Samuel Gurney (1786 - 1856) - Forest Gate's most influential resident

We have written, in passing, frequently about Samuel Gurney - who has probably been Forest Gate's most influential (both locally and nationally) resident. And here we touched on his literal and metaphorical monumental legacy.

This article presents a biography of the man, himself.

He was born on 18 October 1786 in Earlham Hall, Norfolk. The buildings - see photo - now constitute part of the University of East Anglia.

Earlham Hall - the family seat - today,
 as part of the University of East Anglia

The Gurney family can be traced back to the Norman Conquest, when ancestors were given areas of Norfolk as part of William 1's English control and pacification process.

The family had lived in Earlham Hall, as tenants, for over half a century before Samuel was born. Sixteen years before his birth, they established a local Norfolk bank - Gurney's.

As Quakers, the family were denied access to many of the traditional routes of the sons of the rich and famous - university, the army, some professions etc - but not banking. Like the Jewish community, many members were almost forced into the looked-down upon (by the upper class) fields of commerce and banking in order to make a living.

In 1800, aged 14, the young Gurney was placed in the counting house of his brother-in-law, Joseph Fry, in St Mildred's Court, Poultry in the City. Joseph was married to Samuel's older sister, Elizabeth - the prison reformer.  The "favour" by Joseph to Samuel was later returned - see later.

Samuel Gurney (1786 - 1856)

In 1807 Gurney joined the firm of Richardson and Overend, which, over the course of the next few years, became the most significant retail bank in England.

The following year, Samuel married Elizabeth, daughter of James Sheppard of Ham House (which was to become the family seat and provide the grounds 65 years later for West Ham Park - see here). Samuel inherited and moved in to the property on the death of his father-in-law (in the days before the Married Women's Property Act) in 1812.

Samuel and Elizabeth had two children by the time they took possession of Ham House and set about making alterations to it, that made it a Georgian house of distinction. At the time it had about a dozen live-in servants.

Ham House, pre- destruction

In 1809 he borrowed money from his father and father-in-law and bought into the bank in which he was working and had it re-branded as Overend, Gurney and Co.

During the financial crisis of 1825 his bank lent money to a number of other London banks in temporary financial difficulties. For the next 30 years it was to be the largest discounting house in the world. Thus, Gurney became known as 'the bankers' banker' and many firms began to deposit money with his institution in preference to the Bank of England.

Having impressively stamped his mark on the banking world, Gurney devoted much of the rest of his life to his two main passions - land acquisition and disposal in Forest Gate and a variety of (even today) impressively liberal philanthropic endeavours.

Philanthropy

Chronologically, the philanthropic endeavours came first. They are worthy of - and have been recorded in - many histories. For brevity's sake, the more significant of them were:

• Supporting, financially, his sister Elizabeth, the prison reformer and brother-in-law Joseph Fry - who had kick started his career. The Frys were hit in the financial crises of the mid 1820's and were forced to sell their grand house in Plashet - now host to Plashet Park and the borough's registration offices. Gurney rented them Cedar House, next to his own home of Ham House, in Portway. (This later became home to the Territorial Army - ironically for a property owned by pacifist Quakers).

Elizabeth Fry - reading to
prisoners in Newgate Prison

• Supported another brother-in-law, Edward Buxton and his father Fowell Buxton - in the anti-slavery movement. He attended the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 - see picture (in National Portrait Gallery) - below, and was for a while chairman of the organisation.

Gurney, front row, far left at the 1840
 World Anti-Slavery Convention

• Played a significant part in helping to established the African state of Liberia, as a home for slaves freed from Europe and America. Such was his contribution to the establishment to the country, that he had a town named after him there.

• Was a staunch opponent of capital punishment; and was threatened with prosecution himself for refusing to prosecute a man who forged his signature, knowing that the result would be capital punishment for the offender.

• Was patron of two non-conformist British and Foreign Society Schools (see here for details) in Stratford: one for boys and another for girls. He left an annuity of £150 - c£15,000 today - for the future development of the two schools in his will. This passed to West Ham School Board, on its formation - and now rests with Newham Council.

