John Taylor, The Water Poet
Contributing Writer Gillian Tindall first encountered John Taylor the Waterman-Poet when she was researching her book The House by the Thames a dozen years ago. Here she gives an account of the man behind the legend and the Spitalfields pub that bears his name.
Those who have enjoyed a drink at The Water Poet in Folgate St may have wondered about this unlikely-sounding figure so far from the water. Yet John Taylor (1578 – 1653), the seventeenth century Thames ferry-boat man, was a convivial fellow – unless he was waging a vendetta – who was very much at home in pubs. When not on one of his great walks round Britain, he lived most of his life in Bankside, which had many hostelries alongside the theatres and bear-pits. He also had relations who kept inns in Leicester, Abingdon and Norwich whom he sought out in his travels.
Taylor lived through times far more unnerving than ours. Born in Gloucester in the prosperous later days of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, he came up to London to seek his fortune and was apprenticed to an oar-maker, before a spell in the Navy upon dangerous expeditions against Spain in Flores and Cadiz.
Once back in London, he lived through the increasingly turbulent times of the Stuart era, the Civil War and the social oppression of the Cromwellian period. A royalist yet with a liking for Puritan values, he worked as a waterman in the service of the king and was distressed when Charles I lost his head. Taylor was getting on in years by then, complaining bitterly that the Commonwealth had driven the theatres off the south bank and damaged the watermen’s trade, much of which had traditionally consisted of crossings between the City and Southwark. He died in his seventies before Charles II was restored to the throne.
Part subversive journalist, pamphleteer and satirical ballad-maker, part would-be poet and playwright, Taylor longed to join a literary society into which he had not been born. A ferryman by nature, he lived between two worlds socially. As hands-on oarsmen, watermen were tough, rough fellows of their time, competing vociferously for trade, but they met a remarkable range of customers many of whom valued and cultivated them. This was also an era when the Waterman’s Company was being established (with Taylor’s active involvement), fares were being set, intelligent men like him were becoming fully literate and the era of New Learning would soon dawn.
Taylor was a natural self-publicist, a collector of useful friends, but also a genuinely passionate believer in freedom of expression and the rights of the individual in every class. He became an advocate for the destitute watermen who had lost their trade during the ferocious winter of 1620-21 when the Thames froze over for six weeks. He soon discovered that, in spite of all his efforts, there was not much money to be made from a literary life – a truth that still holds today – and developed ingenious means of raising cash. When in difficulty, he would take off on long journeys round Britain on foot for which, anticipating the modern way, he would get sponsorship from rich acquaintances. As a stunt, he once rowed down the Thames in a boat made of paper and later made a much publicised trip – in a rather more solid craft – down the Rhine and the Elbe.
A good talker, Taylor cultivated the society of Bankside actors, advocating their cause against the rising tide of Puritanism. I imagine him as the archetypal cab-driver – “Had Will Shakespeare in the back of my boat the other day… As my good friend Mr Henslowe said to me…” He fought back with some success against the Uber of his time – namely, the wheeled conveyances for hire that were beginning to appear on London’s cobbled streets and alleys as an alternative to the traditional way of travelling by river.
John Aubrey, diarist and man-about-town who was familiar with some of the cleverest men of his era, described John Taylor as `very facetious and diverting company’ and possessing `a good, quick look’. Thomas Decker, the Jacobean playwright, called him `the ferryman of heaven’, but there may have been a touch of irony in that.
Taylor’s poetry has not survived in the public mind, since perhaps it did not really deserve to, but his cheerful and inventive spirit has lived on to this day. He died in an inn in Covent Garden kept by his second wife, and lies buried somewhere behind St Martins in the Fields, where the graveyard of the old church lay, and where present-day travellers and aspirants to fame gather with their backpacks and their own travellers’ tales.
