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Recent
Labour Heritage Events
Essex Conference on Labour History October 2005
West London Labour Heritage Day School November 2005
Labour Heritage West London Day School
Labour in Essex conference
Women and Labour AGM Conference 22 March 2003
The Labour party in the Northwest 1 March 2003
‘Labour and popular culture in London’ – Labour heritage
day school held at the London metropolitan archives 23rd
November 2002
Labour heritage day school on the history of the Labour
movement in West London 19 October 2002
Labour heritage conference on the history of the Labour
movement in Essex 26 October 2002
ESSEX CONFERENCE ON LABOUR HISTORY OCTOBER 2005
The fourth Essex Conference on Labour History, run by
the Essex County Labour Party and Labour Heritage was
held on Saturday 22nd October at the Latton Bush Centre
in Harlow. It was attended by over 60 people from all
over the county. The theme was the 60th anniversary of
Labour’s 1945 election victory.
The 1945 General Election in Essex
The first speaker was John Gyford, historian and former
Essex County Councillor on “The 1945 General Election in
Essex”.
Labour contested 24 out of the 26 Essex constituencies,
winning 21 or 85% of seats contested. Labour did not
contest Chelmsford which had been won by a candidate
from the Common Wealth Party in an earlier by-election
in 1945, nor did it contest Woodford, Winston
Churchill’s seat. This was a marked contrast to the
situation in the 1935 general election when Labour had
won only 8 of the Essex constituencies. There had been
some redrawing of boundaries between 1935 and 1945.
It is difficult to imagine today that there was a three
week delay between polling day and the election results
being announced in 1945, as the forces’ votes were
awaited.
Labour’s election tactics in Essex had been influenced
by the debates around “left unity” – according to John
“calls for left unity are often a very divisive thing ”!
Should there be one ‘left’ candidate running against the
Conservatives? There was a lot of discussion on what the
future for Britain should be after the end of the war.
Also, due to the wartime electoral truce between Labour
and the Conservatives, there had been a number of
non-official Labour and other left wing candidates in
by-elections, some of whom had been successful . Who was
on the left? To be included were the Labour Party, the
Communist Party, the Co-op Party and the Common Wealth
Party, but what about the Liberal Party? In the main
they would be asked to stand down! This they usually
refused to do. However candidates from the left had won
by-elections in Chelmsford in 1945 and Maldon in 1942.
In fact there had been 50-60 such challenges to the
wartime electoral pact throughout the country.
Chelmsford and Maldon
In Maldon Tom Driberg had launched his own organisation
named the Maldon Constituency Association. This did not
comprise former Labour supporters. He had been elected
as MP for Maldon in 1942. In the meantime the Labour
Party had adopted a candidate in 1938 for the Maldon
constituency but he was in a Japanese prisoner of war
camp in 1945. A “left unity” conference was held in
Braintree to debate the Maldon situation. This was
attended by representatives from the Labour Party,
trades councils, trades unions, Communist Party and
Common Wealth Party. The outcome was that Tom would be
adopted as the official Labour Party candidate on the
condition that he joined the Party after his selection.
This is what happened but the officers of the Maldon CLP
were not happy and they resigned.
In Chelmsford a Labour candidate had been adopted in
1944 but when the sitting Conservative MP was killed in
action in 1945 he did not contest the by-election.
However the Common Wealth Party candidate, Wing
Commander Ernest Millington did contest the election and
won.
The Common Wealth Party had been founded by Sir Richard
Acland after 1942. It was concerned with post-war
reconstruction, its membership was largely idealistic
and not from a Labour Party background. Many members
were middle class professionals who saw themselves as
consumers and managers rather than workers. Their
attachment to socialism was from a moralistic rather
than class point of view. A conference was called in
London to resolve the dilemma in Chelmsford and, as the
local Labour Party was already divided between two
candidates, it was decided that Labour would not contest
the seat. The sitting Common Wealth candidate won.
However within a year he had applied for the Labour whip
in the House of Commons.
Labour had little time to prepare for the 1945 general
election which was held in July. Boundary changes meant
that new constituencies were set up just months before
the election. Also the Party had virtually shut down
between 1939 and 1945 when there had been no meetings.
How would the Party relate to Driberg’s organisation
which had branches over all Essex? Few constituencies
had any form of transport. Election propaganda was via
public meetings as there was no TV in those days. There
were many meetings. The Labour candidate for Saffron
Walden held 12 meetings a night for 3 weeks. One was
attended by 1500 people. Ray Gunter held over 20
meetings in South East Essex. Some meetings were rowdy
with heckling on all sides. The outcome of the election
had not been expected. Changed political attitudes on a
national scale affected the favourable result for Labour
but there were local changes in population including the
large number of wartime evacuees in Essex.
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Labour’s surprising election victory
The second speaker was Norman Howard, a former
councillor, GLC Councillor and assistant secretary of
the Post Office Engineering Union, who joined the Labour
League of Youth in 1945. He gave an overview of
“Labour’s surprising election victory”. Norman was an
evacuee in Newton Abbott, Devon and remembers a meeting
addressed by Stafford Cripps and attended by over 2,000
people.
He said that the political swing to Labour began after
the 1935 general election, when Labour had won 8 million
votes, the same as in 1929, having lost ground in 1931.
In the late 1930s Labour won a number of key
by-elections. But after 1939 the Party organisation
collapsed, Constituency Labour Parties did not meet,
subs were not collected and there was an election truce
even at local level. However trades union membership did
increase as did the number of people in work. Social
trends and attitudes were not documented during the war
as students and researchers were called up.
However at government level Labour held 18 important
positions as part of the war time coalition. Attlee was
effectively Churchill’s deputy and ran the country when
he was abroad. Ernest Bevin was the Minister for Labour,
Herbert Morrison ran the Home Office, and even Stafford
Cripps was in charge of aircraft production. Hence
Labour had a lot of influence in the war time government
and the chance to influence events after the end of the
war. Labour’s policies on social security, health,
employment and regional planning were put into practice
during this war time period. The Beveridge Report was
commissioned. What could be done in wartime could also
be done in peace time. There would be no return to the
1930s. Michael Young an officer from PEP (Politics and
Planning) was taken on by Attlee to work at the Labour
Party HQ and he had an input into “Let us face the
future”, Labour’s election manifesto.
Labour candidates, once selected had to return to the
armed forces. Jim Callaghan, for instance who was
selected as Labour candidate for a Cardiff seat, was
away in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) until 1945. Denis Healey was
in Italy when he wrote a letter to his Yorkshire
constituency, on the basis of which he was adopted. Tony
Crosland was sent 14 letters from constituencies
inviting him to a selection meeting but he was not able
to reply to any of them. In January 1945 150
constituencies had no candidate. There were only two
months between VE day and the general election.
There were also enormous problems in constructing an
electoral roll. Wartime identity cards were used as the
basis for this but there had been so much movement that
it was an impossible task. Tons of ballot papers were
flown out to the armed forces. Every unit had an
election officer and 57% of the forces ballots were
returned compared to a 72% civilian turnout. The Army
Education Service played a role in political education
at a time when ballot papers did not include the party
of the candidates, alongside the names.. In the forces
issues such as housing and health were discussed –all
issues for post-war reconstruction. There were memories
of how the “homes fit for heroes” promised after the end
of World War 1 had not materialised. This was not to
happen again.