•  Was the national treasurer for the non- conformist British and Foreign Schools Society from 1843, until his death in 1856. He left the Society £5,000 (c £500,000 today), on his death.

Samuel Gurney in 1840

• Although a Quaker, he was non-sectarian in his approach to education. So, he also supported Church of England schools. In 1853 he donated land on the corner of Woodgrange Road and Forest Street to build Emmanuel (later St Saviours) National School.

• Toured Ireland in 1849 and made many donations to those affected by the Potato HUnger of that decade.

• Established the Poplar Hospital for Accidents in 1853, to look after injured dock workers, in the first instant.

• In 1856, his will gifted £800 - c £78,000 today - for the "maintenance and winding up of clocks in public places" in Forest Gate, including one to be erected on Forest Gate Congregational Church. Since 1860 the income has been given to West Ham, now Newham, Council.

Local land acquisition and disposal

Having inherited the area of what is now West Ham Park from his father-in-law in 1812, Gurney was quiet on the local land acquisition front until his effective retirement from his successful banking career.

His transactions and their subsequent disposals, however, have shaped the area, making what is recognisably Forest Gate, today.

in 1851 he bought the 131 acres of Hamfrith Farm/estate for £17,710 - c £2,250,000, at today's prices - from the Greenhill estate. This was roughly the area between Romford Road and Wanstead Flats, to the east of Woodgrange Road, as far as Station Road, Manor Park.

Two years later he bought the 200 acres of the Woodgrange farm - most of the Forest Gate area to the west of Woodgrange Road.

He also acquired about 250 acres in what was then Little Ilford (now Manor Park) and acquired the Lordship of the manors of Woodgrange and Hamfrith.

He promptly resold much of the land he had acquired, to become the West Ham and Jewish cemeteries, as well as the Industrial School on Forest Lane (see here and here, for details).

Ever the astute businessman, he clearly saw the development opportunities with the arrival of the railways into Forest Gate (see here); and in the short period  remaining in his life, began to package some of the land up, with a view to housing development resale.

So, from 1855, development started on the Gurney and Dames estates - to the west and north of Forest Gate station (see here, for details).

He died on 5 June 1856 and was buried in the Friends' burial grounds in Barking. He was survived by 9 children and 40 grandchildren. His oldest son died soon after and the estate subsequently transferred to his grandson, John.

Within 10 years, however, the bank that Samuel Gurney established and built became mired in severe financial difficulties, by diversifying into greedy, risky projects (sound familiar?) and faced bankruptcy. Many shareholders, including members of the Gurney family, lost fortunes and faced financial ruin.

It was this crash that spurred the rapid building boom in Forest Gate, as grandson John disposed of land and property in order to stabilise family finances.

Most notable among the disposals was the sale of the family home, in 1872, to become West Ham Park (see here), for a knocked down price of £15,000 - c £1.5 million, today.

The grounds of Ham House, before being
 turned into West Ham Park, in 1874

Also, in 1872, he sold most of the north side of what had been the Hamfrith estate to the British Land Company, which, in turn sold some to the Manor Park Cemetery Company (see here) and enabled the development of much of which in estate agents-speak is now known as "The Forest Gate Village".

Thomas Corbett acquired much of the south side of the Hamfrith estate and developed it into what is now the Woodgrange estate, between 1877 and 1892 (see here).

The period 1870 - 1890 saw the development of the western end of Forest Gate, from lands that had been part of the Gurney estate. This lead to the construction of Hamfrith, Atherton, Sprowston (see here), Norwich and Clova Roads,. as well as Earlham Grove (see here).

So, Quaker, banker, philanthropist, land-owner, Samuel Gurney stands as the man whose property dealings lay the foundations of Forest Gate, as we know it today.

He is most visibly remembered locally not in Forest Gate, but by the obelisk and drinking fountain in the grounds of St John's church, in Stratford. It is interesting that there should be a monument to a Quaker in the grounds of a prominent CofE church - but such was the regard in which he was held locally.