The Water Poet at the edge of Spitalfields and Norton Folgate is a recent berth for him, although there has been a tavern on the corner where Folgate St meets Blossom St for over two centuries and possibly an ale-house before that. The old name for the muddy pathway that became Folgate St was White Horse Lane, after the brewery situated there since Taylor’s own times. Even longer ago, what became White Horse Lane was formerly the north entrance to the religious house of St Mary Spital.
In the eighteenth century, the street was laid out in stages by a Sir Isaac Tillard, a man of Huguenot descent, who had acquired some of the old Mary Spital land. The earliest evidence of a purpose-built public house appears then and by 1805 it was registered as The Pewter Plate. Those in charge locally have always kept an eye on pubs and publicans, so it is easy to trace the Plate throughout the nineteenth century, the heyday of urban pubs, and into the twentieth. In 1904, when pubs all over the London were being enlarged and made grander, the Plate was rebuilt with the fancy brickwork and the tall, elaborate chimney that you see today.
At some point, probably between the wars, when Spitalfields was becoming ever sootier and more neglected, as its more prosperous citizens took themselves off to greener suburbs, the building was a pub no longer. By the seventies, the erstwhile pub along with two other adjacent properties, became commercial premises owned by`R.Bardigger.’
By and by, the pub was restored to its proper use and the name The Water Poet dates from the current owner’s acquisition in 2003. He undertook the wonderful transformation of the old back yard into a green-leafed garden with fairy lights. It is this area, along with several large rooms created out of a former warehouse, that is threatened by British Land’s scheme to redevelop Norton Folgate behind bogus facades in the teeth of local opposition. For the moment, all is quiet on that front and the planning permission airily bestowed by the previous and unregretted Mayor of London is shortly to expire. John Taylor the water-poet, I believe, would be with us in this struggle. Let us give thanks and continue to hope.
John Taylor the Water Poet
From An Arrant Thief, 1622
John Taylor’s A Swarm of Sectaries & Schismatiques published 1641
Engraving of John Taylor by Thomas Cockson, 1630
The Water Poet in Folgate St (Photograph by Richard Lansdowne)
You may like to read these other stories by Gillian Tindall
At Captain Cook’s House in Mile End
Some Recent Facades
A stonker at Borough Market
Two years ago I wrote of the creeping plague of ghastly facadism which threatens to turn London into the backlot of movie studio where front walls replace architecture. Regrettably, this trend has not abated and it is with a heavy heart that I publish these photographs of some especially grim recent specimens.
Here you will find examples from the East End and the West End, yet the with completion of the Fruit & Wool Exchange retaining only the front wall, Spitalfields is becoming the epicentre of this form of architectural abuse in the capital.
The former Alma pub in Spelman St and a dignified nineteenth century terrace in Cobb St are currently reduced to only their front walls, pending reconstruction, but discreet scaffolding and tarpaulins conceal these.
I wonder how long before architects recognise that building a new shed behind an old wall is not architecture? I am certain that future generations will laugh in horror and derision at the folly of it.
Borough facade viewed from the west
Facade at Toynbee Hall
Facade at Toynbee Hall, under construction in Wentworth St
In Knightsbridge
Another facade in Knightsbridge
In Brooke St, Mayfair
In Smithfield, where the new building and the old facade do not fit
You may also like to take a look at my other features
The Loneliness Of Schrodinger
No-one knows where Schrodinger came from. He wandered in from the street one day and made his home in Shoreditch Church, where he lived for two years before he came to me in Spitalfields. In his vulnerability, Schrodinger learned to be lonely as a means of survival. Loneliness became his friend and his self-sufficiency protected him when life was uncertain.
On the street, Schrodinger experienced the capricious nature of humanity. He discovered their indifference to a stray cat. When the church offered Schrodinger a refuge, he spent long nights patrolling the empty building in the dark. Whenever he drew unwanted attention from dogs in the churchyard, he could escape through a metal grille into the crypt and sleep among the dusty coffins. Thus Schrodinger discovered an affinity with solitude.
