Advanced Blog-Writing Course
In response to multiple requests, I am running an ADVANCED BLOG-WRITING COURSE on the weekend of 23rd & 24th October at 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields.
This is open to those who have attended my previous writing courses, as well as anyone who already has a blog that they would like to develop and improve. Writers with some experience who would like to commence a blog are also welcome.
Spend a weekend with me in an eighteenth century weaver’s house, enjoy delicious lunches, savour freshly baked cakes from historic recipes, discover the secrets of Spitalfields Life and learn how to improve your own blog.
If you already have a blog or have experience of writing, you are eligible and welcome to attend, just drop me a line to SpitalfieldsLife@gmail.com and I will send you the details.
There are just a few places left on my beginners’ course How To Write A Blog That People Will Want to Read on 20th & 21st November. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
The Quest For Grinling Gibbons
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At St Mary Abchurch, Hugh climbs up to take a closer look
This August 3rd sees the three-hundredth anniversary of Grinling Gibbons’ death. So, in anticipation of such an august centenary, master wood carver Hugh Wedderburn took me on a quest in search of Grinling Gibbons in the City of London.
Gibbons was born in Rotterdam in 1648, where he trained as wood carver and was exposed to the art of Dutch still life painting before he came to Britain in 1667.
John Evelyn wrote in his diary in 1671, ‘I this day first acquainted with a young man Gibson [sic] whom I had lately found in an obscure place & that by mere accident, as I was walking neere a poor solitary thatched house in a field in our parish neere Says Court. I found him shut in but looking through the window I perceiv’d him carving that large cartoone or Crucifix of Tintoretto.’
John Evelyn arranged introductions for Grinling Gibbons to King Charles II and Christopher Wren, enabling him to set up his workshop on Ludgate Hill – an auspicious and opportune location for a wood carver, beside the ruins of Old St Paul’s.
It is significant that Evelyn described Gibbons carving from a two-dimensional image, transforming it into physical form. Today Gibbons is recognised for his extraordinarily lifelike carvings of flowers, fruit and foliage, which bear a relationship to still life painting yet upon close examination are less naturalistic than they may at first appear.
From Hugh Wedderburn’s workshop in Southwark, we undertook our quest westward across the City, commencing at the Tower of London to visit the Parade of Kings – a sequence of monarchs in armour on horseback – where a wooden horse is attributed to Gibbons and a portrait head of Charles I is by the same hand. While the other horses are lifeless merry-go-round figures, more mounts for armour than sculptures in their own right, it is easy to appreciate why this one particular horse might earn its attribution, with its lifelike flared nostrils and bulging veins visible through the skin. The accompanying head of Charles I possesses a soulful melancholy and presence, in stark contrast to the workmanlike nature of the others.
Just up the hill at All Hallows By The Tower, we admired the elaborate font lid of foliage with two putti gesturing to the large bird atop the construction. When the lid is suspended up above the font for ceremonies and seen from below, it has proportion and balance with everything in place. Yet when it is lowered, the sculpture appears distorted and the putti’s anatomy bulges curiously. This is an example of carving in perspective and evidence of Gibbons’ sense of theatre, creating a visual effect that works from a single view point and is deliberately non-naturalistic.
Just five minutes walk away at St Mary Abchurch, Hugh and I climbed up ladders to admire the swags on the reredos closely. When these swags were first installed the pale lime wood stood in contrast to the dark oak background, throwing them into even more dramatic relief. This is what we imagine when we think of Grinling Gibbons – lush garlands of fruit, flowers and foliage that he carved in a manner which appeared more lifelike than had been seen before.Yet on close examination, it became evident that the definition of the leaves and fruit was only carved where it was visible, with the forms merging into abstraction away from view.
At St Paul’s, we admired Grinling Gibbons majestic quire stalls and epic organ case before climbing up into the roof where trays of bits and pieces that have fallen off over the centuries are preserved. Like the most fascinating jigsaw in the world, here are thousands of fragments that all belong somewhere. Examining them closely revealed the breathtaking detail of the carving by Gibbons and his studio who were responsible for all the architectural decoration in the cathedral. Even the wings on the angels can be identified as derived from different species of birds, revealing the minute observation of the natural world that informs these bravura carvings.
As we left the cathedral, Hugh and I paused to look back at the west front and admire Gibbons’ lavish foliate adornments that provide such a successful counterpoint to the austerity of Wren’s geometry. Somehow the palm leaves on the Corinthian columns are more luxuriant that you might expect. Garlands of leaves and fruit have been hung directly across structural elements of the design, disrupting its formality.
