-.,. .. - .11£ • -, . ~··~: VOLUME F. I F'T EE N . H:ACKNEYi 'A'RCHIV.ES Hackney History volume fifteen

'Lives of the convicts': Philip Sugden 3 solving a puzzle in printing history

The Tyssen Library copy of 'Lives of the S al/y England 9 convicts'

More light, more power: Chri,topher Verrett 12 electricity generation and waste disposal in Shored itch, 1897-2009

Mayors' medals for local children, Robert H. Thompson 23 1902-1919

Elizabeth and Mark Wilks, Julia Lafferty 31 campaigners for women's suffrage

The skid-kids: the post-war John Goldsmith 42 phenomenon of cycle speedway

From high hopes to tall flats: the Michael Passmore 50 changing shape of Hackney's housing, 1945-60

Abbreviations used 2 Contributors 63 Ackno1vledgements 64

THE FRIENDS OF HACKNEY ARCHIVES 2009 c/ o Hackney Archives Department 43 De Beauvoir Road N1 SSQ 020 7241 2886 archives@ hackncy. gov.uk 'Lives of the Printed by Premier Prin t Croup E3 3QQ convicts' Edited by Isobel Watson Cover design by Jacqueli ne Bradshaw-Price - ISSN 1370 3795 solving a problem 1n © Friends of Hackney 1\rchives and contributors, 2009 printing history

Philip Sugden Abbreviations used in the notes to this issue

HAD Hackney Archives Department Rare survivals I was a regular contributor on early-modern criminal biography to the Oxford Dirtionaiy of National Biography. LMA London Metropolitan Archives O ne of the articles I wrote for that work dealt with Jack Sheppard, the celebrated prison-breaker and popular hero executed at Tyburn in 1724. I have had, indeed, a long-standing interest in Jack's life and legend and am now close to fini shing a full-scale biography. It was while browsing th e British Library Publications cited are published in London catalogue for early Sheppard literature that I first encountered Applebee's Lives of the Convicts. unless otherwise indicated

T his title intrigued me. It is exceedingly little known. And this despite the fact that it was printed by John Applebee, the most important publisher of criminal biography in the third, fourth and fifth decades of the 18th century. Historical crime has become a very fashionable area of scholastic inquiry since the 1970s but few modern writers seem to be aware of the existence of Apple bee's Lives rf the Convicts. Partly this may reflect the scarcity of surviving copies. At present I know of only nine copies of the 1745 three­ volume edition in Britain and the United States and most of these lack one or two of the three volumes. The British Library copy was destroyed during the Bli tz.

The 1760 edition, publi shed in two volumes, is rarer ye t. I am aware of only four copies and these, again, may not all be complete. O ne is the copy at Hackney Archives and the only other copy in the UK known to me is held by the National Library of Scotland. There are two copies in the United States: one in the Library of Congress and the oth er at Princeton University.

3 Hackney History 'Lives of the convicts'

Some baffling questions out that Jack Sheppard didn't even appear in the Hackney Archives has a copy of the first There appeared, at the outset, baffling aspects to Hackney copy of the 1760 edition. It seemed volume. I know of three other copies and some the book. Chief among them was the correct dating inconceivable that a collection purporting to offer of these, too, may be incomplete. I have not as of the various editions. its readers accounts of the most remarkable convicts yet found an announcement for this printing from 1700 to 1760 should omit the man then held but suspect that further research will eventually From the English Short Title Catalogue I learned that to be the most extraordinary and celebrated convict produce one. I have, however, no hesitation in the 17 45 edition bears the claim that it was 'the of the age. It would be akin to writing a history of assigning it to 1740. A sampling of newspaper second edition, corrected and enlarged'. I naturally British pop without the Beatles. T II E advertisements for that year proves that supposed, then, that the 1760 edition was the third Applebee, Hodges and Corbett were all then edition and that there had been a first of which no A revised printing history trading at the addressees given and that they copy had survived to be catalogued. This was not an It was an examination of the Hackney copy of the CONTENTS. sometimes collaborated in publishing books. implausible thesis in that 18th century newspapers 1760 edition that ultimately cracked these problems. Hodges and Corbett, for example, collaborated are often found to contain announcements of Most importantly, on the matter of dating. A. in bringing out a third edition of Elisha Smith's publications which have not come down to us NS W F. R 10 the O,Jin;irl''i Am11111 The Cure of Deism in 1740. 1 and which are otherwise unknown. But the more The title-page bears two printed dates: 1739 and A Sht pp:1rJ, t11Jd Rm14rla 1ho,vn. I pondered the details given for the 1760 - and 1760. But, as Sally had already intimated to me by Il. 3. The second edition, 'corrected and presumed third - edition the more puzzled I letter, a correction in ink to the latter date indicates Ennct, Thomas, alia, John Eflrick, ali(/J B ,diM Thomas Walker, alim Morris enlarged'. This edition was printed in three became. This edition was, it claimed, printed by that a printing error had transposed the last two Brian, Juhn Harman Baines Andrew volumes by John Applebee for Charles Marsh John Applebee for James Hodges and sold by letters and that it should have read MDCCXL [17 40] Bird Edward Gt11t , Bird', Ca(,• , &c. %1 0 and dated 1745. I am aware of nine copies, at Charles Corbett. The title­ and not MDCCLX [17 60]. I Barton \Villiam :128 I !. Brinfdcn Matthias least five of which are incomplete. page locates Hodges at 'the do not know whether other llutler J,1111 ,:s Looking- Glass' on London copies of this printing bear c. N T Although more research may modify the details I Bridge and Corbett at 'the this correction but it is OOK Tlmm1~ C Churchi 11 DcllorJh am confident that this broad chronology will stand Addison's Head opposite crucial because it rewrites Ch.ivrn Eli .\t\l.x:th up. St Dunstan's Church in the printing history of the Fleet Street'. These details C ()NV IC TS, book. There was no third Jack Sheppard are impossible to square edition in 1760. What I here is the revised printing history: On the matter of Jack Sheppard. What Hackney with a publication date of had taken to be the third have, as noted above, is the first volume of the 1760 since Applebee, the edition was in fact the lost 1. The first edition was printed and sold by J. 1740 reprint. This should have contained Sheppard printer, is known to have first edition from 1739- Applebee in Bolt Court, Pleet Street; also by (executed 1724) because the criminals are treated died in 1750 and, as far as is 40, and the problem of E Nutt, E. Cook and M. Bartlett at their shops in chronological order and volume 1 runs from known, left no heir to carry Apple bee's involvement at the Royal Exchange; and by A. Dodd at the Captain Kidd (1701) to Jonathan Wild (1725). But on his business. In short, was immediately resolved. Peacock without Temple Bar. It was published he isn't in it. we seemed at this point to in two pocket-size volumes, each with a have a first edition which From Hackney I went to frontispiece, and announced in the London Books of this nature were intended for middle had vanished without trace, the British Library in search Daz!J Post and General Advertiser, 30 November class readers but sometimes, to make them more a second edition dated 1745 of evidence that might and 5 December 1739. I do not know of any affordable to those of limited means, were issued and a third edition which substantiate this deduction. surviving copy of this printing. in parts. A good example is Johnson's Lives of carried an impossible date There is more work to do Plf:lix q1mn j

4 5 Hackney History 'Lives of the convicts'

At first I wondered whether Lives of the Convicts was What we are dealing with here is a printer's gaffe. Not surprisingly many contemporaries found Journal, published pamphlets on Sheppard, Wild issued in some such format and whether Hackney In the turmoil of going to press the printers these developments distasteful. One is minded of and other celebrated criminals, printed two major might have a bound but incomplete collection of missed out their star turn and had to include him, Horace Walpole's complaint of 1750: 'You cannot collections of criminal biography and, from 1 720 parts. But no, I have not found any evidence to out of sequence, in the second volume. That this conceive the ridiculous rage there is of going to to 1745, published the accounts of the Ordinary suggest that the book ever appeared in serial form occurred at the first printing is demonstrated by Newgate,' he wrote to a friend, 'and the prints that of Newgate. and an examination of the Hackney copy quickly the digest of contents given in the publishers' are pub]jshed of the malefactors, and the memoirs revealed that it was an intact copy of the first announcements of 1739. Had the volumes been of their lives and deaths set forth with as much The Ordinary of N ewgate was the prison chaplain volume continuously paginated. issued at staggered intervals it would have been parade as Marshal Turenne's.'3 By then it was an at Newgate, London's infamous gaol. It was his a major blunder adversely affecting the reception old complaint. At the height of the Jack Sheppard job to prepare for execution those sentenced to It is clear, nonetheless, that a piece on Sheppard was of the first volume but since they were published craze of 1724, for example, the enactment of a death at the O ld Bailey and this involved exhorting intended for this volume because the frontispiece simultaneously it was a matter of no commercial pantomime about Sheppard on the Drury Lane them to confess their crimes for it was believed, of depicts his celebrated escape from the condemned significance. stage had provoked this exasperated salvo from course, that without confession there could be no hold of Newgate in August 1724. Aaron Hill's Plain Dealer- repentance and without repentance no salvation. I was ultimately able to procure a copy of the But the Ordinary had another reason fo r urging his Sheppard material from the Bancroft T here are wretches among us who attend the gibbet like charges to unburden themselves. As a perquisite of ravens or vultures and expect their subsistence from it. Library in California, which holds a full set his office he was permitted to sell their confessions, Not a poor criminal can be hanged but th ey break open of the 17 45 edition. his expiring lips and rob him of hi s las t words ... If the and on the morning after every Tyburn hanging sufferer can write and read, then, besides his Birth and day his accounts of the lives, confessions and 'last The context Education, hi s Trial and Confession, we have his Last [,f:1/orks Let me try and put all this in some kind of and Compositions. If he is married we have his U:1/ido1vs context. Lamentation. ] f he dies troubled and unsatisfied we have hi s Ghost. And if hi s Life has been at all remarkable we have his History and Advent11res: In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the literature of crime was growing and Crime sells, of course. It does now and it did SELECT diversifying rapidly. In addition to the then. But the growth of this 'crime industry' was catchpenny pamphlets and street ballads not simply refl ective of commercial opportunism ACCOUNTS that had long marked the executions and a prurient tas te for sensational literature. Its O F THE of notorious criminals we also see the patrons were primarily educated and propertied emergence of serial publications like the Old Behaviour and Dying-Speeches readers of the 'middle sort' and it is probable that Bailey Sessions Papers (which printed trial their interest - especially in London and in times Of the moll RE "AR ,: " n ~ E reports) and the accounts of the Ordinary of peace like the quarter-century that followed the of Newgate (giving the confessions of Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 - was at least in part CONVICTS. those executed at Tyburn) as well as bulky being driven by genuine fears that crime levels From th e: Year 1 700, to the prefont Time. collections of criminal biography and trials. were rising. It was then believed that the ending of At the same time, the lapse of the Licensing a peri od of warfare invariably heralded an upsurge Act2 in 1695 helped promote the growth of ·the ORDINARY ef N ewg:ite his ,4cc01111t in violent crime at hom e by disgorging thousands the Bcb,n1io:w and IJ. ying-TVcrds ~f the London press and by the 1720s there of unemployed and battle-hardened fighting men Willbm Kidd aid D.1rby Mullins, were daily, tri-weekly and weekly papers and dmm'd Pir.1(1•. upon a precarious labour m arket and leading to proprietors like John Applebee, Nathaniel A PT A J N W;/J;,,., KiJ1, W':!& contraction in war industries like munitions and s6 Years of .\g,·, ll-Om in Mist and George Parker were attracting fount! him un1qlJi11g w ,vnf~I, the ship-building. Crime h,• was connH,-d of, or ded:.r,: an increasingly popular readership by Jny thin!'., otherwife tlrnn rh;it he haJ according substantial coverage to home been~ great Oll,nJa, and liv\l with­ T he printer and bookseller John Applebee was out nny due Confidcr:irion, ,·ithcr of news and crime. (;o.:l's llltr<:ics or Judgmcnt5, ot of his wonderfu l the leading pub]j sher of criminal literature for Works which lud oiler, been fct before Jiim; that h~ Vo 1.. J. ll m·ver thirty years of the early 18th century. He accorded generous space to crime in his Original Tf1/eekfy

6 7 Hackney History 'Lives of the convicts' dying speeches' of the executed criminals would Most Notorious Highivaymen (1719), the second be published and hawked about the streets. Some volume of Johnson's General Hi.story ... of the Most criminals, perfectly understandably, declined to talk Notorious Pirates (1728) and Applebee and Osborn's The Tyssen Library and 'Lives of the convicts' to the Ordinary. Others did not tell him the truth. T~ives of the Most Remarkable Criminals (1732-4), all of But he was in an almost unique position to secure which take originality to the point of shamelessly The Hackney Arcnives copy of Applebee's A select and impartial account of the lives, first-hand information from condemned criminals mingling fact with fiction. behaviour and dying words of the most remarkable convicts from the year 1700 down to in London and his accounts now constitute our best the present time originally belonged to the Tyssen Collection, now part of the Local Studies and most comprehensive source of biographical There is, furthermore, a second consideration. Some Library. information about them for this period. of the originals from which Applebee reprinted may not have survived. Original Ordinary of Newgate John Robert Daniel-Tyssen (1805-1882) was the third son of William George Daniel, lord of the manors of Hackney, who changed his name to Daniel-Tyssen In 1745, after a quarrel with James Guthrie, the accounts, in particular, are now exceedingly rare. on his marriage to Amelia Tyssen. From 1829 to 1852 John serving Ordinary of the time, Applebee lost the Without a collation of international library holdings Robert acted as manorial steward for his father's successor right to publish the Ordinary's accounts. In the it is impossible to know how many we have lost. But as lord of the manor, his elder brother William George: he lived same year he printed the second edition of his it is possible, indeed likely, that after that collation in Hackney and gained Lives the Convicts, however, and he continued to has been made we will find ourselves dependent of a detailed personal upon works like Wilford's Select Trial.r (1734-5) and take an interest in crime and the courts into the knowledge of the area. late 17 40s. He died at his house in Bolt Court on Applebee's Lives of the Convicts, which collect these He was a Fellow of the 20 January 1750. old accounts, to help us plug the gaps. Society of Antiquaries and compiled an Content of the 'Lives' extensive collection of j,1//i J . ) Lives of the Convicts, then, should be viewed in the books, manuscripts, 1//lra context of this swelling tide of 18th century crime and documents ) ~l/;r~l/1 ll/1/1,u.-<1,/1.//:;//,1.11 'l' 1// //J//;1I · /1 / //,./,//) literature. relating to the history i 5 ,\ of Hackney. Its contents, as far as I was able to deduce in a brief 't,-;/ // ~i/'(7// perusal of the Hackney copy, were not original. The The Tyssen Library was housed in John Robert's home, lives were assembled and reprinted from accounts the Manor House (now 387 Mare Street) on the site of f /;1 .:r, Ji y already in print. But this does not mean that it is the original Mermaid Tavern, and was open for public without value. consultation. On his death in 1882, Tyssen's executors donated the Library to the parish of Hackney, the For one thing it reprints from the best and most collection being housed in the then Town Hall until it was transferred to the Central Library Notes authoritative accounts available. The Sheppard in 1908. section reprints from the two Sheppard pamphlets 1 . Da1j; Post, 24 March 1740. With the creation of Hackney Archives in 1965, the book collection formed the nucleus of published by Applebee himself in 1724, and these, 2. The Ordinance for the Regulating of Printing, 14 June, 1643, which Parliament failed to renew after the new the Local Studies at least in part, rested in turn upon interviews :; J·/~ -1 ,!' ,#c//•1'. ~ < 1 ~ ~ ,;:/ ~ constitutional settlement under William and Mary. ( Library, with the conducted with Jack in N ewgate. The Wild section 3. To Sir Horace Mann, 18 October 1750: H. Walpole, / , ,c/ / :'' ,,,, , "J /rro(r prints and drawings is lifted from The True and Genuine Account of ... Correspondence, ed. W S. Lewis, X)( (1960), 197. being transferred the late Jonathan Wild, issued by Applebee in June 4. 25 December 1724. into the Archives' 1725 and undoubtedly the best of the many visual collection. A contemporary pamphlet lives of this famous thief­ number of surviving taker. And most of the other lives would appear, catalogues to the from my brief inspection, to be drawn from the collection survive Ordinary of Newgate accounts. Now this is all in the Archives, but good stuff. Far sounder than that purveyed in Lives of the convicts collections like Smith's Complete History . . . of the