When Schrodinger arrived in Spitalfields, he hid behind the old wing chair when anyone entered the room and looked over his shoulder warily while eating. If I approached him sitting on the floor, he frequently sprang up to run away – but keeping as much space around him as he did in Shoreditch Church proved a challenge in my house. He was a creature of hauteur who would not tolerate being stroked or petted and he never sought the opportunity to sit upon my lap as you might expect a cat to do.
Yet his caution was punctuated by sudden expressions of affection, especially when I presented him with plates of fresh food – as if he could not control his gratitude at such unexpected kindness. By the standards of domestic cats, Schrodinger’s expectations were low and he did not presume any privilege. Only in his sleep was he no longer vigilant. At night I came upon him taking his ease, stretched out and defenceless, even if by day he was circumspect.
These signs gave me hope that Schrodinger might overcome his loneliness and accept that he now has a permanent home where he will always be safe. I often saw him looking at me suspiciously, sizing me up. I wondered if he was questioning how long this episode of good fortune might last and whether it was only a matter of time before he was abandoned on the street again. If loneliness is his custom and source of security, Schrodinger cannot sacrifice it as long as he has uncertainty over his circumstance.
One day while I was writing at my desk, Schrodinger climbed up silently and slipped into the gap between me and the back of the chair. A round face appeared beneath my right armpit and a black tail curled round beneath my left armpit as he rubbed himself against my back and purred affectionately. Schrodinger had found a space where he fitted perfectly. Even if he still remained wary when I encountered him face to face, it was unquestionable progress.
To my delight, this new behaviour evolved quickly. So that he waited each day for me to sit at my desk and then ran to leap up, settling down there, snug between me and the back of the chair. As I sit writing now, I can feel his warmth against the small of my back. I wish I could say that he dictated stories to me but the fact is we inhabit separate reveries. We are peaceful in our mutual companionship that requires no eye contact, and I keep this private intimacy in mind when Schrodinger displays his habitual self-possession in other circumstances.
These days when I walk towards him sitting on the carpet, Schrodinger does not move out of the way in skittish discontent. He sits still, holding his ground and knowing that I will step over him or walk round. He spreads his shoulders and stretches out his front legs in the manner of the Sphinx, expressing a certain assurance in his territory and his right to be there.
As the summer has passed, Schrodinger’s confidence has grown. He will approach visitors to greet them and if I reach out a hand to him, he lifts his head up to meet it now. He knows I am not indifferent to him but I do not require him to become a cuddly domesticated subordinate either.We can exchange glances, even if he is more comfortable inhabiting his implacable vigil.
I observe Schrodinger’s internal isolation ebbing away as he becomes accustomed to his new life with me in Spitalfields, yet I respect his dignified self-possession, his remote sufficiency and his introspection. Loneliness shaped Schrodinger’s personality and it has endowed him with courage and strength of character. Loneliness is an essential part of Schrodinger’s nature. Schrodinger’s loneliness is his wisdom.
You may like to read my earlier story about Schrodinger
With your help, I am producing a handsome collection of stories of my old cat, THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY, A Memoir Of A Favourite Cat to be published by Spitalfields Life Books on 20th September.
Support publication by preordering THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY and you will receive a signed and inscribed copy when the book is published.
A Walk From Dover To Folkestone
At this season, The Gentle Author always enjoys an annual late summer holiday beyond Spitalfields in the form of a day trip to the sea and this year’s excursion was a walk from Dover to Folkestone
Dover Castle
In Dover’s Market Sq, a plaque informs the visitor that ‘while searching for his aunt Betsey Trotwood, David Copperfield rested on this doorstep and ate a loaf of bread he had just bought.’ He set out to walk east from here, as I did last September when I walked over the white cliffs to Deal, but this year I turned right on Dover Beach and walked west to Folkestone.