The legend that Gibbons and Wren had a tense working relationship comes as no surprise because the conflict is evident in the dynamic between the two visual languages at play. Yet it is this dynamic between the classical geometry and the presence of organic forms that makes this architecture so compelling and alive. This is Gibbons’ contribution and one of many reasons why we should celebrate his genius this year.
Head of Charles I attributed to Grinling Gibbons
Horse in the Parade of Kings in the White Tower
Font cover at Allhallows by the Tower
Reredos at St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch
Missing pieces from Grinling Gibbons’ quire at St Paul’s
Missing wings from putti at St Paul’s
Different designs of cornicing at St Paul’s
Grinling Gibbons quire stalls at St Paul’s
Canopy over the Bishop’s Throne at St Paul’s
Note the repairs to the quire in new lime wood that is still pale in tone
Bishop’s Throne by Grinling Gibbons at St Paul’s
Repairs at St Paul’s
Grinling Gibbons epic organ case at St Paul’s
In Hugh Wedderburn’s Southwark workshop, a frame for designer Marianna Kennedy
Hugh’s collection of chestnuts and acorns to plant trees for generations of wood carvers to come
Hugh plants his acorns and chestnuts
Hugh’s saplings that will be his legacy to future wood carvers
Visit THE GRINLING GIBBONS SOCIETY to learn more about the tercentary celebrations
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The Point Shoe Makers Of Hackney
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The Pointe Shoe Makers are featured THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S LONDON ALBUM which is included in the sale.
Photographer Patricia Niven and Novelist Sarah Winman visited the Freed of London factory in Well St to create these portraits of the Pointe Shoe Makers, an elite band of highly-skilled craftsmen who make the satin slippers worn by the world’s greatest ballerinas.
It takes two to three years to become a fully trained Pointe Shoe Maker. Hardly surprising, as each shoe is hand-made and two thirds of these shoes (including the toe ‘blocks’ themselves) are made to a Dancer’s individual specifications. Such specifications are printed onto dockets which the Makers work by. One docket was quite illegible to me – a shorthand code with the only clear words: Hessian, strong, slight taper.
There is something inaccessible and mysterious about this world – from the Makers’ symbols, to the language of the shoe, to the exclusive world of the finished product. And yet, I found the Makers to be a pragmatic group of men, into football not dance, who have become blasé about praise and who all refer to the making of these shoes as a job, irrespective of the beauty, the artistry of the finished product. They live in a world of chiaroscuro, where prima ballerinas, surrounded by bodyguards, turn up in limousines to applaud them whilst they stand at their benches six days a week producing nearly forty shoes a day, a quarter of a million shoes a year.
I asked each man if he had ever tried on a ballet shoe to get a sense of the feel – Never! – Even more remarkable then, to think that each shoe is made by touch, look, and imagination alone.
I asked each man whether he had ever been to the ballet.
I asked each man whether he calls himself a Pointe Shoe Maker or a Shoe Maker.
I asked the Maker Taksim (Anchor) what he would like people to know about his work.
He said, “I wish people could try this job. This is the hardest job I’ve ever done. My hands go numb, and I can’t feel them. Over time you get used to the pain.”
I said, “That’s what ballet dancers say about their feet.”
He said,”Really? So, their feet are our hands.”
– Sarah Winman
Taksim known as ‘Anchor’
“I’ve been here for fifteen years. I love my job and no-one tells me what to do. It came easy to me because I used to work in the leather trade and put that experience to good use. I know how the material works and moves.
I haven’t been to the ballet but I have seen my dancers on television – Leanne Benjamin, Jane Taylor to name two. I make Jane Taylor one hundred pairs of shoes a year, all 5 ½ X heel pins. I am proud to make shoes for her. I have met all my prima ballerinas and had photos taken with them. They appreciate us I think.
I have no time to go to the ballet because I work six days a week. I need to rest and put my feet up. I’m a big football fan, enjoying the tennis too, at the moment. We don’t tell people we make ballet shoes, we are just shoe makers. I make thirty-eight pairs a day and am booked up until mid December.
I was born in Cyprus. I never imagined I would have done this. When I came here thirty years ago, I expected to work in a fish and chip shop.”
Taksim’s ‘anchor.’
Taksim’s ‘anchor’ in place upon a pair of his shoes – ballerinas have been known to scratch off their Maker’s symbol to keep him exclusively for her!
Taksim’s work bench.