Labour’s victory was achieved in spite of the most
radical manifesto of all time. A young conference
delegate from Reading, Ian Mikardo had been chastised by
Herbert Morrison for moving a resolution which was
carried, calling for more nationalisation to go into the
manifesto. This will cost us the election he said – but
it did not!
The Labour Government carried all its manifesto
commitments, except for the nationalisation of steel. In
1951 Labour’s vote was higher than that of any political
party before or after, even though the election was
lost.
In the afternoon Michael Foot had been due to speak but
unfortunately he was ill and unable to attend. Stan
Newens, chair of Labour Heritage stepped in at short
notice to give a talk on 1945 in the Epping
Constituency. (Stan’s speech in full follows this
report).
This was followed by a discussion with contributions
from those in the audience who had memories of 1945
including the former headmaster of Latton Bush
comprehensive school, which had occupied the buildings
in which the conference took place, before it was
closed.
Finally the BBC video “How Churchill lost the peace” was
shown. This contained comments from Denis Healey ,
Winston Churchill’s daughter, Clement Attlee’s daughter
and Derek Clark, who in 1945 was a campaigner for the
independent candidate against Churchill but later became
a leading Labour personality in Epping.
The Epping Divisional Labour Party and the 1945 General
Election
The original Epping constituency or division, as it was
more commonly called in past times, was created in 1885
and included Chingford, Wanstead and Woodford, Chigwell,
Buckhurst Hill and Loughton, Waltham Abbey, Epping and
Harlow, plus all the villages around Epping and Harlow.
It was largely rural but included attractive suburban
developments in the south. It was a huge area.
Throughout its existence from 1885-1945, it was a
bastion of Conservative strength, never once failing to
return a Conservative MP to the House of Commons. The
boundary division just prior to 1945 divided it into
Woodford which included Wanstead, Chigwell, Buckhurst
Hill and Loughton) and Epping which included Chingford,
Waltham Abbey, Epping, Harlow and the villages.
Winston Churchill, who been the MP for the old Epping
division, opted to stand for Woodford, but it was taken
for granted that the new Epping seat would be a safe
Conservative seat. There was a tradition in the area of
giving scant toleration to anyone who questioned the
Tory hegemony which went back a long way. In August 1889
the National Liberal Federation’s van visited the area
and was surrounded by a hostile crowd of 200. According
to the Loughton and District Advertiser “a drunken lout
without a coat came up and demanded to know what right
the Liberal contingent had to upset the peace”. When
told that they wanted no disturbance , he took out a bag
of flour and hurled it in the face of the speaker. Other
members of the crowd joined in while two policemen
looked on and did nothing. There were subsequent
protests but nothing of substance.
In later elections there were also disturbances. Sir
Henry Selwyn-Ibbetson MP claimed to represent the
working classes because he employed so many of them! In
these times there was no Labour presence but meetings
were held. The Independent Labour Party had a branch
before World War 1 and Clement Attlee had spoken in
Epping Market Place in June 1911
Early days for Labour in Epping
The Epping Divisional Labour Party was first founded in
the early months of 1920, based effectively in the
southern party of the division – Chingford, Woodford and
Buckhurst Hill. A Labour candidate was put forward for
the first time for Epping in the October 1924 General
Election – a school teacher from Kingston, Mr Mcphie.
The result was :
W.S.Churchill (Con) 19,243
G.C.Sharp (Lib) 10.,080
JRM Mcphie 3,268
The Tory majority was 9,763 and Labour lost its deposit.
In 1929 Labour again fought the Epping seat and chose as
its candidate Walton Newbold, a former communist who had
contested Motherwell in Scotland. Bert Lee , a Labour
stalwart recorded the campaign.
‘I was chairman of the (Chingford) branch then and at an
election meeting at North Chingford, the place was
packed with Tories. Newbold, anticipating this had
brought along a large Union Jack which he placed in
front of the platform. I had just opened the meeting and
called on him to speak when there was uproar from the
Tory sections of the audience. They accused Newbold of
insulting the Monarchy by having the Union Jack on a
socialist platform. After repeated interruptions, off
came his jacket and he said he would fight anyone who
interrupted again! Pandemonium broke out in the hall
when Newbold quoted Churchill’s words on the Tory party
whilst he was a Liberal. – “a party of real vested
interests banded together in a formidable federation:
corruption at home and aggression abroad.” Newbold came
off the platform to get among the audience. There was
panic and men and women scrambled to get out of the
hall. He then made a fighting speech to those who
remained’.
Bert Lee refused to chair any more meetings for him.
The election result was :
Conservative 23,972
Liberal 19,005
Labour 6,472
Labour did not lose its deposit this time but came a
poor third.
In 1931 and 1935 James Ranger was the Labour
parliamentary candidate. The result in 1935 was –
Conservative 34,849
Liberal 14,450
Labour 9,748
1945
James Ranger did not contest Epping again but won Ilford
South for Labour in 1945.
The new Epping Divisional Labour Party was established
in April 1945. A selection conference was called and
attended by 13 delegates. They selected Leah Manning, a
former president of the National Union of Teachers, MP
for Islington for a new months in 1931 and an NUT
official. She was then 59 years of age and had given up
hope of becoming an MP. She had offered to fight a seat
where there was no hope of winning and not one where she
might be made to look like a fool. Initially she
rejected fighting Epping on the grounds that it was
Churchill’s seat, but when it became clear that he would
be the candidate for Woodford she relented.
Epping was regarded as a certainty for the Tories but
there had been a number of population changes since
1935. A new London County Council estate had been built
in Chingford, there were a number of servicemen based at
the North Weald Aerodrome and there had been an influx
of evacuees from London. These people would have been
inclined to vote Labour, but in addition there had been
a revival of socialist activity in the division,
fostered by the Workers Education Association. Activists
included farm worker Chris Morris in Epping. Labour
Party branches which had become defunct were revived and
public meetings were organised in every part of the
constituency, including the villages and they were
packed with supporters. Canvassing was carried out and
provided very encouraging returns, Polling day was July
5th but as with the rest of the country, the result was
not announced until July 26th to allow the forces vote
to be included.
When the count began, Leah Manning greeted the Tory
candidate with the words “..we are running neck to neck,
if not nose to nose”. The Liberal candidate had already
conceded defeat. In the end the result was –
Leah Manning (Labour) 15,993
Lt.Col. A.R.Wise (Conservative) 15,006
Sir Sydney Robinson (Liberal) 5,314
This was a big change from 1935 when Labour in the old
Epping division had come a poor third and the
Conservatives had had a majority of over 20,000.
The sheer joy of Labour supporters knew no bounds. Chris
Morris, captain of the bell-ringers as well as chairman
of the Epping CLP, immediately arranged for the church
bells in Epping to be rung to celebrate the triumph.
I was working picking peas in a remote field at Theydon,
accessible only by an earth track. All day long the
workforce, working class women, a few elderly men and a
couple of teenagers like myself had no news. Then in the
late afternoon I saw a man pedalling his bicycle
furiously down the track. As he got to the field the
raised his arms up in the air and shouted “They’re in!
They’re in!” No-one was in any doubt who was in and they
cheered and cheered. This however masked the deep shock
suffered by that part of the community which had always
voted Conservative.