8 9 Hackney History 'Lives of the convicts'

- acquired in 1868 - only appears in two: a list, handwritten in 1887, of the items given to the Sir, I heartily beg God's Pardon for all my Sins, and ask you Forgiveness for the Damage I have parish, and a printed catalogue compiled by the Rev. J. Whitehead the following year. The done to you. But as I am a Dying-man, Susan knows nothing of your Plate, though I falsely accused her handwritten entry includes a faint pencilled addendum stating that 'This is by the Rev. Paul of it: And I begt of God to forgive me. Lorrain (27 chaplain ordinary at Newgate )', the same information being given in the printed version of 1888, although 'Paul' is there erroneously replaced by 'Peter'. It is not correct Estrick was hanged at Tyburn on Wednesday 10th March 1702-3. that Lorrain was the author of the volume. Paul Lorrain, a Huguenot immigrant, served as Ordinary of Newgate from 1700 until his death in 1719 and would have been responsible for The second account is most of the 'Lives' of criminals executed during his tenure, but obviously for none published that of Joseph Still, alias after 1719. Cotterel, alias Robin Chicken, convicted 'for a John Robert would have Murder by him committed been interested in acquiring on the 5th of January a copy of the book for his 1716-7, near Newington collection because it included Church in Middlesex, on accounts of the executions the body of Joh n Green, of two criminals with local an honest Servant to a connections. The first is The worthy Gentleman '. Behaviour, Confession, and Dying-words of John Estrick, Unlike Estrick, Still left alias Howard, alias Thomas no letters, or regrets Walker, alias Bennet, alias for his past crimes, Morris, condemned for the Ordinary's report Felony and Burglary, for suggesting rather that breaking the House of Or wringing any sort of Bourne in Moorfields. confession out of the man was a difficult business: Estrick is described as having 'began, very young, He would not confess himself guilty of the Murder for which he was condemn'd, saying, he kill'd the Man in to addict himself to Whoreing his own Defence: But when I ask'd him, What Business he had to climb over the Wall into a Gentleman's and Pilfering and began with Garden, and then to make haste to run away; he could give no Answer to that. .. robbing his own Father'. . .. I still more and more press'd him to clear his Conscience about these and other Matters, and not die in Around 1695 he moved from Southwark to Hackney, where he went into the service of one the Denial of his Sins, in Impenitence and Hardness of Heart; but all I could say did not appear to melt him Thomas Glover, from whom 'he did steal from him at several Times, Plate to the value of 80L. into Repentance, till he saw Death making its closer Approaches to him, then indeed he seem'd to relent and falsely charged Susan Barnwel, then a Servant Maid of his Master's with it'. a little .. .

The account in the Behaviour of Estrick's criminal career covers nearly three pages of the . . . it was with much Difficulty he could in any Degree be brought to a Sense of his heinous Sins, and to book, his confession and various letters the same. The letters include a touching one to his an Apprehension of the dreadful Judgements of God hanging over his Head for them ... this was but a wife, described in the Behaviour as 'a most virtuous Woman, who knew nothing of his former lame and imperfect Confession, as it discovered nothing that might be of Use, or any Satisfaction to the World ... Life': Or no doubt to Applebee's readers, hoping for a juicy confession and remorseful I am just a going out of this sinful World, and my Grief is, that I have so much abus'd so good and repentance. loving a Wife, as you have been to me.

And one to his former master, Thomas Glover of Hackney, regarding the accusation of Susan Still was 'hang'd on a Gibbet erected for that Purpose at Stamford-Hill' on Friday March 22nd Barnwel: 1716-7.

Sally England Local Studies Librarian

10 11 The Shoreditch dust-destructor

the public infrastructure was under pressure. In tbe 1870s a few enterprising organisations and rich individuals experimented with self-contained Puel supply and rubbish disposal were highly schemes for lighting buildings with electricity. 5 dependent on the Reg1:nt's Canal, opened in 1820. In 1878 Jablochkoff candles were used to light Energy for lighting and power was provided by the entrance of Messrs Wells and Company's coal brought into London along the canal and 1 More light, more power: Commercial Ironworks in Shoreditch. ' Wells, from coal-gas manufactured in retorts on its bank: who were cabinet ironmongers, had a number of rubbish was barged back along the canal and River premises in the area, but the building in question Thames, and dumped at sea. In the 1880s there was is probably that still visible opposite St Leonard's electricity generat ion a need to provide a system for the local generation Church at 125-130 Shoreditch High Street. The of electricity and for the economic disposal of Venetian Gothic fa<;:ade, of 1877, was obviously and waste disposal the increasing amounts of refuse that arose from intended to impress prospective customers, and it the industries and from tbe 300 public houses in would seem that no expense was spared to put on a in Shoreditch, Shoreditch. brilliant display. At this time there was no source of public electricity supply, and power was generated 1897-2009 Early development of electrical engineering 'in house'. In 1821 Michael Faraday invented a machine to convert mechanical power into a continuous flow The politics of public electricity of electricity; this was the precursor of the electrical In the 1870s arc lamps were expensive and required generator and operated by moving an electrical frequent replacement, whilst the development Christopher Verrett conductor in a magnetic field. 2 Over the next 25 of filament lamps was only in its infancy. A sub­ years, practical generator technology developed committee of the House of Commons concluded from the simple magneto employing a permanent that 'electric light had not made the progress which magnet to the self-exciting generator, which used would enable it in its present condition to enter an electromagnet to generate the magnetic field. into general competition with gas for the purposes Introduction of domestic supply'. 7 Although the new energy On 30 June 1897 the Hackn~y and Kingsland Gazette reported In the late 19th century, electricity was seen offered commercial opportunities, the financial primarily as a means of lighting. Although electric The municipal spirit of ShoreJitch ... has again been emphasised by the completion of the electric light and dust destructor risks were considerable. However technical progress undertaking which ,vas opened on 1\Iondav with considerable edat. Every municipality of am· importance in the kingdom motors were available at that time, the widespread proceeded with such a speed that, by 1882, 21 UK has been anxiously w;Liting for this evem ready to follow in the steps of Shored itch at the first sign of success ...... it forms use of electricity to supply power and traction was local authorities and seven companies bad applied a fi tting example of the progress in municipal life that has taken place dunng the last sixty years. a later development. to Parliament for approval to supply electricity. Tbe p ublic The professional journal The Electrical En.2,ineerwas equally enthusiastic: T he first practical electric Lg ht supply of electricity required was invented by a Russian, the establishment of new types T he occasion was improved upon by ha,,ing a large number of ratepayers present to inspect the works and witness the Jablochkoff, in Paris in 1876. opening ceremony. During the function and after the dinner, which was held in the Tmvn Hall, during the evening, repeated of well-capitalised organisation 1 An electrical spark was struck references were made to the spirit of progress in municipal work shmvn b,· the Shoreditch Vestry. for the generation and public between two oppositely charged distribution of current, The Shoreditch borough motto 'More light, more power' demonstrated justifoble civic pride, and the carbon rods, and the electrical together with the legislation statue of 'Progress', which can still be seen on the pediment of the 'new' Town Hall in Old Street, arc that resulted produced an necessary to enable them to was an acknowledgment to the rapid developments that were taking place both in the organisation of intense light which was of the dig up streets to lay cables. order of several hundred candle metropolitan local government and in engineering technology at the beginning of the twentieth century. power (c.p.) .1 This compared In 1882 the first E lectricity During the late Victorian period the population of Shoreditch bad increased dramatically and the area with just 10-30 c.p. for the Lighting Act enabled the Board The arms and motto of the metropolitan bad become the hub of London's furniture industry. The Regent's Canal had been built through the north naked gas flame larnp, and 200 of Trade to grant licences for borough of Shoreditch of the parish and major railway lines crossed the south. The locality was industrial and generally poor, and c.p. or more for the recently­ electricity supply to private introduced gas mantle."

12 13 Hackney History The Shoreditch dust-destructor

8 or public organisations. The Act incorporated a If gigantic an

14 15 Hackney History The Shoreditch dust-destructor

workh ouse infirmary (later St Leonards Hospital), human bones were not found, but some ancient the London Music Hall (S horedi tch F-Iigh St), T he water pipes of bored tree trunks and a venerable United Kingdom Tea Company, G. Benker (48 and holy well were discovered in Old Street and Wil son Street) and A. Austin (15 Hoxton Square). 23 near Holywell lane respectively.' The presence of T he latter was presumably a private house as the water pipes and underground cellars presented rec1uest was to supply just six 8 c.p. lamps. some difficulties fo r the men who laid the conduits and made the electrical connecti ons: T he street cables were run in underground glazed stoneware conduit which was 'jointed and rendered Join ters will appreciate some of the di fficulties their watertight with Portland cement'. When the conduit brethren laboured under when they lea rn that a goodly nu mber o f the joints had to be made in street boxes reeking was installed a number of unexpected hazards were with slim e, poisoned by gas, and accessible only to specially­ encountered. 'In the course of excavati on the usual p roportioned men trained as comortioni sts.14

(Left) the imtallation of the generatingplant and (right) the rqitse destructor boilers, 1897

When it opened, the electricity undertaking had lamp standards 6.3 m high. These lamp standards - ,. only 151 consumers and employed 62 staff with also housed two incandescent lamps (32cp) at low 0 rates of pay ranging from £250 p.a for the chief level, which were automatically switched on at electrical engineer to 15 shillings (75p) per week midnight when the arc lamps were extinguished. 1 for a meter reader. '' Lighting in the side streets was by incandescent 21 lights burning all night. {I Wiring up Shoreditch T he initial plans included the installation of street T he last of the early arc lamp standards survived lighting in Shoreditch High Street, Great Eastern in Bridport Place (now a footpath running through Street, O ld Street, Curtain Road, Rivington Street, Shoreditch Park) until after the Second World War. Bateman Row, Charlotte Street, Garden \Valk, They were removed when the area was redeveloped New Inn Yard, Broadway, Holywell Lane, Bethnal in the 1970s and replaced by the unlovely imitations Green Road and Commercial Street."'' that can be seen today.

Lighting of the main streets was by 57 powerful In June 1897, rn the council's electric lighting arc lamps (1200 c.p.) mounted on elegant cast iron committee ..

l\Ir Va ndy informed the Committee that it was desired to illuminate the Church wi th electricity ... and enc1uired whether the Committee \vould sanction the laying the ~ . t,. necessary connections to the base of the church. Resolved - that the rec1uest be granted and the necessary cu rrent supplied. 22

Some very early wall-mounted DC mains switch ' boxes are still preserved in the crypt of St Leonard's church todav.

In 1900 the cabling was extended to a substation Cahlu<~ i11 Slion,rh!ch in Nile Street and also to Pitfield Street, Chart 1392 Street, Baches Street, and Mount Pleasant. In Tr1e original 165 KU/, 1,100 volt DC generators .from t1 drcmm by L111ilc C11nl:f 1901 applicants for power included the Shoreditch /or Gcmkc '.f 1\ [{//ma/~/ J}lcdnml U11rlcr!11ki11Kr, 1898 16 17 Hackney History The Shoreditch dust-destructor

To encourage connection to the mains, in February the London County Council at interest of T/s per 111 1902, and soon became the main source o f 27 1897 the vestry signed an agreement with the cent. electricity for Shoreditch. Over the first ten Free Wiring Syndicate, who contracted to wire up years, a range of discounts were introduced to premises in return for a premium of ¾ d per unit The Shoreditch refuse destructor appears to have encourage more use of electricity for mechanical on the electricity purchased.2' achieved a degree of fame in its early days, and to the power and the average price per unit sold fell by delight of the engineers more than a half. When the Coronet Street A it received many visitors. works were formally During the next few In the early years electricity supply and opened, in June 1897, the years there was a rush of distribution covered the entire area of the electrical systems were similar developments in metropolitan borough of Shoreditch. The incomplete. Ten miles other towns throughout Council wished to control the electrification of of conduit had been laid Britain. In 1900 six such The p01ver station at Whiston Road the borough and cash in on a promising source and three 'transformer' stations opened (Shipley, of revenue. To encourage the use of electricity in substations planned, but Stepney, Beckenham, demand and fuel supply. The original system of the home, in 1926 the 'rental wiring scheme' was only one was operational. Accrington, Fulham and storing energy by heating a large tank of water introduced: the borough subsidised the provision Electrical power was Nelson) and by 1905 was insufficient, and the evening peak demand was of domestic installations and also hired and sold supplied to the substations there were 40 (including managed more effectively by charging banks of domestic appliances from a magnificent electricity at high voltage (1000 a state-of-the-art station lead/ acid accumulators during the day and using showroom in Hoxton Street (now converted into Removing clinker from the rejitse destructorfimzaces 28 volts DC) and this was in Hackney). these to supply power at night. a bar). stepped down using a m otor connected to a low voltage (165 volts D C) generator, which was used It is difficult to assess the economics of the Progress after 1900 Collaboration and standardisation to supply customers' premises and als o to charge Shoreditch combined refuse destructor and \'vhen the electricity station was opened, the In the early years of public electricity supply accumulators which stored energy for those times, electricity works in its early years. From the rival gas companies pointed out that 'lighting by Shoreditch, like other London local authorities, such as evenings, when electrical demand exceeded beginning th e objective of using rubbish as the gas is the cheapest method of obtaining artificial appeared more preoccupied with municipal generated supply. Cabling the entire 43 miles of sole source o f energy for electrical generation was light'. E In the beginning, the cost of electricity was independence and trailblazing technical innovation streets in Shoreditch was not completed until unrealistic, and additional fuel was needed to keep beyond the means of most Shoreditch residents; than with low cost and security of supply. However, 1924. the furnaces operational. In 1899, efficiency tests the customers were public institutions, industrial prior to WW1, the borough made arrangements on the equipment showed that the refuse destructor concerns and the well-heeled. However, as it with Hackney, Stepney and Poplar to interconnect Costs and efficiency yielded on average 30 kilowatt hours (kWh) per caught on, demand for electricity in Shoreditch cables so that power could be shared in cases of In the beginning, demand for electrical lighting ton of refuse burned; this compared with the later, rose steadily from 0.38 million units (Munits) per emergency. far exceeded the demand for electrical power. more refined design in Hackn ey (1902-3), which year in 1897 to 34 Munits per year in 1939.33 2 The Shoreditch undertaking received applications yielded on average 40 kWh per ton. '' On average, Electricity generation was local and small scale, to supply electricity for more than 8000 (Sep) the cost savings of combined schemes were 20-30 By 1900 it was apparent that the calorific value and a number of rival technical standards were 311 incandescent lamps. In 1897 charges for electricity per cent. However, some opponents questioned and quantity of rubbish available was only likely to employed. Both alternating current (AC) and direct were higher for lighting (6d per unitt· than the original economic propositions supporting provide a fraction of the energy needed for future current (DC) generation at a number of different for power (3d per unit), and the latter was even the combination of a dust destructor and power electricity generation, and a new larger station, voltages were used in London, and the so called cheaper during the hours of daylight when supply station, because the demand for electricity rapidly fuelled by coal, was planned. It was built at the 'battle of the systems'1 1 held back collaboration, exceeded demand. T his differs from the situation outstripped the supply available from rubbish north end of the borough on Whiston Street (now and consequent economies of scale. today, when most electricity is used for heating and burning. To increase output, the Coronet Street Whiston Road) near the junction with Queens bridge power by day, and the demand for and consequent station was fuelled with coal with a much higher Road. Coal for the station was brought along the With the benefit of hindsight, the AC system, first cost o f electricity is reduced at night. calorific value (280 kWh per ton) and additional Regent's Canal by barges, which were berthed and pioneered by Ferranti and used to light the Savoy generators were installed." unloaded in Haggerston Basin. The remnants of Theatre in 1881, was superior to DC, which was T h e total cost (land, buildings and plant) of the dust the brick wall of this now-filled-in branch of the pioneered by Edison and Crompton and chosen destructor and electricity station was approximately There was also an energy storage problem, because canal can still be seen in the north-west corner of by the Shoreditch vestry. 35 DC was inefficient £70,000. The vestry borrowed this capital from of the temporal mismatch between electricity Haggerston Park. The new station was opened and unreliable whereas AC was better suited to