Fred known as ‘F’
“I was in-between jobs and went to Freed in Mercer St in Covent Garden and learned to be a Maker. I had no idea what I was getting into. My friends all worked in warehouses or were builders so I didn’t tell ‘em what I did until I’d been making shoes for a year.
Have I been to the ballet? No, you’re havin’ a larf, aren’t you?!
When I made my first shoe, I was elated, tell you the truth, that I’d done something. I started off unloading lorries, and it took three months before I got on the bench. Then did soft toes, then hard toes.
I make forty pairs a day and I have a waiting list. I call myself a shoe maker. When you hear a prima ballerina say you’re great, it’s wonderful. Then you hear it so many times…and well…
There’s really nothing glamorous about standing at a bench for ten hours. Do I enjoy making shoes? Look at me. I’m sixty-two and sweating!”
Fred’s ‘F’ on the sole a pair of his shoes.
Fred’s work bench.
Ray known as ‘Crown’
“We are given symbols when we start making shoes, so that if anything is wrong with the shoe they know who to blame! I have been here for twenty-six years. My father-in-law got me a job interview here. I get satisfaction from making the whole shoe myself. Other shoes are made by lots of people.
I love that dancers are wearing my shoes.
You are trained and learn the basics. People teach you their ways and sometimes those ways are conflicting. Then I had to find my own way. There’s a lot of trial and error. I found a style that I like and the dancers like, and I’ve kept to it.
Every dancer likes a different shoe. Each Maker is different – one might use more paste than the other. But dancers come back and stay with you for life. They will tell you what they need.
I’ve never been to the ballet, but if I watch it on the television I look at their feet. I know how to craft the shoe by touch, feel, look. I instinctively know how much paste to use, how much hessian. If the dancer wants a light block she’ll get one. If she wants a shoe with more give I do that. The dancers are fascinated to meet the makers. I make forty pairs a day. I don’t have much time off. People wait weeks to get a shoe from me. I make a lot of shoes for the New York City Ballet.
I love my job. I could never have dreamt of this, or of having my photo taken with dancers or even of someone writing down what I’m saying.
I was born around here – grew up bit with my dad and a bit with my mum. It was all a bit of an adventure. My two daughters take up my time. I made a pair of soft toes for my six year old girl. They don’t do ballet now. They have found their own interests.”
Ray’s work bench.
Ray’s ‘Crown’ on the sole of a pair of his shoes.
Daniel known as ‘Butterfly’
“My wife has been a Pointe Shoe Fitter in the Freed shop since she was sixteen. She was a dancer, went away and travelled the world. We met when she was in the Philippines, and she brought me back with her and we had babies. She went back to the shop and four months ago I started to make shoes here. I have a good teacher in Tksim, he’s a Master.
I do enjoy it. I always found it fascinating when my wife talked about dancing and shows and make-up. I always had the curiosity. Always thought, I want to be part of all that.
I haven’t been to the ballet yet, but I’ve watched it on Youtube.
Since I’ve been making shoes, I look at the dancer’s feet. I used to be a tight-rope walker and a trapeze artist. When I was a trapeze artist, I had to wear a leather glove. We made the leather gloves ourselves and the leather was so important. I understand how the leather is important for the shoe, I’d never realised it before.
I will call myself a Pointe Shoe Maker.I make twenty-four shoes a day. It has come naturally to me, but it’s very hard work. My hands and my shoulders ache. This here is the first ever shoe I made here. It gives me great satisfaction because it is a very important shoe – because this is a shoe that is not to be worn everyday in the street.
It’s craftsmanship.”
Daniel’s first shoe with his ‘Butterfly’ mark on the sole.
Daniel’s mark.
At Daniel’s work bench.
Alan known as ‘Triangle’
“I started next door in Despatch and then I was given the opportunity to come here and make shoes. I made my first pair of shoes nine years ago. Dancers come here and they thank us and applaud us.
I have been to the ballet once. I can’t remember what it was – it wasn’t really my cup of tea. I’m a DJ and prefer a different dance. My kids do ballet and I’ve made one of them a pair of shoes
I call myself a shoe maker.
If I wasn’t here, I would be painting or decorating or a barman.
We don’t see what other people see. You see something beautiful. I see a finished product, a skilled job well done.”
One of Alan’s shoes with his ‘triangle’ on the sole.
An order with the customer’s specifications.
When the block and platform have been created – this is the moment when it rests ghostly on Pointe, unaided, perfectly balanced, dancing its own breathtaking dance.
