Dr Ethel Bentham MP - Lessons From the Titanic - Labour 1912

LESSONS FROM THE TITANIC

THE LABOUR PARTY’S POINT OF VIEW MAY 1912

On Sunday evening (6th May 1912), at the weekly meeting of the Uxbridge Independent Labour Party (ILP), held at the Rockingham Hall, Uxbridge. Dr Ethel Bentham was the speaker, and took as her subject “The Titanic and its lessons.” Mr (Robert) Hudson presided over a fair attendance.

The Chairman, in his opening remarks explained that the White Star Line was owned by the Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. – an organisation which is rather more American than British and was typical of the international character of modern capitalism. He pointed out that that when Mr Pierpont Morgan took over the old company, together with several other British Lines each shareholder of £1,000 was given practically £10,000, receiving £4,000 in cash and £6,000 in stock, and the workers had to make up the additional interest on the bloated capital.

The capital of the Oceanic Company was £750,000 and the dividends last year amounted to over 30 per cent. They could imagine only too well how that money had been earned, with the wretched pay of the stokers, the under-equipment of ships, and the like. (Hear, hear.)

Dr Bentham said that the loss of the Titanic seemed to have taken hold of the public imagination and the Press had exploited the incident with extraordinarily zeal. Some of them might wonder if there would have been so much fuss made if the passenger list had comprised merely so many emigrants, instead of having such a proportion of millionaires.


She had been over these big liners, and always wondered what would happen to the steerage passengers who were placed right down in the bowels or the ship, so that their chance of escape was not one-tenth


Of that of the people who were favoured with quarters on the upper decks. These ships had also reached a pitch of abominable luxury for the well to do, which could only be compared with the worst days of decadent Rome. Was it not extraordinary that one man should be able to pay £900 for a five days’ trip, simply in order to keep himself aloof from his fellow human beings!


But the whole cause of the event was deep-rooted in our social system and presented lessons far-reaching, wherever they like to turn in studying the present state of things. Take, for instance, the fact that more money was paid in royalties upon the coal used in one ship for a single voyage that was received by the whole of the stokers for their wages in using up that coal during the voyage.

Such things would continue to happen so long as these companies remained in private hands, to be used without reference to public needs and regardless of the welfare of the people employed. The speaker felt she could not blame the officials who had to do the best for their shareholders; the blame was to be placed upon the industrial system of society, which allowed such work to be done merely for private profit, rather than in the interests of the community as a whole.

They would find similar results in every trade carried on in the same way; the miner had to risk his life with poor equipment, just as the painter might be injured for life by using a rotten ladder, or the dressmaker having her health undermined by working long hours with very insufficient food and amidst insanitary conditions. For similar reason the working classes suffered from consumption at six times the rate of other classes and died at far earlier ages and suffered more accidents. These things would continue until the people demanded the nationalisation of the railways, shipping, the mines and the land, and have these worked in the interest of the nation and not the profit alone.

Several questions were asked at the close, and the speaker thanked for her address.

Uxbridge Advertiser 11 May 1912

A Titanic Disaster benefit match was held at Harefield, Middlesex. Where the  village team met their deadly rivals in deadly conflict namely Harefield Asbestos f.c asbestos team 5th May in drizzling rain Walker, Gomm, Hatch, Phipps, Fensome, Gomm, Wiggins, Mason, Gregory (Man of the Match), Gurney and Taylor.













Dr Ethel Bentham MP (Labour - Islington East)

Dr Ethel Bentham was born at 82 King William Street, Central London on 5th January 1861 daughter manager at Standard Life Assurance.


She grew up in Dublin, Ireland and witnessed appalling poverty.

Dr Bentham attended the London School of Medicine and after qualifying retuned to Rotunda hospital in Dublin to qualify as a midwife


She entered into General Practice in London before moving to Newcastle where she entered into a GP practice with Dr Ethel Williams in a poor area of the City. living at 46 Walker Terrace, Gateshead.

In 1907 Dr Bentham fought as a Labour candidate for Westgate South ward.

