and 9 Aldermen (total membership of LCC 144)

Labour elected Lord Snell as the Chairman of the Council and Mr E. G Culpin as Vice Chairman

Education Chairman Evelyn Lowe, Health Chairman Dr Somerville Hastings

General Purposes Chairman Miss Agnes Dawson,Public Improvements Chairman G Russell-Strauss, Fire Brigade Chairman Mr E. Cruse,Town Planning Chairman H. Berry,Finance Chairman Charles Latham, Parks Chairman R. Coppock

Labour won a by election in Wandsworth Central held on 27th June 1935 taking its councillors to 70 and its majority to 18

Such was the sucess of the Labour administration that Labour never lost control again. In 1965 the London County Council was consumed into the large Greater London Council in 1965 until outrageously abolished by the Tories 1986, it is now the Greater London Assembly.

London County Council (LCC) 1892 elected Progressive/Labour Councillors

Bannerman, J - Hackney South

Barrs, H.H.H. - Clapham

Bassett--Hopkins, A - Newington

Baum, F.C. - Kensington North

Bayley, E - Southwark

Benn, J.W. - Finsbury East

Bott, W.G - Newington

Branch, J - Bethnal Green South West

Bruce, W.W, - Bow & Bromley (Labour Progressive)

Burns, J - Battersea ( John Burns later labour)

Catmur, T - Whitechapel

Charrington, F.N - Mile End

Collins, W.J. - St Pancras West

Cornwall, E, - Fulham

Costelloe, B.F.C. -Chelsea

Crooks, W - Poplar (Will Crooks later Labour)

Dickinson, W.H. - Wandsworth (Deputy Chairman LCC)

Doubleday, W.B - Norwood

Downes, A.W. - Fulham

Earl Roseberry - (Chairman LCC)

Ford, C - Lambeth North

Freak, C - Bethnal Green (Charles Freak Labour Progressive)

Goodman, W - Islington West

Grigsby, W.E. - Islington North

Grosvenor,R - Kennington

Harris,H - Brixton

Harrison,C - Bethnal Green South West

Harvey, G.A. - Lewisham

Hollington, A.J - Mile End

Holmes, G.B - Hackney South

Hubbard, N.W, - Norwood

Hunter, T - Soutwark (Labour Progressive)

Hutton, J - St Pancras South (Vice Chairman LCC)

Jackson, R.S. - Greenwich

Jolly, J.R. - Woolwich (Ind Progressive)

Jones, E - Peckham

Keylock, H -Deptford

Lidgett, G - Greenwich

Lloyd, J - Kensington North

Lord Carrington - St Pacras West

Lord Monkswell - Camberwell

Lyon,R - Peckham

Marsland, J. - Walworth

McCall, J - Hackney North

McDougall, J - Poplar

Mercer, A - St Georges East (Labour Progressive)

Moss,N - Hoxton

Orsman, W.J. - Haggerston

Parkinson,W,C, - Islington North

Pearce, W - Limehouse

Pickersgill. E.H. - Hackney Central

Ponsonby, A.G. - Finsbury Central

Roberts, R - Islington South

Robinson, N - St Pancras East

Rowlands, E.B. - Finsbury Central

Sauders, W - Walworth

Sears, J.T - Camberwell

Smith, F.S - Lambeth North

Smith, W.A. - Chelsea

Steadman,W.C. - Stepney (Later Labour)

Stevens, L - Rotherhithe

Stockbridge, W - Kennington

Tarling, C - Whitechapel

Taylor, S.S. - Brixton

Thornton, J - Bermondsey

Tims, J - Battersea

Torr, J.F - Bethnal Green

Torrance, A.M - Islington East

Ward, H - Hoxton

Webb, S. - Deptford (Sidney Webb- Fabian)

Weir, J.G. - Islington East

Williams, T.H. - St Pancras North

Wood, T.M - Hackney Central

Pinner Prisoners - Suffregetes

Suffregetes

Pinner Prisoners

At the May 1912 meeting of the Pinner (Harrow) Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) it was reported that Pinner presently had two suffragette prisoners in jail.

The Pinner Prisoners were Mrs Janie Torrero and Madame de Roxe

Mrs Janie Terrero, Secretary of Pinner WSPU of Rockstone House, Pinner (who’s husband was at the Pinner WSPU meeting) had written from her Holloway prison cell a letter to the local WSPU branch detailing “the horrors of the hunger strikes and force feeding” in terms both dramatic and affecting according to the local newspaper.

At the same meeting the speaker Mrs Penn Gaskell stated

“The Clarion call of Christabel (Pankhurst) and others like it was in their ears and she hoped they were awakened and revolting at last”. The other speaker being Miss Wyley recently released from Aylesbury prison

At Uxbridge the WSPU organiser was Miss Clara Giveen

A meeting of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was held at Hayes on Sunday 21st February 1912 at 3:00pm the speaker being Miss Phyllis Ayrton. At Hayes the leading suffragette was Marion Cunningham of Oakdene, Hayes, who’s house in 1912 was searched by police looking for Christabel Pankhurst.

A letter from Marion Cunningham to Mrs Pankhurst was found in the house of Miss Annie Kenney’s house was read out at during an Old Bailey case

“I applaud your courage and perfectly believe in militancy. Nothing else can succeed but many of your union cannot agree with you…..Isolated cases involve much agony to the perpetrators and little or no damage to the government. Whatever is done now must be something big, something done by all members, some careful night attack where all women get off scot free if possible. Why not a gigantic raid on pillar-boxes with specially made Indian rubber bags filled with staining acids – say sulphuric hydrogen, I am a volunteer for that “

The WSPU also organised a huge suffragette meeting with Mrs Emmeline Pethwick Lawrence as speaker at Uxbridge town hall on Tuesday 27^th February 1912 suffragette and president of Esperance girls club and Esperance co-operative dress making society

“It was not the Government who brought about great reforms. Neither the liberal or the conservative government would have given old age pensions or workmen’s compensation, unless the people had exacted it for themselves

they did not care for the few propertied women but they did care and were working for the great masses of women who were earning their own livings. Was it reasonable to suppose that they would spend their time, lives and money and make all the sacrifices they did for the sake of a few propertied women. No, their one great aim was to see that the women in the industrial world..."

Also active locally was the non violent National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) headed by Miss Katherine Raleigh,

The Watling street section (one of six) of the great NUWSS , Women’s Suffrage Pilgrimage went through Uxbridge on the way to great demonstration on July 26^th 1912 at 7pm on Thursday the 24^th July.

A local branch of the Womens Tax Resistance League (linked to the WSPU on the principle of "No vote - No tax"). was established with Miss Katherine Raleigh and, Mrs Budding, Mrs Parkes and Miss Lees, who’s meeting at West Drayton village green in 1912 was attacked by thugs as was another Suffragette meeting at Harefield.

Michael Walker