Alan’s work bench
Darren Plume, Quality Controller & Manager of the London Makers
“My grandfather worked as a storeman here thirty years ago. I left school and joined here when I was fifteen and a half years old. I started off unloading lorries, making tea, that sort of thing. I’ve been here twenty-six years now and have done mostly everything. I took over jobs as people left or retired. I never thought about leaving because I’m happy with what I do.
It’s the people who made me want to stay. I had a lot of father figures. I’ve known Ray (Crown) twenty-six years and we see each other more than we see our own families. My mates used to think I was nuts working here because they were all on building sites, but then they saw the dancers who came in and they changed their minds.
The Makers know more about the shoes than I do. The shoes go into the ovens overnight to bake and harden the block and, first thing in the morning, I check every one of them – that’s my responsibility. I also liaise with the dancers, because if they have a problem they’ll ask to visit us.
Once I used to be in awe of them, now I think they might be a little in awe of us. No shoes, no dance. The dancers rely on us a lot. Their Maker would only have to get an injury and psychologically it could affect them quite a bit.
I’ve been to the ballet twice. I saw Swan Lake at the ENO in the round five years ago. We took a Maker’s bench down there and made shoes in the foyer for the audience to see what we did. Three, four hundred people wanted to shake our hands.
When I was watching the ballet I was only looking at the shoes.
This job’s a bit like a fairytale. You can get caught up in the moment. Some days it flows, some days it’s a pig’s ear and some days you’re as happy as Larry. The most important thing as a manager is to listen to people. Then buy ‘em a coffee and make ‘em happy.”
Photographs copyright © Patricia Niven
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At Freed of London, Ballet & Theatrical Shoemakers
Michelle Attfield, Pointe Shoe Fitter
Suresh Singh’s Spitalfields
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Suresh Singh’s A MODEST LIVING, Memoirs of a Cockney Sikh is included in the sale.
When Suresh was a student at City & East London College in 1979, he was given a project for General Studies O Level to record his neighbourhood. So he set out with his camera from his home at 38 Princelet St and took these photographs of the streets of Spitalfields, which are now in the collection at Bishopsgate Insitute.
Christ Church from Wilkes St
Spitalfields Market seen from Christ Church
Looking towards the City from the rooftop of a Hanbury St factory
Children playing cricket in Puma Court
Mr Sova, proprietor of Sova Fabrics on Brick Lane
Brick Lane
Shed on Brick Lane
Shoe shop on Cheshire St
Cheshire St
Stamp and coin dealer in Cheshire St
Boy carrying home the shopping on Brick Lane
Shops on Hanbury St
Truman Brewery seen from Grimbsy St
Woman on Brick Lane
Her shoes
Down and out on the steps of the Rectory, Christ Church
Homeless men sitting outside Christ Church – this area has recently been fenced off
In Fashion St
Naz Cinema, Brick Lane
Family walking from Shoreditch Station into Brick Lane
Clifton Sweetmart, Brick Lane
Former Central Foundation School for Girls, Spital Sq, now Galvin restaurant
Inside the former Central Foundation School for Girls, Spital Sq
Abandoned books at Central Foundation School for Girls
There was a constant police presence on Brick Lane due to the race riots
Crowds leaving the mosque on Brick Lane
Sign in Fournier St
Sign in Fournier St
Christ Church prior to restoration, without balconies
Christ Church from the roofs of Hanbury St
Photographs copyright © Suresh Singh
Click here to buy copy of A MODEST LIVING for half price
Dhanji Patel, Men’s Outfitter
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‘I love my shop,’ declared Dhanji Patel with a beatific smile, standing behind his counter at Omram Menswear in Sicilian Avenue, before confessing ‘sometimes I even come in on Sunday for a couple of hours just to tidy up.’
When I remind you that in Hinduism ‘Om’ is all encompassing, the essence of ultimate reality which unifies everything in the universe, you will appreciate this is a very special shop. Indeed, for the last forty-one years, Dhanji has been coming every day to maintain it in a state of perfection.
Not so long ago, Sicilian Avenue was a favoured destination in which Omram Menswear nestled between the celebrated Onion Cafe and Skoob Books, where I have whiled away more hours than I care to admit. Yet now it is mostly vacant, pending refurbishment by the corporate owners prior to the introduction of upmarket chains, and Dhanji has been given only a few months notice before he must depart.
When I arrived Dhanji was sheltering under an awning, contemplating the rain falling upon the emptiness in Sicilian Avenue. The West End is a quiet place these days and most of the offices are closed.