Dr Bentham joined Independent Labour Party in 1902, Fabian society in 1907.

While in Newcastle Dr Bentham became active in the peaceful National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, campaigning for "Votes fo for women" .
Moving to London she was in 1909 elected a Labour Councillor in the Borough of Kensigton.
 
On the death of Ramasey MacDonald's wife she established (His wife had died from blood poisoning in 1911)  The Margaret MacDonald and Baby Clinic in North Kensington at 12 Telford Road, 1924 the Clinic moved to 92 Tavistock Road.

Dr Bentham was active in the Women's Labour League from 1913. She helped and carried out medical examinations for Mrs Pember Reeves (Fabian Women's group) research report "Round about a pound a week" (1913) which concerned women in Lambeth.

In the report, Pember Reeves argued for a series of government reforms including child benefit, free health clinics and the provision of school meals.


Dr Ethel Bentham became a Quaker in 1920 .

Dr Ethel Bentham then fought Islington East as a Labour candidate in 1922, 1923 and 1924,  elected in 1929 as part of the second Labour Government. She became the first women doctor to be elected to parliament first  and the first female Quaker.

Friends with Marion Phillips and Mary Longman lived at there house at 74 Lansdowne Road.

While in London lived at 61 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park


Labour MP Dr Ethel Bentham never married and dedicated her life to the poor, she died 19 January 1931, just after her 70th birthday at 110 Beaufort Street, Chelsea cremated three days later, cremated at Golders Green and internment at Jordan's.

Class and the sinking of the RMS Titanic

This week we have been treated to the story of the RMS Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic 100 years ago on 15 April 1912. The Titanic has gripped the popular imagination for decades – the story filling books, radio plays and, more recently, even a 3D film. For some, the story resonates because it involved so many aspects of human behaviour from heroism to cowardice, sacrifice and selfishness.

Interest in the Titanic surged when, on 1^st September 1985, the wreck was finally located. Thereafter, intensive investigations in dangerous waters, allowed a range of scientists, including social scientists to reconstruct her last journey. As such, another story has emerged.

We can now be certain, for example, that working class voyagers faced a greatly reduced chance of leaving the sinking Titanic alive.

For many, the tragic loss of the Titanic is based on snippets of history learned at school or garnered from films.

Legends persist that: ‘the band played on’ as the ship sank; the Captain went down with his ship and ‘women and children first’ was the overriding principle in filling the lifeboats.

While the first two are true, the women and children first policy was not adhered to. In fact it was class that determined if one lived or died on that freezing and frightening night.

When the “unsinkable” Titanic hit the iceberg at 20 to midnight on 14th April 1912, she was approximately 400 miles east of Newfoundland, but by then class had already played it’s part.

The Titanic ship had been built at Harland & Wolf shipyard at Belfast, at a cost equivalent to £100m today, but by a workforce divided by religious bigotry.

Eight shipbuilders died during the three years - 1909-1911 it took to build. The first to die was Samuel Joseph Scott at just 15 years of age. Some 246 were injured during the same period with 28 severe, involving loss of a limb.

Harland and Wolff factored into its shipbuilding contracts deaths such as Scott’s by building in a death fatality rate of one per 10,000 tons of ship. She was to be built, according to the agreement between owners White Star and Harland’s “barring no expense”. This included loss of life and limb for those who built it.

She finally set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York having cost the equivalent of £250 million pound at today’s values. The Titanic was an impressive achievement nonetheless weighing 66,000 tons and extending 285 metres long. She was lit by 10,000 light bulbs. The crew of 918 was drawn predominately from the ports of Southampton (4 out of 5) and Liverpool, while many of the restaurant staff came from France and Italy.

The 1,315 strong passenger list was similarly diverse. It included some of the wealthiest people in the world, with a first class suite costing up to £870. Below decks were over one thousands emigrants, mostly in Third Class steerage. They paid £7 a ticket with the aim of emigrating to America having sold all they had to afford the passage. Many of whom were Irish (113) Swedish or Syrian. These steerage passengers had births on decks F and G in the hull of the ship and shared two baths.

