Forest Gate Freedom Walk

Peter Ashan began a series of Freedom Walks in east London in 2007, during the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. These walks aim to reveal the hidden history of the contribution of people of colour to the east end of London and the struggle against inequality. Below, we feature some aspects of his Freedom Walk of Forest Gate. 

Portrait of Peter in a mural in Wood Street, Walthamstowe

Full details of Peter’s other walks and work can be found in the footnote. 

  

Forest Gate Youth Zone, Woodford Road  

 

Tony Lee Fielding (1944-2006) was born in Jamaica and migrated to England in 1960 to be with his parents in Hackney. 

Forest Gate Youth Zone, where Tony Lee Fielding was a youth worker

He began a career as a youth worker with Waltham Forest Council in 1975. In the mid-1980s, he established Sing and Deliver, which provided opportunities in the performing arts, such as singing and street dance. These activities occurred in youth centres in Waltham Forest and further afield, such as Forest Gate Youth Zone.   

 

The programme included his Inner-College Vocal Search, which took place at various colleges in London.   

  

Eagle and Child Pub, Woodgrange Road  

  

Before it became a pub, The Eagle and Child, now the Woodgrange pharmacy, was a Pleasure Garden and Tea Room dating back to 1744. Venues like this were popular in England during the c18 to c19, where the wealthy could enjoy music, dancing, food, and drink, particularly tea, for a fee. 

Woodgrange Pharmacy, on the site of the Eagle and Child pub/Pleasure Garden and Tea Room

  

The British East India Company began importing tea from China in 1664. The prosperous preferred to add sugar to their tea. This became the main crop enslaved African labour was forced to grow in the Caribbean. Exploited Indian labour on tea plantations meanwhile grew the tea, in what became the British Empire in India.   

  

Portrait of Ranjit Singh 1780-1839, Woodgrange Road   

 

Ranjit Singh was the first Maharaja and founder of the Sikh Empire. The Artful Skecha painted his portrait on the side of a block of flats.  

 

When Ranjit Singh died in 1839 his empire was weakened by rivalry and the East India Company sought to exploit this internal weakness to expand its territory in India. His youngest son, Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, 1838 to 1893, became, aged five, the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire in 1843, with his mother, Maharani Jind Kaur, ruling on his behalf.  

Portrait of Ranjit Singh on block of flats on Woodgrange Road

  

Two wars between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company (1845 -1846 and 1848- 1849) saw the East India Company victorious, and they renamed the area the North West Frontier Province (of India). 

   

Duleep Singh was exiled to Britain at 15 and befriended by Queen Victoria, who became godmother to several of his children, three of whom he had when married to Bamba Muller (1864 to 1887). Bamba’s mother, from Ethiopia, and her father, from Germany, were suffragettes. 

 

Two of their daughters were socially significant activists in their own right.   

Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh (1871-1942) has been called by the Holocaust Memorial Trust the “Indian Schindler” for her role, when living in Germany, in helping several Jewish people to escape from the Nazi’s, to safety in Britain.   

Princess Sofia Alexandra Duleep Singh (1876-1948) was a particularly well-known suffragette activist in the Women’s Social and Political Union.  

  

Durning Hall Community Centre, Earlham Grove 

   

Newham Monitoring Project (NMP-1980-2016) used Durning Hall for meetings and fundraising events. I remember attending at least one NMP party there, with a female DJ playing music reflecting the diversity of east London, such as Bhangra, Funk, and High Life. 

Newham Recorder reporting the murder of Akhtar Ali Baig

  

NMP brought the diverse communities of east London- White, Black and Asian - together to challenge racism. It was formed in 1980, as part of the Asian Youth Movement after the racist murder of Akhtar Ali Baig as he left East Ham Station. 

   

One of its founders was Gulshun Rehman, who also founded The Newham Asian Women’s Project. (see here and here for further details of the NMP) 

  

Hazel Goldman, Earlham Grove 

  

Among the many diverse communities who have made Newham their home is the Jewish community, escaping anti-Semitism in Europe. Hazel Goldman’s family has lived in Britain since the 1880s. Her grandfather Shmula Peprzhik, upon arriving in England in 1913, had his name anglicised to Harry Goldman. 

Helen Goldman (photo: Forest Mag)

  

The family moved to Forest Gate in the 1950s and were members of the Earlham Grove Synagogue (consecrated in 1911—demolished in 2004—see here for further details). It was the first in Essex and the largest in Newham. 

   

Hazel attended Chelsea School of Art and worked for Freeform Arts Trust, leading its Community Design and Technical Services Department and has continued to work within community arts ever since. From 1984 to 2002 she was an Executive Member of Pepetual Beauty Carnival Association in Stoke Newington, leading its design team, as well as supporting the development of the first accredited courses in art and design, through carnival arts at a UK college. 