An 1861 drawing of the Gurney
memorial, soon after its erection

The monument is 40 feet high and made of granite. It was unveiled in 1861, having been designed by Gurney's fellow Norfolk-man, John Bell.

The inscription reads:

In remembrance of Samuel Gurney, who died on 5th of June 1856. Erected by his fellow parishioners and Friends (Quakers) 1861.

When the ear heard him, then it blessed him.

 (ed: this is a paraphrase from the Book of Job) 

One final point. Although the bank that Gurney turned into such a success bombed a decade after his death, its entrails survive as part of what is now Barclays Bank. If only he had been around in 2008 to offer them his counsel, prior to the banking crash of 2008.

The street where you live (5): Earlham Grove

This is the fifth in an occasional series of articles by Forest Gate resident, Peter Williams, who specialises in Newham housing, maps and local history. In each he looks, in detail, at the history of particular streets in Forest Gate.

Peter has complemented his own knowledge by accessing the increasingly digitised national newspapers' collection - which can be found here- and has added extracts from this that refer specifically to Earlham Grove.

Earlham Grove is named after Earlham Hall, near Norwich, seat of the Gurney family; now part of the University of East Anglia. 

Gurneys' ancestral home - Earlham Hall, today

The Gurney family was a major landlord in Forest Gate in mid Victorian times and with other Quaker families, like the Frys (of chocolate  and prison reform fame) and Barclays, were merchants and bankers in the City of London.

As we have shown in previous posts, Samuel Gurney, perhaps the most famous of the family, owned up to half the land that constitutes Forest Gate. He lived in what is now West Ham Park, until his death in 1865.

1863 Ordnance Survey map, showing vacant
 land behind Pawnbrokers' Almshouses on
 Woodgrange Road, up to the railway line,
 where Earlham Grove would soon be built.
 The open spaces to the right of the
 almshouses is what later was to become
 the Woodgrange estate

The Great Eastern Railway was built in the 1830s opening the Forest Gate area up to development. Work on the Woodgrange estate started in the late 1860s. 

Earlham Grove started a little later. The houses are larger than the typical terraces developed by speculative builders for the army of clerks in the City of London in the later nineteenth century. They were more like what the Victorians and Edwardians called villas – for the better off middle classes; solicitors; business people.

Same area in 1895 Ordnance Survey map - now
heavily built over.  Orange arrow points to site of
modern Community Garden (see below) on Earlham Grove

On the map, above, the Almshouses have gone, and in this 30 year period between the publication of the two maps hundreds of houses were built, including Hamfrith, Atherton, Norwich, Sprowston, and Clova Roads, and Earlham Grove, which were part of the Gurney estate (c. 1870–90), on the north side of Romford Road. These houses, many of which survive, include detached, semi-detached, and terraced types.

Earlham Grove - 1911

Buildings of interest

16 Ex Jewish refugee hostel. With the rise of Hitler to power in the 1930's, many Germany Jews sought refuge elsewhere in Europe, mainly within existing Jewish communities.  Forest Gate played its part. A hostel was opened at 51a Romford Road, which accommodated 20 people.  This later moved to 16 Earlham Grove. It was supported financially by the Earlham Grove synagogue (see below). Other families within the local community took in refuges who could not be accommodated there.

16 Earlham Grove today - a refuge
 for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930's

The article below, from 1933, suggests that Forest Gate may not have been the anti-semitic haven that those fleeing persecution from Nazi Germany many have hoped for. A magistrate, in 1933, telling a clearly Jewish immigrant from Earlham Grove that: "There's more trouble in this country through people like you than all the others put together. I wish we could throw you out neck and crop".

Chelmsford Chronicle 19 May 1933

93 - 95 Formerly West Ham Synagogue and Shul (1897 - 2004). See here for a post on the 20th century Jewish community of Forest Gate, whose focal point was this building.  It was the first synagogue in Essex and became the strongest in Newham. The foundation stone of the building in the photo was laid in 1910.