Such were the class divisions on board that the doors between the various levels and classes were permanently locked.

When the Titanic hit the Iceberg, which brought her down, the crew were instructed to began evacuation into lifeboats from both sides of the ship. Those into the first six lifeboats were exclusively first class passengers. Whilst on the port side first class women and children were given priority, on the starboard, it was reported that first class men made their way into the lifeboats regardless of rule or myth.

Shockingly, the third class, steerage passengers, deep inside the ship were not woken or informed of events. No alarm was ever raised in third class. Those third class passengers that attempted to ascend to the deck were told according, to witness Annie Kelly (who later became a nun) to return to their births

Those who did manage to make it out and up onto the deck found gates locked against them and there were even reports of crew members with guns obstructing progress to the lifeboats.

It is clear from the evidence, that the third class passengers who did survive, were only able to do so by by jumping from the ship and scrabbling on board the last (often full) lifeboats then edging towards the sea.

Colonel Archibald Gracie testified at the American inquiry that a "mass of humanity" from steerage poured up onto the boat deck, but only after all the lifeboats had gone.

Those who question whether Class played a part in the survival chances of passengers on the Titanic simply need to consider the facts now known. Thirty seven per cent of the first class passengers perished in the freezing waters whilst 63% survived. Of the 440 male third class passengers onboard, just 59 survived [13%].

While five out of six children from first class survived, less than a third of the children of third class passengers survived.

Compare these statistics to the plight of the nine pampered dogs on board, two of whom were saved, statistically proving you had more chance of survival as a dog on the Titanic than a working class male passenger.

The Class nature of the tragedy is also reflected in the plight of the crew. Of the 918 members of the staff and crew only 215 survived,

Just one lone restaurant worker survived and maybe highlighting attitudes to foreign workers, not one of the thirty-seven Italian waiters survived.

The White Star Line that owned the ship and employed the crew who had done their best to evacuate, had even less regard for their staff after the tragedy. They not only sacked all the workers on arrival in New York, but incredulously back dated their dismissal to the 15^th April the actual time of the sinking. This left many penniless and some were forced to beg.

When the list of those who died was posted it would be the working class areas of Southampton that would be hardest hit.

Two Inquiries were convened to examine the event. They concluded that excessive speed was to blame for the sinking. Class bigotry was once again to hand as not a single third class passenger was called to give a testimony.

Michael Walker

Hayes People's History

April 2012

Brothers Ernest & George White - Killed Together at Vimy Ridge April 1917

CANADIAN BROTHERS KILLED ON SAME DAY AT VIMY RIDGE

Ernest and George White, sons of Samuel George and Emily White 20 Lawn Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, England. both 10th Company 4th Battalion Canadian Machine Corps, Canadian Expeditionary Force, killed on the attack on Vimy Ridge 11th April 1917.

All four White sons enlisted at Calgary in 1914, Ernest and George were "killed side by side in the line at Vimy Ridge".

A surviving Brother (Harry White) became a stationmaster in Ottawa and another brother lived in Vancouver, while a sister remained in England.

Tragedy hit the family again when the youngest brother (fifth) was killed in World War II

On retirement in 1956, Harry White of 63 Sweetland Avenue travelled to visit his remaining brother in Vancouver and his sister in England.

William (Walter?) Ernest White (age 20) Canadian cemetary No2 Neuville St Vaast born 18 July 1896 Killed 11 April 1917 Vimy Ridge

William George White (age 33) Givenchy Road Canadian Cemetery Neuville St Vaast born 27 January 1884 killed Vimy Ridge 11 April 1917

Herbert Samuel White

born 18 August 1888 Buckinghamshire, england

died 16 Feb 1962

 Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry enlisted May 1915

Buried  Forest Lawn Cemetery, Burnaby, British Columbia

Next of Kin in 1915 Emily White

1527 27th Avenue Calgary Alberta

 

 Herbert Samuel White Original overseas unit 56th Canadian Infantry Battalion. Joined the P.P.C.L.I. in the field June 10, 1916. Struck off strength July 2, 1917.
Compassionate discharge after the deaths of his brothers Cpl. William George White (434115) and Pvt. Walter Ernest White (434353) both of 10th Coy. Canadian Machine Gun Corps on April 11, 1917 at Vimy Ridge.  Returned to Canada where first born child (December 25, 1918) was named Patricia after the battalion.  Worked as a mail carrier in Vancouver until retirement.  Died 1962.  Daughter Betty served with the Canadian Army as a nursing sister in England while Son Victor served in Royal Canadian Air Force during second world war.