It was no simple matter to find the way and I found myself negotiating works for the rebuilding of the west harbour before I could ascend a thundering motorway to commence the coastal path. The urge to escape the hubbub is a powerful motivation to walk, striding upwards along the cliff until the drama of the sea and the sky fills your consciousness. I am always delighted how – even in our small country – it is remarkably easy to discover solitude in the landscape. The intense physical experience of walking along the cliff top combined with the spectacle of a vast sparkling expanse of ocean quickly induces a vertiginous euphoric reverie.
Before long, you encounter sobering reminders that this was formerly a site of conflict. The turf undulates where earthworks were once constructed to defend against any potential invasion and the cliff edge is punctuated by concrete defence posts. Most surreal was to come upon a tall concave disc of concrete pointed towards the sea at Abbott’s Cliff, as ethereal and mysterious as a sculpture by Ben Nicholson or Barbara Hepworth. This was a sound mirror from the First World War which permitted an operator to sit with an ear trumpet and hear the sound of enemy aircraft before they became visible. Within twenty-five years it became obsolete once aircraft speeds increased and radar was invented.
Yet on a warm afternoon in late summer the history of conflict feels mercifully remote as you walk determinedly onward along the narrow path bordered by wild thyme and scabious. Lone birds of prey hover overhead, escorting you on your way. Only a few miles after Dover Harbour has retreated into the distance, Folkestone comes into view – a town spilling out from the coast into a golden sea in the late afternoon sun. Your feet have grown weary by then and you discover your destination is further away than it looks and a brief refreshment at the Lighthouse Inn at Capel-Le-Ferne is necessary before you commence your descent into Folkestone.
Much of this last section of the path is overarched by sea-blown hedges where shafts of bright sunlight descend into the cool shadow, until finally you emerge into the open with Folkestone spread out beneath you. A vista of cliffs to the east testifies to your eight mile walk, as you tread the soft municipal grass of the golf course and then follow a line of suburban villas to arrive at the harbour where a well-earned supper of fish and chips awaits you.
A serenade at Dover
Dover Harbour Board 1606
The ascent from Dover
Looking back towards Dover
A sound mirror from World War One at Abbott’s Cliff
Statue of an airman commemorating the Battle of Britain
Spitfire at the Battle of Britain memorial
Birdwatchers at the Clifftop Cafe
Looking down towards Folkestone
Travellers’ joy
Folkestone seen from the cliff path
Bowls at Folkestone in the shadow of the Martello Tower
Bell installed on the beach by Norwegian artist A.K Dolven
Children fishing for crabs at Folkestone Harbour
You may like to read about my previous trips beyond Spitalfields at this time of year
A Walk Along the White Cliffs, 2017
A Walk from Shoeburyness to Chalkwell, 2013
In William Blake’s Lambeth
Celebrating the ninth birthday of Spitalfields Life with a week of favourite posts from the past year
Glad Day in Lambeth
If you wish to visit William Blake’s Lambeth, just turn left outside Waterloo Station, walk through the market in Lower Marsh, cross Westminster Bridge Rd and follow Carlisle Lane under the railway arches. Here beneath the main line into London was once the house and garden, where William & Catherine Blake were pleased to sit naked in their apple tree.
Yet in recent years, William Blake has returned to Lambeth. Within the railway arches leading off Carlisle Lane, a large gallery of mosaics based upon his designs has been installed, evoking his fiery visions in the place where he conjured them. Ten years work by hundreds of local people have resulted in dozens of finely-wrought mosaics bringing Blake’s images into the public realm, among the warehouses and factories where they may be discovered by the passerby, just as he might have wished. Trains rumble overhead with a thunderous clamour that shakes the ancient brickwork and cars roar through these dripping arches, creating a dramatic and atmospheric environment in which to contemplate his extraordinary imagination.