The synagogue, up for sale in 2004

The site is now a four-storey block of flats called Adler Court - named after a prominent rabbi at the former synagogue - owned by East Thames Housing Association.

Adler Court today - on the
 site of the former synagogue

128 Earlham Grove - A house, whose occupant, Francis John Fitzgerald, hosted a quite remarkable event in the struggle for Irish independence in 1921. We will outline some extraordinary Forest Gate connections with the birth of the Irish Free State in the next blog on this site. Watch this space!

128 today, Francis John
Fitzgerald's home in 1921

136 - Site of the Community Garden was occupied until a few years ago by a very large detached Victorian villa. Originally it had been a doctor’s surgery. It was converted to a hostel for homeless families, probably in the 1980s, and was known as Earlham Lodge. It was run by Newham Housing Department.

136 Earlham Grove, when it
was an LBN homeless hostel

136, when it was a homeless hostel,
 showing, behind, the former vicarage
Thanks to "Kevin" from Facebook
 for this photo and the one above

Community Garden hoarding, designed
 by local artist Jim Valentine and painted
 by upwards of 70 local volunteers

There was no resident warden, but a mobile member of staff looked after a number of Housing Department hostels. There were 9 rooms of different sizes and it was targeted at small families such as a single parent with a young baby.

Families typically stayed there for a few months before moving onto another form of homeless temporary accommodation. They were given a licence agreement, not a tenancy. Bathrooms were shared and each room had basic cooking facilities Following a review in the mid 2000's, the Housing Department decided to close its directly managed hostels.

The site is still owned by Newham Council who hope for a housing development on the site in the longer term, but meanwhile, have given the Community Garden a short-term lease, so that it can be used as a community facility rather than remain an unsightly piece of waste land. 

There continue to be a number of other large houses in the Earlham Grove that are used for some form of supported housing for vulnerable people including children’s homes, homeless hostels, cheap B&Bs and accommodation for people with learning disabilities.

175 Built as Earlham Hall in the 1870s, for full details, see here. Briefly, it was established in 1879 by John Curwen, the Congregational minister, for his Tonic-Sol-Fa College. The Metropolitan Academy of Music followed on from 1906 until World War II, and then London Co-operative offices preceded the arrival of the Cherubim and Seraphim congregation in the 1970s.

An 1890's sketch of Earlham Hall,
when it was in its prime

It is still occupied by the church. Now The Holy Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church has its UK headquarters there. Arriving in the 1970s it is one of the earliest African congregations to settle in Newham. As the first African instituted church, it was originally established among the Yoruba people in Western Nigeria in 1925.

African Church of Cherabim and Seraphim, today

The 'Aladura', or African indigenous tradition, combines teaching and practices learned from western missionaries with elements of traditional African traditions. In Forest Gate the church is led by Pastors and Apostles, worships in distinctive white robes and emphasises prayer-including night vigils.

The church's worshippers in full regalia

Behind the church you can see is an older building the Tonic Sol Fa college, where this system of musical notation was taught.

193 - The Jive Dive. Kenny Johnson, who went on to successfully manage the Lotus Club on Woodgrange Road for over 40 years, began life as an impresario here. In 1960 he took over what had previously been the Earlham Grove Dance Academy (next door but one to the Royal Mail sorting office) and turned it into a pop music venue. See here for further details.

193 - location of 1960's
Jive Dive, now an HMO

The Jive Dive originally opened as a coffee bar, but soon obtained an alcohol license.  The ground floor was converted into a bar, and the basement a dance hall. It was imaginatively decorated, for the time - with bamboo partitions, film and gig posters on the walls and with plants, real and artificial, adorning key areas.

Kenny Johnson, outside the Jive Dive, in the
sixties, proudly displaying his recently acquired Jag

Eddie Johnson, in his book Tales from the Two Puddings, says this of the place:

The Jive Dive seemed to fulfill a real need in young people; it was the time of the 'mod', and young East Enders were, in those days, the most fashion conscious in the world; rendezvousing in Forest Gate every weekend and going to our club, they would have a few drinks and then dance their socks off in the basement. There was no trouble and the customers were a lovely crowd.