1919 Clagary Herald WHITE, Geroge and Ernest - In loving memory of George and Ernest White killed in action at

1919-04-09

Vimy Ridge, 9th April 1917 (Poem) Inserted by their loving brother, H.S. White 1622

n52p0737

Twenty-eighth avenue southwest, Calgary.

Vimy Ridge - April 1917 - 95th Anniversary - A Nation Born

As 5,000 young Canadians gather at the site of the famous battle of Vimy Ridge, France to remember the 3,600 men killed and 7,000 wounded the 9th to 12th April 1917.

Significantly, the capture at great cost of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian forces represents the rise of Canadian nationhood and the maple leaf as the national flag.

On this 95th Anniversary of Vimy Ridge, we also should recall those sons of Hillingdon residents who gave their lives fighting for Canada and remember the thousands of Canadians stationed around Hillingdon during World War One, the Canadian miners and lumberjacks at Denham Camp (Buckinghamshire) and the Canadian hospital in Uxbridge High Street which opened in January 1916

The Canadian Tunnelling Corps (Canadian Miners), and Canadian signalmen at Denham camp, Buckinghamshire (July 1917) and the Canadian Foresters at Windsor Great Park

Canadian Hospital at Hillingdon House and Canadian Club at 156 or 158 Uxbridge High Street opened in January 1916.

CANADIAN BROTHERS KILLED ON SAME DAY AT VIMY RIDGE

Ernest and George White sons of Samuel George and Emily White 20 Lawn Road, Uxbridge Middlesex both 10th Company 4th battalion Canadian Machine Corps, Canadian Expeditionary Force, who both died on the attack on Vimy Ridge 11th April 1917. Four White brothers Joined Calgary 1914

PALMER BROTHERS HAYES CANADIANS

The Palmer Brothers from Hayes, Middlesex, England sons of Hayes Labour Party founder and first Hayes Labour Councillor Henry Palmer died fighting in the Canadian Army.

William Alfred Palmer, Eastern Ontario Reg (Killed 26 th April 1916 buried Woods Cemetery, Belgium).

Lieutenant Henry Arthur Palmer, Central Ontario Reg (killed 30th September 1918 buried Cantimpre Canadian Cemetery, Nord France)


PRIVATE HERBERT FRANK NEWMAN
Death of Private Herbert Frank M Newman
(photo right)

After having risked the dangers of war for four years Private Herbert Frank M Newman, younger son of Mr William Newman of Harefield Road, Uxbridge (previously Holley Cottage, Brickfield Road, Uxbridge) was siezed with influenza and after only three days illness passed away in camp at Bramshott.
The Deceased was thirty years of age, previously employed at an Uxbridge Mill he went to Canada seven years ago, and when War broke out he "answered the call" and had been on active service with the Canadian Forces (25th Battalion Canadian Infantry (Nova Scotia Regiment) practically ever since. He was wounded but had recovered and was looking forward to an early return to civilian life when he was seized with illness which so suddenly proved fatal. Much sympathy is extended to his young wife and other relatives in their bereavement. wreaths from nurses and staff Canadian Hospital Bramshott, staff at Boxmoor Wharf and comrades at Bramshott camp.

With full military honours, the funeral took place at Hillingdon Cemetery on Wednesday morning. The coffin covered with a union jack, was borne to the cemetery on a gun carriage, and the cortege was met by a Canadian Army Chaplin who impressively conducted the service,

Following the service, volleys were fired over the grave and buglers sounded the last post (picture of Private Newman ) (Advertiser & Gazette 28 February 1919).