Despite the melancholy of the circumstance, I was overjoyed to meet Dhanji and encounter his miniature temple to menswear, filled with high quality garments all manufactured by British companies at breathtakingly cheap prices. In a more just world, Dhanji’s tiny shop would be cherished for the charm, the individuality and the civility that it brings to this otherwise soulless corner of Holborn, where traffic clatters past to get to somewhere else.
Once upon a time, Dhanji worked at a menswear shop in Bayswater where – he confided to me – he was too shy to serve the customers and hid in the basement. But this admission only makes his story all the more remarkable, as a testament of success won through hard work, honesty and perseverance.
“In my whole community, I am the only one working in clothing. I am a qualified book-keeper and I can do it really nicely. I live in Harlesden and I come each day to work by bus, it is a forty-five minute ride to Euston and then I walk here to Holborn.
In 1979, I worked for Unique Boutique menswear in Queensway. I was their book-keeper but there was a shortage of staff so they told me to help out in the shop. I was too scared to serve customers, I used to go downstairs when they arrived. I was very shy. I thought I was going to get the sack, but instead I got promotion to chief accountant.
My luck turned and my boss, Mr Mirchandani, was very nice, he said, ‘Please try to serve the customers.’ So when he went away, I used to go on the shop floor and try to sell to customers and I became the top salesman. Once I got used to it, I liked serving customers. Whenever I had any free time in accounts, I went into the shop, tidying up the shirts and jeans. The customers loved me because I was so small. When they came back, they asked for me to serve them! My boss told me I was one of his best salesmen and I was very happy. Even now, my ex-boss comes to see me because he really admires me.
Unique Boutique had quite a few shops until they went into liquidation. My boss told me to go into partnership with the man who ran this shop in Sicilian Avenue, he was my boss’ driver and his name was Manji. We had two shops, here and in Knightsbridge Underground Station but this shop was not doing very well. So then we got another shop, in Leicester Sq Underground Station. Both those shops in stations did well.
After three years, Manji told me he wanted to break the partnership. I agreed, saying ‘Give me one of the good shops and you can have the other two.’ He went to a solicitor but I did not have money to do that, so I ended up with this shop. It was difficult, until one day a gentleman from Double Two Shirts came in and advised me to sell better quality clothes. I grew in confidence with that and attracted more customers too. One day, the chairman of Ben Sherman was having lunch at Spaghetti House in Sicilian Avenue, he came in and told me to open an account with them. From there, trade started picking up. I was doing more business and getting better customers.
It was busy and there were really nice shops in Sicilian Avenue when I came here, a bookshop, a travel agency, a stamp and coin dealer and a regimental tie shop. Now I am longest tenant in the avenue. I love this shop and I have been here forty-one years. I have always paid my rent on time. I had a tough time when I started but I have had good times too. I have the loveliest customers. I have emailed them and they are all upset that I have to go. I do not know much about the internet and all that, so I am looking for somebody who might help me set up an online shop.
I have too much stock because last December before the second lockdown I bought a lot of winter stock, believing that there would not be another lockdown, so I got stuck with a lot of Harris tweed jackets and masonic clothing. Now the landlords are telling me that they want this shop back and it is very difficult for me to get rid of my stock. I cannot fit it all into my home.
The landlords are saying I have to go in August but I am begging them for a couple more months to sell my stock, otherwise what will I do? I am hoping they will be nice and give me time to clear the stock when everyone comes back. There are so many empty shops in the avenue, one has been empty for fifteen years. Hogarth Properties are billionaires so they are not bothered about it, but I do not want to vacate my shop and see it empty for a couple of years while my stock is dead. What can I do? I would love to stay here. I am crying inside.
I have a really nice customer base. I have so many overseas customers – from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Nigeria and Uganda – who are coming to see me in the autumn. I am sending them clothes by post. They are supporting me and trying to help me out, which is really very kind of them.
I love this job and I love talking with my customers. As soon as anyone walks in the door, I can guess their size. They like it and they tell their friends. I want them to feel at home. If the customer is happy, he is going to come back.
Honesty is very important in business. There are certain things which are very cheap in this shop and I will tell the customer ‘This is what it is.’ A regular customer bought some trousers and there was a cheap shirt that he liked, but I told him ‘I had one customer complain that one of those shirts shrank.’ When he came to collect his trousers after alteration yesterday, he said ‘Whether it shrinks or not, I will buy the shirt.’
I do all the alterations myself by hand without a machine. If somebody wants a pair of trousers and they need to be altered, I will do it in half an hour.
