80th anniversary of Dames Road disaster

Location of the Doodlebug hit on 27 July 1944

27th July 2024 marks the 80th anniversary of the Dames Road disaster - the deadliest air raid hit on Forest Gate during World War 11.

We have covered the Doodlebug bombing of the road - close to the Holly Tree - on this site before, notably here, when we were able to publish all the names of the victims of the disaster for the first time, and  here, where we published a detailed first-hand account of the day's events from the standpoint of a 15-year-old victim family member.

This article combines different perspectives from previous postings to provide a comprehensive account of the event to mark this significant local anniversary.

Cyril Demarne, who would later become West Ham's chief fire officer, was called to assist with the aftermath of the bombing. In his 1980 memoirs, he described the event as " the most horrific thing I have ever witnessed."

Contemporary press reports were significantly affected by wartime censorship imposed on newspapers, which was done to avoid adversely impacting civilian morale and to confuse enemy understanding of the outcome and locations of their V1 attacks.

The Stratford Express account of 4 August (see below) did not identify the exact location of the hit, stating that a "passing vehicle" was wrecked and that there were a number of fatalities, but only mentioned four people. None of this was false, but it certainly wasn't comprehensive.

First press report - Stratford Express - 4 August - vague

Other local newspapers took a further six weeks to publish fuller but conflicting accounts.

The Leytonstone Independent of 15 September reported that 34 people were killed and that the "passing vehicle" was, in fact, a trolley bus.

More accurate newspaper account - seven weeks after the raid, Leytonstone Guardian

The Walthamstow Guardian of the same date devoted a mere 24 words to the worst local bombing of the war when it reported: "At Dames Road, when a bomb fell within a few yards of a trolley bus, 41 people were killed and 24 taken to hospital."

After the conclusion of the war, each borough produced a list of the civilians who had died during the conflict, which was compiled by the Commonwealth Graves Commission. By scrolling through the lists produced by both West Ham and Leytonstone councils (the bomb fell on the borough boundary), we have been able to identify 34 dead - the same number as the Leytonstone Independent had reported - and listed their names, ages, and addresses. 

No similar lists were compiled for casualties, so we have no accurate assessment of how many may have been injured in the attack.

West Ham's book of civilian war deaths

It would appear that the family that was most affected by the disaster was the Blackmans of 323 Billet Road, Walthamstow. Three members were killed: Gladys (aged 34), the wife of Leading Aircraftsman William Blackman, and Jean, aged 10, and Wendy, aged 4, their children.

In October 2020, Sue, the granddaughter of William and Gladys Blackman, contacted us. She said that her grandparents also had two sons, Donald, who survived the attack, and William Jr. (Bill), who was 15 at the time and at work, therefore not in the vicinity of the Doodlebug hit.

Sue sent us an extract from her father, Bill's memoirs (he was 91 at the time) - What a lucky sod I am - which provides a detailed account of the day from his perspective. It can be accessed here.

Bill Blackman aged 15 - around the time of the death of his mother and sisters

Gladys, apparently, was in the habit of taking her children to see their grandmother in Manor Park every Friday afternoon. On the afternoon of 27 July, they were on a trolley bus going home via Forest Gate when the VI missile hit the vehicle on Dames Road.

When he heard the explosion, Bill was working at Wrighton's, a furniture manufacturer near the Crooked Billet roundabout. The firm was beginning to close down for the day, and Bill saw a "huge black mushroom of smoke and debris rising in the sky." Although he was used to the sounds of bombs exploding, he felt particularly uneasy about this blast.

V1 missile, of the knid that hit Dames Road

It was his normal practice to go home on a Friday afternoon and lay the table in preparation for his mum and siblings' return from their family visit.

He did this, as normal, on 27 July but became increasingly uneasy as time went on, and they did not return. After a while, a policeman knocked on the door and asked to speak to one of his parents. Bill explained they were not in the house, so the police left and went to a neighbour. After a while, the neighbour and police officer returned and told Bill that his brother had been injured in a bomb blast and taken to St Mary's hospital in Hackney.

Bill told them that Donald was with his mother and sisters that afternoon. The policeman and neighbour said they would go to the police station to get more details.