The venue proved a great success, but the resultant crowds were understandably less popular with the residential neighbours, and so the brothers closed it as a venue and looked elsewhere for music promotional opportunities. They took on the floor space above what is now the Poundland and the Lotus Club, on Woodgrange Road was born.

Kenny (bearded) and Eddie Johnson, relaxing
 with a pint at the entrance to the Jive Dive

193 Earlham Grove is now a house in multiple occupation.

Durning Hall Christian community centre replaced an earlier Durning Hall, founded about 1885 at Limehouse (see here for fuller details). The premises in Woodgrange Road were registered for worship in 1953 (what is now the Aston Mansfield charity shop)  and in 1959 the main buildings of the centre were opened in Earlham Grove, containing a church, hall, offices, gymnasium, and chaplain's flat. A hostel, with shops below, was later completed on the Woodgrange Road frontage.

Durning Hall, which is non-denominational, is administered by the Aston Mansfield charities trust, founded in 1930 by Miss Theodora Durning-Lawrence. It caters for all age-groups. The church of the Holy Carpenter, designed by Shingler and Risden Associates, has a fine altar wall of stained glass.

Durning Hall today, featuring the stained
glass window referred to in the text

Odd ecclesiastical event 

In the 1890s there was a strange bit of church history when some people from Emmanuel parish church (corner of Romford Rd and Upton Lane) started a rival church in Earlham Grove called Christ Church, because they felt the services at Emmanuel were becoming 'too Roman'. A small (corrugated) iron building had been erected, seating about 200 and continued until at least 1903, see cutting, below.

Essex Newsman - 2 December 1893

Rivalry between the two places of worship ended up in a court case in 1903 (see cutting, below), where the parties promised to behave, or the police would be called!

The dispute between Emmanuel and
 Christ Church reaches the courts,
as this 1903 cutting shows

Significant deaths in Earlham Grove

Other press cuttings (below) show a slightly more tragic side of life for some Earlham Grove residents.

1. A suicide of an Earlham Grove resident, in 1907

Chelmsford Chronicle 22 March 1907

2. A life of a motorist fatally injured by a council tram, in 1906, just £250

Chelmsford Chronicle 29 March 1907

3. An air accident death for an Earlham Grove resident, and early member of the RAF. N.B. initials in article below: RFC = Royal Flying Corps (a fore-runner of RAF) and HAC = Honourable Artillery Company. 

Chelmsford Chronicle, 6 July 1917

4. Another suicide

Essex Newsman 21 February 1920

5. WW2 bombings

Two of the biggest bombing hits in Forest Gate during World War 2 fell on Earlham Grove.  See here for full details. Nineteen people were killed on 6 March 1945, by a Doodlebug when nos 56 - 62 were destroyed.  Ten people were killed just six months previously, when a bomb destroyed numbers 3 - 7. See link, above, for all the names of those reported killed by those bombings.

Doodlebug of the kind that inflicted
 damage on Earlham Grove during WW2

Forest Gate's proud suffragette legacy

The East End was a centre of radical political and trade union activity in the 1880's - most famously for the Matchgirls' Strike, in Bow in 1888 and the historic Dockers' Strike of 1889. What is, perhaps, less well known is that the area became one of the earliest centres agitating for votes for women, around the same time.

The Women's Suffrage Society held meetings at Stratford Town Hall in the late 1880s, one being reported in the Stratford Express in 1887. Some of the women involved then, and a little later,  were to play prominent roles in Women's and wider politics in Newham over the next half century - notably Rebecca Cheetham.

She was the first warden of the Canning Town's Women's Settlement, 1892 - 1917 (whose own history is closely related to that of Durning Hall - see last week's post). She became a co-opted member of West Ham Council's Education Committee, from its inception in 1903, until her death in 1939, and person after whom the eponymous nursery in Stratford is named.