Private Herbert Frank Newman born 30th November 1888, died 07/02/19195ft 6 inches, complexion dark, tall, Brown eyes, Black hair, scar on right forefinger. Joined up Lindsay, Ontario, Canada 18th March 1915. 25th Battalion Canadian Infantry (Nova Scotia Regiment), Occupation Miller
Husband of Gladys P.J. Newman, of 53, The Lynch, Uxbridge, Middlesex.

Canadian Sports Day - England 1917

Dolphin Ground, Slough Saturday September 20th 1917. Canadian Lumberjack and Military Sports including Baseball match Canadian Foresters (Smith's Lawn) V ? ? Another ??? ? Log rolling, log sawing, chopping, best turned out, Logging Team

Noah Ablett - Miners Next Step - 1912 - Lost Leader

Noah Ablett

An agitator to the end

Morning Star Article

Monday 19 March 2012
Morning Star

by Robert Turnbull

A comrade once remarked to me with a certain degree of irony that the left just mouths off about class war, while the Tories actually practise it. He had a point.

In 2012, after two years of incessant and unrelenting class war, it is becoming clear that the ruling class under the thumb of international capital is intent on turning the screw still further.

Where should socialists turn to for inspiration? What tools can we use in our struggle?

Part of the answer may lie in a older radical tradition exemplified by Noah Ablett and the causes he espoused.

Ablett (1883-1935) was one of the defining figures of the British left in the first half of the 20th century.

A working miner, syndicalist, teacher, scholar and autodidact steeped in classical Marxism and the language of class war, part author of The Miners Next Step, Ablett was also instrumental in the founding of the Plebs League.

A working miner for the majority of his life, his descent into alcoholism and his subsequent death at 52 robbed the labour movement of one of its most influential and charismatic figures at a time when his influence should have been most keenly felt.

He died in October 1935 following a long battle with cancer.

Such was his influence that miners' union leader Will Lawther referred to Ablett as "the greatest pre-war Marxist" - and yet today his influence is all but forgotten.

Ablett's legacy rests on his uncompromising attitude to class conflict which was personified in his rejection of the moderate policies of the South Wales Miners Federation under William "Mabon" Abraham.

This was a stance which led to the formation of the Unofficial Reform Committee and publication of the Miners Next Step in 1912, a document which became a landmark within the labour movement for its embracement of syndicalism and its rejection of consensus politics following the Cambrian combine strike of 1910.

Ablett, who had been heavily influenced by US socialist writer Daniel de Leon, was self-educated, having read Marx and other socialist writers who had been imported into Britain, through the publisher Charles Kerr of Chicago.

In 1907 he won a scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford, via the South Wales Miners Federation.

It was here at Ruskin that Ablett began leading unofficial classes in Marxist history, philosophy and economics.

The students at Ruskin, many of them also influenced by de Leon and the personality of writers such as Tom Mann, were asked to end their unofficial classes.

They refused and a stand-off ensured which led to the principal Dennis Hurd being sacked.

The students formed what became known as the Plebs League after de Leon's book Two Pages From Roman History.

Hurd, who had supported the students, went on to become principal of the Central Labour College which had as its motto, Educate, Agitate, Organise.

The main aim of the college was to counter what was perceived to be the bourgeois ideology of mainstream education as was being taught by the Workers Educational Association at the time.

The movement for Independent Working-Class Education which grew out of the Plebs League was summed up in the first edition of its educational magazine The Plebs.

"We want neither your crumbs nor your condescension, your guidance nor your glamour. Your tuition, nor your tradition. We have our own historic way to follow, our own salvation to achieve, and by this sign we shall conquer."

The motto of the Plebs League may well serve as an fitting memorial to Ablett's life and career.

The ideas for which he fought, most notably in the field of education, are ideas that are just as relevant today.

At a time of mass unemployment and lack of educational opportunities for young people, it is as well to remind ourselves that education is a right and not a privilege.