  

Her work can be seen in the Forest Gate Community Garden on Earlham Grove.   

  

Newham Black Performing and Visual Arts Workshop (NBP&VAW) MacDonalds drive-in Romford Road 

   

The N.B. P & V. A. W. was founded in 1980 by Tony Cheeseman, who became its first Development Worker.  His co-founders were Pearla Boyce, Harian Henry, Peter Mavunga and Nathalie Pierre. Benjamin Zephaniah was the organisation’s patron.  

Tony Cheeseman

 

Its workshop tutors included Hakim Adi: History; Rosette Bushell-Adi: Dance; Sandra Agard: Poetry; Joe Blackman: Creative Writing and Colin Paddy: Sculpture. 

   

One of its aims was to give African Caribbean youth opportunities to learn about and develop their skills in the arts. Its original headquarters was above a bicycle shop at 324 to 326 Romford Road. It is now Forest Gate MacDonalds.  

MacDonald's, Romford Road, site of NBP&VAW

  

Workshops were organized in drawing, painting, creative writing, spoken word poetry, singing, dance, and Black history.  

 

From 1986 to 1989, they collaborated with the Newham African Caribbean Centre on 627 to 633 Barking Road, now known as the Barking Road Community Resource Centre.   

    

Clapton Community FC, Disraeli Road   

 

Walter Daniel John Tull was born 28^h April 1888 in Folkestone and died on 25^h March 1918 near Favreuil Pas-de-Calais Aged 29. He was a professional football player and officer in the British army. His father was Daniel Tull, an African Caribbean, born in Barbados and his mother Alice Elizabeth Palmer, white English, born in Kent. Walter was soon orphaned and faced and overcame many adversities, including racism, throughout his life to become an inspiration for justice and equality.   

Walter Tull

 

He played football for amateur club Clapton at the Old Spotted Dog Ground from 1908 to 1909 and was in the team that won the FA Amateur Cup, the London County Amateur Cup, and the London Senior Cup. The club is proud of the part he played in its history and will soon name the passage behind the ground Walter Tull Way. There will also be an information panel with a QR code erected on the ground, directing visitors to more information about him. 

  

From 1909 to 1911, he played for Tottenham Hotspur in the 1st Division of the FA Football League, making him one of the first Black outfield football players to appear in the league. From 1911 to 1914, he played 111 games for Northampton Town in the Southern League, which the legendary Herbert Chapman then managed. In 1917, he signed up to play for the Glasgow Rangers, becoming their first Black player. 

  

He joined the British Army in 1914, becoming the first Black officer to lead white troops into battle, rising in the ranks to become a 2nd Lieutenant, and died in battle.   

  

  

West Ham Park 

    

The park owes its existence to the perseverance of Dr Gustav Pagenstecher (1829-1916).  He was born in Westphalia Germany to a Franco/Caribbean mother and his wealthy German father, who died when Gustav was 5 years old.  

Gustav Pagenstecher (1896)

 

Gustav was home-educated. It is believed he left Germany in 1852 for England to avoid military service.  In England, he worked as a tutor for a family in Norfolk, and later became a tutor for MP Sir Edward Buxton’s family. He joined Buxton in visiting Ham House (the site of what was to become West Ham Park) in 1860 to meet Buxton’s Gurney relations. He was also Buxton’s secretary in Parliament. 

  

In the 1870s, John Gurney, owner of the Ham House estate, was keen to sell it, as the family was in financial difficulties due to the collapse of their bank. John Gurney asked Gustav for help selling the estate. He persuaded Gurney to consider turning the estate into a public park.  

 

Gustav identified the Corporation of London as the potential owners and managers of the park, and found other wealthy donors willing to contribute to the cost of creating a public park. 

  

He was the deputy chairman of the Parks Committee until 1916 and wrote the first history of the Park. From 1886, he lived in Cedar Cottage at 206 The Portway, adjacent to the park. 

  

He regularly returned to Germany during summers and in 1914 returned to England to find that he was expected to report daily to West Ham Police Station as an alien. He was caught up in the anti-German policies of the British Government during World War One. 

   

The way he was treated during this period is said to have contributed to his death two years later. There is very little information about him in the park, apart from a small plaque in the Pagenstecher Winter Garden opened in May 2015. (See here and here for more details on Pagenstcher and the Park) 

 

Footnote. Peter’s original Freedom Walks were of Leyton, Leytonstone, and Walthamstow. He then added walks around Ridley Road, Hackney, Green Street and Newham (which we hope to feature soon), and Battersea. In 2023, he added walks in Chingford North and Chingford Mount. 

 

Peter has also produced a book, Freedom Walk: The roots of diversity in Waltham Forest, to support his work. You can obtain this from him at the email address below. 