15-year-old Bil was left alone in the house for hours until the neighbour returned, ashen-faced. He threw Bill a cigarette and told him to light it to calm down. The neighbour then began to explain the fate of Bill's mother and sisters. "I can remember my brain seemed to shut down momentarily ... I seemed to be in this strange trance-like state for some time before suddenly everything came to life, and I realised what had just happened to me."

Gladys Blackman - Bill's mother, and victim

The neighbours offered Bill a meal and a bed for the night, but he refused both, preferring to sleep in his own bed, alone in the house. They did, however, look after him until his father returned from active service abroad, for which he has always been grateful.

Bill took a month off work, and it was several weeks before his father reached home. Bill describes himself as feeling “comfortably numb” through this time. He spent some of it, accompanied by different adults, travelling the country to explain to relatives the circumstances of the deaths. One of those visits was to his nan, who was in the pub when he called.

Jean Blackman - Bill's sister, and victim

One of Bill’s most painful experiences was having to identify the bodies of his mother and two sisters in the mortuary. He was shown his mother’s face, which only had a few scratches on it, but only some of the clothes of his two sisters.

Bill says he also visited his brother Donald in the hospital, “the only survivor from the bus of 70 passengers.”

Following the funerals of his mother and sisters, Bill described his life as “for probably several weeks just surviving on auto-pilot”. When he eventually returned to work, he was put on “light duties”, working alone in an office essentially as a gatekeeper/receptionist.

When his dad finally arrived home, Bill discovered that he had been misinformed and told that the whole family and their house had been destroyed by a bomb blast. 

This partially explains why it took him so long to return – he thought he was coming home to emptiness. An additional complicating factor, explaining the length of his homecoming, was that he was expected to make his own way and travel arrangements, unaided, in returning from the Egyptian desert.

The War Office made some amends by posting Bill snr locally so that he could return home each evening. Donald was in the hospital for 18 months, recovering from a serious injury before being sent to Switzerland for convalescence. 

91-year old Bill, in 2020

Production at Wrighton’s changed from furniture manufacture to aircraft production until the end of the war. Bill, meanwhile, survived into his 90s, writing a very moving memoir of the dreadful times he experienced after the Dames Road bomb.

Celebration of 150th anniversary of West Ham Park’s opening

Background

Surviving documents relating to the parklands date from the mid-sixteenth century. By 1670, Rooke Hall, later renamed Upton House, was the main house dominating the area.

In 1762, physician and botanist Dr. John Fothergill bought the house (see here for details), enlarged the grounds, built extensive greenhouses, and planted them with rare and exotic botanical species from around the world.

Dr John Fothergill

Unfortunately, 260 years later, the Corporation of London has decided to tear down the last of the greenhouses and cover the area with housing.

Fothergill’s botanical gardens were second only to Kew in importance in England. He recorded the details of his plants in records that survive in the British library and commissioned paintings and drawings, many of Catherine the Great of Russia acquired on his death. They languish, untended, in a small botanical museum on the outskirts of St Petersburg.

Although the greenhouses have gone and the paintings are inaccessible, at least one of Fothergill’s specimens remains in the park—the Gingko Biloba tree (pictured), which he is believed to have planted there in 1763.

Fothergill's Gingko Biloba tree

Upton House was renamed Ham House in the 1780s and eventually acquired by Quaker banker and philanthropist Samuel Gurney in 1812 (see here for details), where he resided for the rest of his life. When he retired from banking in the 1840s, he dedicated his efforts to philanthropy and local land acquisition, and in a piecemeal fashion, he purchased over 30% of the land that is now recognised as Forest Gate.

Samuel Gurney

Gurney’s older sister, prison reformer Elizabeth Fry’s (see here for details) household fell on hard times in the 1820s. Samuel allowed them to live in a house named the Cedars on the edge of his landholding from 1829 until 1844. That house later became a Territorial Army barracks and local headquarters.

Elizabeth Fry

Soon after Gurney died in 1856, his own immediate family faced financial difficulties following the collapse of the bank he once led. His grandson, John, set about disposing of some of the land Gurney had accumulated, which in many ways led to the growth of Forest Gate as the Victorian commuter suburb it largely remains today.