On the south side of the arches is Hercules Rd, site of the William Blake Estate today, where he lived between 1790 and 1800 at 13 Hercules Buildings, a three-storey terrace house demolished in 1917. Blake passed ten productive and formative years on the south bank, that he recalled as ‘Lambeth’s vale where Jerusalem’s foundations began.’ By contrast with Westminster where he grew up, Lambeth was almost rural two hundred years ago and he enjoyed a garden with a fig tree that overlooked the grounds of the bishop’s palace. This natural element persists in the attractively secluded Archbishop’s Park on the north side of the arches, where I found celandines and fritillaria in flower this week in the former palace grounds.
To enter these sonorous old arches that span the urban and pastoral is to discover the resonant echo chamber of one of the greatest English poetic imaginations. When I visited I found myself alone at the heart of Lambeth yet in the presence of William Blake, and it is an experience I recommend to my readers.
‘There is a grain of sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find”
These mosaics were created by South Bank Mosaics which is now The London School of Mosaic
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Bow Food Bank Portraits
Celebrating the ninth birthday of Spitalfields Life with a week of favourite posts from the past year
Alison Neville, Volunteer
“I have been working here about six months. I was born in Stepney and now I live in Bow. I started coming for myself when I couldn’t work for a while. They helped me and then I became a volunteer. Even when I do the washing up, I enjoy it. Many people are struggling in this city and the price of living now is unbelievable”
Cody Hopper, Studying Modern History at Queen Mary University
“I enjoy volunteering in the community. It’s not like a job where you get paid, your reward is knowing you are helping other people. I have made friends over the last six months and it is a little community of its own here. The food bank is not just about distributing food, it’s about getting people out of their houses and offering social contact to people who might be lonely. Once I graduate and get a job, I will look for other volunteering opportunities because I enjoy it so much.”
Irena Urbonas, Volunteer
“I retired after thirty-eight years teaching in Bethnal Green about three years ago and I was working in a charity shop but I became ill and couldn’t continue. Because I have been seriously ill, I can advise and support others with serious illness. We see all kinds of problems, homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, job loss. If I can help I will, but I do not impose on them. It is not just a food bank, you can get help for problems and some people come back for the social life. If this was here every day, I would come. I love it. I was born in Bethnal Green but my parents are from Lithuania and I come from a very poor background. Yet I never realised I was poor because my dad was a driver so he could borrow cars and drive us around. My mother was very strict and she realised the value of education, so we all went to grammar school. It all comes back because I have been there, and now I can help in a certain way. You see people at the lowest of the low. I do my best to welcome them and give them what they need. It does humble you. I ask people not to thank me because I don’t need their thanks.”
Trevor Blackman, Founding Director of Ape Media
“I’ve been doing this since 2014. Supposedly, I am in charge of the shop but I am here because I enjoy meeting people. The first Christmas we were open, we had one hundred and sixty people come in. There is a real need. A lot of people saw their benefits cut with the introduction of Universal Credit. It hit people hard. We had people on benefits who are struggling to feed their children and that’s horrible – we give them twenty items. Parents go without food to feed their children.”
Ruth, Volunteer
“I just love it, it gets me out of the house and talking to people. People can come here for ten visits and collect ten items and some of these people are in desperate need. Many of them are working on zero hours contracts and not getting much employment, they can’t earn enough to pay the bills. Some of these people are gutted when they get to the end of their visits and they ask me, ‘Where shall we go now?’ They have nowhere else to turn to.”
Pat O’Sullivan, Supervisor of distribution of extras at the Food Bank
“After they have been in the shop, people come to see me and I give them extras, fruit and veg, soap and women’s sanitary products. I came here myself three years ago and then I became a volunteer because I wanted to help others by giving something back. Some people who come are homeless and I have helped a couple to get jobs and find housing. I count everyone here as my friends. All my life, I have been caring for other people.”
Robert Ricks, Volunteer
“I think this place serves a good purpose, people need our services. I am particularly proud that we run it with as little bureaucracy as possible and all the money is spent on food for distribution. We don’t rely on referrals, we allow anyone to come here and get help. I am a retired lawyer and it allows me to make contact with people and be aware of those those less fortunate, whom I might never meet in any other circumstances.”