18 19 Hackney History The Shoreditch dust-destructor generation in large power stations and transmission Electrici tywas nationalised by theAttlee government was forced to consider the installation of smoke Conclusions at high voltage. Voltages could be stepped up and in 1948 and the local municipal companies were prevention apparatus:111 T he total electrical energy demand for the UK42 6 down with compact transformers. mero-ed0 into the London Electricity, Board, which is currently 334 TWh per year (1 TW = 10 M\'v). continued to build large power stations. However, It is instructive to compare the Coronet Street Even with efficient modern plant, electricity Although the development of the large power rationalisation of generation and the establishment works with a modern refuse incinerator and power generated from refuse burning cannot contribute station was pioneered at Deptford in 1890, many of a nationwide AC standard system were not station. London boroughs are still motivated significantly to this requirement. boroughs, including Hackney and Shoreditch, were achieved until 1957, when the Central Electricity to reduce the environmental impact of town committed to independent generation. There was Generating Board (CEGB) was established. rubbish disposal, but now air pollution legislation At the official opening of the Coronet Street a clear conflict between civic independence and imposes strict controls on the content and refuse destructor, one of the speakers described economies of scale, and while electricity generation The Coronet Street works was used as a council quantity of incinerator effluents, and recycling and the project as remained in the hands of local boroughs the depot in the post-WW2 period and more recently composting both supplement incineration. Refuse unit price of electricity remained relatively high. it has taken on a new role as Circus Space, a college from the London borough of Hackney is now worthy of the Victorian era as an example of the combination Unlike Shoreditch and Hackney, offering university degrees processed in north London at the 'Edmonton Eco of scientific forethought, mechanical skill, and courage. Stoke Newington adopted a rn circus studies. The old Shoreditch was the pioneer vestry to utilise the heat from Park'. This incorporates a recycling plant as well the dust crematories for rai sing steam and this was only the less pioneering approach to high-roofed destructor house as a composting facility and incinerator 'energy beginning of what would be a much greater thing. .j ' the exploitation of electricity. and power house have been centre'. The facility is run by a private company, Rather than generating its own, renovated and the yard where Londonwaste Ltd, which handles refuse from In the late 19th century local councillors and officials the council purchased electricity refuse trucks delivered 'fuel' seven London boroughs. enjoyed enormous power. They were servants of in bulk from Hacknev. ;,, has been covered over. The the ratepayer, but they were relatively unimpeded refurbished building offers A comparison of the modern day Edmonton plant by planning restrictions and environmental In 1927 the Central Electricity ideal practice spaces for circus with that of Shoreditch in 1897 is shown in the regulations. Board started work on a high performance. comparative table below. voltage AC national electrical grid, and in 1933 the ] ,ondon Dust destructor or modern Power Company opened refuse incinerator? the massive Battersea Power In the 1890s the Shoreditch Approximate comparative data , Station. r It was now apparent vestry wanted to generate Shoreditch Refuse Destructor (1897) and Edmonton Energy Centre (2008) that small-scale locality power electricity while reducing the stations were uneconomic, cost of refuse disposal, which Shoreditch Edmonton but most electrical generation took place at sea. Today the most 1897 2ooft 1 in London remained in the The Coronet Street premfres in 1977. pressing need is to reduce the hands of the municipalities The insaiption reads volume of rubbish dumped in Refuse incinerated (thousands of tonnes/year) 20 555 until \v'W2. Fortunateh· this land-fill sites, while minimising 'E pulvere !ux et !)is' (out of dus!, l{rz,ht and Maximum Power generating capacity (M\'v) 0.7 50 proved to be strategically po1JJer) the adverse environmental advantageous. Despite nightly effects of incineration. Average electrical energy obtained from refuse burned 30 504 bombing raids during the Blitz critical electricity (kWh/tonne) supplies were maintained. Had the metropolis Despite its small size, the Shoreditch refuse Electricity Generated from refuse burning (MW hours/year) 720 280,000 been served by just a few massive power stations, destructor had a significant environmental impact. as now, the supply would have been much more Noise from the steam engines and the constant Price of electricity sold (p/kW hour) 2.1 10 vulnerable.' 8A t the beginning of W\X/2 the Coronet coming and going and unloading of carts would Alternative cost of disposing of refuse by dumping at seai 10p i £70" Street works formed one of a network of reserve have been a nuisance. Furthermore effluent from or landfill ii (/tonne) power stations. It ceased to function regularly in the chimney was a source of local air pollution 1940 but was used in the coal crisis of 1947 as an which caused complaints from residents. In Chimney height (m) 46 130 emergency generator.·' 9 December 1900 the electric lighting committee Size of site (acres) 1.5 42

Capital cost of undertaking £70k £200-250m

20 21 Hackney History

Today, generation of electricity from waste is a 12. E Manville, 'The use of dust destructors as steam much more complex and expensive process than producers for electricity supply statjons', The Plecllicia11, 20 Dec. 1895, 254-7. a century ago. Rigorous economic analysis is not 13. D. G. Tucker, 'Electricity from town refuse- three possible here because detailed financial data are not quarters of a century ago', Plec!m111ir cilld PmJJer, Jan. in the publi c domain; however available evidence 197 6, 16-20. suggests that refuse incineration combined with 14. D. G. Tucker, 'Refuse destructors and their use for electricity generation offers a practical solution to generating electricity: a century of development', Ind/lstnal Archaeol°'~y Revien;, Autumn 1977, 5-27. a difficult modern problem. 15. 'Shoreditch municipal electricity supply', The Electrician, 9 ]Lily 1897, 335-7. Incineration of non-recyclable rubbish 1s 16. ELCM 23 May 1893. Mayors' meda ls controversial, but shortage of landfill sites, the 17. A. \'v. S. Cross, Public baths and 11;ash-homes (1906), eh. 14. increasing cost of electricity, and new highly­ 18. Greater London Industrial /\rchaeology Society, Shoreditch reji1se destrttctor and generator station (1967). for local children, effi cient environmentally- fri endly technology mean 19. Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, Souvenir to that e pu!vere !ux et vis is once again an attractive Col//memorate the Jubilee of the Electricity Undertaking , 194 7. proposition for local and national governments. 20. 'Light out of dust', Neiv Yo1k Ti111es 28 Nov. 1896. 1902-1919 21 . 'The progress of the Shoreditch scheme', The Electrician, Acknowledgements 4 Sept. 1896, 600-1; 'S horedi tch muni cipal electricity I am grateful to Kate White (Circus Space), Deanna Donaldson works, 'The 1-:lectrical Revie)IJ vol. 41, 2 July 1897, 5-7. and Martin Sid es (London Waste Ltd) and Professor Peter 22. ELCM 16 June 1897. Tavner (University of Durham) for information used in the 23. ELCM 10 Dec. 1900; 17 April, 2 Jan. 1901. compilation of this article. 24. The hlectrical 1-: ngineer, 2 July 1897, 6-14. 25. ELCM 9 Feb. 1897. 26. 2.4d= 1p. Notes Robert H . Thompson 27. 'J'he Electrical l:ingineer, 2July 1897, 6-14. 28. Tucker, Electricityji'om t0})J)f re/i1se. 1. 'Shoreditch Electricity Works', The Electrical E11gi11eer, 29. One old ton (2240 lb) is 101.605 per cent. of a metric 2July 1897, 6-14. tonne (1000 kgr). 2. Brian Bowers, Nlichael Faraday and the Modern World (Essex, 30. \'v. P. Adams, 'The combination of dust desrructors and 1991). Background electricity works economically considered', Jo1m1al of the 3. Brian Bowers, A H1:rtory of fl.lectric Light and Po1JJer Instltutio11 of Electrical EHgineers 1905 34,256-325. A recent enquiry to HAD led to the realisation that there is no sati sfactory reference for the Shoredi tch (Stevenage, 1982). 31. L. Hannah, Electricity hejore Nationalisation (1979), 133-5. medals which commem orate the end of the First World War. Colonel Grant's telegraphic listing is too 4. David Gledhill, Gas Lighting (Bucks, 1999). 32. Gas Light and Coke Company archives, LMA 4278/ brief to be adequate; Laurence Brown's great British Historical Medals concentrates on national subjects 5. In 1878 electric arc lamps appeared in some streets 01 /778, newspaper cutting circa 1902. 1 in Paris and in 1880 Sir William Armstrong used and eschews the local; while the detailed Whittles tone & E wing series on Rqya! Commemorative Meda!.r, in 33. 1 electrical Unit= lkWh. hydroelectricity, generated on his Northumberland progress since 1993, has not yet covered the reign of G eorge V (1910-36). 34. Michael Ball and David Sutherland, An eco11omic history of estate, to light the picture gallery of his country house, 1-tmdon 1800-1914 (2001). Cragsid e. 35. Bowers, fl.lectric Light and Po1JJer: T he medals described below in chronological order, and documented as far as possible along with their 6. Sir Henry Self and E li zabeth M Watson, Electri1ity Suppb 36. British History Online (,\T\vw.british-history.ac.uk/ donors, cover the commemorative medals issued by mayors of the metropolitan boroughs which now in Great 131itain. (1952). report.aspx?compid=528 as at 31 July 2009). 7. Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on constitute the London borough of Hackney, but not the numerous ones issued by local schools. 37. Bowers, fl.lectiic Light a11d Po/))er. Electrical Lighting, 1879. 38. Personal communication , Peter Tavner, Professor of 8. Bowers, Electric Light and Po11;e1; Renewable Energy, University of Durham. Commemorative medals for public sale were made in small numbers from 1661, but in larger numbers 9. S. G. Hobson, Public Control of Electric Po1JJer and Tramit 39. M. B. Shoreditch Souve11i1: from the time of the Industrial Revolution. Those ordered by municipalities appeared in significant (Fabian Society, 1905). 40. E LCM Dec. 1900. numbers from the late 1880s, too early for th e metropolitan boroughs. As a phenomenon, they had 10. Charles Newton Russell, 'Combined refuse destructors 41. Personal communication, Martin Sides, Edmonton and power plants', Proceedings of the. ImtitNtion of Civil virtually di sappeared by 1953. Energy Centre Manager. Enginem 12 Dec. 1899, 181-254. 42. Personal communication, Peter Tavner. 11. HAD, mi nutes of Shoreditch Vestry Electric Lighting Locally-issued medals 43. The Filec!ricalE11gineer, 2July 1897. Committee (ELCl'vf), 6 March 1893. Local issues began with Stoke N ewington in 1902. T he mayor of Hackney graced with his image one for a temperance meeting in Victoria Park in 1903. All three boroughs commemorated the 1911 coronation in the sam e way, but only Shoreditch the peace of 1919.

22 23 Hackney History Mayors' medals

The mayor of Shoreditch then, as in 1911 , bore the now surprising name of H. Busby Bird. Is it a There is uncertainty also about this next medal, which informs observers that it was presented to coincidence that in 1976 British Telecom Engineers, based at 207 Old Street, named their advertising children in Victoria Park. The mayor appears to be wearing the 'hat most generally worn with robes at character Buzby Bird? By September 1919, however, H. Busby Bird (for more about whom, see page xx) out-of-door ceremonies ... a black cocked hat with a gold embellishment (on the right) ... a lace stock or had become Sir Henry. jabot is usually worn in the front at the neck'.<,

[1] STN 1902 June 26 (coronation postponed), by J. A. Restall, Birmingham. [2] HAC 1903 June 6, unsigned.

Obv: h.m.edward I vii I [crowned Rev: CORONATION -JUNE 26rn conjoined busts to right] I H.M. I QUEEN 1902 [curved above] I [arms & motto] I ALEXIANDRA 11902 PRESENTED BY I ALDERMAN. WMEVE I MAYOR ·OF. STOKE NEWINGTON [curved below] 38mm, on a ribbon for which the medal is pierced. Obv. · PRESENTED BY Rev. TO THE CHILDREN OF Ref: Whittlestone & Ewing 4520.Ul in white metal, U2 in copper.2 THE MAYOR & MAYORESS I THE I LONDON UNITED HAD in Box 13.111 before transfer to Hackney Museum; RHT (traces of red paint over the date). OF HACKNEY I DR & MRS [in cartouche] I TEMPERANCE F.MONTAGUE MILLER · I around SOCIETIES [in cartouche] I AT conjoined busts of the mayor left facing Edward VII succeeded Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901, and medals such as this were struck in I VICTORIA PARK I 6TH JUNE half-right, and the mayoress right behind advance of the coronation planned for 26 June 1902. Unfortunately, the king went down with appendicitis 1903 his shoulder facing quarter-left. and peritonitis two days before, and the coronation had to be postponed until 9 August. The date on thousands of medals could not be changed, and neither could the date of the children's fete on Saturday 2mm, white metal, pierced, with a yellow ribbon and suspender reading HACKNEY ·1903 28 June in Clissold Park. Nearly 5,100 children from the elementary schools were entertained to tea, and RHT, also P. Mernick. each child was presented with a commemorative medal by the mayor.' Another newspaper reported that there were 'about 5,600 scholars', that 'most of the recipients at once pinned them to their breasts', and 'the words "Coronation, June 26th, 1902" had been blotted out with red paint'.4 They are not mentioned The medals were probably produced for an event similar to in the Stoke Newington minutes, so one may speculate that Alderman that described as 'demonstrations' taking place simultaneously William Eve financed the fete and medals himself, as did his successor in July 1907 in Brockwell Park, Finsbury Park, Peckham Rye, in 1911. Regent's Park, Southwark Park and Victoria Park, involving 30,000 children belonging to 'juvenile temperance societies', and Alderman William Eve organised by the London United Temperance Council.7 William Eve (c. 1834- March 1916), of 195 Albion Road, was a surveyor, latterly in partnership with his sons, at Union Court, Old Dr F. Montague Miller Broad Street. As chairman of the Stoke Newington Public Libraries Frederick Montague Miller, LRCP, MRCS,JP, was born in 1848 in Stoke Committee in 1903-4 he negotiated with its benefactor, Andrew Newington, the son of a physician. His wife is recorded as Mary C. Carnegie, for a new lecture hall and children's Library, and himself Miller, born in Hackney c. 1845. He was a general practitioner with donated £500 towards the purchase of books.' premises at 284 Amhurst Road, and later also at 'Northolme', 135 Upper Clapton Road, before retiring to Fin chley, where he died in 1913.8

24 25 Hackney History Mayors' medals

9 [3] HAC 1911 June 22, by James Arthur Wylie & Co., 62 Holborn Viaduct (fl. 1905-40) [4] SHD 1911 Uune 22], byVaughtons Ltd., Birmingham, with design registered 1910.12

Rev. ·CORONATION JUNE 22ND O bv. · KING GEORGE V. AND 1911 · I The Tower between trees I QUEEN MARY · I crowned conj oined HACKNEY on scroll I WYLIE & O bv. KING GEORGE ¥ - QUEEN MARY · Rev. · BOROUGH OF SHOREDITCH · CO - LONDON I W ·F ·FENTON­ busts to left I 1911 I conj oined busts of Queen in tiara and King in I CORONATION 1911 ·H.B. BIRD J.P. JONES, MAYOR uniform to left I R0 571877 MAYOR I around arms & motto, signed in outer circle VAUGHTON.BIRM

24.5mm, brass, on red, white and blue ribbon with suspender. 32mm, brass, on suspender with red, white and blue ribbon. HAD in Box 13.116 before transfer to H ackney Museum; RHT. H AD in Box 13.115 before transfer to Hackney Museum; RHT.

Hackney metropolitan borough council minutes reported that on 27 June 'A Souvenir, consisting of a gilt Medal with a pendant ribbon in colours red, white and blue, and a safety pin attached, was presented to each child, the Mayor, the Mayoress and members of th eir family undertaking the distribution'; the The Shoreditch minutes for 18 July 1911 reported the cost of providing 25,000 Coronation Medals as number of children for whom entertainment was provided, 24,384; to Wylie & Co, for medals £105. 0s. £160 11 s. 10d., and happily its 'monthly cash paper' gave the same cost for 'school children's medals', 0d., so 1.03d. per medal. 10 and for 'school children's entertainment on 28th June: Seymour & Co., 25,000 medals, June 1911 ', so 1.54 pence per medal. The Shoreditch entertainent was a day later than Hackney's, presumably for the William Fenton Fenton-Jones, J P, of 12 King Edward Road, was born in convenience of contractors, and for those transporting the schoolchildren.11 Birmingham in N ovember 1861 , resided in Hackney from 1867, and was elected to the council in 1904. He married in 1886 May Cain, of Douglas, Isle of Man, with whom he had two sons and three daughters. He was manager of the Liverpool Vic toria Legal Friendly Society for Hackney; a manager for schools in connection with the London County Council, as well as trustee of the savings bank fo r children o f one school and life governor of fo ur leading and local hospitals and two masonic charities. 11

26 27 Hackney History · Mayors' medals

[5] STN 1911 June 22, by H.G. [6] SHD 1919 June, by J. R. G [aunt & Son, Ltd., Birmingham and London]

Rev. CORONATION-JUNE 22N° Obv. KING GEORGE V - QUEEN MARY I 1911 I arms & motto I PRESENTED crowned conjoined busts to left I H.G. BY I HENRY}. BEAVIS,J.P. I O bv. BRITAIN ·FRANCE ·ITALY­ MAYOR OF STOKE NEWINGTON Rev. BOROUGH OF SHOREDITCH on AMERICA · BELGIVM facing female I scroll I JUNE - 1919 I around Shoreditch figure holding laurel branch in right hand arms & motto I H.BUSBY BIRD, J.P. I and supporting dove on left hand I 38mm, silver, on red, white and blue ribbon and suspender, also in aluminium. MAYOR (both lines in a cartouche) PEACE I trident between dolphins, plumed HAD in Box 13.113 before transfer to Hackney Museum; RHT. helmet below I J.R.G.