.

Rebecca Cheetham, Newham
 Suffragette and educational reformer

Another prominent figure, though less well-remembered today, was Minnie Baldock, who played a significant role in Forest Gate's suffragette story - see below for a brief biography.

Minnie Baldock, 1908

Together with local MP, Kier Hardie, Minnie held a public meeting in 1903, to complain about low pay for women in the Canning Town area. She was also involved in the West Ham Unemployed Fund and in 1905 became an Independent Labour Party candidate in the election for the West Ham Board of Guardians (the body that oversaw the local administration of the Poor Law and workhouse, and whose elections were open to female voters). She joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) later that year and became active in heckling prominent political figures in public meeting halls across London.

On 26 January 1906, Minnie Baldock established a branch of the WSPU (known commonly as the Suffragettes) in Canning Town, in an attempt to recruit working class members to the cause. By September that year, open-air Suffragette public meetings were being held in Upton Park (see extract form Stratford Express, 28 Sept 1906).

Stratford Express,
29 September 1906

There was soon a branch of the WSPU in Forest Gate, as the extract from the Stratford Express of 25 January 1908, below, suggests. The writing may not be very distinct in the cutting reproduced, but the contents are clear - the WSPU was up, running and strong in Forest Gate in 1908. It says:

Votes for Women

Stratford Express, 25 January 1908

On Friday, at 102 Clova Road, Forest Gate, Mrs Pethwick- Lawrence (another person with Durning Hall connections), hon. treasurer of the National Women's Social and Political Union addressed a meeting of local ladies (some forty persons)on the subject of "Women's enfranchisement" giving the reasons leading her, with so many others, to advance the cause.

Special emphasis was placed on the matter of female labour and on its successful entry into so many vocations, yet commanding scarce more than two thirds remuneration of that given to men and on the fact of women who having to support themselves by their own labour, finding themselves face to face with the trade union organisations working for the reservation of the labour market wherever possible for the male sex.

The result of Mrs Lawrence's eloquent address was a considerable addition to the local union, recently started, and which is organising an energetic campaign in the immediate constituencies".

A small, but fascinating article, which makes uncomfortable reading about the sexist historical nature of many trade unions, and how much (or little?) things have changed in over a century, in the struggle for equal pay in the workforce.

102 Clova Road is a modest, middle class, house, which recent photo below, suggests was a rather small place in which to accommodate a meeting of 40 people, even in 1908. The adjacent property (104) - also shown below - is a much larger one. Could there have been an error in the Stratford Express account, in describing the exact location of the meeting, one wonders?

102 Clova Road, today -
scene of  January 1908 meeting

104 Clova Road - a far larger property - more likely to have been able to accommodate 40 people, at a meeting

In an unpublished PhD thesis for the University of Greenwich, Diana Elisabeth Banks-Convey states that Minnie Baldock became a paid organiser for the Forest Gate branch of the WSPU - although, unfortunately does not source this statement, as she writes:

Despite this new organisation, with its links with working class women in West Ham, the WSPU maintained its branches in both Forest Gate in the north and Canning Town in the south. ... However, Minnie Baldock, despite being a leading light in South West Ham Labour, joined the Forest Gate organisation and was a paid organiser for them, speaking at many meetings throughout the East End.

We have discovered a lengthier Stratford Express account of another WSPU meeting held in Forest Gate, later that year(17 October 1908), reproduced below. This seems to have been a well-attended, determined, session, painting a very vivid picture of the struggles that suffragettes faced in attempting to win the vote, over a century ago.

It provides a salutary local lesson for those people who say they can't be bothered to vote in the forthcoming general election, of the hardships endured by our foremothers (?), to establish that very right, today.

Enthusiastic meeting at Forest Gate

Stratford Express,
 19 October 1908

Artist's impression of Earlham Hall,
Earlham Grove, in 1897,
 while under construction

Organised by the Forest Gate branch of the National Women's Social and Political Union, a meeting was held in Earlham Hall on Monday evening. There was a good attendance of members. A few men occupied seats at the rear of the hall. Mrs Sleight presided, supported by members of various local surrounding branches.