Lean Manning turned out to be an excellent spokeswoman
on education, foreign affairs and women’s issues. She
sometimes voted against the whip when she thought that
the government had got it wrong. She was a first rate
constituency MP also. She supported the nationalisation
of the utilities which provided electricity, gas and
water for homes which had previously lacked it. She
supported the NHS. She campaigned for the designation of
Harlow as a new town. She became a critic of Ernest
Bevin and voted against the American loan to the British
government. She wholeheartedly supported Indian
independence and revisited Spain where she had helped to
evacuate children to Britain during the Spanish Civil
War.
Despite building a magnificent personal profile and
winning the respect of a large number of her
constituents of all parties, Lean Manning did not
however succeed in penetrating the Tory bedrock in the
Epping constituency. In spite of a tremendous campaign
she lost the seat in the 1950 General Election. The
results were:-
Nigel Davies (Conservative) 24,292
Leah Manning (Labour) 20,385
Peter Lewis (Liberal) 4,755
The hatred that Leah’s 1945 victory caused was shown at
the count, when two Tory women spat in her face, and
afterwards when a group of North Weald Conservatives
burnt her effigy. Harlow new town was receiving
newcomers who were often Labour but the servicemen and
evacuees from 1945 had departed and in some cases were
no longer voting Labour.
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The legacy of 1945
However the 1945-50 Labour Government had achieved a
peaceful revolution in Britain, which set up the welfare
state and the NHS, brought a rebirth to coal mining,
rail transport, electricity, gas, water and other
utilities by nationalising them, provided many hundreds
of thousands of new homes at affordable prices for
people in need of housing or re-housing in new towns,
transformed the education system offering new
opportunities to a vast number of young people, gave
support to agriculture and laid the basis for improving
the environment by insisting on the green belt and
planned development in the countryside.
This was not the ‘lost decade’ as the BBC has suggested
but the most constructive and fruitful decade of the
20th century, in which the basis for a caring community
was laid, until the 1980s when Mrs Thatcher began to
dismantle it.
The general election victory in Epping in 1945 also laid
the basis for a strong Labour presence in the
constituency on which I was able to build to win the
1964 election, as Leah Manning’s only successor –the
only other Labour MP for Epping that there has ever
been.
1945 was a seminal victory for the labour movement in
Britain. It represented the triumph of the fledgling
insignificant little party that was launched in 1900 and
it fulfilled the visions and dreams of a century of
pioneers. Like Moses they never lived to see the
promised land ; their endeavours were based on the faith
that generations to come after them would reap the
harvest they had sown.
In reviewing and celebrating the 1945 General Election
victory, we are hopefully reminding ourselves where we
came from and what the direction of our movement should
be. Our day of reflection on the history of what
occurred sixty years ago has been designed to restore
and revive the idealism which was realised in that
singular triumph. Even if many of us here do not live to
see it, I am convinced that it will come again.
Stan Newens (October 2005)
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West London Labour Heritage Day School November 2005
The 4th West London Labour Heritage Day School was held
on Saturday 26th November at Ruskin Hall, Church Rd,
Acton.
It was opened by Mike Elliott, the current mayor of
Ealing and a member of Labour Heritage. He spoke on the
changing roles of mayors, past and present.
Traditionally the role of the mayor had been a civic
one, not political. In some cases selection was based on
seniority and not necessarily from the majority party.
Most mayors stayed in post for a year, but some had
continued for more. It was a busy time – Mike said that
he is glad he is retired, as he has taken on over 300
engagements during his time as mayor.
Four London boroughs now have directly elected mayors.
This idea was narrowly rejected in Ealing. It has been
found that where there is a political mayor another
civic post has had to be created for the traditional
mayoral activities. Newham for instance has a civic
ambassador. The public enjoyed the ceremonial role of
the traditional mayor, especially school children who
loved the robes!
There followed a discussion on the issue of directly
elected mayors. Mike made the point that it was an
American concept and invested too much power in the
hands of one person. This reduced the role of elected
councillors and went against the whole concept of the
celebration of diversity which is Mike’s theme in his
year as mayor.
Following on from the Labour Heritage AGM and Essex
Conference in October, the day school in Acton returned
to the theme of the 60th anniversary of Labour’s 1945
election victory.
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Army Bureau of Current Affairs
The first speaker was Len Snow, a former mayor of Brent,
who spoke on that Army Education Corps and the Army
Bureau of Current Affairs. This was set up in 1941 to
improve morale in the armed forces by providing a medium
for discussing what life would be like in post-war
Britain. Fortnightly pamphlets were sent to army units
and lieutenants were expected to lead discussions on
themes such as “Rebuilding London after the war” and
“Rebuilding our schools”. Other subjects included the
trades unions, the press, the Beveridge Report and birth
control. Members of the Communist Party were active in
these discussion groups and it has been argued that they
played a role in delivering the forces’ vote for Labour
in 1945.
Much of the mood in the armed forces was there amongst
the civilian population as well – there was a “sense of
community”, “common cause in peacetime as in war”, the
view that the government had to promote equality. There
was also respect for the role that the Soviet Union had
played in the War . Voters refused to forget the pre-war
Tory decade of unemployment and appeasement. The trade
unions also played a role. Workers in aircraft factories
in Acton, such as Napiers, were well organised and again
the Communist Party was very active.
Len said that both Brent constituencies went Labour in
1945. Brent South however was lost to the Tories in the
general election of 1951. Labour lost overall in 1951,
although it polled more votes than in 1945. Was this due
to disillusionment with austerity and the continuation
or rationing? Or was it the changed electoral boundaries
on which the 1951 General Election was fought, which
cost Labour many seats? Labour gained more votes in 1951
than in 1945.
Len also mentioned the RAF mutiny over demobilisation in
India. This incident involved members of the CP in the
armed forces based in Karachi. The full story is on the
Socialist History website
http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/
By-elections during World War 2
The second speaker was Bill Bolland, member of Acton and
Shepherds Bush CLP who spoke on by-elections during
World War 2. In spite of an electoral truce between the
main political parties at Westminster under which
by-elections were supposed to uncontested, out of 141
by-elections between 1939 and 1945 75 were contested.
There was a total of 104 opposition candidates.
By-elections posed many problems. The electoral roll was
out of date – many 21 year olds were not on it, whilst
people who had died were. Paper for campaigning material
was rationed, as was petrol. This proved difficult in
rural areas –often giving wealthy farmers the upper
hand. But the worst obstacle was the attitude of the
Prime Minister , Winston Churchill who regarded a
contested by-election as a form of treason. Attlee had a
more relaxed attitude, and even Beaverbrook was
supportive of opposition candidates. In other countries
general elections were held in wartime.
Up until 1942 opposition candidates tended to be from
fringe parties often with an axe to grind. Some were
pacifists – others outright fascists, and others wanted
to campaign for a more efficient war effort.
Nevertheless they were polling up to 20% of the vote. An
opposition candidate in Kings Norton who campaigned on
the idea of lighting up the entrance to the English
Channel so that German pilots would be dazzled and crash
into the sea won no less than 37% of the vote in a
by-election. In Brighton a candidate campaigning to
increase the government’s guaranteed 10% rate of profit
for wartime businesses won 52% of the vote. There were
two successful by-election opposition candidates in
Rugby and Wallasey.
After 1942 serious anti-Tory candidates contested seats.
This included Tom Driberg in Maldon. In the same year
the Common Wealth Party was set up. Led by Sir Richard
Acland who provided much of the finance it had 12,500
members, over 300 branches and 68 prospective
candidates. The rate of contested by-elections increased
with 7 in one week in 1943. The Common Wealth Party was
regularly winning 30-40% of the vote or more.