Ablett was just one of many young men who were prepared to bring capitalism to its knees in pursuit of a better world.

History records Ness Edwards, AJ Cook and Nye Bevan, yet somehow Ablett stands alone in that time of industrial and social turmoil as an agitator and educator.

Hyndman 1912 Call for Bread & Roses

Henry Hyndman speaking to British Socialist Party/Glasgow Clarion Scouts meeting January 1912 at the Pavilion Theatre. Presiding R.A Lister apologies from R.B. Cunningham.

Hyndman

"I am not an an anarchist; I do not believe in blowing up or shooting capitalists, I do not even think strikes were the best weapon, though he had never failed to support strikes once they had were out.

"I do not like the idea of 600,000 miners striking merely for a minimum wage"

"If men were simply going out for betterment of wages, they did not alter materially the conditions under which they worked"

"However If they held out for a social reorganisation which would uplift all then every man, women and child would be with them"

Source Glasgow Herald January 1912

NOTE:
Lawrence Strike (America) - "Bread & Roses strike" started during the same period January 1912

The Lawrence Textile Strike was a strike of immigrant workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 led by the IWW or Industrial Workers of the World. Prompted by one mill owner's decision to lower wages when a new law shortening the working week. Famous American Hellen Keller a committed socialist was active in support of the workers and the IWW.

Industrial Unrest 1910-1912 (Map)

Click to enlarge

Independent Labour Party Executive Council 1899

Independent Labour Party (ILP)
Executive Council 1899

Back row, left to right
Ramsay MacDonald, Joseph Burgess, James Parker, J. Penny, F. Littlewood,

Front row, left to right
Bruce Glasier, Kier Hardie, H. Russell Smart, Philip Snowden

NOTES:

Joseph Burgess was the editor of the Workingman's Times pro trade union

France Littlewood, France attended the founding conference of the ILP in Bradford in 1893, beginning an allegiance to the party which lasted thirty five years. He was appointed one of the auditors and in 1896 became national treasurer and a member of the party’s National Administrative Council (NAC).November 1891, the committee of the newly formed Colne Valley Labour Union (CVLU)

In March 1892 George Garside, a Slaithwaite born blacksmith and founder of Slaithwaite Social Democratic Club was elected to West Riding County Council for what was essentially the current Colne Valley electoral ward. He was the first socialist (Labour) candidate to gain a seat on a County Council in Britain and won in a straight fight against the Liberal, gaining 55.1% of the vote. He sat as a ILP Labour County Councillor until his death in 1907 aged 63.

Marie Lloyd - English Music Hall Singer and Trade Unionist

Known as the Queen of the Music Halls, the comic singer Marie Lloyd (1870-1922) had strong trade union principles.

Marie's risky interpretations of the most innocent of lyrics led to frequent clashes with the guardians of morality. Her performances also articulated the disappointments of life, especially for working-class women.

Marie's first major success was "The Boy I Love is up in the Gallery", and she quickly became one of the most famous of English music hall singers.

Despite her own success she supported other performers she was a passionate trade unionist and was elected as the first president of the Music Hall Ladies Guild in 1906. In the following year, called a meeting to form an alliance with the Variety Artists' Federation, the National Association of Theatrical Employees and the Amalgamated Musicians Union.

This alliance called a music hall strike to resist management attempts to make artists who were lower down the bill do extra matinee performances for no extra payment during the famous Music hall war of 1907, It also tried to stop them making more money by performing at rival theatres.

As a top of the bill star, Marie was not directly affected by these worsening conditions, but her sense of solidarity with her fellow artists prompted her to fully support the strike.

"I will never go back upon the music hall stage until the wants of every musician and stagehand are satisfied," she declared.

She was on the picket line at the Euston Palace, where the strikebreakers included performing animals and singer Belle Elmore, who was later murdered by her husband Dr Crippen.

One of the pickets told Belle not to be a blackleg, but Marie, who had a poor opinion of Belle's talent, shouted: "Go on, let her work. She'll do the strike a lot more good by going on and singing than by stopping out! You go and work Belle!"