 

Peter welcomes enquiries from local community groups interested in him providing a Freedom Walk for them, at: peter.ashan.pa@gmail.com  

 

 

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.

"The most interesting personality in the borough of West Ham" (1896)

This was Forest Gate Weekly News' description of Gustav Pagenstecher. It was almost certainly true then, and the fact that the reader of this article has probably never heard of him is part of his fascinating story.

Gustav Pagenstecher in 1896

He was key to establishing West Ham Park, and wrote its first history; edited the first history of West and East Ham; and was: a leading figure in the development of the then West Ham hospital, a committee member of Essex County Cricket club for over 20 years, instrumental in ensuring cricket was (and still is) played in West Ham Park, secretary and tutor to the Gurney/Buxton families of Upton, a prominent member of Forest Gate civic society, an active local Liberal, somewhat implausibly a committee member for the Essex County Agricultural show; and, for good measure, a leading light in the Peabody Trust's housing management development.

Pagenstecher was born in Westphalia to a wealthy German father and Franco/Caribbean mother in 1829. His father died when he was five; the boy was subsequently privately educated - mostly at home.  

He was cousin to a famous eye surgeon who seemed to spend most of his working life attending to Queen Victoria's children and her relatives on the other thrones of Europe.

Gustav studied at the universities of Berlin, Bonn and Halle, reading classics, history and modern languages. In 1852 he was awarded a PhD for a Latin dissertation on Socrates.

He came to England immediately afterwards and acted as tutor to a family in Norfolk. He then performed a similar role for the MP Sir Edward Buxton, also of Norfolk.

Buxton came to stay with his relatives, the Gurneys, in Ham House (in what is now West Ham Park) in 1860, and Pagenstecher joined him there. Gustav was active as Buxton's secretary in Parliament, and spoke of having seen the likes of "Palmerstone, Russell, Disraeli, Gladstone and Bright" at work on the floor of the House. He also tutored the families' young and did the adults' bidding - even in their ancestral home of Norfolk, where he was to be found organising benefit concerts on their behalf, for almost a decade.

Ham House, in its grounds
- now the site of West Ham Park

He left the family's employment in 1869 until 1874, during which time he was secretary to a wealthy banker, William Gibbs. But Forest Gate still had a pull on his attention and commitments.

The Gurney family encountered financial difficulties in the 1870's (which will be referred to in a subsequent post) and Samuel Gurney's grandson, John, wished to dispose of their family seat, Ham House and the 72 acres attached to it, to ease these problems. He turned to Pagenstecher to assist with the sale.

The grounds of Ham House,
before turned into West Ham Park

Gurney's preference was that the grounds should become a public park, but he did not wish to bequeath the grounds gratis to the area.

The land was valued at about £25,000. Gurney was willing to offer a £10,000 price cut if the grounds were to become a public park and he used Pagenstecher to fix the deal. Gustav approached the then West Ham local government body to finance it, but they had neither the money nor the powers to do so.

West Ham Park, 1904

He was able to persuade friends of the Gurneys to contribute £5,000 to the reduced asking price and  then cajoled the Corporation of London to fund the remaining £10,000 and take responsibility for its on-going upkeep. It was opened to the public, under their aegis, in 1874.

That is why a little bit of the Corporation remit nestles in a  small corner of Forest Gate today. (Wanstead Flats - well, that's a different story, emanating from a similar period - see here!).

West Ham Park c 1905

Having engineered the transformation of grand residence and grounds into public park, Gustav Pagenstecher was to remain as deputy chairman of the Park's Committee until his death in 1916. He wrote the first definitive history of the Park in 1908, and was awarded a gold watch for his 40 years of service, by the Park Committee on 27 June 1914.

A plaque, commemorating his dedication to the Park was erected within it for some years. It is now long gone, and events towards the very end of his life may provide the explanation for the disappearance.

After his success in establishing the Park, Pagenstecher  became secretary of the Peabody Trustees - responsible for large estates of charitable housing for the poor, until 1888.

He cemented his relationship with Forest Gate when he moved into his own property, Cedar Cottage, 206 The Portway, in 1886. This had previously been the house of the Gurney family's bailiff. It is long gone and is now replaced by 1930's housing, and was adjacent to what is now East St, facing the park.

Cedar Cottage, Pagenstecher's
 house on The Portway

In 1889 he popped up in press reports, somewhat bizarrely, as Deputy Returning Officer for elections in Ilford.

The following year, he became the first, and very successful, secretary of West Ham Hospital - then located behind Stratford Town hall. These were, of course, pre-NHS days, and so the institution was almost entirely dependent on charity donations for its development and upkeep.

"Ladies" ward, West Ham hospital, 1900
 - shortly after Gustav's period as secretary there.