35mm, brass, pierced for suspension. The Stoke Newington general purposes committee on 20 April, and the council on 25 April, hearc'. HAD in Box 13.121 before transfer to Hackney Museum; RHT. that the medals were the o-ift of the mayor. On his behalf the marnress performed the ceremony ot h . - - - .. . , , . i. . presenting to each rnember of the council, and ch1et othcer, a silver

L .i i -·r1 , . f I .. G . \r i-1 TI ;. • .,. medal to commemorate the coronation o . <.Jng eorge . 1e A 'special committee re peace celebrations', 30 June 1919, reported to the full Council under the he_ading i\Torth Lo11don G'11ardia11 reported that the members of the press also 'Medals for School Children': 'Your Committee also propose to present to each of th e sch ool children recei-ved medals, that aluminium medals \\-Cre for the schoolchildren in the Borough a special Medal to commemorate the signing of Peace, and, after considering estimates (as one would expect), and importantk, 'the medal itself is a work and samples from several large firms, they have accepted the tender of Messrs R. Gaunt & Son, of of an, and it was produced in the district'. 10 Therefore it can be J. Birmingham, to supply 30,000 medals, with the Shoreditch Borough Arms and special lettering on the attributed to Henn Grueber & Co., who incorporated an aluminium reverse side, at the price of 4d.each. It is hoped to present these medals at the time the school children business, and who.operated in Garnham Stn.:et, on the 1 Iackney side have the refreshments', viz. on 19 July. The ultimate payment for these 'Bronze Peace medals' was £502 of Stoke Newington Road, from 1906 to l 917. ir, f'2 18 6s. 6d. ' so t-., 6s. 6d. over es tirnate.

Henry John Beavis, a tin ,rnre manufacturer and hard,Yare merchant of \'Coodbern· Down, born Southampton l860, was the son of a print compositor. He married in 1887 :---.Iarv r\nn Heath, of J--:.nowle, Warwickshire, with whom he had rn·o sons and two daughters. He was first elected a member of the council in 1906; in l 922 he became I\Iastcr 1 of the Company of Tin Plate \'vorkers. "

28 29 Hackney History

Henry Busby Bird, JP, of 'Sohamdene', 33 Lordship Park, later of 113 The Common, J ~5, son of Thornas James Tolman Bird, was born in London 28 October 1856, and educated at the City of London School. f-Ie married in 1876 Emma Jane Stoodley (d. 1929) of Yeovil, and had four sons and one daughter. He was elected to Islington vestry in 1894 and 1897, and to Shoreditch in 1900; he became mayor in 1903-4 and served 12 times in all. He was chairman of H. B. Bird & Co. Ltd. (who ran a chain of cbeesemongers' shops), liveryman of the Basket Makers' Company, member of the Charity Trustee Board for Shoreditch and the ShoreditchAlmsbouses Committee; life governor of the Queen's Hospital Elizabeth and for Children, of the City of London Truss Society, of the London Pever Hospital, and the Cheesemongers' Benevolent Institution. He was also a Preemason and a member of the County of London Magistrates' Club. 19 Mark Wilks, For his services in raising a local battalion of the Middlesex Regiment be was knighted in 1919, so that he and his wife became Sir H enry and Lady campaigners for Bird.2'' She died in 1929, and so did he, on 16 February.2 1 women's suffrage

Notes 14. HAD, Stoke Newington (M.B.), Meeting of the l. M. H. Grant, 'Briti sh medals since 1760', British Council, 20 June 1911, item 10 (p. 14). N 11mism11tic Journal, 22 (1934-7), 269-93; 23 (1938-41 ), 15. N orth London G11ardic111, 23 June l 9'1l , 4. Julia Lafferty 16. Hawkins (as in note 9), 641-57, with attribution of 119-52, 321-62, 449-80; Laurence Brown, A Catalogue this medal on p. 657 from information supplied by the of British Historical Meda!r 1760-1960 (London, l 980- present writer. 95). 17. Pike (as note 11 ), 564-5; local directories. 2. Andrew Whittles tone and Michael Ewing, R01al 18. HAD, Shoreditch (M.B.) Minutes, Vol. 19, p. 260, and Commemorative Meda!r 1837-1977, Vol. 4: King Ed1wrd Introduction Monthly Cash Paper, n. 5. VII 1901 -1910 (Beeston, 1999). 19. Pike (as note 11), 536-7. On 21 September 1912 the Neu; York Times ran an article headlined 'Jail Man for Tax of Suffragist Wife'. 3. North London Cuarrlicm, 4 July l 902, 6. 20. D. Mander, More Light, More Po111er (1996), 117. which reported that 4. Stoke Ne1vi11gton & T.rling/011 Recorder, 4 July 1902, 4. 21. lf:1/ho 1vas Who, 1929-1940. 5. Local directories and census returns; HAD, Report of Mark \'{!ilks, a schoolmaster of Clapton, has leaped into fame because his wife possesses an income of her own. Mrs \'{!ilks opening of Stoke Newington Public Library extension, is an ardent Suffragette and refu ses to pay her income ta x to the Government, which imprisons mili tant workers in women's 11 June 1904. 1 ca use. Consequently Mark Wilks has to go to p ri son for her. 6. J. F. Garner, Civic cere111011ial, 2nd edn. (1957), 70. 7. The Times, 18 July 1907. 8. Information from local directories and census returns. The article went on to report that the British Suffragette movement had embarked upon a campaign for 9. R. N. P. Hawkins, A Dictionmy of Makm of British the release of Mark Wilks - 'A demonstration in Trafalgar Square, processions and meetings outside the 111etal!ic Tickets, Checks, Meda!ets, "let/lies and Co11J1ters 1788- jail, and an address by G. Bernard Shaw are on the programme'. 1910 (1989), 769; the firm had another address l 942- 61. That a husband should be sent to jail and embark upon hunger strike in support of his suffragette wife 10. HAD, Hackney (M.B.) Council Minutes, Vol. 11 , 1910- captured the imagination of the media both in Britain and the United States, and gave a new angle to 11 , pp. 611-12. 11. WT. Pike, MaJIOlJ of r..11gla11d & Wales, JJJith po11raits of the stories of the female campaigners whose militant actions had been headline news in the wake of the Mc!)1ors and Mqyoresses [etc.J (Brighton, 1911), 296-7. establishment of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) by Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. 12. Hawkins (as in note 9), 487-91. 13. HAD, Shoreditch (M.B.) Minutes, Vol. 11, p. 343 and Following the Liberal success in the January 1906 general election and the realisation that, despite a Liberal Monthly Cash Paper, p. 12. government and a supposedly sympathetic Prime Minister in Campbell Bannerman, the cause of women's suffrage was no nearer achievement, the WSPU had begun to turn away from the constitutional methods

30 31 Hackney History Suffrage campaigners of previous groups such as the National Union of Elizabeth Wilks organised a campaign garden party at her Clapton before a magistrate at \'' 1912 Elizabeth was in practice in Goldsmith's Kensington Infirmary, where she eventually gave conspiracy to incite others to 'damage .. and spoil ... they adopted a baby daughter, Helen. At the time Row, off Hackney Road, and she and Mark had up her protest. certain glass windm.vs'. of the 1901 census, Mark, Elizabeth and Helen moved to 1 Arbutus Place in Upper Clapton, were living at 24 Lower Clapton Road in Hackney otherwise known as 47 Upper Clapton Road. This On a collision course This escalating campaign of destruction of (demolished in the 1920s to make way for the Art was one of a pair of houses elating from the 18th .Meanwhile, her sister Elizabeth's campaign of civil property, which in some cases was taken to the Deco style Strand Building). Mark was employed century with high pitched reel tiled roofs; they were disobedience involving non-payment of tax on the extent of arson, prompted some members of the as an elementary school teacher by the London demolished by the local authority to make way for basis of 'no taxation without representation' finally WPSU to break with the organisation. Amongst County Council. f n 1907 he joined the newly the Ickburgh Estate in the 1950s. l [\rbutus Place led her into a collision course with the authorities. them were Emmeline Pethick-J ,awrence and Sylvia established Men's League for \'v'omen's Suffrage is perhaps better known for being the former Pankhurst, who henceforward concentrated her which had been formed by a number of left­ residence of Dr Benjamin Clarke, whose work Until 1870 a wife had had no separate legal existence efforts on the Bow-based East London Federation wing writers including Laurence Housman, [\,fax Glimpses of Ancient Hatkney and Stoke NeJvint,ton, from her husband, and upon marriage a husband of the Suffragettes and its paper The f/;1/oman s Eastman, Henry Nevinson and Henry Brailsford. published in 1893, has provided the basis for much acquired everything his wife possessed, including Dreadnought. The distinguished Jewish dramatist and writer of our knowledge of everyclav life in 19th century property, business enterprises, and stocks and Israel Zangwill, who was a resident of Hackney at Hackney and Stoke Newington. shares. As a mother she would have no right even It was against this background of increasing this time, was also a member of the League and to custody of her own children. Married women suffragette militancy and direct action that the was later to become its Vice President in 1913. Mary's imprisonment with earnings or investments had little claim to case of Elizabeth and Mark Wilks came to public In i\Iarch 1912 Elizabeth's sister, now Mrs their own money and no privacy in financial affairs. attention. In 1907-9 Elizabeth was a subscriber to the London Mary Ellen Taylor and an active member of the The publisher of Elizabeth Gaskell's best-selling Society for Women's Suffrage, and in June 1907 she Women's Social and Political Union, took part in novels Cranford, Mary Barton and North and South a window-smashing party, attacking a post office sent all royalty payments to her husband, and any in Sloane Square. She was arrested and brought tax rebates from the Inland Revenue were also

32 33 Hackney History Suffrage campaigners

similarly dispatched, since a wife's tax appeared on League, Mrs Kineton Parkes was enabled to accept League members continued to pay household rates, Mark Wilks imprisoned her husband's tax return. the invitation of the new Committee to become its since they were entitled to vote in local government Elizabeth successfully challenged the legality of Secretary.'4 elections, but resisted payment of two general such actions, and finally the authorities turned The passing of the Married Women's Property categories of tax. The first included property tax, their attention to her husband Mark who, in turn, Acts of 1870 and 1882 finally gave those wives who The Women's Tax Resistance League brought inhabited house duty, and income tax; the second, claimed that he had neither the means to obtain the owned property and assets the right to hold them women together from a number of organisations, taxes and licences on dogs, carriages, motor cars, necessary information from his wife to complete in their own names. But the old common law rule including not only the Women's Freedom League, male servants, armorial bearings, guns and game. the forms nor the ability to pay his wife's tax bill. of the identity of husband the WSPU and the National Women living on unearned income were unable and wife remained in one Union of Women's to withhold tax as this was automatically deducted The Women's Tax Resistance League Third Annual key respect - the legal Suffrage Societies, but at source. Only women liable for inhabited house Report described the outcome as follows: framework of income tax. also the London Society duty or to income tax on earned income were able T he Treasury refused to accept this plea, and after lengthy Married couples' income for Women's Suffrage, to make an effective protest, and the first such case to come to national prominence was that of proceedings and correspondence and threats extending was aggregated for the the Conservative and over eighteen months, on September 19th took the purposes of tax to form Unionist Women's E lizabeth Wilks. extreme step of committing Mr Wilks to prison for not a single taxable entity. Franchise Association, paying the debt.6 The tax charge could be the Church League for Elizabeth Wilks wins a round divided between them Women's Suffrage, the In 1909 and 1910, Elizabeth had refused to make E li zabeth immediately submitted a petition to King rn proportion to their Free Church League, the an income tax return to the Inland Revenue or to George V, and Florence Bagust in .Some Notes on earnings, but there was Catholic Women's Suffrage pay taxes herself, writing on the demands 'No Vote, Clapton Past and Present recorded how the London no option for them to be Society, the Actresses' No Tax'. The Inland Revenue sent in the bailiffs to Evening Ne1vs of September 26 1912 covered the taxed as individuals. Franchise League, the seize goods belonging to her for auction to cover Wilks case: the newspaper extract is reproduced Artists' Franchise League the outstanding tax. The East London Observer of opposite. The Women's Tax and the Women Writers' May 3 1911 reported on one such auction: Resistance League Suffrage League. By To counter some of the misrepresentation Curious scenes were witnessed on \'vednesday at the It was from amongst those 1910 the League had 104 appearing in the popular press, Elizabeth Wilks set auction rooms of Mr Arthur Hancock, of G lobe-road, women personally affected members and had set up a Mile E nd. Included in his sale were a gold watch and chain, out the facts of the case in her own words in the that the tax protestors were Mark and Elizabeth Wilks, 1912 permanent office at 98 St the property of Dr E li zabeth Wilk s, of Upper Clapton­ 'Women's Platform' of the Standard published by drawn, and in October 1909 Martin's Lane. Prominent road. Dr \'vilks, who carries on a large practice in Hackney, the Women's Tax Resistance League on September a group of around 20 women attended a meeting members of the League included Mrs Israel is a well-known supporter of 'votes for women'. Five 23 1912: times now have her goods been seized under distraint for at the house of Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson in Langwill, Sophia Duleep Singh, Dora Montefiore, King's Taxes, which she refused to pay as a protest against The press misrepresents the case when it speaks of Mr Harley Street with the aim of starting 'an entirely Charlotte Despard, Mrs Darent Harrison, Mary the franchise not being extended to women. On the last Wilk s's refusal to pay the tax. I refuse to pay any Imperial independent society quite separate from any existing Russell, the Duchess of Bedford and Louisa occasion the watch and chain referred to were seized, and tax until the parliamentary vote is granted to women on suffrage society with the object of spreading the Garrett Anderson. these were to be offered at auction by Mr Hancock. The the same terms as to men. He does not refuse to pay, but occasion was taken by the suffragettes to ventilate their principles of tax resistance'. Thus was the Women's as an assistant-teacher under the London County Council grievance, and a procession, organised by the Women's Tax Tax Resistance League established. A committee of Recruitment drives were held up and down the he has not sufficient money to do more than pay the tax Resistance League, passed from Whitechapel to G lobe­ on his own income, which he has done. \'vhile, however, ten was elected, comprising Mrs Sargant Florence, country and there was a brisk sale of pamphlets such road where Mr Hancock's rooms were situated. Among married women are not recognised as taxable units, the Dr Kate Haslam, Miss Seruya, Dr Winifred Patch, as The Dury of Tax Resistance by Laurence Housman the demonstrators were Mrs Despard, Mrs Cobden claim does not fall on the right person. At present, the Mrs Cobden Sanderson, Miss Clemence Housman, and The Married Women'., Taxation by founder Sanderson, Mrs 1<.ineton Parkes (secretary of the League), Income Tax Ac t still holds a man liable for the tax on his Miss Clemence Housman, Mr Jason Kerr, Mr Hamilton Miss Cecily Hamilton, Mrs Agnes Purdie, Mrs member Ethel Ayres Purdie. The rallying cry of wife's income, in spite of the fact that a more recent Act, (Church League), Miss Andrews (Freedom League), Miss Margaret Kineton Parkes and Dr Elizabeth Wilks. the League was based on the rebellious American the Married Women's Property Act, has taken from him all Turk want lTurquand] (Free Church League), Dr Black control over that income .... A week later the Committee held its first meeting colonists' 'No Taxation without Representation', (WSPU), Miss Green (New Constitutjonal Society) and to decide on 'the practical steps to be taken for its and postcards depicting a defiant Britannia and the two male representatives from the new men's society. 0 formation and working' and it was recorded that motto 'No Vote, No Tax' sold at 7d a dozen. 'Elizabeth Wilks was elected Hon.Treasurer; and by the ready agreement of the Women's Freedom