When Belle started singing, word got around that the far superior Marie Lloyd was singing for free on the picket line outside. The entire audience streamed out of the theatre.

Marie also played at a strike benefit concert organised by the union at the Scala Theatre in Charlotte Street.

Her evidence to the Board of Trade arbitration body convinced it to rule in favour of the strikers.

An active supporter of voting rights for women, Marie had a small part in a suffragist play at The Oxford on the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road in 1909. At one of its performances she smuggled in the militant suffragette Annie Kenney in her hamper through the police cordon so that she could make a speech on stage.

When the first-ever royal command performance was organised in 1912, Marie was excluded. It was assumed that this was punishment for her involvement in the strike five years earlier.

Unperturbed, she hired another theatre nearby on the same night for a rival performance, with placards proclaiming: "Every performance by Marie Lloyd is a command performance - by command of the British public."

The pub is within a few hundred yards from where she was born at 36 Provost Street and went to school on Bath Street.

Thousands attended her funeral and TS Eliot wrote that it was "her capacity for expressing the soul of the people that made Marie Lloyd unique."

"Our demands are just and we must stand together as a profession" - Marie Lloyd

Morning Star

Strike of the month: Marie Lloyd and the music hall strike of 1907

Marie Lloyd is best remembered today as the doyenne of music hall entertainers. Her command of double-entendre and ability to give a risqué sexual charge to the most innocent of lyrics made her a huge star, not just in her native London, but around the UK and beyond.

But the woman who brought the house down with the likes of “I sits among the cabbages and peas...” never abandoned her East End roots, and when music hall performers in the capital went on strike in 1907, Marie Lloyd, star of the Edwardian stage, was there at their side.

Until the turn of the century, most music hall entertainers had enjoyed relatively flexible working arrangements with music hall owners. By the Edwardian era, however, terms and conditions were increasingly formal, preventing entertainers from working at other local theatres, for example.

The 1907 dispute began when in addition to the single matinée (afternoon) performance included in most performers’ contracts, music hall owners began to demand additional shows – adding up to four matinées a week to the workload for no extra money in some cases.

The Variety Artistes Federation, established the previous year and with a membership of nearly 4,000 performers, was having none of it. On 22 January, performers, musicians and stagehands at the Holborn Empire walked out on strike.

The dispute would spread to 22 London variety theatres, and saw 2,000 of the Variety Artistes Federation’s membership on picket lines at one time or another.
The dispute was backed by a number of leading performers, including Arthur Roberts, Gus Elen and Marie Lloyd – as well as by the stars of the Edwardian labour movement, among them Ben Tillett and Keir Hardy.

Lloyd explained her support:

"We (the stars) can dictate our own terms. We are fighting not for ourselves, but for the poorer members of the profession, earning thirty shillings to £3 a week. For this they have to do double turns, and now matinées have been added as well. These poor things have been compelled to submit to unfair terms of employment, and I mean to back up the federation in whatever steps are taken."

For two weeks, the union ran a masterly publicity campaign, distributing leaflets declaring a “music hall war” and hiring the Scala Theatre to put on a fund-raising show.

When the music hall owners responded by engaging lesser known acts and bringing others out of retirement, the union picketed theatres. On one occasion, Lloyd recognised one of those trying to enter and shouted, "Let her through girls, she'll close the music-hall faster than we can."

In due course, the dispute was referred to arbitration – the suggestion apparently coming from the author Somerset Maugham – and Sir George Askwith, concilation officer at the Board of Trade, was appointed to try to find a resolution.

After 23 formal meetings and numerous less formal ones, the resulting settlement produced a national code, a model contract and a procedure for settling disputes. In effect, the performers won more money, plus a guaranteed minimum wage and maximum working week for musicians.

Although the strike ended well, the music hall owners exacted a sour little revenge on Marie Lloyd. Five years later, when the first music hall royal command performance for the music hall was held, vengeful managers excluded the greatest star of the music halls from their line-up.