Dan Clark, Musician
“I have quite a lot of spare time in the day because I work at night. I need to get up early in the morning to come here which is hard sometimes, but I feel compelled to do it. It’s a damning condemnation of our society that people are short of food in such a rich country.”
Lynn Stone, Food Bank Manager
“We are here to address a need as far as we are able. There could be a food bank every morning of the week and still not meet everyone’s needs. If we can do a little to help some people then that makes it worthwhile, but I am sad we cannot do more. It is embarrassing for us that people are so grateful, that’s not a comfortable feeling. We see that the benefits system is not helping vulnerable people, but pushing them into a spiral of decline and need. It’s so unfair.”
Lorraine Villada, Volunteer
“I do all the administration and step in whenever there’s a gap. I do it because I feel fortunate to help people in need. There are a lot of people struggling to buy food and, with the changes in the benefits system, we are seeing a lot more people coming to sign up. I have lived in Tower Hamlets all my life. I like to give something back to the community where I was born and raised. I worked for Tower Hamlets Council but found myself out of work due to illness, but now I have a new job and I hope I shall be able to carry on here because it means a lot to me.”
Debbie Cummins, Registrar
“I am passionate to help people and I have been in the situations they have been in, so I quite understand and I love doing it. I am an East Ender born in Bethnal Green. The benefits officers haven’t got a clue and people get pushed around and nobody cares. But my job is just registering people, I cannot solve their problems. Sometimes people come who have gone six weeks without money, we have homeless people coming in here too and we try to feed them. These are human beings, some of these people had good jobs and now they are homeless. We can see the problem. We see a lot of people suffering. This is the East End and we are all human and we have to help each other. We have people who have used up their visits but they keep coming for the company and a cup of tea because they do not see anyone else and they are lonely. I love this food bank.”
Bushra Bakar, Legal Adviser
“Many clients are on benefits or homeless, so I can advise them and help with other issues like employment and debt management. I did my undergraduate degree in Law at London Metropolitan University. Public law and employment law are my specialities and now I am training to qualify. I’ve come across a number of clients who are rough sleepers without access to benefits, often because they are asylum seekers without legal rights. I assist a lot of people in need and it makes me realise just how many people out there need help.”
Father Javier, Parish Priest of St Catherine’s Roman Catholic Church
“This brings together the whole community under the umbrella of something that unites us all.”
Reverend Debbie Frazer, Rector of St. Mary & Holy Trinity Bow
“I am one of the founders of the Bow Food Bank. We did not want to restrict access to referrals from Department of Work & Pensions and General Practitioners, we wanted it to be unconditional so that people can come to us and say they need help. In the benefits system, people are treated with mistrust as if they were potential criminals, but I think they get more from being treated with dignity and respect. If people come here because they are in need of food, we let them know that they are welcome.”
Merlin, Most-beloved church dog
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I visited Bow Food Bank to do portraits of some of the volunteers who run this vital service and learn about their motives and experiences.
Taking place at Bow Church each Monday morning, this is an independent food bank which means vouchers from the Department of Work & Pensions are not required, anyone who is in need of food can come and ask for help. Assistance to those in crisis is offered in the form of ten items of grocery every other week for up to fifteen visits.
If you would like to donate or volunteer, visit Bow Food Bank
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At The Great Yiddish Parade
Celebrating the ninth birthday of Spitalfields Life with a week of favourite posts from the past year
Did you spot a ragtag procession of musicians, people in costume, children and dogs marching from Aldgate through Whitechapel to Mile End Waste? Behind this light-hearted frolic was a serious intent, for this was the Great Yiddish Parade, commemorating the procession of Jewish unemployed and garment workers which took place here in 1889. Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I joined the parade to lend our support and bring you this feature.