Ham House in its grounds, before demolition in 1872

John Gurney was keen that the 77 acres of his grandfather’s immediate estate should become a public park. He valued it at £25,000 and offered to sell it at half its valuation if local people contributed the other half towards its sale price. A fund was launched to find the money, led by one-time Gurney employee and administrator Gustav Pagenstecher (see here for details). 

Gustav Pagenstecher

The then local authority was unwilling to contribute, and only £2,500 was raised from immediate local sources. Pagenstecher turned his fundraising attention to the Corporation of London, which was already interested in acquiring Epping Forest, including Wanstead Flats, for public use (see here for details).

The Friend, a Quaker publication dated 1 April 1873, explains the Corporation’s interest. It noted, “No parish in London has expanded more rapidly than West Ham. It has seen an increase in population of more than 60% over the last 10 years.”

Gurney and Pagenstecher feared that developers would have bought the land and turned it into housing if it had not become a public park.

The Corporation contributed £10,000 towards purchasing the Park, which was to be open to the public “in perpetuity … at its own expense” from its opening in July 1874. The corporation has run and managed it ever since. Pagenstecher maintained a keen interest and was deputy chairman of its board of trustees from its establishment as a park until he died in 1916. He wrote the first history of the park.

Elements of the history of the park

One of the first things the Corporation did during the acquisition was demolishing Ham House and leaving some of its remnants as a cairn near the park’s main entrance (see photo).

Ham House, before its demolition in 1872

 

 

 

The cairn near the main entrance to the park, all that remains of the house today

The park has many fine features today, including a delightful ornamental garden, children’s play area, bandstands, a café, and pitches and greens for many sports. It is a Grade 11 listed park.

It has often attracted large attendances for special events. The Godwin school diary of 10 September 1895, for example, noted: “The attendance (at school) was good this morning, but owing to the visit of the Lord Mayor and Corporation to West Ham Park, it was greatly affected in the afternoon.”

Entrance to the park, 1907

An Edwardian postcard of the formally laid out park

Another significant turnout was recorded for the Civil Defence Ceremony of Remembrance on 26 September 1943 – see photo below.

Civil Defence ceremony in the park, 1943

Sport has always featured prominently in the park, and Pagenstecher ensured it was well catered for, as indicated in his memoirs:

I’ve always been an enthusiast for cricket. On the Park Management Committee, I used to endeavour to ensure that portions of the Park should be laid out as cricket pitches. I was secretary of Upton Park Cricket Club which dates back as far as 1854 (ed: i.e. some 20 years before the land was formally adopted as public parkland).

Football

West Ham Park is perhaps better known for its unusual football heritage. From 1866, eight years before the grounds were formally designated a park, it hosted Upton Park FC, a club with a couple of unique achievements. It was one of the fifteen clubs competing for the inaugural FA Cup trophy in 1871 and has the distinction of hosting the competition’s first-ever goal, when Upton Park went 1-0 down in the 11^th minute of the game (eventually losing 3-1) to Clapham Rovers, on 11 November that year.

Crest of Upton Park FC

As we approach the 2024 Paris Olympics, Upton Park’s second great claim to football fame comes into view. The club represented GB in the 1900 Paris Olympics and emerged victorious gold medal winners! There is no GB team at this year’s Olympics, so Upton Park’s record as victorious UK footballing Olympians in Paris cannot be matched this summer.

Logo of 2nd Olympiad - Paris 1900

The local area has boasted the strange quirk of having Upton Park FC playing at West Ham Park, while West Ham FC played at Upton Park!

What a hotbed of football this small area of Forest Gate was at the turn of the 19^th/20^th centuries. Just a couple hundred yards from West Ham Park is the Old Spotted Dog ground, home to Clapton FC, who boast several impressive achievements. In 1890, they became the first English football team to play in Europe (beating a Belgian X1 7-0) and competed in six (winning five) FA Amateur Cup finals between 1903 and 1928.