Bill concluded his speech in 1943 but has a lot more
material going up to 1945 which we hope to publish in
future issues of the bulletin.
1945 on Acton Council
In the afternoon Phil Portwood, a local councillor,
spoke on the council elections in Acton in 1945.
Acton had changed due to industrialisation in the early
part of the 20th century. Formerly the centre of the
laundry industry, it became the largest engineering
centre in the country south of Coventry. During World
War 2 Napier’s, now the site of the Acton Vale housing
estate was one of the largest aircraft engineering
factories. It had a strong trades union presence and was
also a base for the Communist Party.
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Acton Council consisted of 4 wards, each with 6
councillors. South-West ward was a Labour stronghold,
returning 6 councillors unopposed by 1938. Council
elections were held on a rotating basis, so some
councillors came up for election every year. The other
wards were mixed with a growing trend towards Labour in
the 1930s. The leader of the Labour Group on Acton
Council was Joe Sparks- a former railway clerk with the
Great Western Railway. He was also to become Acton’s
first Labour MP. Other Labour councillors included Tom
Newson and Barry Barwick. There were no council
elections during 1939-45, the war years, but there was
also no “consensus coalition spirit” in Acton. There
were vigorous debates on deep air raid shelters and
British restaurants, where families of working mothers
could obtain cheap meals. Joe Sparks used to talk of
fighting Hitler and the Tories! The Acton Tories feared
that a coalition on the council would give Labour too
much power in a situation where Labour was rapidly
gaining ground. Labour councillors were able to push
through some important policies – compulsory purchase of
houses for nurseries (some still exist today) and a deep
shelter on Acton Green. Increasingly the Tories became
tired and irrelevant. In 1945 due to the end of the
wartime election truce most council seats in Acton were
to come up for election. Ted Bramley of the local
Communist Party wanted an election pact with Labour
whereby he would not stand as a parliamentary candidate
in order for a free run for CP councillors in South West
ward. In the end there was a contest in this ward and
the 2 CPers lost to Labour by 100 votes. There were no
Tory candidates in this ward. Labour took all other
wards and a clean sweep of the council. In 1946 the
Aldermen were abolished. Labour was to retain control of
Acton Council until it was merged into the Borough of
Ealing in 1964.
The Communist Party was to disappear as an influence in
Acton politics but it had played a key role during the
wartime years due to the base in Napiers’. CP members in
the factory took on shop stewards positions, were
prepared to do the work and could convince their
workmates that change was possible. When the Soviet
Union entered the war CP members argued for increased
productivity to support the war effort, but they were
also concerned with workplace issues such as the quality
of the tea. Later on the Cold War kicked in but still
towns in the UK stayed twinned with towns in the Soviet
Union and in 1952 the Soviet government send funds to
flood victims in the UK.
Labour election victories in 1945 in South-West
Middlesex
The final speaker was John Grigg, a former councillor
and member of Acton and Shepherds Bush CLP. He gave an
outline of the 1945 victory quoting from Norman Howard’s
recently published book “New Dawn”. The atmosphere of
the election was completely different from those held
recently. There was no slick marketing, no opinion
polls, and no sudden shift of opinion as Labour had been
gaining seats since 1936. There was a collectivist
spirit – a better society was possible.
Locally in West London (South West Middlesex) Labour
candidates did very well. Francis Noel Baker was the
Labour candidate for Brentford and Chiswick. During his
campaign thousands of people turned up to Brentford
football ground to hear Ernest Bevin outline an
emergency programme for housing. He also welcomed the
wartime contribution from the Soviet Union and predicted
that rationing would soon end. The Labour candidate won
the constituency turning a former Conservative majority
of 8,000 into a 4,500 Labour one. Bill Williams an
officer with the Post Office Engineering Union contested
Heston and Isleworth. He announced that the “sun of
socialism would soon rise above the horizon”. Opposing
Reg Maudling a future Tory cabinet minister, he won by
6,500 votes.
In Ealing West James Hudson, a former MP for
Huddersfield who “had no difficulty in dealing with
hecklers”, won the seat for Labour with a 17,000
majority. His Tory opponent had claimed that “ free
enterprise had developed Greenford, Perivale and
Northolt” and should be allowed a free reign again.
Vigorous election activity was reported in Greenford on
election day. In Ealing East however the Tory candidate
won with a 4,000 majority. A man with a dubious
political past he had had links with pro-fascist
organisations such as the Anglo-German Friendship
Society. Acton was won for Labour by Joe Sparks, and
George Pargiter won Spelthorne with a 9,000 majority. In
Southall, Walter Ayles ( a fiery speaker) won for Labour
with a 24,000 majority,
The theme of the Tory campaign was an end to war time
controls and to let private enterprise do the job.
“State control is odious”, they claimed. They also hoped
to win on the basis of Churchill having been the wartime
leader. Labour stressed that government organisation
would win the peace just as it had won the war. There
should be no return to the Tories and mass unemployment.
Poverty was as bad as Hitler and socialism had been
demonstrated in wartime. Tory meetings were frequently
disrupted by hecklers.
Of the 9 seats in South West Middlesex Labour won 7,
losing only Ealing East and Twickenham. In 1935 Labour
had not held any seats in this area.
How important was the services’ vote? 3,000 services
votes in each constituency would have balanced some
marginal seats but not when there were large majorities.
This complete change of political alignment was mainly
won on the home-front over years.
Finally Attlee heard about the extent of his election
victory on the 6 o’clock news on the day that result was
declared.
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Labour Heritage West London Day School
Labour Heritage held a day school in Ruskin Hall, Acton
on Saturday 13th December to commemorate the 60 years
anniversary of the 1943 Acton by-election. This
by-election was held during World War 2 and challenged
the electoral pact between the Labour and Conservative
parties. When the Conservative MP – Hubert Duggan died,
the official Labour Party position was not to contest
the seat. However the local branch of the Independent
Labour Party selected Walter Padley, the party national
industrial organizer to fight the election.
Bill Bolland, member of Labour Heritage and Acton and
Shepherds Bush CLP spoke on the research which he has
conducted on Walter Padley and the 1943 by-election.
This has included reports from the local Gazette and
from talking to relatives of Walter Padley who are still
alive.
Walter Padley was an industrial organizer with a large
amount of support from the shop stewards at Napiers, an
engineering firm located in Acton Vale. During the war
he had been a conscientious objector believing the war
to be imperialist in its aims. However he had also been
rejected by a medical board for military service on the
grounds that he suffered from asthma. The by-election
was held in unusual circumstances on an electoral roll
which had not been updated since 1937. Local people
serving in the forces could vote using their last
civilian address in Acton. Initially there were six
candidates but the independent labour and liberal
candidates withdrew leaving Walter Padley, an Edward
Godfrey reported as a founder of the pro-Geman British
Nationalist Party, a Dorothy Crisp who wrote for the
Sunday Dispatch and the official Conservative candidate
– Henry Longhurst. Walter Padley held public meetings in
Acton and ILP speakers such as Jimmy Maxton spoke to an
audience of 100 people. Padley defended the decision to
fight a by-election – after all other countries involved
in the War such as Australia and the USA had held
general elections.