34 35 Hackney History Suffrage campaigners

contrary to the spirit of the Married \'vomcn's Property Mr \'vilks afterwards entered a taxi-cab, and left for hi s ,\et, regards the wife's income as one with that of her residence in Upper Clapton-road. sh,~ says: So that her husband :m11et sta.y in Jl USBAND \ O.F pnson hll husband'. 11H8. WILKS. He pays the tax, To a Press representative ,\lrs \'vilks stated that her • Slw pays th.e . tax, . Dr Wilks was the recipient of floral tributes from Mrs T husband was quite well. He had not been ill in prison, but '.Phe authorities re.tease him, or \Xihcatlcy, the Hackney branch of the \'vomen's Freedom had found the life trying in its monotony. The money had Surrender l" Sfl ys , the ! Women get the v,qJ;e. League, Mrs JT. Mustard, and Mrs CM. Holmes, while not been paid, and she considered the protest successful. There was ,au A:me;ric.anthum-0-rist . whq CJapton Lady Doctor. said t hat the Civil War would l;i.itve to'oon­ the unsigned bouquets bore the following among other No reason had been assigned for the release. tiuue to the }Jitter c.nd~eve,n if h!il sacrificed inscriptions:- 'To Dr \'vilks: Hackney women admire your 'Il:e fatife's .\''(While protest met?tinfis .011!hi{ bElJial(are , a meeting which was being held, as usual, outside the 3 1 prison, and when Mrs Cobden Sanderson was calling for Reactions to the case ~a~:~\u~:h~ :Jt!ori~~~~e iuoney. s~• :!r~_~:.att:~.ti~~c~:.;:d·i·t~./.~;;;!(·~.··.·~.. 'r .:,.,;~~ the release of Mr Mark Wilks, he appeared at her si de. As 0 t h0 Responding to questions on the Wilks case in the "~') taxation .without i·e~rooe~~t~~~~~.~· i ;~)of E ren,: h ,R!Z'¾r:·:r ~-'' 1 soon as their equanimi!Y was restored, Mr \Xiilks was called upon for a speech. His remarks, however, were brief. He House of Commons on 10 October from MPs A characterirtic press reaction: the 'Evening 2Ve1vs: 26 September 1912 said he could hardly thank them enough for their loyalty Fe lix Cassel, Rt Hon Thomas Lough and George and devotion. Every night he had heard the cheering and Lansbury, Lloyd G eorge acknowledged that Mark There is one other point I should like to mention. From both at home and abroad. With the dry humour singing, and it had had a stimulating effect upon him. Wilks had been released despite the fact that the outset o f my professional career the au thorities have characteristic of his writings, Shaw was reported sent the claim on my earned income to me and not to by The Neu; York Times as telling the assembled my husband. In 1908 and 1909, instead of paying, as I had previously done, I wrote across the form 'N o vote, no audience that 'H e had no knowledge of what his tax'. They then dis trained on me for the amount. In 1910 wife's income was. All he knew was that she had I questioned th e legality of th e threatened distraint, and money at her command, and he frequently took the authoriti es wavered in th eir claim, making it sometim es advantage of that by borrowing it from her'.10 on me, sometimes on my husband, sometimes on us both conjointly, finally on him alone. Now after two years' intermittent correspondence he is in prison fo r inability Meetings of supporters were held in Hyde Park to meet it. Mani fes tl y if he is liable I am not, and the and Trafalgar Square, and a march took place from distraints executed on my goods were illegal. If] arn liable Kennington Church to Brixton Prison to support hi s arres t was illegal and the di straints on me should have the nightly vigils. On 1 October a packed meeting 9 been continued. organi sed by local sympathisers and fri ends took place in Hackney Town Hal1, which was reported The Men's League for Women's Suffrage organised in the H acknry Gazette as follows: protest meetings nightly outside Brixton Prison where Mark Wilks was being held, and he was Dr E lizabeth Wilks, who addressed the meeting - held interviewed in prison by the newly established under the au spi ces of the \'vomen's Tax Resi stance League left-wing paper The Dai!J H erald, the only national - as did also Mrs Kineton Parkes (who presided), Mr George Lansbury MP and the Rev C. Fleming Wi lliams. newspaper to give full support to the women fighting for the vote. The following resolution, moved by the last named gentleman, was carried, viz:- 'That this meeting indignantly T he Women's Tax Resistance League held a protes ts against the imprisonment of Mr Mark Wilks for m eeting on 26 September 1912 at Caxton Hall, his inability to pay the tax on hi s wife's earned income, and demands his immediate release. This meeting also calls The U:7i!ks' home at 1, A rhuttts Place, lpper Clapton Road at which George Bernard Shaw was the principal for an amendment o f the existing Income Tax law, which, speaker, and this was widely reported in the press

36 37 Hackney History Suffrage campaigners

Elizabeth Wilks' tax T he delay of justice always produces fresh injustice, and On 4 June 1913 suffragette activist Emily Wilding debt had not been so ,ve have this year the added grievance that women are Davison ran in front of the King's horse at the to be forced to contribute to the payment of members of discharged and stated: Epsom Derby and was killed. Her funeral on June Parli ament while, at the same time they have no election of drew huge crowds to an imposing procession I am not aware of these members, and no means of calling them to account 14 any previous instance for action of which they disapprove. In the face of that through the centre of London. in which it has been violation of the spirit of Engli sh Liberty we say that Tax necessary to have Resistance is the most Constitutional line of Action for A pilgrimage organised by the National Union of recourse to the ultimate women to take. We believe it will also prove the most 1 Women Suffrage Societies in July 1913 received a remedy of imprisonment effective. ' ~ remarkable degree of support from the towns and in such a case. T will villages travelled through en route to London, with consider the question of New proposals, new militancy amending the law so as 50,000 women arriving in Hyde Park. HerbertAsquith, who had taken over from Campbell to obviate the necessity 1 Bannerman as Prime Minister, had pledged in the for such action. ., Against this background of renewed violence House of Commons just before the second general and militancy, Elizabeth Wilks was a member of When questions were election of 1910 that, if his Government was still a Women's Tax Resistance League deputation asked in the House of in power, it 'would give facilities for proceeding which presented a petition to the Chancellor of Lords on 14 October, effectively with a woman suffrage bill, if so framed the Exchequer Lloyd George in June 1913. WTRL Earl Russell took the as to admit of free amendment'. Mr Asquith had Secretary Margaret Kineton Parkes described how opportunity to point been returned to power, and shortly afterwards out the legislative the House of Commons had carried, by immense A vieu; of Arbutus Place.fiwn the rear Dr Wilks compelled Mr Lloyd George to admit that he inconsistencies. He majorities, second readings of the measure known had made erroneous statements about her case in the argued for 'natural justice and common sense', under the heading and slogan of the League, a pre­ as the Conciliation Bill. After the general election House of Commons: he had to own that at the time he proposing that a law which renders a man liable to printed letter would be despatched:· of 1911 suffrage prospects had seemed particularly had not fully understood the position. Mrs Cecil Chapman indefinite terms of imprisonment for matters over bright, but a bombshell from Asquith shattered in her speech made a point of the degradation to married women of the law as it now stands, and deprecated any which he is by statute deprived of any control 'is 'To [the appropriate tax collectors]. I regret that the heavy these prospects with the announcement of his legislation tending to penalise marriage. Mr Lloyd George undesirable and should be am ended'. 15 sacrifices I feel called upon to make for the cause of intention of introducing an electoral reform bill Women's Enfranchi sement render it impossible for me to thanked the membership o f the deputation for putting which would sweep away all existing franchises: their cases so concisely and so well, and after admitting subscribe to the object to which you draw my attention. that married women had cause for complaint, promised Amongst those individuals praised by WTRL You will recognise that the delay in passing a Women's the new franchise would be based on citizenship, some sort of amendment. 19 Secretary Mrs Kineton Parkes for their 'splendid Enfranchising Measure imposed a heavy tax upon the and votes were to be given to 'citizens of full age help' in the successful conclusion of the campaign resources of all warm supporters of the movement. and competent understanding' but no mention was to free Mark Wilks were 'Sir John Cockburn Signed .... .' made of women. If he had intended to provoke a However, his words were to be overtaken by KCMG, Mr H.G. Chancellor MP [Liberal MP return to militancy nothing could have been better events. On 4 August 1914 the announcement was House clearances by bailiffs which followed such for Shoreditch Haggerston],the Right Hon calculated to do so. made that a state of war existed between Britain action were used by the League as an opportunity Thomas Lough MP jLiberal MP for Islington and Germany. to hold open-air suffrage meetings. Where a West], the Rev. Fleming Williams [former London In the East End, the East London Federation fellow tax resister's goods and chattels were to be County Council alderman], and many others; and under the leadership of Sylvia Pankhurst organised The effects of war auction ed off, supporters turned up in force to buy especially by Mr Laurence Housman who gave massive demonstrations against the repressive With the onset of theFirstWorldWar,allsuffragettes back their colleagues' possessions and return them his time unsparingly during this wh ole strenuous legislation specifically passed to deal with the were released from prison. Emmeline Pankhurst, to h er. fortnight.' 16 suffragettes. Sylvia was to be arrested eight times Christabel Pankhurst, and most of those who had and each time she went on hunger strike and previously adopted violent tactics now pledged to The League produced a senes of recru1trng The Times, commenting editorially on the affair was released, only to be re-arrested a short time sup port the war effort by making recruiting speeches pamphlets on its printing press in response to on 4 October, declared that the Government had afterwards. E ach of her captures and arrests and stopped demanding suffrage until after the current events. When the House of Commons blundered in sending Mark Wilks to prison, pointed was marked by violent confrontations between war; but Sylvia Pankhurst and her organisation in voted that MPs should be paid, the League's out that this was 'admitted by his release'. 17 League the community and the police, and in one such the East End both organised charitable war relief response was to rush out a leafl et which read: members followed E lizabeth Wilks' example and incident the Hackney WSPU Secretary suffered a and continued their work for women's rights. The their final tax demands went unpaid. Instead, broken collar-bone. majority of the non-militant NUWSS dropped the

38 39 Hackney History Suffrage campaigners

suffrage campaign to support the war effort, while In the course of surveying the houses of the An insight is given into Eli zabeth Wilks the woman Notes a minority joined the peace efforts of the Women's parish to ascertain whether a sewerage scheme rather than the campaigner by local historian Betty International League. for the district was needed, E li zabeth was brought White in her essay 'The Influence of Dr Wilks on l. Nt1JJ 101k "/illles 21 September 1912. 2. S. Pankhurst: The St1fmgette 111011n1m1!: a11 i11ti111a!e acco111Jt into personal contact with the dreadful housing Headley'. 1-~li zabeth is described as 'always dressed in o/pe1:ro11s c111d idealr (1931). Within days of the outbreak of war an emergency conditions of local labourers and their families, black and rather formidable' but, in contrast to this 3. E. Crawford: The Jl 'Ollletl 's s11fji,w ///0/'e//lfllt: (/ reference g11ide meeting was held at the Womens Tax Resistance with whole families crowded into two small rooms image, fond of children (sadly Helen, her daughter, 1866-1928 (l999). League's headquarters in St Martin's Lane to with an inadequate supply of clean water. had died at the age of 19 from peritonitis). Dr 4 . i\.L Kineton Parkes: The lax resirlr111ce 11101 •e111e11! i11 Crea! consider the League's position. At a further Wilks would hold summer picnics for the famili es, l5rilai11 (1919). Women's Library, London Metropolitan University, Box FL154 ref: 2LSW /E/ 15/09. meeting on 26 August the Resolution was put, The parish council, rural district council and even and always gave a party at Christmas. 5. Scrapbook of cuttings relating to tax resistance and passed with a small majority: 'That in view of the medical officer for health at that time could (19 10-1912), Women's Library Cat. Ref 10/21. the National Crisis the League should temporarily not be persuaded to become involved, so Elizabeth According to Betty White, Elizabeth and Mark 6. \1(/omen's Tax Resistance League (\'vTRL), Third Annual suspend activities, and recommend that Resisters and her husband set about establi shing the Headley Wi lk s were 'a devoted couple and they lived in a Report, January 1913 (\'v'ornen's Library, Box PU 54). pay their taxes when called upon.' The League's Public Utility Society which was registered in simple wooden house, converted from a \Vorld War 7. Autograph Letter Collection, Taylor archive (1908-1964) ref 9/26, Box 5, Women's Library. staff were dismissed, the premises let and a few January 1933 under the Industrial and Provident l hut, with few modern amenities'. The guiding 8. 1-L\D, F. Bagust, So111e ?\Totes 011 Clap!on Past a11d Prese11!, committee members agreed to keep a watching Societies Act 1893. The decision was made to build principle behind Elizabeth Wi lks' life, like that of 1913-1929. brief on franchise matters during the years of eight cottages for families in most urgent need, and her husband, is summed up in the simple sentence 9. "/he Slc111dmd (the \'(,·omen's Tax Resistance League, suspension.20 a two acre site was purchased for £200. Meeting 'S he cared deeply for her fellow human beings'. 21 September 23 1912), Museum of London archive. a poor response from the parish for the funds 10. i\fop 1ork D111rs, 27 September 1912. I I. Ht11klltJ' G'aze!te 2 October 1912. required to build the cottages, committee members The social changes brought about by the Pirst World 12. Hmk11ey Gazette 4 October l 912. War were a defining factor in the campaign for raised £1,400 as loan stock and Elizabeth and 13. WTR.L, Third Annual Report, l 912, \\'omen's Library. female suffrage and on 11 January 1918 the House Mark Wilks lent the remaining £1,400 needed, on l 4. Ti111es 10 October 1912. of Lords approved the bill that gave the vote to rnortgage with 4 per cent to be paid over 40 years. l5. Ti111es 14 October 1912. female householders aged over 30. However total l 6. WTRL, Third Annual Report, 19 l 2, \'(!omen's Library. 17. Ti111es 4 October 1912. female suffrage was not to be granted in Britain The first eight cottages were built in 1933 and 18. WTRL, Third Annual Report, 1912, Women's Library. until 1928. when £2,000 loan stock became available in 1936, 19. Margaret l<.ineton Parkes, Tax Resisla11ce Alove111e11t in Elizabeth and Mark added a further £1,250 on Crea! Hrilai11, Women's Library. New campaigns in Hampshire mortgage, and an additional eight cottages were 20. Parkes, Tax Rmstance JVIove111mt. In July 1918 with victory just around the corner, and constructed. Careful planning went into the 21. Betty White, 'The TnAuence of Dr Wi lks on Headley', E-leadley 1\ f1scellany, I (The Headley Society, 1999). with it the granting of the franchise, a final winding buildings, which had electric light and piped cold up meeting of the Women's Tax Resistance League water and an outside toilet by the back door. A was held. The £7 left in the petty cash, and the play area with swing and see-saw was provided and £4 raised by the sale of the office typewriter, went each cottage had sufficient garden for cultivation. towards the costs of publishing a short history of the Women's Tax Resistance League authored by Finale Margaret Kineton Parkes. Elizabeth Wilks outlived her husband and died in 1953 at the age of 92. The Headley Public Elizabeth Wilks was in practice rn Harley Place, Utility Society still maintains the cottage which London NW1 in 1923 when at the age of 62 she she stipulated in her will should be rented at a and her husband decided to move from Clapton to reasonable rent to a needy tenant, and a simple Headley Down in Hampshire, where they were to brass plaque commemorates the legacy of 10 acres have a considerable impact upon the community. of wooded countryside which she left in trust for the enjoyment of the people of Headley.