Wanstead Park Station celebrates its 130th birthday

9 July is the 130^th anniversary of the opening to passengers of Wanstead Park station and the line it serves. The Barking Riverside to Gospel Oak line, known to many as the “GOBLIN”, and recently christened the “Suffragette line” by TfL, began life in the 1860s, when the western section from Gospel Oak to South Tottenham opened. In 1890 parliament passed an act authoring a new section of line to Barking. This was at the prompting of Sir Courtney Warner, whose family had significant landholdings in Walthamstow. Warner was planning to develop new housing estates there, and the railway would he hoped encourage London’s better-off working-class families to move out to Walthamstow.

A company to build and operate the new line was formed in 1891, with Warner as chairman. Shares were offered to the public, but the Midland Railway Co. and the London Tilbury and Southend Railway had large shareholdings. These two companies connected with the new line at either end. So it was possible to get a train from Wanstead Park, the new station in Forest Gate, directly to East Ham station and connect to Fenchurch Street (Shakespeare Crescent in East Ham was later built over this spur line). Or connections to Kings Cross and St Pancras were possible via South Tottenham.

The Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway bridge over Woodgrange Road 1900s

North-east London had by the 1890s already undergone rapid development, and the railway cut a swathe through existing streets of housing.   The solution was to build the line on a long brick viaduct (hence a popular nick-name - the Chimney Pot line). Many houses were demolished to make way and there was considerable local opposition to the railway, as this article from the Stratford Express shows.

The line officially opened on 1 July 1894 with a passenger service starting a week later on 9 July. While mainly a commuter service, it was also possible to get excursion trains to Southend (hence the very long platform at Wanstead Park). These excursions ran until relatively recent times, and older Forest Gate residents remember the excitement of getting crowded trains from Wanstead Park for a day at the seaside.

The new railway was popular from the start, with a local newspaper reporting that Wanstead Park station was besieged by passengers all day long in the first week of service. The station was named Wanstead Park despite being nowhere near the actual park possibly because it sounded grander than (say) Forest Gate North. Oddly titled stations seem to have been a feature of the line – Walthamstow Queen’s Road is actually in Edinburgh Road, several streets away from Queen’s Road itself. Similarly, Woodgrange Park station is not near any park called Woodgrange.

Advert for the new line July 1894

The early success of the Tottenham and Forest Gate was not sustained. The line does not go directly to any central London terminus (though strangely in the 1940s it ran an all-night service as well as through trains to St Pancras on Sundays and in the middle of the night!) Also, unlike the Shenfield route through Forest Gate station, the line was not electrified in the 1940s. 

For many years it remained a Cinderella service, kept going partly because it was a useful route for the substantial amount of freight coming from the industries and docks of south Essex. In 1963 the line was earmarked for closure under the Beeching plans, but as most of Beeching's proposals for London were not implemented, it remained open. 

Station looking the worse for wear, 1967

Nevertheless it was allowed to fall into a poor state of repair and reliability; by 1980 there was only one train an hour, running between the old terminus of Kentish Town and Barking. The station canopies were gradually demolished, ticket offices were phased out and stations were left unstaffed. In 1981 Gospel Oak became the terminus, but the line continued to be neglected, even after being franchised to Silverlink (a train operating company owned by National Express) in 1997.

Wanstead Park station before the station canopy and platform gas lights were removed in the 1980s

Finally a corner was turned in 2007 when London Overground took over the line.

Since then there has been a marked improvement in services; electrification in 2018 and the introduction of new, longer trains in 2019 has greatly increased the popularity of the line. Proof that if a railway offers what passengers (sorry, customers) want, they will use it.

Sarah Chapman, and the search for recognition in Manor Park

This is the second and concluding of two articles on Matchgirls, Memorials and Manor Park, and should be read in conjunction with the previous post.

A commemorative plate, marking the centenary of the Matchgirls Strike.

One of the Matchgirls strike leaders, Sarah Chapman, was born on 31 October 1862 in Mile End, the fifth of seven children of Samuel Chapman, a brewery worker and docker, and Sarah Ann Mackenzie, a matchworker. The family remained in Mile End, where Sarah received an education and was literate, by no means a formality for working class children at the time.