He rejected the anti-patriotic labels – his Tory
opponent Longhurst, he pointed out, had visited Germany
on a golfing holiday and had praised Hitler. Winston
Churchill made a point of writing to the local Gazette
calling for a Conservative victory. When election day
came the turn out was 20%. Longhurst gained 5104 votes
to Padley’s 2336. However Padley had won 28% of the
vote, the best ILP result until that date, during the
wartime years. He was selected again as an ILP candidate
for Acton in 1944. After 1945 the ILP joined with the
Labour Party and Padley was selected as a Labour
candidate, though not for Acton and went on to have a
career in the Foreign Office in the 1964-70 Wilson
government.
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The second speaker of the day was Oliver New , RMT
London Region Transport President and Southall local
activist. He spoke on the history of the labour movement
in Southall, explaining how the area had long been one
of economic change and transition. In the 1930s
emigrants from Wales sought jobs in factories such as
AEC and Quaker Oats. They often faced the same violence
and hostility from local people as the immigrants from
the Indian subcontinent who began to arrive in the
1950s. By 1965 there were over 9,000 immigrants in
Southall from the ‘New Commonwealth’ – the area changed
very quickly. Oliver spoke of the conditions in which
they worked, in factories such as Woolfs, the impact on
housing and education and the controversial issue of
bussing. In the 1960s the British National Party
attempted to organize in Southall, holding nine public
meetings.
The Indian Workers Association was set up as a welfare
organization for Asian workers and in 1967 the first
Asian councilor, Sardul Gill was elected. In the 1970s
the Labour Party moved to the left and campaigns against
racialism by the Anti-Nazi League helped to transform
the situation in Southall. The local Labour Party was on
the left with MP, Sid Bidwell. But the Asian community
itself organized itself into the labour movement,
including the Labour Party which has a large membership
but not a large active base. In recent years we have
seen the rise of Asian businessmen within the community
such as Noon and an increasingly divisive role of
religious institutions which have become more inward
looking. There was a lot of discussion on the events in
Southall on April 23rd 1979 when the National Front were
allowed by the Tories on Ealing Council to meet in the
Southall Town Hall. It was announced that 2004 would see
the 25th anniversary of this event when a teacher Blair
Peach was killed and a commemoration would take place.
The first speaker in the afternoon was Tristan Bunnell,
member of Brentford and Isleworth CLP who spoke on the
little known anarchist – Sergius Stepniak. Stepniak was
a member of the Hammersmith Socialist Society. He was an
exile from St Petersburg, having murdered the chief of
police and been involved in countless uprisings. He
ended up in Harrow on the Hill, then Hampstead where he
joined the Karl Marx Club and finally moved to Bedford
Park, Chiswick. He lived near the station and was sadly
killed by a train in 1895, aged 44. His death was
unlikely to have been suicide. He was reported to be
abandoning anarchism and was moving towards the ILP.
1895 however had been a bad year for socialists, with
the death of Engels and William Morris within a short
space of time. At this time the movement was reduced to
small groups and these deaths had a major impact. 1,000
people attended the funeral of Stepniak. He had become
known through the number of books which he had written
on the Russian peasantry and his ideals for the setting
up of rural communes. He had also written a book on how
to use dynamite!
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Len Snow, former mayor of Brent spoke on co-operation in
Brent, the subject of a recently published pamphlet
which was reviewed in the last Labour Heritage bulletin.
He explained that the pamphlet had been written as a
result of an open session of the Brent Cooperative
Party, open to the public and Labour Party members. Much
of what had been written had been recorded by word of
mouth. Len gave an outline of co-operative ideas going
back to the Levellers, the Rochdale Pioneers and Robert
Owen. Co-operation had a variety of outlets – theatre,
bookshops housing cooperatives, the Woodcraft Folk and
of course the Women’s Cooperative Guild. The Willesden
branch of he WCG had been set up in 1887. There had been
a decline in the number of co-op shops however. This
provoked a discussion on where the co-op had gone wrong.
In 1917 the Co-op Representation Committee was set up
and political neutrality was ended. This was to defend
the Co-op from political attack by the government of the
day. In 1927 an electoral agreement was made with the
Labour Party and Labour and Cooperative candidates, such
as James Hudson elected as MP for Ealing North.
John Grigg of Acton and Shepherds Bush CLP spoke on the
1897 engineers strike in Chiswick. This dispute was
described in detail in a previous issue of the Labour
Heritage bulletin. In 1864 there were 10,000 men
employed in the shipyard in Chiswick, building
destroyers for the Navy. By 1904 this had finished and
shipbuilding was moved to Southampton. The Thames was no
longer able to accommodate the larger ships.The 1897
strike affected 4-5,000 members of the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers. These men had to serve a seven
year apprenticeship, and their families rented cottages
on the Glebe estate, now a very upmarket area.
Lower paid workers lived down by the river, an area now
demolished. There had been a demarcation dispute at
Thorneycrofts between members of the ASE and the
boilermakers and this had contributed to the defeat of
the ASE members. Engineers were locked out after the
employers, Thorneycrofts refused to settle the 1897
dispute on the grounds of competition from Tyneside.
Most local employers had settled the ASE dispute for a
wage increase and an eight hour day. After the strike
was over the settlement at Thorneycrofts included the
introduction of piecework, use of unskilled labour and
the dismissed men were not reinstated. This had a
political impact on the ASE and other unions. (full
report Spring 2003 Labour Heritage bulletin).
The final speaker of the day was Sean Creighton
secretary of Labour Heritage who spoke on the Workers
Education Association with special reference to West
London. There were many branches in West London offering
classes on a range of subjects. In 1914 there were
branches in Southall, Hammersmith and Fulham offering
classes on industrial economics, economic history and
literature. There was a flurry of branches set up in
1919 – 31 in the area including Acton, Ealing, Hanwell,
Uxbridge, Harrow, Southall and Wembley. The Ealing
branch had 65 members. Membership fluctuated. In 1922
this had fallen to 44, but classes were offered in
economics, and English literature. Winter socials and
summer rambles were organized. The Hammersmith branch
had 22 members in 1922 offering music, gymnastics, drama
and monthly socials. They ran fund raising events such
as operettas. A branch in Harrow had 50 members in 1923.
In Willesden in 1921 a branch of 45 set up political
theory study circles.
There was a London District which organized meetings of
the WEA where no branch existed. A protest conference
was held on educational issues. The journal “The
Highway” published articles from members. Plays were
very popular with many branches. Language teaching for
adolescents including Esperanto as well as French and
Russian.
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In the 1930s subjects taught reflected an increased
interest in economics and an Ealing day school attracted
over 100 people to hear about the ‘five year plan in
Russis’. Another day school on ‘Can democracy control
finance’ attracted 55 people. Activity fluctuated and
often depended upon the enthusiasm of branch officers.
In 1932 a rally was held in London to oppose education
cuts by local education authorities.
However literature and drama were still popular in the
1930s – In Heston and Isleworth a day school was held on
the subject –‘From the thriller to Shakespeare’. There
were also day schools on foreign policy – the colour
question and revolution in Spain. By the late 1930s
activities were falling off but the WEA maintained
itself during the war. The WEA survived after 1945 and
in fact up to the present day. Branches exist in Ealing,
Ruislip, Uxbridge, Kilburn and Hillingdon. Subjects have
changed though. Typical classes now are – creative
writing, French for women, effective parenting and
Egyptology. In many ways the WEA is the provider of
skills rather than education – not in line with
Toynbee’s ideal of education for the citizen or
knowledge is power.
The day school ended on this note. 26 people attended
throughout the day, many of whom contributed. There was
never a dull moment!