My longest standing customer is Prince Apugo of Nigeria, he has visited me three to four times every year since 1982. We have become so friendly and, whenever he comes to London, he has to come to my shop.
A judge from Australia is a good customer of mine. He first came here on a Saturday, at five o’clock fifteen years ago, to buy one shirt from me yet I convinced him to buy another and a suit. After six months, he came back for another six shirts and he told me, ‘I’ve bought so many suits at other places but yours was the best!’ He cannot come to London because of the pandemic, so we have been swapping emails and he ordered £800 worth of things from me recently.
There was a black woman who used to pass my window every day on her way to study at the London School of Economics. One evening at five o’clock I was standing outside and she asked ‘Can I enter the shop?’ She explained she wanted to buy something for her fiancé. When she spoke, I asked her if she was from East Africa and she said ‘Yes.’ So I asked, ‘Which part?’ and she said ‘Uganda.’
I told her I had one of the nicest customers from Uganda. A lovely gentleman who came every year until he passed away. She asked me his name and, when I told her, she started crying. I did not know what was wrong. She said, ‘That was my dad.’ I showed her the handwriting of her father in my order book. She was so surprised. She never knew that her father came to my shop, and now she was in the same shop.”
‘As soon as anyone walks in the door, I can guess their size’
‘If somebody wants a pair of trousers altered, I will do it in half an hour’
Omram Menswear, 5 Sicilian Avenue, Off Southampton Row, London, WC1A 2QH
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The Anniversary Of Saving Epping Forest
All our titles are half price in our SUMMER SALE. Simply add code ‘SUMMER’ at check out. Click here to visit the SPITALFIELDS LIFE BOOKSHOP
Mark Gorman, author of Saving the People’s Forest: open spaces, enclosure and popular protest in Victorian London celebrates the anniversary of the decisive battle to save Epping Forest as public open space which took place on Wanstead Flats.
One hundred and fifty years ago today, on 8th July 1871, thousands gathered on Wanstead Flats, the southern boundary of Epping Forest. They were there to protest against the fencing-off of a large section of the Flats by Lord Cowley, the Lord of Wanstead Manor and a major landowner in the forest.
Cowley’s action was just another in a series of enclosures of Epping Forest as local landowners sought to cash in on the rising value of land near London. Commerce and industry were driving a huge expansion of the city and villages like Walthamstow and Leytonstone were being transformed into bustling suburbs. London’s population, which had been just over one million in 1800, reached seven million by the eve of the Great War.
This unprecedented growth proved a mixed blessing for Londoners. The new suburbs provided affordable housing for many better-off workers but it was not just the affluent middle classes who were new residents of the growing outer London districts. Many who lived in the inner east London parishes also aspired to houses with gardens and the arrival of the railways made living at a distance from work a possibility.
At the same time, London’s spread was swallowing up the green spaces which for centuries people been able to enjoy. One after another urban commons were eaten away by housing and industrial development. By the mid-nineteenth century, even the once-remote Epping Forest was under threat. For East Enders “the People’s Forest” was their time-honoured playground. Summer weekends and holidays saw thousands take the roads eastward to the forest. Wanstead Flats, just north of the village of Forest Gate, was the closest part of the forest, with a railway station that opened in the eighteen-forties giving direct access from inner London.
The enclosures were a direct threat to this freedom to roam and not something Londoners accepted easily. On a wet February night in 1866, a meeting in Mile End formed a local branch of the Commons Preservation Society. While the committee was made up of prominent businessmen and politicians, the core group were all local political radicals, veterans of campaigns calling for the right to vote for the working class.
In the face of enormous odds, at a time of economic crisis, the campaigners mobilised local support for efforts to save the forest from development. A series of meetings across east London and in the forest promoted the cause. Workers at Truman, Hanbury & Buxton, local schoolchildren and many other East Enders raised funds. Nevertheless, as the enclosures continued, outrage was increasing and it was clear that direct action was required.
In the summer of 1871, the enclosures of Wanstead Flats proved to be a watershed. East Londoners gained a powerful ally in the City of London Corporation which, sensing the public mood, sided with the popular cause. Using their position as Epping Forest commoners, with the right to graze cattle across the forest, they warned Lord Cowley against infringing this right with his fences.
The City’s motives were mixed. At a time when they were being widely criticised as self-interested and unaccountable, this was a calculated effort to burnish their image. Yet it was also an act of altruism whose motivation was summed up by J T Bedford, the City’s leading campaigner for Epping Forest. By helping to save the forest, he said, ‘they would get the whole population with them. It would extend their influence, and it would be a gracious thing to do for the East End of London’.