Whitechapel was once the centre of London’s Jewish community but, during the last century, they left to seek better housing in the suburbs. Yet it remains a significant location for many whose ancestors arrived here a hundred years ago or more, escaping persecution in Eastern Europe and building new lives in this country. Indeed, many of those inspired to participate in Sunday’s parade had past family connections to Whitechapel.
The original parade processed from Berners St in Stepney to the Great Synagogue in Aldgate, demanding that the Chief Rabbi condemn exploitative working practices in East End tailoring trades. After he refused to do so, they continued their march up Whitechapel Rd to Mile End Waste, where last Sunday’s parade culminated in a series of speeches from the eighteen-eighties. A klezmer band led the procession enlivened by rousing Yiddish songs of protest.
Above all, it was a heartfelt celebration to honour the moral courage of those who, in their disadvantage, discovered the power of collective action, advancing social progress for all through their fight for better working conditions. Growing public awareness of modern-day slavery and recent challenges to the dubious practices of the so-called ‘gig economy’ suggest uneasy parallels with our own time, revealing that this struggle is far from over.
(Courtesy of Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick)
Orlando & Lucian Valman
The parade gathers in Aldgate
Vivi Lachs, Historian & Yiddisher, who established The Great Yiddish Parade
Vivi rallies her comrades
Nadia Valman, organiser of the parade, dressed as seamstress of 1889
Michael Ellman in his grandfather’s tailcoat
Walking through Aldgate
Esther Neslen, Singer
Poet Stephen Watts reads a banner carried by Artist Dan Jones
Rabbi Janet Burden of Ealing Liberal Synagogue and her dog Raz
Julie Begum as Olive Christian Malvery, an Anglo-Indian freelance journalist who reported on the conditions of female and child workers in the East End in the eighteen-eighties.
“So I would like to ask you, brothers and sisters, have any of you here been to a bar lately? I am sure that many of you are familiar with the establishments of the Whitechapel Rd. Well, I want to talk to you about the lives of the barmaids who work there. Many of the young girls who earn their living in this arduous calling are subjected to numerous temptations. And yet they remain good, upright, and respectable women. Often they are obliged to stand behind a counter serving semi-drunken, coarse, and foul-mouthed persons of both sexes. They are obliged to listen to the vile talk of that class of man who makes it a pastime to insult young women engaged in this business. As a girl once said to me,’The life is hard enough without having to be insulted by cads.'”
Walking through Whitechapel
Jo Green, Clarinetist
Walking through Mile End
Phil Whaite, Saxophonist
Speeches at Mile End Waste beside the statue of General Booth
“I have come to you in the East End of London from the United States of America. My friends, I am an Anarchist, and I will tell you why. Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive. What are these phantoms? Religion, the dominion of the human mind, Property, the dominion of human needs, and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man’s enslavement and all the horrors it entails. Break your mental fetters, says Anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for yourself will you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all progress.”- Emma Goldman, Anarchist & Writer, spoke in Whitechapel in the eighteen-eighties
“‘A good man will be contented fast enough if he be fed and clothed sufficiently, but if a man be not well fed and clad, he is a base wretch to be contented.’ So says William Cobbett, and certainly the strikers might have one more banner with this inscription written on it. We have learned a good deal since William Cobbett’s time, and some of us have become very ‘refined’ indeed, but still on this foundation of victuals and shelter without anxiety must you build ‘refinement’ and all.'” – William Morris, who spoke at Mile End Waste in 1889
“I’d like to know if there are sadder sights anywhere than those we now see around us? I mean the homes of honest working men who have nothing to do, skilled workmen whose trades are itching at their fingers’ ends, who spend their days tramping about looking for work, and come home at night with empty pockets to hungry wives and children? I need draw no picture of these things. You not only see them, but feel them. You know what it is to have wives fainting for want of food, and children crying for crusts you cannot give them. ” – Words of a young man speaking on Mile End Waste from Margaret Harkness’ novel of 1888, Out of Work.
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
You may also like to read about these other parades