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Labour in Essex conference
Labour Heritage and the Essex County Labour Party
organized a very successful conference for the second
year, held in the Witham Labour Hall on Saturday October
25th. The conference was chaired by John Kotz of the
Essex Labour Party and included contributions on trades
unions and farmworkers in Essex, Co-operation, the
Workers Educational Association and Conrad Noel and the
Thaxted Movement.
The first speaker was Ted Woodgate who spoke on “The
struggle of farmworkers and the impact on the labour
movement in Essex up to the outbreak of the First World
War.”
Ted gave a summary of the struggles of farmworkers in
Essex from the beginning of the 19th century and labour
shortages following the Napoleonic wars to the 1914
strike in Saffron Walden, which had first attracted his
interest in the subject. When conditions for farmworkers
were overshadowed with unemployment and starvation,
destruction of farm machinery was rife throughout the
county. Farmers feared the burning of threshing
machinery would put many labourers out of work. In the
1830s the Captain Swing riots took hold, with farmers
receiving threatening letters from a mythical “Captain
Swing”. As result of this over 100 Essex men were
arrested, 23 were transported to Australia and many more
were imprisoned. Industrial action was difficult to
sustain in the countryside, the time to strike was
during the harvest, but this would hit the farmworker
who relied on his harvest bonus to survive the winter.
Strike funds often ran out.
The 1840s were a ‘hungry decade’ but conditions for
agriculture in Britain improved in the 1850s and 1860s.
This provided a basis for agricultural trades unions and
the first new agricultural workers union was founded and
led by the Methodist lay preacher, Joseph Arch, from
Barford, Warwickshire. This was called the National
Agricultural Labourers Union and by 1872 its support had
spread to Essex. The first meeting was at Castle
Hedingham where they were refused a room at the Bell Inn
and met outdoors. Later Charles Jay of Codham Hall
became its leader in this locality. Another branch was
formed in 1872 at South Ockendon. Arthur Challis, a
shopkeeper formed a South Cambridge Union based at Great
Chesterfield. At its height the union had 3,000 members
in Essex, but the union struggled to survive the
agricultural depression of the 1890s.
Ted gave a good idea of the life of the farm worker –
life was hard, wages were low, there were no days off.
Many lived in tied houses which meant homelessness if
you lost your job. Homes were often hovels. In
retirement farm workers had only the workhouse to look
forward to. If they tried to supplement their families’
diets they faced tough anti-poaching game laws. Farm
workers were looked down as ‘country bumpkins’. They
faced the hostility of the local Tory squires, many of
who denounced agricultural unions as “communist”. This
aroused local fears of the Paris Commune of 1870. In
fact the farm workers were not militants. They
respectfully asked for wage rises! The Tory squires in
the countryside had social control and treated
‘troublemakers’ with vindictiveness. The union was often
unable to rent rooms in pubs due to the Tory influence
and had to organize open-air meetings. Union officials
were sometimes not from the land, they had held other
jobs, like being an engineer. This led the local press,
for example the ‘Essex Weekly News’ to accuse them of
being outside agitators.
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In 19th century Essex as in other parts of rural England
the political opposition were the Liberals, and some
farm workers’ leaders such as Joseph Arch were
supporters of the Liberal Party. NALU was often behind
the Liberal victories which occurred in Saffron Walden
and Maldon. However many Liberal candidates would not
acknowledge the support that they had from the union.
NALU went out of existence in the last years of the 19th
century. A new union was formed in 1906. It now had
support from the labour movement nationally, and picked
up considerable support. During the 1914 strike in
Saffron Waldon money was sent from London and speakers
such as Ben Tillett, Christabel Pankhurst and George
Lansbury went to speak at meetings of the union. The
strike ended with victory for the union on August 3rd
1914, the day before World War 1 broke out. Development
was held up until peace returned.
Malcolm Wallace spoke on the “The origins and growth of
the Co-operative movement in Essex.” Following the
foundation of the Co-operative movement by the Rochdale
pioneers in 1844, co-ops were set up all over the
country, including Essex. Often set up by groups of
workers, such as silk weavers in Halstead, the early
co-ops were set up to sell single products, such as
coal, milk or meat. Societies were formed at Braintree,
Colchester, Chelmsford, Grays, Terling, Beckton, Waltham
Abbey and Chingford. The idea was to cut out the middle
man and give all the members a share in the surplus. In
Stratford the railway workers set up a co-operative
bakery, and in 1861 a society which became very
prosperous. Many of these early co-ops however failed
financially, but others succeeded. Often participants
were not politically motivated, they were practical
people. They participated in meetings set up to organize
the co-operatives. However private shopkeepers were
predictably hostile to the co-ops, as they were seen as
a threat. The Co-operative Wholesale Society was able to
give backing to a movement of co-ops in their early
days.
Malcolm also spoke about the Co-operative Women’s Guild
and its support in Essex. By 1890 there were branches in
Colchester and Harwich and other towns soon followed
suit. They concentrated on the women’s suffrage issue
and trained women to play a role within the Co-operative
Movement. During World War 1 they campaigned against
profiteering and in the 1920s and 1930s unemployment and
malnutrition were issues. The CWG had a strong peace
commitment and invented the ‘white poppy’. The
Co-operative Movement launched itself as a political
party in 1917, as like the trades union movement it had
to fend off political attacks from the government of the
day.
Co-op shops could be found throughout the country and
the Co-op was the first to pioneer the concept of the
self service shop just after World War 2. This was first
introduced by the Romford and Barking London
Co-operative Society and spread to 90% of co-op shops.
There were many amalgamations in the 1960s and the Co-op
is still widespread in Essex.
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In the afternoon Stan Newens spoke on “Conrad Noel and
the Thaxted Movement”. Conrad Noel, a Christian
socialist was appointed to the parish of Thaxted by the
Countess of Warwick, the famous red countess of Essex,
who had been converted to socialism by Robert Blatchford,
the editor of the ‘Clarion’. Joining the Social
Democratic Federation in 1904 she used her position to
campaign for socialism by speaking at meetings and
appointing socialist vicars in Tory parishes. Noel
himself was a rebel. Bullied at school he was
anti-establishment and he received private tuition in
Latin and Greek from a Marxist, Herman Joynes, brother
of the socialist activist James Joynes. He even
distributed anarchist literature. He proclaimed that the
land belonged to all men. In the church he had his own
interpretation of heaven and earth and argued with other
colleagues. He was active in the Church Socialist League
which he helped to form and of which he became
secretary. He gave full support to the 1914 agricultural
workers strike in Saffron Waldon. Within the Church he
was an advocate of the High Church ritual. He formed the
Catholic Crusade to campaign for socialism and left wing
causes but differentiated himself from both Roman and
Anglo Catholicism.
The Thaxted Movement as it came to be called, gained
support within Essex –Braintree and Saffron Walden and
elsewhere and sent its disciples to other parts of the
country such as Stoke on Trent and London, where its
supporters made considerable impact. At Thaxted there
were great struggles particularly around the ‘battle of
the flags’ arising from Noel’s decision to put up the
red flag in his church.
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The final speaker, Sean Creighton, spoke on “One hundred
years of the Workers’ Educational Association”. This was
founded by a couple from Battersea, Albert and Frances
Mansbridge in 1903. A committee was set up consisting of
representatives from trades unions, the co-operative
movement and the university extension movement. Its aim
was to provide higher education for the working class.