Press reports show him to have organised a Masonic Ball at the Town Hall in 1893, to raise money for the hospital.  The extract from the Chelmsford Chronicle, below, is an unintentionally funny description of the event.

Four months later, the philanthropist Passmore Edwards laid the foundation stone of a new wing at the hospital that was to bear his name. Pagenstecher had, no doubt, been instrumental in arranging this. Edwards contributed £2,000 of the £2,8000 required to build the eponymously named ward.

Two years later, the 67-year old Dr Pagenstecher was interviewed by the Forest Gate Weekly News. The paper raised the subject of his employment with the hospital, but found a reluctant interviewee: "The Doctor seemed disinclined to discuss the point further and we broached other topics"!

Children's ward, West Ham hospital, 1900
 - shortly after Gustav's period as secretary there.

Among those were his Forest Gate-related past times.

Katherine Fry, prison reformer, Elizabeth's daughter, of Cedar House, had, during her lifetime collected a large and jumbled collection of documents relating to the history of East and West Ham.  According to the Weekly News, Pagenstecher "rescued the valuable manuscripts from the gloomy side of oblivion" and spent two years knocking them into shape. They were published in 1888 (see press advert, below).

Pagenstecher was more than a little aggrieved that in the reviews of the book Fry was given all the plaudits for its excellence and he all the blame for its perceived faults!

Gustav was a pianist of some distinction and:

... a member of the Shakespearean Society, which holds its meetings in Forest Gate. I am also a member of the Upton Literary Society, which holds its meetings in Norwich Hall.

I am a Liberal; always was; but not a radical". He regularly represented Stratford at regional Liberal meetings and bodies.

I've always been an enthusiast for cricket. On the Park Management Committee, I used every endeavour to ensure that portions of the Park should be laid out as cricket pitches. I was secretary of the Upton Park Cricket Club, which dates as far back as 1854.

Dr Paggy, they always called me - that was my cricket name. They gave me a silver cup when I stood down.

Pagenstecher was a member of the Essex County Cricket Club committee from 1886 - when it moved its headquarters from Brentwood to Leyton - until 1910 (and was for a short period its secretary).

He was, additionally, an active supporter and promoter of the Stratford |Music Festival, whose origins can be traced to the Earlham Grove  Academy (see here), and a chess player of some repute.

Surviving evidence suggests that Pagenstecher was, by modern standards,  somewhat pompous; but was quite capable of a degree of self deprecation.

So - he caught the cycling bug, that was so popular in the area in the 1890's (see here), and in a passage that may have come straight from a modern day Alan Bennett diary, he told the Forest Gate Weekly News in a letter in 1896:

You must sit perfectly upright', said my kind instructor, 'lay hold of the handle, keep your balance and treadle quite slowly with your feet' This seemed all very plausible in theory, but I found it jolly hard, in practice.

The letter continued:

.........

Pagenstecher was a "confirmed bachelor". Whether that term was used as euphemistically at the end of the nineteenth century as it was a hundred years later is not clear. He was, however, quite self mocking about his status in his last known published work - a letter to the Chelmsford Chronicle on 8 May 1914, as the extract below indicates:

Chelmsford Chronicle 8 May 1914

Pagenstecker felt very much at ease in his adopted home of Forest Gate, telling the local Weekly News in 1896:

One's tastes and habits are formed along English lines ... I have lived in a good society, and thoroughly enjoyed the good things in life, including the true friendship of several good and true English gentlemen.

In his later years, Gustav would spend the three summer months in his ancestral home of Germany. He was appalled when war broke out in the summer of 1914 and rushed back from his vacation to his adopted home of Forest Gate, dying soon after.

Pagenstecher in his later years,
 from Stratford Express obituary
 of him, February 1916

Pagenstecher's legacy

For: -

• ·         establishing West Ham Park and writing its first history;
• ·         editing the first history of East and West Ham;
• ·         being a successful fundraising secretary for the old West ham hospital;
• ·         being an active member of Forest Gate civic society;
• ·         serving for 20 years as a member of the Essex County Cricket Club;
• ·         being described in 1896 as "the most interesting personality in the whole borough of West Ham";
• ·         being an active member of the Liberal party at local and regional level;
• ·         working as a senior housing association manager
• ·         becoming "an English gentleman".

what was Pagenstecher's reward?:

• ·         a knighthood?
• ·         Freedom of the City of London, or West Ham?
• ·         a building, street or facility named in his honour?
• ·         a blue, or indeed any colour, plaque?

No. He was rounded up as an 85 year old alien on his return from Germany in 1914 and was required to report to West Ham police station daily.

it is said to have broken his heart. He died 18 months later, on 11 February 1916 and the memory of his local contribution has been allowed to fade away. So much so, that today Gustav Pagenstecher remains largely unremembered and completely unrecognised in Forest Gate.