While the City of London threatened legal action, campaigners called a mass demonstration on Wanstead Flats for July 1871. In the week before, public meetings were held in Hackney, Mile End, Stratford and Shoreditch. Though distant from the forest, these meetings were packed by those determined to defend their open space at all costs. “Shoreditch to the Rescue!” was the clarion call advertising the meeting there.
On 8th July, thousands descended on Wanstead Flats. By this stage, the gentleman leaders were increasingly nervous about the box they had opened and posters appeared warning against damaging the cause by destroying the fences. The formal meeting was moved off the Flats to the grounds of a local house. This was not to the crowd’s liking and, amidst a storm of booing, the wagon on which the speakers stood was manhandled onto the Flats.
A police presence seemed enough to keep order and, after polite speeches and appeals not to break the law, the leaders left. But hours later a single fence rail was broken and, within minutes, a huge crowd was laying waste to hundreds of yards of fencing. The police were hastily recalled, made one arrest – Henry Rennie, a Bethnal Green cabinet-maker – and fended off the crowd’s efforts to free him.
The press condemned the destruction of the fences, though some pointed out that the action grew out of frustration at the failure of the government to protect open spaces from rapacious landowners. Indeed, within a month parliament had enacted the first of a series of Acts to protect the forest.
Parliamentary and legal action was played out amidst vociferous public protest. A new campaigning group, the Forest Fund, organised petitions, lobbied MPs and held public meetings to keep the “Epping Forest Question” alive. The Fund’s annual meetings, often held in Shoreditch Town Hall, “the finest public building east of Temple Bar” were opportunities to highlight the campaign locally.
Local radicals continued to play a key role. In particular, Shoreditch vestrymen (forerunners of local councillors) were prominent vocally at meetings and in organising petitions. They helped create a groundswell of protest which could not be ignored. One local politician who did so, the Tower Hamlets MP Acton Ayrton, was heavily defeated in the 1874 General Election, blamed for his inaction over Epping Forest.
Finally in 1878, the last of the Epping Forest Acts was passed and it was revolutionary. It was the first legal declaration of the right of the public at large to use an open space for leisure. This had implications not just for Epping Forest but for all threatened open spaces across the country. It is hard to argue with the conclusion of the great ecologist and historian Oliver Rackham that “the modern conservation movement began with the campaign for Epping Forest”.
Yet the role played by ordinary Londoners in this campaign has been forgotten or ignored by history. The focus has been on the efforts of elite campaigners to save open spaces such as Epping Forest, which tells only part of the story. It misses out the grass-roots activism of working class people whose protests played a decisive role in the defence of their green spaces.
The sheer number and determination of the crowd on Wanstead Flats one hundred and fifty years ago created a groundswell of protest that pressured government into challenging landowners’ rights to enclose land and exclude the public. This and other campaigns contributed significantly to what has become our modern-day “right to roam.”
The story of one hundred and fifty years ago is also today’s story, as struggles for open spaces continue, all too often against the very public bodies who should be their guardians. Indeed a warning from history is contained in a leaflet issued by a successful 1946 campaign against an attempt to build housing on Wanstead Flats by a local council. “Once done” it said, “it can never be undone, and history will condemn the folly of those who allowed it to happen”.
Leytonstone c1870 (courtesy Walthamstow Vestry House Museum)
Poster for the 1871 demonstration (courtesy Newham Heritage Service)
From The Leisure Hour, 1860
City of London warning against enclosures (courtesy Newham Heritage Service)
Police on Wanstead Flats, July 1871 (courtesy Essex Field Club)
Poster warning against fence destruction, July 1871 (courtesy Essex Field Club)
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John Thomas Smith’s Cries Of London
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John Thomas Smith is featured in The Gentle Author’s Cries of London which is included in the sale.
John Thomas Smith also known as ‘Antiquary Smith’ (1766–1833)
My interest in the Cries of London originally stemmed from writing about market traders in Spitalfields and thus I was fascinated to discover that – two hundred years ago – John Thomas Smith drew the street hawkers in London and it led him to look back at images from earlier centuries too. Similarly, Samuel Pepys collected prints of the Cries of London of his own day and from the past, which makes me wonder about my illustrious predecessors in this particular cultural vein and whether they also shared my passion for these prints as the only historical record of the transient street life of our ancient city.