Further information
Theatre History Online – including leaflets and posters from the strike

Mark Crail - Tribune

Parliament - Charles II Wanted Poster

A ‘wanted’ poster issued by Oliver Cromwell offering a reward for Charles II’s capture

The item, dubbed the ‘most famous wanted posted in the world’, was issued on Wednesday September 10, 1651, after the defeat of the King’s forces at the hands of Cromwell’s New Model Army in the Battle of Worcester a week earlier.

Long Live the Levellers and Diggers

Sea Green Blades !

The world turned upside down - Billy Bragg (below click to play)

Comrade Nares Craig 1917 - 2012

Comrade Nares Craig funeral (celebration of his life) was held on Friday 10th February 2012 at picturesque snowy St Marylebone crematorium, Finchley. North London.

Cameron Nares Craig was born on 2nd November 1917 and the wind that swept Russia. must have also rocked his cot, for Nares despite his privileged pedigree committed his life to surviving the "masses".

Pictures
Nares Craig Cambridge night Climber and with Salvador Allende just weeks before the US backed coup in Chile.

As the great Russian poet Nikolai Ostrovsky wrote:

"Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world- the fight for the Liberation of Mankind."

Cameron Nares Craig died peacefully on 1st February 2012 surrounded by his family aged 94

Farewell Comrade Craig

Comrade Craig Presente


Order of Service

Celebrant: Jane Harter

Music: Mendelssohn Symphony No: 3 "Scottish"
Music: Joe Hill sung by Paul Robeson
Poem When I am Dead (Seran Craig-Best
Reflections: nieces Sarah Borchardt and Stella Aillaud
Committal
Minutes Silence
Closing Words
Music: The Internationale
Music: Beethoven Symphony No: 5 1st Movement

Lucy Craig-Best

Comrade Nares Craig 1917 - 2012 - Presente !

Nares Craig

Nares Craig - 2nd November 1917 - 1 February 2012

Lucy Craig the daughter of Nares Criag has posted that sadly her father died on Wednesday 1st February 2012.

"As many of you will know Nares had been becoming increasingly frail in the last 3 or 4 months and of course at 94, his death was certainly not unexpected.

It was also what might be called “a good death” in that Nares didn’t suffer any dreadful pain or discomfort and he was surrounded by his closest family: myself, husband Gordon, brother Jonathan, my children Liam and Seran and – as it happened – her daughter Biba, who was asleep in her buggy.

He was also wonderfully well-cared for in his last days and hours by his excellent GP, his palliative care nurse and the fantastic staff at The Meadow where he has been living for the last 4 ½ years."

Lucy Craig 3rd February 2012

Nares Craig was born in 1917 in the week of the Russian Revolution, his father being the brother of the notorious Ulsterman Lord Craigavon.

Nares was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, whe

re he became one of the "elite" Cambridge night climbers and also became a life long committed socialist and later a communist, much to his families disapproval.

He left Cambridge and became a captain in the Armoured Engineers in the 1939-45 war. While commanding tanks adapted to carrying special assault equipment, he re-designed the Bailey Mobile Bridge to increase span capacity and reduce operating casualties.

He meet and married, Spanish civil war veteran and nursing trade union leader Thora Silverthorne.

After qualifying as an architect, he worked at the UK Building Research Station on investigations into housing design, production and erection processes, which were recorded in over fifty technical publications.

This work resulted in invitations to lecture in v

arious Third World centres, and later to the development of the low-cost Brecast system which was used widely in earthquake- and hurricane-prone areas. He was particularly proud to have been involved in housing issues in Chile, prior to the vicious US backed coup.

Nares lived and died a fully committed socialist, a socialism built not on dogma but upon harnessing his many skills on behalf of working people and ultimately empower them.

He was a quietly spoken man who brimmed with warmth for all he met, I'm proud to say I knew him, my sympathy to Nares family and friends.

As the great Russian poet Nikolai Ostrovsky wrote:

"Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest c

ause in all the world- the fight for the Liberation of Mankind."

COMRADE NARES CRAIG, PRESENTE !

http://narescraig.co.uk/memoirs/index.html#TOC