40 41 Cycle speedway

The birth of cycle speedway It was not surprising that young boys attempted to emulate their heroes on the tracks by stripping down their bicycles, including the removal of brakes, lights, bell and mudguards, to save weight and to replicate as near as possible the format of the 500cc J. A. Prestwich GAP for short) engined The skid-kids: speedway bikes. But where to practise? In most ideal places, such as all-weather playing fields in public parks, the outcome would be being chased off by the 'parky', who saw the riders as vandals. Some enterprising speedway promoters the post-war allowed the use of their car parks, but no permanent The site of the track, superimposed on a pre-u;ar layout was allowed. phe nomenon of Ordnance Survey map Unknown to the skid-kids, as cycle speedway they became known, the then mayor of Shoreditch created the answer. The mayor was John Goldsmith Mrs E. A. Kellett J.P., and as the representative of the borough at a London-wide conference held in June 1945 Speedway begins to discuss peace initiatives, Speedway racing originated in Australia in 1923, at a carnival in New South Wales. The idea came from she proposed that 'bomb the 'father of speedway', Johnnie Hoskins. Motor cycles had been raced since their invention, but the sites should be levelled idea of racing on a small oval shale or cinder track, where the whole of the action could be seen by the to create playgrounds for 1 spectator, was new. The other novelty was the broadside, or skid, which enabled the riders to corner the children'. As a result, cycle sharp bends while on full power. speedway tracks came to be created on the ruins of the Blitz. Lionel Wills from Essex was a keen motorcyclist, and while visiting Australia saw speedway, or 'dirt track Ron Tarrant on the AndreJJJs Road track in 1946 racing' as it was called. He returned to England and, via the Ilford Motor Cycle Club, obtained permission to stage the first organised speedway meeting behind the King's Oak pub at High Beech, Essex. 30,000 The Warwick Lions day with a grappling hook after abortive attempts Twins Ron and Pete Tarrant were mad on speedway. fans turned up on Sunday afternoon, 19 February 1928. had raised old bedsteads and motor tyres. They supported the Wembley Lions, who raced During the 1930s speedway became established all over the country, and there were seven tracks operating before capacity crowds at the Wembley stadium No, the river Lea was not ideal for a track, so then every T hursday. T he Tarrant boys lived in Warwick in the London area at the outbreak of WW2. Government restrictions prevented staging of speedway they chanced on a newly flattened slum clearance Grove, Springfield, hence the cycle speedway team in the south, so there was a huge pent-up demand to be satisfied when the war ended. The tracks re­ area bounded by Andrews Road, Sheep Lane was named the Warwick Lions. But where to race, opened in 1946 and the crowds flocked to the spectacle. Individual racing had already given way to team and Ada Street. The lads marked out the track racing, which consisted of two teams of eight riders each racing over fourteen heats. Each heat had two or even practise? They had tried practising on a strip with broken bricks, and filled in holes to create riders from each team and points were awarded, three for first, two for second and one for third. East of sandy foreshore by the river Lea, but that had a passable level track about 120 metres long with London boasted two teams, New Cross and West Ham. The pre-war tracks at Hackney, Harringay and resulted in a collision (no accident), and Pete and two 180 degree bends. In their enthusiasm, they Walthamstow reopened in 1947. bike fell into the river. Pete swam ashore, but the had not thought to ask anyone if they could use bike sank to the bottom, to be recovered the next the site.

42 43 Hackney History Cycle speedway

Proper starting gates were made puddle the track and by Eric Phillipson, a cricket-style these had to be cleared. scoreboard showed the progress The sale of programmes of the match. John Goldsmith at twopence a time built a portable steward's box allowed the crowd to and provided his brother's public keep pace with the address system, powered by a scores and to identify long cable from the Walter Scott their favourites. pub. Ice cream vendors supplied hundreds of ice lollies, and the The Warwick Lions spent sticks formed a solid went from strength to carpet around the perimeter of strength despite the the track. regular loss of riders to National Service. Riders did not just ride, but were New riders emerged Ron and Pete Tarrant reaqy to race for the il:7anviik Lions in 1946. at the track early in the morning from the second team, The manager and acting steward is George Jordan. to set up the equipment and to 0th hoist the perimeter 'safety rope'. and ers joined Wanvick Lions' 1948 match u;ith Alhion Romans. In the hmkground are the surviving howes The embryo track acted like a magnet to boys The track had to be swept and the now cemented of Ada Street. stricken with the speedway bug. Within a short inner white line whitewashed. Inclement weather time sufficient numbers gathered to make up seldom affected the events but rain squalls did the eight-rider team for competitive cycle racing. One of the earliest clubs to be formed With remarkable resourcefulness, teams were were the Stratford Hammers. They identified and gathered into a league structure, Scoring in speedway raced at Janson Road in Stratford and competitive matches were held with the most and were a frequent thorn in the side rudimentary facilities. Loose bricks formed the The match was divided into 14 heats, or races, between of the Lions. A firm of well-known inner white line of the inner edge of the track. The four riders, two to each team. There are therefore four bicycle retailers, Rivets of High Road places at the starting gate The race consists of four starting gate was an elastic bungee rope stretched Leytonstone, presented a trophy to laps round the track; the first past the starting gate is be run on a home and away basis, across the track, and the results were noted by the overall winner. There are six points available: the supportive parents or reserve riders. winner gets three, the runner-up two, the third gets with the aggregate score deciding the one and the last gets none. result. The Hammers and the Lions In March 194 7 the Hacknry Gazette introduced a fought the closest of battles, the Thus a team which finishes first and second wins the sporting news column called 'Sports and Pastimes'. Lions winning the first home match race five points to one. A divided result can finish The Lions' match against Stratford Hmnmers, by two points and losing the second The paper asked for contributions, so the Tarrant three each or four-two. Since the match is run over 1vhich 1von them the Rivets Cup boys began to submit reports from the previous 14 races, the result can be any combination adding away match by one point. The result from other clubs. There is no doubt the Warwick Sunday match. This became a regular feature, up to 84. was therefore a win for the Lions by one point. Lions were one of the best-run of the dozen or and we are indebted to the newspaper and its The trophy was presented to the Lions captam This original system of scoring has remained more more cycle speedway teams in east London. They contributors for an accurate record, available Alan Catley at the Janson Road track. or less the same to the present day, with some were also geographically the westernmost, and in through the excellent microfilm service at Hackney innovations introduced after the period in guestion. competing had to travel as far as Dagenham and Archives, of the fixtures and the personalities. There are some other variables, such as a rider being About the same time an organisation called the Barking. The footpath on the northern outfall excluded for dangerous riding or being the cause of Speedway Cyclists Association Ltd., of High Road, sewer - the Green Way as it is now called - which Regular racing a stoppage. If a rider falls and cannot remount, the Wood Green, announced that they were 'seeking race is stopped to protect him. Touching the tapes bisects east London and was not plagued by traffic, The racing became an attraction on otherwise boring to administer cycle speedway, bringing it under or breaking the tapes at the start is also a matter for or laws governing the need to ride with brakes, Sunday afternoons. Crowds of up to 1500 people proper control'." They planned to hold a number exclusion. If riders are excluded during a match, this came to the rescue of most cycle speedway riders would gather to see a more polished presentation. can affect the total points available. of meetings under a circus big-top erected on waste for the bulk of the away trips. land at Woodford Avenue in Soutl1 Woodford (the

44 45 Hackney History Cycle speedway

site of Tesco's store today). Around the same time, the Hackney Trades Council all scored 12 points over 20 heats. [n the race-off It was an interesting idea, presented a proposal to the borough to build a the riders finished in the above order, with Vic and they adapted the circus permanent cycle speedway track on London Fields. White becoming the first winner of the trophy. ring to create an oblong track Unfortunately, poor reporting resulted in the After the event a collection was taken to support complete with wooden bench misunderstanding that it was to be a motorcycle the work of the RAFA in their work with air-force seating in tiers all round, ex-servicemen. and with public address and floodlighting. The award was made by a Mr. R. Day of the London County The opening meeting was Council, who said 'It is gratifying between the Hammers and to see this young virile sport, the Lions again, fresh from which has caught the imagination the Rivets Cup tussle. It was of Britain's youth, aiding in this held on the 25 November enterprising manner the charities 1949. Once again the Lions of Britain's youngest arm of the Spectators JJJatchfrom raised terracing on the first bend triumphed, this time by two fighting services'.' The Battle points. John Goldsmith promotes the Rye House speedway at Hoddesdon of Britain Trophy continued to also won the final of the individual event beating in Hertfordshire. be the highlight of the Lions' fellow-Lion Vic White and Len Silver of the 1 calendar for several years. ' Hammers. Both these riders eventually rose to New facilities, new trophies become professional speedway stars, and Len Silver The Lions were helped to establish themselves The Lions had national success ultimately represented the England speedway team in the early days by a Hackney councillor, Bob in various newspaper-sponsored and later became its manager. He now owns and Darke, who represented the Communist Party. events. The daily 1'\fews Chronicle He was instrumental The Wanvick Lions, 1949 was especially supportive of this rn persuading the council to continue to speedway track, and the motion allow the use of the failed. 1 However, subseguently Andrews Road track a track was built on Well Street without rent or formal Common, where the Lions raced lease. He remarked until the late 19 50s. that 'anything which kept young boys In 1950 the local branch of the out of mischief and Ri\F Association presented a off the streets was trophy to be raced for by riders good news'.' When from the three Hackney clubs - the club decided to the Lions and their second team, improve the track the Stars, and Hackney Comets, surface, Councillor who raced on a track at Frampton Darke arranged for Park Road. The first meeting the council road-roller was on 3 September 1950, and to be loaned to flatten resulted in a four-way tie between the surface and dress it Vic White, George Fowler, Ken with cinders. Scott, and John Goldsmith, who Frank Duffy, u;i111ier of the annual Battle of Britain tropi?J in 19 5 3 John Goldsmith, left, after 1JJinning the SpeedJJJay Association's individual cup in November 194 9. The other Lions, from left to right, are Jinmry Veal, Gordon Smith and Len Silver, representing the Stratford Hammers. 46 47 Hackney History Cycle speedway

to experience today. It was very much a 'can do' attitude which supported the boys who created this 'virile' sport. So why did the popularity of speedway and, as a result, cycle speedway wane?

Support for speedway collapsed from its post-war peak for a number of reasons. It has had periods of recovery in Britain but is now regarded as a minority event. In the early 19 50s the government A race atAndreivs Road in the 1950s decided to apply entertainment tax to speedway because they young sport. They arranged for knock-out cups for saw it as entertainment; had it been treated as a several years, and in August 1950, in the London sport it would have been exempt. This reduced its final, the Lions were victors, by 60 points to 35 in profitability, and made speedway promoters less 16 heats, over the much-fancied Peckham Stars. able to pay increases in rents. Their landlords were predominantly the greyhound-racing companies, Several personalities from the world of who saw bigger profits from betting or housing Some of the original Warwick Lions, photographed by Lilian Goldsmith at a reunion at Thurrock Cycle entertainment would attend matches to award the redevelopment. N oise was another factor which Speedwqy track, 1996. Back row, !~ft to right· Frank Dulfj, Alan Cathlry, E ric Phillipson, Ron Johnson, prizes. Actresses Kathleen Harrison and Jenny affected the inner London sites. Thus tracks closed, Charles Aldridge, Doug Bourne. Seated, on bike: Vic W hite. Kneeling: Ron Tarrant, John Goldsmith. Hanley, speedway riders Bill Kitchen, Aub Lawson, and with them went the motivation for the next Notes Howdy Byford and Danny Dunton, and the greatest generation of youngsters keen on emulating their (on bombed sites, which them selves gradually also T hanks to Frank D uffy, Vic White, and Ron and Peter of them all, the father of speedway, Johnnie disappeared as they were redeveloped). motorcycle heroes to do so by riding cycle speedway Tarrant. A version of this text, with many further details Hoskins, came to support the racing. Johnnie was including race fix tures and results, is on deposit at Hackney heard to say 'I like cycle speedway We ex-'skid kids' look back on the short period Archives Department. because it is the training ground we raced hell-for-leather around bomb-site tracks for the future speedway stars'. as some of the most enj oyable and exciting times 1. Hackney Gazette 14 June 1945. 2. Hmkney Gazette 18 N ovember 1949. To the ears of the young cycle of o ur lives. Without exception, gatherings of the 3. Hackney Gazette. speedway rider, there could be no veterans are humorous, heart-warming affairs. 4 . .Hackney Gazette. greater encouragement. There is no doubt that we look back with nostalgia 5. Hackney Gazette. and affection on those who shared the experience. 6. T he trophy was won as follows: A post-war phenomenon 1950 Vic White, George Fowler, Ken Scott,.John Goldsmith. This brief record of approximately Most of all I was blessed by meeting my wife 1951 Arthur Caunt, Charles Aldred, Kenny Jenkins, ten years of youthful endeavour Lilian, nee Hall, through the sport. Lilian died on Ron Veal. characterises the spirit of the 28 May 2008, and I have written this article in her 1952 Vic White, Jimmy Veal, Tommy Sweetman immediate post-war period. memory. 1953 Frank Duffy, Vic White, Tommy Sweetman Released from the tension of 1954 Derek Sheridan, T Graham, B Wright, K Scott. the Blitz, there was an optimism Frank D uffy's victory fo llowed immediatel y after hi s completion of national service as an infantryman in north which the world would do well Korea. A Lions reunion in 19 51

48 49 Tall flats

The borough had already gained valuable experience Many of the councillors in office before the war in building council housing in the 1920s and were still active in 1945, including Henry Goodrich 1930s.; The housing committee was particularly and Herbert Butl er, who both served for long active from 1932 onwards when it carried out spells on the housing committee. The chief officer slum clearance under Arthur Greenwood's 1930 responsible for housing design in the postwar 1 Housing Act. • It used sites that it had cleared in period was George Downing, the borough engineer From high hopes Homerton High Street to erect the dense tenement and surveyor, so the setup was similar to that in blocks of Banister House and Nisbet House (be/on ) Shoreditch as described by Stefan Muthesius. 11 which were designed by Josephs, a firm of private to tall flats: architects, who were to continue working for the In their endeavour to achieve a high standard of council throughout the period under review here. 7 housing, the Hackney councillors made two key They were well established in the field of designing decisions in 1945. They appointed modernist the changing shape of what has since become known as 'social housing'. architects, namely Frederick Gibberd and Graham The architectural practice had been founded by Dawbarn, to design their first important postwar Hackney's housing, Nathan Joseph who became renowned in the late estates, and they put a limit on the height of flats 19th century for his work on several blocks of flats by producing guidelines that in general they should 1945-60 in East London for philanthropic organisations, not exceed three storeys. 12 An exception was made especially the Industrial Dwellings Society and the for extensions to existing estates such as Banister Guinness Trust. 8 His most notable achievement in House. The new limit was tighter than if it had Hackney was Navarino Mansions, Dalston Lane. 9 simply excluded what later came to be known as Michael Passmore He was succeeded by his two sons, Charles and 'high-rise' buildings, a term which is normally Ernest, who continued designing housing schemes app]jed to those above five storeys. The councillors including Evelyn Court, Amhurst Road. 10 broadly adhered to their po]jcy until 1953, when

Preparing for redevelopment In early 1945, as the end of the war in Europe was approaching, there was a fee]jng amongst those who were planning the new housing for Hackney metropoutan borough that here was an opportunity to build something better than previously. In this they shared in the mood of others who thought that the time was ripe to build a new London.1 But there was also some doubt over whether it would be possible to achieve this aim quickly enough to solve th e housing shortage. Henry G oodrich, who was leader of th e council, eloquently captured this concern when introducing the plans for the future Somerford estate off the Stoke Newington Road. He was reported as saying that 'the people of this country were looking more anxiously at the housing ques tion than anything else connected with postwar plans'.2

It is not surprising that housing was high on the political agendas of the major parties during the 1945 general election campaign. When the Labour government came to power in July, Aneurin Bevan became the new health minister with responsibility for housing. He showed a strong commitment to local authorities by making them the lead agencies in the postwar building programme and encouraging them to achieve a high standard of design and construction.1 Bevan's approach eminently suited Hackney's Labour leadership. Altl1ough they enjoyed a fair amount of autonomy over what they built, the borough councillors were not the final arbiters as they had to obtain the approval of both the health ministry (from 195 1 the housing ministry) and the London County Council (LCC) to all new housing schemes. The LCC was the planning authority and it adopted some of the principles from the 1943 County of London Pian." Nisbet House, Homerton High Street in 19 39