Miss Hewitt, hon. treasurer of the branch referred to the promised demonstration at the House of Commons on Tuesday by Suffragettes. She stated that a demonstration was going to the Prime Minister to ask that a Bill for Women's Suffrage might become law without any further delay. They had no reason to think that the delegation would have any better reception than previous demonstrations had had.

  

Referring to the "courageous women" who would certainly be arrested and sent to prison for the parts they would take in the affair, the speaker said that it was impossible for them all to be arrested, but it was as great a punishment almost for them not to go to prison as it was for the leaders who suffered that indignity. She knew, of course, that on Wednesday they would hear it stated that by their conduct they had put back their cause forty years, and also that they had made other women ashamed of their sisters; but it was their duty to try and show people that it was a difficult business, and that they were prepared to pay any harsh penalty to secure the enfranchisement of women (Hear, hear).

They would hear that women were ashamed of their womanhood and of their sex, but they wanted to make women admire the courage and ability of their leaders, who were prepared to face ridicule and imprisonment for their great ideal. At present they were practically outlaws in a free country. They would stand hand in hand, in spite of the ridicule of the world (Applause). ...

Before the conclusion of the meeting a messenger arrived to say that warrant officers were waiting outside for Mrs Pankhurst and others, who had failed to appear at Bow  Street Police Court in answer to summonses that afternoon. It was discovered, however, that they had not come to arrest the women, but to tell them that they must appear the next afternoon. The charge against them was that of inciting a riot.

Miss Friedlander went on to say that by this means the Government thought they were going to stop them, but they were mistaken, for arrangements had been made for the work to be carried on by able lieutenants during the temporary absence of their leaders. (Applause)

Mrs Sleight said that mounted dragoons and warrant officers had no terrors for them. Men must feel proud that their wives, sisters and sweethearts would willingly suffer for their rights. ...Miss Hewitt invited the men present to ask questions, but received no response.

Miss Flowers, speaking of what they were prepared to do for the sake of the cause, said : "Think what it means to be dragged through the streets like criminals, and before hostile and unsympathetic men" (This remark was greeted with loud laughter by the men present.)

Replying to a question, Miss Hewitt said she did not expect that the enfranchisement of women would create a paradise or Utopia, but without the vote, they could do nothing. (Applause).

Mr John Gordon sang a solo and a collection was held.

On that stirring note, we are sad to report that we have no further information on the activities of the Forest Gate branch of the WSPU (but would love to hear from anyone who has). We do, however, have more on the Minnie Baldock story.

Below we offer a pen portrait, from the available material, of this one-time paid organiser of the Forest Gate branch of the WSPU.

Minnie Baldock, a brief biography

Minnie Baldock, c 1909

Born in Poplar in about 1864, as a girl, Minnie worked in a shirt factory and married Harry Baldock, around 1890. The couple had two sons, Jack and Harry. They lived together at 23 Oak Crescent Canning Town, at the time of the 1891 census, both described as general labourers, with their 10 month old son, Harry (see extract, below). The house no longer exists, and the site today is a green open space, near the Canning Town fly-over (see photo, below).

1891 census entry for the
 Baldocks  - Oak Crescent,
 Canning Town

          Oak Crescent, today

Minnie became a member of the recently formed Independent Labour Party (ILP) in the 1890s, and Harry - from 1901 until 1907 - was an ILP councillor for the Tidal Basin ward of West Ham Council.

The family does not seem to appear locally, in the 1901 census.

In 1903, along with her local MP, Kier Hardie, Minnie organised a public meeting to complain about low pay for women in the area. She was involved in the administration of the West Ham Unemployed Fund. In 1905 she became the ILP candidate in the election for the West Ham Board of Guardians.

As mentioned above, she joined the WSPU in 1905, and was soon very active, within it, heckling prominent politicians (like prime minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman)and demonstrating outside their houses, in central London.