A colourful character who claimed to have been born in the back of a Hackney carriage, John Thomas Smith became keeper of prints at the British Museum and demonstrated a superlative draftsmanship in his vivid street portraits – with such keen likenesses that, on one famous occasion, his subjects became suspicious he was working for the police and a mob chased him down the street in Whitechapel.
The prints shown here are Smith’s drawings of prints from the seventeenth century which especially appealed to him, and that he discovered in the course of his work as an archivist.
Bellman (Copied from a print prefixed to ‘Villanies discovered by Lanthorne and Candlelight’ by Thomas Dekker 1616)
“The Childe of Darkness, a common Night-walker, a man that had no man to wait upon him, but onely a dog, one that was a disordered person, and at midnight would beate at men’s doores, bidding them ( in mere mockerie) to look to their candles when they themselves were in their dead sleeps, and albeit he was an officer, yet he was but of light carriage, being known by the name of the Bellman of London.”
Watchman (Copied from a woodcut sheet engraved at the time of James I)
“The marching Watch contained in number two thousand men, part of them being old souldiers, of skill to be captaines, lieutenants, serjeants, corporals &c. The poore men taking wages, besides that every one had a strawne hat, with no badge painted, and his breakfast in the morning.”
Water Carrier (Copied from a set of Cries & Callings of London published by Overton)
“When the conduits first supplied the inhabitants, there were a number of men who for a fixed sum carried the water to the adjoining houses. The tankard was borne upon the shoulder and, to keep the carrier dry, two towels were fastened upon him, one to fall before him and the other to cover his back.”
Corpse-Bearer
“When the Plague was at its height, it was the business of the Corpse-Bearers to give directions to the Car-Men who went through the City with bells, which they rang at the same time crying, ‘Bring out your Dead.'”
Hackney Coachman (Copied from a print published by Overton in the reign of Charles II)
The early Hackney Coachman did not sit upon the box as the present drivers do, but upon the horse, like a postilion – his whip is short for that purpose, his boots which have large open broad tops, must have been much in the way when exposed to the weight of the rain. His hat was pretty broad and so far he was screened from the weather. In 1637, the number of Hackney Coaches in London was restricted to fifty but by 1802 it was eleven hundred.”
Jailor (Copied from Essayes & Characters of a Prison & Prisoners by Geffray Mynshul of Grays Inn, 1638)
“If marble-hearted Jaylors were so haplesse happy as to be mistaken and be made Kings, they would, instead of iron to their grates, have barres made of men’s ribs.”
Prison Basket Man (Copied from a print published by Overton in the reign of Charles II)
“One of those men who were sent out to beg broken meat for the poor prisoners. This custom which perhaps was as ancient as our Religious Houses has long been done away by an allowance of meat and bread having been made to those prisoners who are destitute of support. It was the business of such men to claim the attention of the public by their cry of ‘Some broken breade and meate for ye poore prisonors! For the Lord’s Sake, pitty the poore!'”
Rat Catcher (Copied from Cries of Bologna, etched by Simon Guillain from drawings by Annibal Carracci, 1646)
“There are two types of rats in this country, the black which was formerly very common but is now rarely seen, bring superseded by the large brown kind, called the Norway rat. The Rat Catcher had representations of rats and mice painted upon a square cloth fastened to a pole like a flag, which he carried across his shoulder.”
Marking Stones (Copied from a woodcut engraved in the time of James I)
“The marking stones were either of a red colour or comprised of black lead. They were used in the marking of linen so that washing could not take the mark out.”
Buy A Brush (Copied from a print published by Overton in the reign of Charles II)
“In those days, floors were not wetted but rubbed dry, even until they bore a very high polish, particularly when it was the fashion to to inlay staircases and floors of rooms with yellow, black and brown woods. These floors were rubbed by the servants who wore the brushes on their feet and they are in some instances so highly polished that they are dangerous to walk upon.”
Fire Screens (Copied from a print published by Overton in the reign of Charles II)
“It appears from the extreme neatness of this man and the goods which he exhibits for sale, that they were of a very superior quality, probably of foreign manufacture and possibly from Leghorn, from whence hats similar to those on his head were first brought into England”
Sausages (Copied from a print published by Overton in the reign of Charles II)
“The pork shops of Fetter Lane have been for upwards of one hundred and fifty years famous for their sausages, but those wretched vendors of sausages who cared not what they made them of in cellars in St Giles were continually persecuting their unfortunate neighbours, to whom they were as offensive as the melters of tallow, bone burners, soap boilers and cat gut cleaners.”
Take a look at John Thomas Smith’s drawings of nineteenth century street traders
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana I
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana II