50 51 Hackney History Tall flats

The Sandrint,ham Road estate, about I 94 9 when Hackney\ three architects were working on The Someiford estate, photographed about 194 9 th ey began to approve schemes for taller flats and their first postwar designs.'') The guidelines arose this trend led within two years to the scheme for the for small sites initially. On the death of Charles, 111 The pilot estates out of a dialogue between councillors, officials Trelawney estate, Paragon Road, with its 15-storey 1948, his brother Ernest was to take over as senior Hackney's housing committee decided to appoint and Josephs. Although the latter pointed out that tower blocks. Hackney's approach to the building partner of the firm. private architects who were in tune with modern thev could reduce the average cost of a flat by of fl ats was in many respects different from that ideas because its members were intent on buiiding more densely in rive-storey blocks, the practi sed in postwar Shoreditch." Armstrong would have been unable to start work producing a better standard of accommodation officers looked at the wider planning situation in straightaway because his previous staff were still in than they had put up before the war. T hey as ked the borough in the light of the London Plan. They It is my aim in this article to try to explain the shift, uniform, but he recommended Graham Dawbarn the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIB!\) to concluded that they should no longer build as high or drift, in policy over the height of flats. I have of Norman and Dawbarn to them. i; ltwas Dmvning suggest the names of six practices with experience as previously because there was already a surfeit taken the Trelawney Estate as the main illustration who put Gibberd's name forward because they had in council housing, from whi ch they could make of high-density estates. Most of the housing put of the way different influences were brought to bear come into contact over a public baths scheme.16 The their choice. It is surprising to find that the li st did up by the borough and the LCC before the war on the council which resulted in higher buildings. committee appointed both Gibberd and Dawbarn not include either Frederick Gibberd or Graham had been four or five-storey blocks; furthermore, My research has focu ssed on political decisions 'at to work on what were to become known as the D awbarn, who were to go on to design some of the LCC would be continuing to build in a similar a kjnd of grassroots level', as advocated by Stefan 'pilot estates'. It allocated Gibberd the site of the stvle. ,,, the borough's most successful postwar estates. The Muthesius, and I have sought to set them in a Somcrford estate and Dawbarn two smaller sites at councill ors found that the only architects on the li st the Wilton estate, Dalston, and Sandringham Road wid er context. '" The primary sources have included The Somerford estate originally consisted of two­ who were li kely to be suitable were Charles Joseph, 1 the minutes of H ackney metropoli tan borough 1( between Cecilia and Abersham roads). - who was well known to them at Josephs, and an storey houses and three-storey blocks of flats council, some accompanying chief offi cers' papers arranged in a cellular pattcrn of small squares, Edward Armstrong. Notes on an interview with Both Peter Fovnes and David ~lander have referred and Hackn(!)' Gazette reports and commentary. For o·ivino- each o-roup of buildings an intimate open Joseph suggest that he had a practical approach, 0 b b L simplicity I have referred to each development to a stateme~t bY the council in 1948 declaring but did not articulate ideas fo r creating a better ;pace. To conform to thc Council's new policy, sc heme by its eventual estate name, although in the that it would no.t be building flats above three type o f housing. Nevertheless, th e committee there were no flats above three storeys, but Gibberd conte mporary council documents they were usuall y store\'S. '·' The council meeting at which the change appointed him to undertake some routine designs, was able to include some variation in the building 111 p(;licv occurred was as early as January 1945, called by a street or area name until built. types. Goodrich declared at rhc council meeting

52 53 Hackney History Tall flats

maki ng them both visually interesting and suitable these came to a head during the run-up to the 1949 for letting to a range of household sizes. 2c, Previously borough elections culminating in a tempestuous council housing in London had typically been of demonstration in the council chamber.ii Significant two distinct types: flats in the congested inner areas progress soon began to be made, however, so and two-storey houses in the outer suburbs. As we that in October 1951 the borough celebrated the will see, it was the attachment of postwar architects completion of its thousandth postwar dwelling: and planners to mixed development that was to be its building record was by then amongst the top influential in persuading the borough council to five of the 28 metropolitan boroughs in London.'" introduce tall flats into their developments. Whilst the availability of building materials had begun to ease, another problem which came The first postwar housing scheme that significantly to the fore was a shortage of suitable building breached the three-storey limit was the Beecholme sites. Although Hackney would press on with its estate, Upper Clapton Road, if we ignore Buccleuch programme of redeveloping areas of decayed House, another Joseph design, which was built at housing and industry, using compulsory purchase Clapton Common as specialist accommodation powers, this was a slow process, and much of the for single women. 27 Gibberd designed Beecholme new accommodation was needed for re-housing (above) as a mixture of houses and flats with the the displaced tenants.33 The waiting list continued taller blocks having five storeys and containing one­ to grow, and public dissatisfaction put pressure on The Prout Road (Beecholme) scheme, photographed about 1951 bedroom and bedsit accommodation. In explaining the council to achieve better results. in March 1945 that they were proud to be in a es tate that the height be reduced to three storeys, the design to the housing committee in February position to undertake such an attractive scheme which the council only accepted reluctantly. 22 1949, Gib berd and Downing extolled the virtues of Nationally, there were political changes that were for local people, and pointed out that even though mixed development and made several comparisons to affect housing policy in the early 1950s. Nye 2 the site had been costly to acquire, it included The designs for the pilot estates by G ibberd and with the Somerford estate. ' The committee Bevan had come under increasing financial restraint houses as well as flats. The only response made by Dawbarn, especially the Somerford estate, have members were impressed with the designs, which from the Treasury in the late 1940s and he urged the Conservative opposition was to emphasise that been widely discussed and generally praised for were a vast improvement on the prewar tenements local authorities to trim housing standards which local people had made it clear that they preferred the lightness of their architecture, although some of similar height. Although the flats were at odds included reducing ceiling heights. 14 When Bevan houses. 21 early critics found them dull.2' The 1951 Festival of with the council's policy they were not technically resigned as minister early in 19 51, his replacement, Britain included a 'living architecture' exhibition at high-rise, but there were pressures on the council Hilary Marquand, had no commitment to high An interesting feature of Dawbarn's designs for the extensive Lansbury estate, Poplar, which was that were soon to nudge them in that direction. quality housing. the Sandringham Road and Wilton estates is that then being built by the LCC. It had houses and each layout, as originally drafted, contained a low blocks of flats on similar lines as the pilot The council under pressure Further changes in policy were assured with the four-storey block despite the council's new policy. estates, and involved Dawbarn and Gibberd.24 A pessimistic George Orwell had commented Conservative general election victory in 19 51. His justification was that the taller flats were for Not surprisingly, the festival committee conferred on the task facing Nye Bevan in 1945 that 'in the They won on a ticket of an ambitious building people without children, and the height would add an architectural award on the Somerford estate, matter of houses the public expects miracles and programme, but the new housing minister, 2 variety to the layouts. As the council accepted this whilst both Whitehall and the LCC gave it official is certain to be disappointed at not getting them'. ') Harold Macmillan, encouraged local authorities explanation, it shows that there was flexibility in recognition by including photographs in their Hackney council certainly experienced problems to reduce standards, with the aim of cutting costs their policy from the start. Dawbarn positioned publications.2' Two small extensions to the estate during the postwar years and there were plenty and building at a faster rate_;, Throughout these the houses and flats at Sandringham Road around by Gibberd were to follow, including the four­ of disappointed people in the borough by the late successive reductions in the ministry's housing three sides of a central communal area, with the storey blocks facing Stoke Newington Road. 1940s. The construction of the pilot estates and standards, Hackney was prepared to accept some houses allocated their own gardens. At the Wilton the smaller schemes became protracted because of modifications, but for over two years stood estate there were six blocks of flats of various sizes The pilot estates were early examples of what delays commonly experienced by local authorities in out against pressure from the ministry to lower arranged around the central gardens. Although the was known to architects and planners as 'mixed London over shortages of labour and materials."' As ceilings. '6 In other respects Herbert Butler made LCC planners accepted the four-storey building development', which meant that they contained an a consequence, the waiting list for council housing it clear chat the council leadership were happy at Sandringham Road, they insisted at the Wilton assortment of building types with the intention of grew alarmingly in length. There were public to cooperate with the new government over any protests about the borough's housing shortage, and programme that would result in more houses for

54 55 Hackney History Tall flats I

1 Hackn ey. ' What particularly helped the borough became plentiful again. A short while later he was was that Macmillan set up a new system to enable to argue that fl ats were the way forward in future local authorities to plan their schemes well ahead although this did not necessarily imply increasing of redevelopmen t, so D owning was able to work the scale of the buildings. 411 Ambivalence over the out a programme up to 19 56. ,K But building land desirability of building tall flats can be found in the continued to be scarce, and this was a factor that mixed messages put out in reports and comments inAuenced councillors in the notion that they in the Hackmy Gazette during 1952 and 1953. At should build multi-storey housing. one point they were equating the dull LCC housing with the 'socialism' of the grey austerity years, T here was a widespread debate in the local press and were asking for more imaginative and varied and elsewhere about the desirabili ty of building tall developments even if this involved building higher blocks. In early 1952 a member of the public put than previously. 4 1 At other times they favoured a question to D owning on these lines, eliciting the houses by arguing that tall fl ats would create evasive reply that the issue did not arise because social problems because of their high d e n s iti es . ➔ " there was a shortage of the steel needed for their Nevertheless, the paper reported favourably on construction.39 It was true that this problem was multi-storey fl ats erected elsewhere in London. At holding up work on building sites in Bethnal the end of 1953 they announced the completion of Green, but D owning's answer begged the ques tion Finsbury borough's three 12-storey blocks at the of what would be the council's position when steel Stafford Cripps estate, Old Street, in a report with

the heading 'HIG HEST FLATS IN LONDON' . ➔ 3 The Beckers, photographed about 1962

The architect was the modernist Joseph E mberton. gro up . ➔ ' The practice of rotating the chairmanship The Hackney Gazette explained that there had been was also introduced to the housing committee, and some misgivings locally about the effects on famili es from 1955 there was a different person elected living so far above the ground, but Finsbury's 4 each year. (' This change probably reinforced the officials were satisfied that these fears had been decline in the influence of the remaining members unjustified as the new residents of the upper floors of old guard. said that they would not want to live anywhere else. Significantly, the paper cited Finsbury's land Following a high-rise route shortage as the explanation for building so high. Despite the changes that had occurred in the membership of the council and the pressures In Hackney, following the 1953 municipal elections that they were under to build to a higher density, a significant change occurred in the composition there was no real indication at the end of 1953 of of the council membership, which arguably made the changes to come. Within the next three years, it more amenable to accepting tall buildings. There however, councillors were to sanction a succession was an influx of fresh councillors because the of new housing developments containing flats nominations of Labour candidates that year had that became progressively taller. The first was tended to favour younger, left-wing members in the Webb estate, Clapton Common, which was preference to many of the 'old guard' who had been designed by Josephs and comprised five blocks earlier . ➔ ' on the council since the war or Survivors of flats with the tallest of them six storeys . ➔- Then on the council included Butler and Goodrich, within a matter of weeks a clear break was made although the latter was to resign from the council in with earlier policy, with the preliminary plans for 1955 over differences of opinion with the left-wing ToJJ1er Com1, Clapton Co111111011, in 198 7 Tower Court, Clapton Common. The building

56 57 Hackney History

(belou;) was designed in the modernist idiom by an of the town planning notions of the day, in that In October 1955, some two years after the storeys w hich in his view were 'monotonous'.sr, acquaintance of Gibberd's, Harry Moncrieff of they adjoined attractive open space. But now that completion of the newsworthy tall flats in The new arrangements would reduce the subsidies Cooperative Planning, whose name had recently the form of the borough's development was set in Finsbury, Hackney council gave Ernest Joseph the on houses and flats under four storeys, and instead been added to the panel of approved consultants. a high-rise direction, the councillors appear to have go-ahead to a preliminary design sketched out for would provide subsidies at an increasing rate for Downing described Moncrieff as a m ember of 'the lost their way in what they were trying to achieve. 5 the Trelawney estate, Paragon Road. It was main ly each fl oor above six storeys. " The changes meant younger school of architects'.-ls The core of Tower a multi-storey development with three tall blocks that the higher the storey, the higher the subsidy to Court was originally to have had eight storeys, but It was in 19 54 that Downing outlined his arguments and some houses. At this early stage the architect refl ect the additional construction costs. Downing by the autumn of 1953 this had grown to nine, with for including tall flats in future housing schemes, and the LCC planners had yet to agree on the was diligent in reporting the impending new Downing giving a brief explanation that it would be saying that they were necessary to meet the density scale of the buildings. Whilst the architect's idea subsidy arrangements to the housing committee, advantageous to add the extra floor to help spread requirements of the town planners and to adjust was to have 11 and 12-storey towers at opposite and also told them about a local factor which the high cost of the land. He laid stress on the 'fine to the shortage of available land. They were also ends of the site, with a long block of eight floors would increase th e building costs. lt had been setting' for the new building, which would provide a way of providing a range of accommodation for between them, the planners wanted to see the found that the foundations of the flats would need a 'focal point' at the top of the common!') different sizes of household, including people who highest one increased to 15-storeys to make it a to be piled, and Downing recommended building had no need of ground floor accommodation_su dominant feature of the estate, and the opposite higher to help offset the expense. He put before Both Tower Court and the Webb estate are D owning's arguments were accepted by the council, one lowered. Downing gave the following advice the council a fresh scheme, already cleared with the explicable as multi-storey schemes in the context so the building of high-rise flats continued. In mid- to the committee sh owing that he appreciated that LCC, in which two of the blocks would have 15 1955 the council approved a design there were policy issues involved: storeys and a third would have nine. The council by Josephs for Marian Court, gave its approval at the end of 19 55, and the Homerton High Street, a building Blocks of 14 and 15 storeys are being built in the decision received headline treatment in the press: of ten storeys." Later that year London area and I beLeve a block of 17 storeys has been 'SKYSCRAPER FLATS FOR HACKNEY'.58 approved, but until more experience is gained in actual Gibberd produced a scheme for They suggested that that these could be the tallest management of such tall blocks, I feel that the proposals the Beckers, Rectory Road (above), of Josephs should be supported. Tf the Committee desire flats in London and mentioned the impact of the which included two symmetrical to incorporate a 15-storey block, there are no structural housing subsidies bill. 11 -storey blocks containing one­ reasons why [onej should be more difficult than a 12 or 54 bedroom flats and bedsits. He and 10 storey. There was a further twist in the Trelawney episode, Downing presented the design to however, as officials in the housing ministry were the council as a mixed development The committee preferred the original scheme and to have a final say on the estate design before with a similar character to the gave the nod to discussions continuing with the they would ratify the scheme. They said that the 12 Somerford estate. They gave no LCC on that basis. It would have meant building to construction costs could be reduced by making the real explanation for including such a similar height as The Beckers. three tall blocks a uniform height of 15 storeys, tall buildings, except to say that the and Downing had little choice at this stage but to scheme had a higher proportion Over the next few weeks unexpected events were concur. He arranged for the plans to be modified, of one-bedroom flats and bedsits to intervene which persuaded the committee 5 which the council sanctioned in July 19 56. '' Two than was the borough's usual members to review their decision. The housing years later, whilst under construction, there was practice. The architecture of the minister, now Duncan Sandys, put a bill before an official competition for a suitable estate name tower blocks has been commended Parliament designed to increase financial support and such was one person's enthusiasm for the new 55 for the distinctive roof lines.51 for building high-rise flats. The previous practice landmark that 'London Pride' was suggested_r,o Unfortunately, the design for the had been for the government of the day to next high-rise scheme lacked flair, subsidise the cost of building council flats on The council continued to approve the construction but the changes that occurred a uniform basis irrespective of the height of a of high-rise flats, but it did not surpass the height during its inception illustrate some building (government subsidies were based on of the Trelawney tower blocks until 1960, when of the factors at work in the mid- building costs and not on the circumstances of the it approved Moncrieff's plans for the 17-storey tenant). Sandys argued that this was not only unfair, 1950s. Gooch House, Kenninghall Road.61 Part of this site but that it had resulted in most local authorities was reserved for the large new roundabout on the The Trelmvnry estate, from Paragon Road, in the 1960s building flats in blocks between three and five main Lower Clapton/Upper Clapton road, so that