"Matchgirls''" union committee - Sarah Chapman top row, second left (circled)

By the time Sarah was 19 (1881) she worked alongside her mother and older sister, Mary, as a matchmaking machinist and, by the time of the strike, seven years later, she was an established member of Bryant and May’s workforce, working as a “Booker”, and was on relatively good wages.

Some of the details of her life in and around the strike are clear, others more speculative, but based on good circumstantial evidence. So:

·         The day after the strike began, Sarah was one of three in the delegation that met with Annie Besant in her newspaper office, to plan a way forward for the matchmakers.

·         She was a member of the strike committee.

·         As such, she was highly likely to have been on the delegation to parliament, that went to argue the strikers’ case.

·         Because of this prominence, she was also highly likely to have been party to the discussions the London Trades Council held with strikers and the directors of Bryant and May, that resulted in a victorious conclusion to the strike for the women workers.

·         She was elected to the newly established Union Committee and became its President.

·         She was the first matchworker to attend the International Trades Union Congress meeting in November 1888.

·         She was one of only ten women delegates to the 1890 TUC in Liverpool, attended by over 500, and seconded a motion calling for the abolition of the Truck Acts (which gave employers the right to deduct payments from workers’ wages).

After the Strike Sarah continued to work at the Bryant and May factory and was still living with her mother in Bromley-by Bow on the night of the 1891 census. Later that year she married Charles Henry Dearman, a cabinet maker from Bethnal Green and ceased working for the match company.

Sarah and Charles had six children and soon moved to Bethnal Green. Charles died aged only 55. Along with the couple’s first son – also Charles, who died at only 10 days old – and daughter Elizabeth Rose, who died aged 21, Charles senior was buried in Manor Park Cemetery.

Sarah Dearman (nee Chapman) in later life

All three graves have since been mounded over and the land reused for other burials. So, it is not possible to visit them, but their general location has been identified.

A widow from 1922, Sarah lived, on and off, with her two youngest sons, William and Frederick, into the 1930s. Her eldest surviving son, another Charles, served in both world wars and died as a result of injuries sustained in the second, in 1945. Sarah continued to live in the Bethnal Green area, until her death of lung cancer, in Bethnal Green hospital later that year – aged 83.

Sarah Dearman (nee Chapman) towards the end of her life

With the help of historian Anna Robinson, Sam Johnson (nee Dearman), Sarah’s great granddaughter, was able to discover Sarah’s grave, in a pauper’s burial plot (plot 147/D/114) in Manor Park Cemetery in early 2017. The grave was then nothing more than a a grassy patch used as a footpath, with no markings, let alone a headstone.

The unmarked plot that Anna Robinson and Sam Johnson discovered in Manor Park cemetery

Sam has spent the last seven years campaigning to gain appropriate recognition for her great-grandmother by trying to get a proper memorial erected to her on that plot.

This has proved very difficult, as the private company which owns the cemetery revealed  plans to mound over her grave – as it did with Sarah’s husband’s and two children’s - and make it inaccessible, because – in common with other cemteries in London - it is running out of space for fresh burials.

The area adjacent to Sarah’s plot was mounded over in 2019. The cemetery company were told of the location of Sarah’s plot and said they wouldn’t mound the area over for five – ten years. They have subsequently rescinded on that commitment and, had it not been for the pandemic would have mounded it over in 2020/21. The plot and surrounding area was eventually mounded over in 2022.

Great grand-daughter, Sam Johnson marks out a temporary grave site for Sarah

Meanwhile, Sam and the other trustees of the Matchgirls Memorial have sought public support and funding for their campaign to get proper recognition for Sarah in Manor Park Cemetery – her last resting place.

In June 2020, local residents, held a ‘Celebration of Sarah Chapman’s Life’ at a socially distanced event during the pandemic in the cemetery and invited The Matchgirls Memorial. Around 50 local people attended, each bringing a single flower to lay on Sarah’s grave. Newham’s Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, and local Councillor, John Gray, both participated in the commemoration, although – because of pandemic restrictions – laid flowers the previous day.

Above and below, some familiar local faces at the community event in June 2020

For those unable to attend the event during the difficult COVID times, a concurrent, on-line, campaign invited people to share #aflowerforSarah. Photographs of the celebration and events surrounding it can be found on the the charitable organisation’s website (see below).