It grew and by 1907 there were over 4,000 members and
600 affiliations, by 1919 it had 219 branches, 2,000
plus affiliations and 17,000 members. Albert Mansbridge
himself had started work at 14 as a clerk, he went on to
work for the Co-operative Wholesale Society and he
attended university extension classes at Toynbee Hall in
Whitechapel. He taught industrial history to his
colleagues at the CWS. He later managed to secure access
to the Toynbee Hall library for WEA students. The WEA
had its first office in the home of Albert and Frances
in Battersea before moving to the Strand.
Sean gave examples of how the WEA had taken root in
Essex, with branches in Ilford and Grays. The branches
held lectures, reading circles and visits. Lectures were
on political issues such as the Commonwealth and freedom
for India, economics and the environment. There were
socials, evening rambles and visits to museums. Most of
the students however were not involved as members. But
there was an internal life to the WEA with a regular
journal called ‘The Highway’. The Chelmsford Branch
adopted the Chartist slogan “for the education of the
people by the people”.
The 1930s saw a period of growth for the WEA and there
was great interest in international affairs. But in the
1940s decline set in. Arthur Brown an organizer was sent
from Wales to attempt to build new branches in Essex. In
1953 the Southend branch celebrated 50 years of the WEA.
Today the WEA has survived but changed as the state has
become involved. Liberal education has been replaced by
an emphasis on skills – information and communications
technology and parenting skills. Many of the students
are young and are on income support. Students are not in
control. This has bred apathy and cynicism. Success
rather than a fuller life has become the goal, with
government approval. The founders of the WEA may not
have recognized it.
The speakers were thanked for their contributions as
were members of the Braintree CLP who provided us with
lunch. It was agreed to set up a branch of Labour
Heritage in Essex, following two successful conferences.
Barbara Humphries
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Women and Labour AGM Conference 22 March 2003
The theme of the Labour Heritage AGM this year was the
history of women and the Labour movement. It was held in
the Women’s Library, now located in a former wash-house
in the East End of London.
The first speaker was Mary Davis, Professor of Labour
History at the Centre for Trade Union Studies, London
Metropolitan University. She attempted to give an
overview of women and the Labour movement from
1789-1951. Women had been in the Labour movement right
from the beginning, as cotton spinners they were amongst
the first trades unionists in the 18th century. But many
Labour histories did not account for this and assumed
that the movement had a male identity. Women’s work was
often hidden from history, they worked from home and
their domestic tasks had been essential to sustaining a
male workforce in heavy industry. Women were involved in
the Chartist movement and the general unions of the
1840s. The New Model Unions , which became the trend
from the 1850s tended to exclude women from membership
and they required long apprenticeships to be admitted to
the trade. This affected trades such as bookbinding and
engineering. Male trades unionists tended to campaign
for a ‘family wage’ so that women did not have to work.
In the 1880s when trades unionism started to grow
amongst unskilled workers, women joined – this movement
received an impetus from the Bryant and May match girls
strike, possibly as important as the Dockers’ strike of
1889. During World War 1 nurseries were opened so that
women could work to replace the men who were in the
army, but these were closed at the end of the war.
However the growth of new electrical engineering
factories in the 1920s and 1930s saw opportunities for
work for women as employers favoured workers with
‘nimble fingers’ who were good at ‘multi-skilling’.
Organisations such as the National Federation of Women
Workers were involved in the recruitment of women into
the trades union movement. Often male trades union
officials were patronizing in their attempts to recruit
women. One advert stressed that women would have more
money to ‘spend on their health and beauty’ if they
joined the union and earned more money as a result!
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Labour and the Standing Joint Committee
The second speaker was Christine Collette, a freelance
historian who spoke on the Labour Party and the Standing
Joint Committee. This was not a body that many had heard
of – it had lasted from 1918 to 1951 and had a lot of
influence. It represented women in industrial
organizations with over 1,000 members, women in the
Labour Party and the Co-operative Movement. It
affiliated directly to the Socialist International, not
to the Labour Party. By 1939 there were over 300,000
women members in the Labour Party, half of its
membership. At its peak the SJC represented over a
million women in the Labour movement. It campaigned for
more representation of women within the Labour
leadership, took up enthusiastically women’s issues such
as suffrage, birth control, protective legislation for
domestic workers and championed the cause of single
women, who were often vilified by society at the time.
Single women had different housing needs to those of
families. These were issues which the Labour Party
itself was often slow to embrace. Nevertheless the SJC
came into conflict with feminist organizations at the
time on the issue of protective legislation for women
workers. These organizations wanted equal rights as
citizens with men, not special protection.
Co-operative Women’s Guild
The third speaker was Jane Grant who has completed a
doctorate on the history of women’s organizations. She
spoke on the Co-operative Women’s Guild. This was
founded in 1883 and involved thousands of working class
women. As well as women’s issues it campaigned
consistently for peace, and was very involved in the
‘white poppy movement’. This became strained in the
1930s when pacifism seemed to conflict with
anti-fascism. The Guild trained generations of women in
public speaking so that they had the confidence to
participate in all aspects of public life. Women have
spoken with pride and delight in their life as a
‘guildswoman’, even if their involvement led to frequent
rows with their husbands. The image of the guild was one
of the bread and flowers, this was seen in some of their
beautiful posters and banners. We were able to enjoy
slides of some these banners with slogans such as
‘Peace, prosperity and progress’ and ‘No to militarism
in schools’. At Guild pageants women dressed up and
brought baskets of flowers from all over the country. At
the peak of its membership the guild had 87,000 members,
but since the 1940s it has been in steady decline –
reporting only 2,247 in 2002. Little has been done to
arrest this decline- branches fall into inactivity,
leaders argue amongst themselves, and younger women no
longer get the support and training from their elders.
Nevertheless the influence of the Guild on life for
women has been considerable – over ten books have been
written about the movement, and continue to be written
and it has itself published 322 pamphlets. It has
influenced government policy on women’s issues.
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Leah Manning
In the afternoon Stan Newens, Chair of Labour Heritage,
gave a talk on Leah Manning. He has co-authored a book
on this teacher and activist entitled ‘A life for
education’. Leah Manning was a Christian Socialist who
was to become the first woman president of the National
Union of Teachers in 1930. Her career as a teacher began
in Cambridge where she stayed after graduating at the
university. She taught at a ragged school for poor
children on the outskirts of the city, 70-80 children in
a class. Seeing their plight she campaigned for free
school meals, milk and after school playgroups. She
continued teaching after her marriage, defying the ban
on the employment of married women. She also became
involved in trades union activities, and in 1924 went on
to the National Executive of the NUT. She was a JP and
was involved in the production of a teachers’ magazine –
the ‘School Mistress’. She became Assistant Education
Officer for the NUT. In 1937, during the Spanish Civil
War she went out to Bilbao to help evacuate Spanish
children from the city when it was under the threat of
bombardment and recently a square in the city has been
named after her. Finally at the age of 59 she was
elected to Parliament for the Epping constituencies in
1945 with a 987 majority. Stan recalls this moment when
the bells rang out at the church in Epping and workers
picking peas in a local field all stopped work and
applauded the result.
Leah died in 1977 and gave her body for medical
research. She had numerous issues for which she was a
well known campaigner – birth control and the rights of
‘oversize women’ to be able to buy clothes. Her views on
education would have been controversial with many Labour
supporters today as she opposed comprehensive education
saying that it would lead to a ‘levelling down’ of
educational standards which would deny bright working
class children the chance to achieve their full
potential.