58 59 Hackney History Tall flats the block was put up on an inappropriate plot next density zone, the final design met the criteria of members would have been keen to see radical action Notes to a busy road junction. The Gooch House decision 130 persons to the acre.<'7 But considering what taken to solve the housing shortage and would not shows how far the councillors had compromised had been achieved at the Somerford Estate, where have been constrained by a close association with 1. N. Bullock, 'fragments of Utopia: housing in Finsbury on their standards in the few years since they had no buildings exceeded three storeys, it should the policies behind the pilot estates. 1945-51 ', Urban Studies (1989), 46. approved the same architect's scheme for Tower have been possible to produce 30 per cent. more 2. Hackney Gazette, 24 March 1945. 3. A. I-Iolmans, Housing Policy in Britain: a hfrtory (1987), accommodation without resorting to building Court, facing onto the attractive Clapton Common It is impossible to assess the impact of the 113, 319-21; N. Timmins, The f>ive Giant.r: A Biography of a short distance to the north. tower blocks. reports about new high-rise housing in Finsbury the if:/e!jare State (2001 ), 145-6. and elsewhere, but it seems that in the 1950s tall 4. F. Forshaw & P. Abercrombie, Cotmty of London Plan, Inferences from the shift in policy T he councillors' concern with maintaining buildings were seen by many local councillors as a (1943), 79; P. Foynes, 'The rise of the high-rise: postwar housing in Hackney', Hacknqy History 1 (1995), 29-30; high standards in the 1940s and early 19 50s was 7 The issue over abandoning the council's 1945 symbol of progress. " There may even have been M. I-Iebbert, London: more by_fart11ne than design (Chichester, commendable, so the question arises: why did they policy was essentially about the desirability of an element of what one historian has described 1998), 69. tall buildings rather than one of houses versus go along with increases in the scale of buildings as 'municipal prestige' and even rivalry between 5. D. Mander, Strength in the Tmver: an i!!t1strated history of flats, because the London Plan envisaged that from 1953? They stood firm on maintaining their local authorities, comparable with the building Hacknry (1998), 116; I. Watson, 'The first generation of a proportion of flats would have to be built. In principles over ceiling heights only to become of town halls in the 19th century.11 By 1960, the flats', Hacknry History 11 (2005), 40. 6. HAD H/H/11, Hackney Metropolitan Borough housing any case, Isobel Watson has shown that there was extremely flexible over accepting plans for a new monumental towers at the new Trelawney estate and town planning committee meeting (HTPCl'vI), 62 type of housing. A likely explanation is that they a long tradition of building flats in the area. In gave to some people the impression of modernity 2 December 1932 & 10 February 1933. Strength in the Tmver David Mander attributed the found it easier to grasp the practical details of which contributed to Hackney's progressive image 7. 'Tenements' is an imprecise word which in London is switch in policy to high-rise as being due to 'a lack living space than the ramifications of building and as a housing authority, and it was reported that a usually reserved for blocks of small working class flats 68 of space' and 'changing fashions' and, as these managing tall flats. visiting councillor from the West Midlands found built before 1914 as in Watson, F-fmkney HistO(J 11 (2005). But the housing committee specifically used the term to explanations are widely accepted, they are worth 72 it a chastening experience. Seen in this context, describe the development of Banister House: H/H/11, 63 There is much to be said for Mander's argument that investigating. We have seen that the shortage of the suggestion that the estate should be named HTPCM 2 December 1932. sites was a problem that led to the council seeking changing fashion was a factor leading to building 'London Pride' was perhaps not wide of the 8. H. Pearman, bxcellent Accommodation: the first hundredyears a way of increasing housing densities, but this aim tall flats. But it seems that the seeds were sown mark! of the Industrial D1ve!lings Society (1885) Ltd (1985), 31-74; could have been achieved without resorting to high­ at the end of the war, and are to be found in the Watson, Hacknry H,story 11 (2005), 38; see also '.Joseph, Nathan Solomon' in Oxford DNB, w,vw.oxforddnb.com rise. The LCC planning policy was that any new enthusiasm of architects and town planners for the A feature of housing development by the 9. H. Pearman, Excellent Accommodation, 81 -4. notion of mixed development and particularly for housing to the south of the North London railway metropolitan borough was the long-term 10. H . Pearman, Excellent Accommodation, 94. should be built to accommodate 136 persons to including a diversity of building types. The role of relationship between the council and its 11. S. Muthesius, "'lt is as though we start a new Li fe": the acre, and to the north of it, 100 persons. So the Frederick G ibberd in 'selling' the idea of including architects, Josephs. It may seem surprising that council housing in Shoreditch 1945-50', F-fmkney F-listory 13 Somerford estate was designed to meet the latter tall buildings in an estate layout was probably the housing committee continued using them (2007), 43. requirement. In 1948 the architect and planner significant because of his early success with the 12. HAD H/I-1/18, I-lTPCM 11 January 1945. during the immediate postwar years, when it was 13. Muthesius, Hmkney History 13, 42-44. Somerford es tate. In G ibberd's work, and that of S.E. Rasmussen wrote that most of London could experimenting on the pilot estates with architects 14. Muthesius, Hackney .flirtory 13, 42. be rebuilt so that families with children could his contemporaries, the planning of estates in this known for their modernism. A likely explanation 15. HAD H /H/18, I-ITPCM 31 August & 12 October 1944 14 have a house and garden. ' Looking back at that idiom becam e synonymous with including one or is to be found in the firm's established reputation 16. H/H/18, HTPCM 12 October 1944. period, Lionel Esher, another architect steeped in more high blocks and, as the building technology for designing sturdy blocks of flats. Also, the long 17. H/H/18, HTPCM 30 October 1944. the modernist idiom, has argued that the high-rise changed, they became taller. 18. Foynes, F-fcnknry History 1, 30; Mander, Strength i11 the relationship between the council and this family To11;e1~ 116. trend was not inevitable for the very reason that it of architects probably meant that councillors and 19. HAD H/H/18, HTPCM 11 January 1945. would have been possible to redevelop much of A question also arises over the implications of the chief officers found them to be reliable; so kept 20. H/H/18, HTPCM 12 October 1944. 1 London on the lines of the Somerford es tate. •i influx of new councillors in 1953. But it does not them on to hedge their bets against uncertainty 21. H/H/18, HTPCM 8 March 1945; Hackney Gazette, Building higher did not of itself increase the follow that the council would have stayed closer when allocating work to new consultants. By 1960 24 March 1945. 22. H/H/18, HTPCM 8 March 1945; H/H/19, HTPCM amount of accommodation because tall buildings to its 1945 policy on building heights if the old Josephs had worked continuously for the council 13 May 1946 & 13 January 1947. require open land around them to ensure that there guard had remained in a dominant position. This for 27 years; so amongst the numerous designs is adequate daylight. At the Beechholme estate, is because local authorities across London, with a in the firm's portfolio were the dense tenement where there were some five-storey buildings, the wide range of political viewpoints, became involved blocks of the 1930s and the heavy tower blocks 1 1 ''' in the trend towards high-rise. •'' In the particular 7 density achieved was only 75 persons to the acre. completed in 1960. ' Josephs certainly left their At the Trelawncy estate, which was in the higher circumstances of Hackney, however, the new mark on the borough.

60 61 Hackney History

23. References include L. Esher, The Broken lf:1/al)e: the 54. J lAD 1-1/ H/28, Report of Borough Engineer and reh11ildillg of hllgla11d 1940-80 (1981), 105-7; Surveyor, 31 October 19 55. M. G lendinning & S. Muthesiu s, To1JJer Hlock: 111oder11 p11hlic 55. Public Di ll s 1955-56 no. 46 which was to become the Contributors to this issue ho11sing in England, etc (1994), 31, 107 & 112; E. Robinson, Housing Subsidies Act 1956. T1JJentieth Ce11tury Buildings il7 Hackney (1999), 67-8 & 73; 56. Hansard 17 November 1955, 797. Christopher Derrett is a general medical practitioner who has worked in Stoke Newington for the N. Bullock, 1311ildi11,~ the Pos/JJJar if:1/or!d: 111odern architect11re and 57. Stephen Merrett, State l-/011.ririg in 13 ritain (1979), 315. last 15 years. He went to school in Newham and before studying medicine worked as an applied recomtmct/017 in Britain (2002), 207 & 217 for references to 58. HAD H/ H/28, HTPCM 5 December 1955; Hackney early reviews. Gazette, 30 December 1955. physicist for the Medical Research Council's i\.ir Pollution Research Unit. Chris recently completed 24. Glendinning & Muthesius, To1JJer Hlock, 31, 104 & 107; 59. H/H/29, HTPCM 2.July 1956; HAD H/C/56, Hackney the Society of Apothecaries' Diploma in Medical History. M. Binney, To11;17 I-fo11Ses: el)olutiol7 and /n1701;a!zon in 80Oyea1'.r MBC minutes, 25 Jul y 1956. of domestic architecture (1998), 142-3 . 60. H/H/31, f-lTPCM 3 November 1958. Sally England joined Hackney Archives on a temporary 18 month contract six years ago and is still 25. Festival of Britain: HAD I-I/H/24, HTPCM 3 March (1 1. H/H/32, f-lTPCM 4.January 1960. there in her now permanent role as local studies librarian. A regular contributor to 1952; Robinson, T//Jentieth Cmtury Buzlrlzngs in J--Iackney, 68. 62. l;orshaw & Abercrornbie, Comity of Lo11do11 Plan, 79; Hacknry Hz:rtory, Official publi cations: LCC, Administmtive Cou111)1 of London Watson, T--fackney T-flslm y 11 (2005), 33. she also edits a fortnightly local history page for the council's Hacknry Today newspaper, and co-runs Development Plan (195 1); Ministry of Housing and Local 63. Mander, Strmgth in the T0111CJ; 11 6. an online business dealing in early 20'h century ceramics (www.beauville.co.uk). Government, Houses: 3rd supplement to the 1949 J--Io11si11g 64. S. Rasmussen, London: the 11niq11e city (1948). Mam1al (1953). 65. Es her, Broken lf½rve, 105-7. John Goldsmith FRIBA was born in Bow into a family of road transport contractors, and joined 26.J. Burnett,A Social Histmy of Housing 1815-1985 (1986), 66. HAD H/H/21, HTPCM 7 February 1949. the architectural department of Shoreditch Borough Council, where he designed low cost terraces 300; Glendinning & Muthesiu s, To1JJer Block, 29-34; 67. H/H/29, HTPCM 2July 1956. Bullock, Building the Pos/))Jar World, 160-4. 68. Muthesius, Hmkney T--listo17 13 (2007), 42. Mention is and a 'point' block. After National Service in the Royal Engineers and a spell as an architect in the 27. Buccleuch House: Hacknry Gazette, 15 October 195 1. made of Shoreditc h council's concern with small details City, he co-founded an independent practice, most recently specialising in residential and church 28. HAD H/H/21, HTPCM 7 February 1949. of new buildings. projects. 29. G. Orwell , Om;e/f.· the Ohserveryear'.r (2003), 71. 69 . G lemlinning & Muthes iu s, ToJ}}er H/oik, Gazetteer 1, 30. N. Bullock, 'Pragments of Utopia', 53-6. 346-50. resident in Hackney since 1981, is secretary of the Friends of Clapton 31. Hack11ey Gazette, 25 February 1949. 70. T he Stafford Cripps Estate was in the central area where Julia Lafferty, 32. HAD H/H/24, HTPCM 31 December 195 1; Hacknry the planning density was the highest in London at 200 Cinematograph Theatre (dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Hackney's oldest cinema Gazette, 15 October 19 51. persons an acre: The Architectr'.Journal, 25 February 1954, building), a member of the Clapton Conservation Areas Advisory Committee and Clapton Pond 33. H/H/23, HTPCM 30 April 195 1. 246. Neighbourhood Action Group, and a committee member for the Sutton House Society. Her article 34. Timmins, 1-'ive Giants, 147-8. Ceiling heights : all uded to 71. Burnett, A Social History of Ho11sing 1815-198 5, ]02. on the industrialist, philanthropist and anti-slavery campaigner Harper Twelvetrees appeared in in Muthesius, Hackney J--Lstory 13, 47 . 72. Glendinning & Muthesius, "101JJer Block, 162 . Hacknry History 13. 35. Holmans, Ho11si11g Policy, 11 9-20; Timmins, I ·ive Giants, 73. HAD H/H/33, HTPCM 5 September 1960. 180-2. 36. HAD H/H/23, HTPCM 3 July 1950 & 30 April 195 1; Michael Passmore is currently researching for a PhD at the Institute of Historical Research, H/H/25, .HTPCM 1 December 1952, 2 February 1953; London University. His subject is council housing, particularly the conflict between some London H/C/52, Hackney MBC minutes, 25 February 1953. local authorities and central government over controversial policy changes (http: //www.history. 37. F-lmkney Gazette, 30 January 1952. ac.uk/about/michael-passmore). His previous postgraduate research was on the house-building 38. HAD H/H/25, HTPCM 25 September and 1 December 1952. programmes of boroughs during the postwar period, especially Hackney, and their impact on the 39. Hackney Gazette, 30 January 1952. built environment. 40. HAD H/H/24, HTPCM 3 March 1952. 41. Hackney Gazette, 14 March 1952. Philip Sugden is a full-time writer and researcher who lives in Yorkshire. He was a contributor 42. H ackney Gazelle, 26 Augus t 1953. to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and is the author of The Complete History of Jack the 43. Hackmy Gazette, 16 November 1953. 44. Hackmy Gazette, 7, 16 & 21 Janu ary 1953. Ripper (3'J edition, 2002). He is currently working on a study of Jack Sheppard and the criminal 45. Hackney Gazelle, 19 June 1957. underworld of 18th century London. 46. HAD H/H/27, 28 & 29 appointment of chairmen. 47. H / H /26, HTPCM 1 February 1954. Robert H. Thompson, who has regularly contributed articles about coins and tokens to Hacknry 48. H/H/21, HTPCM 7 February 1949. Hist01y and the Hacknry Terrier, continues towards publication of the Middlesex 17th-century tokens 49. H/H/26 & 27, HTPCM 3 May & 6 September 1954. 50. H/H/26, HTPCM 2 June 1954. in the Norweb Collection. In 2009 he contributed to a conference in Dresden on Numismatics 51. H/H/27, HTPCM 2 May 1955. and Monetary History in the Age of the Enlightenment, and to the 14th International Numismatic 52. H/H/28, 1-ITPCM 1 June 1955. Congress in Glasgow, having attended all since the 7th, Copenhagen, 1967. 53. Robinson, T1n ntieth Cmtt11y B1ti/di11gs in Hackney, 77.

62 63 Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the fo llowing for permission to reproduce images: for pictures on pages 15 and 17, the Institution of Technology and E ngineering; page 18, Circus Space; pages 43 to 49, John Goldsmith. The picture of Tower Court on page 56 is© Chris D orley-Brown (www.modrex.com). Other images appear by permission of the London borough of Hackney, Archives Department.

In compiling the material for this iss ue we are as ever in the debt of the staff of Hackney Archives - Libby Adams, Sally England, Elizabeth Green and Sian Mogridge. Jacqueline Bradshaw-Price, Graham Frankel and Younes Hilmi gave invaluable assistance with images, and Jacqueline designed the cover. Thanks also to Jose phine Boyle for indispensable assistance with production.

The Friends of Hackney Archives

The Friend s, an independent charity run by volunteers, was formed in 1985 to support the work of Hackney Archives and act as a focus for local history in Hackney, Stoke Newington and Shoreditch. Through the donations fund the Friends have purchased a wide range of archive and printed material for the local hi story collection, including manuscripts, estate records, playscripts, pictures and printed books, and, notably, two important collections of theatre posters.

Membership is £10 per year (£20 for overseas members). Members receive the regular newsletter The H ack111!)1 Terrier and the annual journal Hack111!)1 History. Meetings are arranged from time to time.

Enquiries can be addressed to the Friends of Hackney Archives c/ o Hackney Archives Department, 43 de Beauvoir Road N1 5SQ, telephone (020) 7241 2886, email [email protected] k.

Other publications

Some back numbers of Hacknry History are still in print at £ 4.00 each. A li st of these and their contents is available on request.

Bill Hall's DVDs - Stoke Ne1vi11gton; Church Street: the narron1n;qy (about the old centre of Hackney) and ,-.our I-Iacknry Houses (about Brooke House, Balmes House, Shacklewell manor house, and Barbers Barn) - are £6.95 each.

Discover Stoke Ne1vi11gto11 by David Mander and Isobel Watson, and Under Hack111!f the Archaeological Story by Keith Sugden and Kieron Tyler are £4.9 5. T he leafl ets Disco1;er De Rea11voir ToJV11 and Historic H ack1Zf!)'." a walkjirom Hackm(y Central Station are£1 each.

Please check the website (www.hackney.gov.u k/archives) or contact Hac kney Archives Department as above for availabili ty and postage.

64