It is probable that she was part of the group, including socialist activists, Kier Hardie, George Lansbury, Julia Scurr and Dora Montefoire, that organised a march of 1,000 women from the East End to Westminster, to lobby for welfare assistance for the unemployed in 1906.

Minnie Baldock, left - handing out Suffragette
 leaflets in Nottingham, 1907

In November of that year another march took place, when 4,000 women from West Ham, Poplar and Southwark marched down Whitehall, bearing banners with messages such as 'Work for our men', 'Food for our children' and 'Workers of the world unite', accompanied by a band playing The Marseillaise.

When the working class, Lancashire-born, and later prominent Suffragette, Annie Kenney moved to London, in 1906, she stayed, at the recommendation of fellow socialists, with Minnie Baldock in Eclipse Street in Canning Town. Minnie had local contacts gained from her actions, above, and, through her husband, Harry, with various local trade union branches. She helped Annie make connections in the area and assisted in finding speaking engagements for her.

In 1906 Minnie, together with Annie Kenney,  was instrumental in establishing a branch of the WSPU on her home patch, of Canning Town.  The pair met frequently with Sylvia Pankhurst, who was extremely active in Bow and introduced a young local cigarette factory worker, Daisy Parsons, to the movement. Daisy would later be part of the East London Suffrage Movement's 1914 deputation to meet the prime minister, Asquith. In 1936, she became West Ham's first female mayor.

Daisy Parsons, far left, on Suffragette
 deputation to Downing Street,
 February 1914

Minnie, herself,  soon became a full-time organiser for the WSPU, for Forest Gate (see above), and toured the country addressing meetings.

She was arrested in a demonstration outside the House of Commons in February 1908 (see video clip, below) and sentenced to a month in Holloway prison. The Daily Mirror described her involvement thus:

Mrs Baldock drove round with a megaphone and shouted 'Votes for Women' as far up the stairs of St Stephen's entrance as the megaphones could send the words. Other women with megaphones drove past in cabs shouting their battle cry.

Much of our information about Minnie comes from a small article about her, published in Votes for Women, on 18 June 1908. It reads:

Mrs Baldock, as a working woman, knows the difficulties and sorrows of their lives, and has now given up all work to fight for political power. She brings to her work the experience gained as a Poor Law Guardian and by work in the Independent Labour Party, on Distress Committees etc. Mrs Baldock was one of the first militant suffragettes in London, heckling Mr Asquith at his Queen's Hall meeting in December 1905, and holding up the banner at the Albert Hall. In October 1906 and again in February 1908, she suffered imprisonment for her enthusiasm.

In February 1909 Minnie was heavily involved in a recruiting and propaganda campaign for the WSPU in the West Country.

The Baldock family lived at 490 Barking Road, Plaistow at the time of the 1911 census, though Minnie was not present on the night of the count - presumably campaigning elsewhere in the country. Harry snr. was described as a driller/hole cutter in the shipbuilding industry, and the two sons were also employed in that industry, in that census.

490 Barking Road, today

1911 census, Baldocks (minus Minnie)
 at 490 Barking Road 

Minnie became seriously ill with cancer in late 1911, and was operated on in the New Hospital for Women (now the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, Bloomsbury). She went to Brighton, for a while for recuperation, and never returned to work with the WSPU.

It has been speculated that she disapproved of the increasingly militant tactics being adopted by the organisation (e.g. arson) , because continued to hold membership of the Church League for Women's Suffrage.

In January 1913, Minnie and Harry snr moved to Southampton. In her later years, she lived in Hamworthy, near Poole, where she died aged about 90, in 1954.

Screengrab from YouTube clip of
Votes For Women,
which can be accessed here

In 2011 Poole museum, and National Lottery funded commissioned a short film celebrating the life of Minnie Baldock, The Right to Vote. It was written by Kate O'Malley and starred Michelle O'Brien. You can access it via the hyperlink in the caption to the screengrab, above.