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Battersea Socialist Women’s Circle
Finally Sean Creighton, secretary of Labour Heritage,
who has written and researched on Labour in Battersea,
spoke on the newly acquired minute book of the Battersea
Socialist Women’s Circle. This organization was set up
to educate women in socialism. It was affiliated to the
Battersea Socialist Council. Women from all socialist
societies joined. There were 18 names on the book, but
others are mentioned in the minutes. It began as a
discussion circle – discussing issues such as education,
adult suffrage, ‘the home work problem’, and officialdom
in the Labour movement. Open public meetings were held
in Battersea Park in the summer, attended by Clarion
Vans and advertised by chalk on the pavement. Education
turned to activity. The women were involved in the
Social Democratic Federation and the Battersea Socialist
Alliance. They were also involved in reviving Socialist
Sunday schools in Battersea – the first one in the
country had existed in Battersea in 1892. After 1918
some of the women from this circle became prominent in
local Labour politics, standing as council candidates
and Charlotte Despard stood as a parliamentary
candidate. A copy of the full text is available on
request from
sean.creighton@btopenworld.com
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THE LABOUR PARTY IN THE NORTHWEST
A Manchester conference organized on March 1st on the
history of the Labour Party in the north-west of England
at John Rylands Library was attended by some sixteen
people.
As six were speakers, that left just ten paying
customers. Too many seats, too few bottoms.In a way this
fitted in nicely with the history and reality of the
Labour Party in Lancashire, a county made up
overwhelmingly of the industrial working class. However
the talks showed that this was a county where the Labour
movement has had to struggle frequently against itself,
to obtain adequate representation at both municipal and
national level.
Jeff Hill gave an overview of the county representation
up to about 1939. Utilising a map, he showed that the
western part of the county was overwhelmingly Tory and
there was only patchy Labour Party growth in the east.
The only area which guaranteed a Labour Party success
was the Lancashire coalfield, most notably Wigan.
Liverpool did not have a Labour majority in the
municipal council until 1955. Prior to that politics was
sectarian based, rather than being determined by class.
Declan McHugh concentrated on Manchester where the
position was almost as depressing. Like Jeff Hill he
concentrated on the period 1900-1939. There were just
three constituencies where Manchester Labour could
guarantee success, namely Platting, Ardwick and Gorton.
This was because local trades unions had control. Thus a
mixture of trade unionism and strong local organization
was the recipe for success in the poorest areas where
people were generally apathetic and had little interest
in political activity. A good comment made by a person
living in poverty was that Labour activists were
different from poor people.
Krista Cowman gave her talk the catchy title “Votes,
vans and mock turtle soup”. It concentrated on women’s
involvement in politics in late Victorian Liverpool. The
women set up a soup kitchen at St Georges Hall, but in
the main their sole task was to support the menfolk,
especially when they were on strike. Their role was
supportive rather than holding positions of power.
The first talk in the afternoon was given by Alan Fowler
on Lancashire textile workers. Individual unions did not
join the Labour Party. They were affiliated through an
overall group – the United Textile Factory Workers
Association. There were four parliamentary candidates
selected by his overall group, but the candidates were
not necessarily cotton workers or trades union
representatives. For example, they chose Arthur
Henderson and R.H.Tawney, the idea being that they may
be better at resolving the cotton workers’ grievances.
The workers were conservative in their ways, being
concerned with improvements such as stronger factory
acts and lower working hours.
Cotton workers had little concern with broad socialist
principles and world events. Alan mentioned the goodwill
shown to Gandhi on his visit to Lancashire in 1931 but
that had a purpose. The limited autonomy granted to
India in 1921 meant that India imposed a 20 per cent
tariff on imported cotton goods. The Lancashire workers
were attempting to have the tariff ended. Throughout the
period 1920-1939 the cotton industry was becoming more
depressed. In 1931 even the four cotton MPs were not
elected. The cotton trades unions reverted simply to
union questions such as dust in factories.
Alan Flinn spoke about Labour and the left in the 1930s
in Lancashire. Really it was not about left and right in
the Labour Party, but rather the left and the apathetic,
or the left and those with other interests and values.
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A general sense of caution was the main factor in all
industries except mining. There were many working class
Conservatives, some actively supporting the Empire.
Irish people were usually conservative, desiring to
maintain their national culture and religion. Yet the
Irish vote was vital for success. In Wigan it was more
important than the miners, even though Wigan was the
best area for Labour support.
On the left the divisions were if anything greater. For
instance in the late 1930s some supported pacifism,
whilst others, noting the rise of fascism in continental
Europe, supported re-armament.
In Lancashire generally, unemployment between the wars
was high. The marches organized by the Communist Party
led National Unemployed Workers’ Union were frequently
in clashes with the police. Even the parties left of
Labour had divisions, the Independent Labour Party was
divided, resulting in the Independent Socialist Party,
which has long since disappeared. There was a Unity
Conference at the Free Trades Hall, Manchester, but the
unity was ephemeral. The divisions continued. The
overall result of all this bickering was apathy by the
general public.
The final speaker was Steve Fielding who spoke on Labour
Party culture. Steve was mainly concerned with municipal
Labour, and the divisions between representatives, party
members and the general public. Councilors were
frequently seen to be authoritarian and corrupt. Those
who controlled local branches were not keen to recruit
new members, as they wanted to maintain control. This
was particularly true of “one party states”, that is
municipalities which in recent times were continuously
controlled by the Labour Councilors.
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When he had finished his talk Steve Fielding requested
comments from the audience. One gentleman rose and
stated “recently I stood for election in a Manchester
municipal by-election. Just 8% of the electorate turned
out to vote.
‘LABOUR AND POPULAR CULTURE IN LONDON’ – LABOUR HERITAGE
DAY SCHOOL HELD AT THE LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES ON
SATURDAY 23RD NOVEMBER 2002
Labour in Wimbledon
The first speaker was Heidi Topman on the history of
Labour in Wimbledon from the 1850s to present day.
Christian socialists were active in Wimbledon in the
1850s. By 1889 there was a Wimbledon Radical and Liberal
Association, which ran a reading room for artisans and
held public lectures and concerts. It owned a hall, the
Liberal and Radical Club which rented rooms to trades
unionists. There was also a branch of the Social
Democratic Federation in the 1890s. One its members,
Fred Knee campaigned for better housing for workers and
stood for the local vestry and board of guardians.
In 1905 the Wimbledon Marxist Socialist Society was
founded and one of its members, Braddock was later to be
the Labour candidate for Mitcham and Mordan. The Society
held outdoor meetings, organized rambles on Wimbledon
Common and supported Womens’ Suffrage.
In 1918 Wimbledon and Merton constituency Labour Party
was founded. It organized lectures on politics and
economics, had an entertainments committee and set up a
‘piano fund’.
In 1921 a committee – “Labour Hall Ltd” was launched to
raise funds for a hall. £300 was raised by the selling
of shares. The committee had representatives from the
cooperative society and the trades unions. In 1922 the
opening of the hall was celebrated with tea and a whist
drive. Throughout its history the hall was used by
trades union branches, the Socialist Sunday School and
public lectures were held. In the 1920s and 1930s garden
parties were held to raise funds for the miners in
Britain and for the anti-fascist movement in Spain.
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The first Labour MP for Wimbledon |