Subsequently, funding has been forthcoming to pay for a headstone for Sarah, from the London and Eastern region of Unite The Union, and from the GMB, which in an earlier iteration was the union that is believed to have eventually absorbed the Matchworkers Union.

The headstone (see photo) was commissioned and designed by John das Gupta, local stone mason, and rests in the basement of the TUC’s Congress House, awaiting erection in the cemetery, if its owners concede to its permanent installation.

The Sarah Dearman (nee Chapman) headstone, ready and waiting for erection in Manor Park cemetery

Once the mounded soil has settled sufficiently,  The Matchgirls Memorial intend to erect Sarah’s headstone. The current position is that the cemetery’s owners will make a charge for the plot and only guarantee a 50 year lease for the headstone but Sam would like this to be extended in perpetuity in recognition of the significance of Sarah’s role in the 1888 Matchgirls Strike.

This is not a plea for “cemetery tourism” locally – although it exists in other cemeteries in London and Paris. However, Manor Park cemetery already hosts a prominent headstone to WW1 boy hero and VC holder Jack Cornwell. Is it not reasonable that the grave of another figure who played such a prominent role in a key event in the nation’s history at a relatively young age should gain some parity of recognition? That is what The Matchgirls Memorial is seeking, and if you would like to aid them in their objective, find details of how you can help at the end of this article.

Meanwhile, the active and persistent Trustees have managed to gain some form of permanent recognition for Sarah, nearer her home patch in Mile End. On  26 February this year, Sarah Chapman House – a block of nine council homes – was officially opened, in a ceremony attended by the Mayor of Tower Hamlets and descendants of Sarah Chapman.

 

The opening of Sarah Chapman House in February 2024, with two of her decsendants: left, Carol Watts (great grand-daughter) and right, Laura Watts (great-great grand-daughter)

You can find out much more about The Matchgirls Memorial, and how you can assist their campaign for further public recognition, through their very informative website: www.matchgirls1888.org. We are grateful to the trustees for permission to use the images in the articles on the strike in the two articles we have produced on it.

Footnote. For further reading on the "Matchgirls" and their impact, see the following books. List courtesy of the Matchgirls Memorial campaign:

1. Beaver, Patrick., Match Makers: The Story of Bryant and May, Henry Melland (1985)
2. Beer, Reg., The Match Girls Strike, 1888 The Struggle Against Sweated Labour in London's East End, The Labour Museum (1983)
3. Carroll, Emma., The Little Match Girl Strikes Back, Simon & Schuster (2022)
4. Charlton, John., It Just Went Like Tinder, Redwords Original (1999)
5. Emsley, John., The Shocking History of Phosphorus: A Biography of the Devil's Element, Macmillan (2000)
6. Fishman, William J., East End 1888, Gerald Duckworth & Co (1988)
7. Haston, Paul., Billy and the Match Girl, Magic Ink Press (2020)
8. Inwood, Stephen., City of Cities: The Birth of Modern London, Pan Macmillan (2011)
9. Landman, Tanya., Lightning Strike, Oxford University Press (2021)
10. Pécastaing-Boissière, Muriel., Annie Besant (1847-1933): Struggles and Quest, Theosophical Publishing House (2017)
11. Raw, Louise., Striking a Light, Continuum International (2011)
12. Rees, Lynette., The Matchgirl, Quercus Editions (2019)
13. Ridge, Tom., Central Stepney History Walk, Central Stepney Regeneration Board (1998)
14. Robinson, Anna., Neither Hidden nor Condescended To: Overlooking Sarah Chapman, Unpublished, Bishopsgate Institute (2004)
15. Stafford, Ann., A Match to Fire the Thames, Hodder & Stoughton (1961)
16. The Matchgirls Memorial., Feathers and Pennies: Poems and Stories for the Matchgirls, Thamesis Publications (2021)
17. Thomas, Doreen., Strike a Light: John Walker 1781-1859, Teesside County Borough Council Museums Service (1971)
18. TUC History Online: http://www.unionhistory.info/
19. 
    
20. TUC History Online: http://www.unionhistory.info/