A nod at our neighbours (3) - The Bridge House, Canning Town

Regular readers will know that we have featured a number of spectacular music venues in Forest Gate (The Upper Cut and Lotus Club, both on Woodgrange Road and the Earlham Grove Music Academy) on this blog on a number of occasions.  This post strays a little further afield, to the sadly departed Bridge House pub/venue in Canning Town, whose heyday was a decade or so after Woodgrange Road's at their prime.

The large east end boozer this blog features is long gone - having mainly been replaced by the expanded Canning Town fly-over and associated road works. It sat on the banks of Bow Creek and was the first pub a traveller came across, leaving Tower Hamlets and entering Newham on the A13.

The pub had a long history as a drinking spot for local gas works' employees and ship builders from nearby sites, before Terry Murphy took it over in 1975.

This post is heavily dependent on Murphy's  book The Bridge House, Canning Town: memories of a legendary rock & roll hang out  (see footnote for details). Terry put together his story of the venue with the help of Newham author and resident, Brian Belton.

Terry Murphy, Bridge House
 landlord, impresario and book author

This blog is grateful for their work and presents Murphy's contemporary recollections of names that featured at the Bridge House. Not all of which, perhaps, have stood the test of time!

Like the Walker brothers at the Upper Cut and the Johnson brothers at Woodgrange Road's Lotus club, Terry Murphy came from a boxing tradition - indeed, he, himself was the first British boxer to fight "live" on Independent Television, when it started in 1955.  The "being able to look after yourself" that boxing gave these venue promoters did much to ensure there was little or no trouble in them from large crowds of alcohol fuelled young men and women who frequented them.

Murphy's family has become a fusion of boxing and show biz traditions - his son, Glen, was later to have a starring role in the London's Burning, television drama series. Other members of the family have played key roles in pop music, music promotion and record production.

The cavernous Bridge House was an ideal location. Its hall was licensed for just under 1,000 people, although at its peak as a venue in the late 1970's, almost double the number squeezed in. The pub became an important rehearsal venue. 

The logo that signified the Bridge
 House record label, based on
 representation of the pub

Murphy recalls: "One afternoon we had Manfred Mann's Earth Band on stage, Paul Young's Q Tips on the first floor and Remus Dawn Boulevard in the cellar."

Under Murphy's watchful eye, the venue promoted gigs and gave many well-known names in pop and rock their first, or an early chance. The pub launched its own moderately successful record label (Bridge House Records) and its memory survives through this web site.

Laurie O'Leary, former manager of the west end's legendary Speakeasy Club had this to say about the Bridge House:

U2, Dire Straits, Iron Maiden, Squeeze, Q-Tips, Tom Robinson, A Flock of Seagulls, Rory Gallagher, Remus Dawn Boulevard, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Huey Lewis, Eric Clapton, Charlie Watts, Chas n Dave and a host of others all have a history of appearances, both playing and watching their mates in this biggest and best of all London pubs.

Terry Murphy was always on the look-out for talent and wasn't afraid to experiment: "We moved through Heavy Rock, Funk, American West Coast music, to Blues, Punk, New Wave and Psychedelic", he reflects.

Below are some of his recollections of the life and times of many who featured at the Bridge House:

Iron Maiden: a good band. A really well behaved crowd too. Very heavy metal.  "I'll book them again". In fact, they went on to appear over 40 times at the Bridge House.

Iron Maiden at the Bridge House

U2: "A nice band, worked really hard. No chance of making it, not different enough. I might be wrong though (!), have to wait and see.  Yes, I would give them another gig". They made their debut at the venue in 1979, with a total audience of 18.

U2 played to an audience of 18 at
 the Bridge House in 1979:
 "no chance of making it"

Meanwhile, a small pub in
Limerick claims the first siting!

Murphy gave the north London pub band Dire Straits a gig and says their influence "changed the Bridge House from a Heavy Metal joint to a Blues-type pub".

Annie Lennox: was in a band called The Tourists before she became half of The Eurythmics, which had its first gig at the Bridge.

The Damned: "Played a few gigs for us (in 1977) - always quite good".

Alison Moyet: "We helped Alison, she sued us" (over a record release).

Steve Marriott: After The Small Faces and Humble Pie, he put together Blind Drunk and they played at the Bridge.  One night the police came to arrest him (on a fraud charge - which was later dropped).  They were persuaded to let him do the gig first, or risk a riot from the 800 or so who had turned up for it.

The Troggs: "Only attracted small, small audiences ... were loss makers".

Lindisfarne: - fought on stage - not a great success.

Nashville Teens: Really disastrous night.

Chas and Dave: "They played many times for us and were sensational". They recorded a live album at the Bridge.

Joe Brown: he had wired the pub as an electrician in the 1950's and returned in the 1970's to do a few gigs. His daughter, Sam, also played, accompanying Jools Holland, whose first band Squeeze, also played the Bridge a few times.

Billy Bragg: Terry Murphy says he gave Billy an early break - but the favour wasn't returned.

Tom Robinson Band: Murphy gave the band an early gig at the Bridge House, but was wary of the reception they may have received in the east end, with their explicitly gay messages, in the 1970's. He needn't have worried, Robinson recalls, in the book:

We had a storming show, and by the end of Glad to be Gay most people had gone: 'hey, brave stance, fair play to 'em' and applause-wise, the song was one of the high spots of the night.

Tom Robinson Band: "Bridge House
 one of the warmest, most responsive
 audiences" ever played to.

Ironically, I remember that night taught me exactly the same point the song was supposed to be making; don't pre-judge people or make ignorant assumptions about what you think they are going to be like. The Bridge House actually had one of the warmest, most responsive audiences TRB ever played to.

Blues scene and heard

Terry Murphy became close friends with Rory Gallagher - sharing an Irish heritage - and had him playing to crowds at the Bridge a time or two, to ecstatic audiences.

The inimitable Rory Gallagher on
 one of his flying visits to see his
 friend, Terry Murphy, at The Bridge House

Nine Below Zero: Still one of Britain's top jobbing blues bands - stared life at the Bridge, almost as an offshoot from Rory Gallagher's band, and were originally called the Stan Smith's Blues band.

Ex-Manfred Mann front man, Paul Jones, would come along and blow his harp, and gradually put together what was to became the Blues Band at the venue. They became regulars at the Bridge House, and recorded a live album there.

Alexis Korner, Paul Jones
 and Gary Fletcher, jamming
 with the Blues Band
 at the Bridge House

They, in turn, attracted others to the venue, including the legendary Alexis Korner and band member Dave Kelly's sister, and blues chanteuse, Jo-Anne Kelly.

Forest Gate connection

Let Terry Murphy tell the story:

"John Bassett was another regular at the Bridge. He played guitar, wrote songs and managed bands. He also had his own music studio in Sebert Road, Forest Gate. We used his studio a lot. Depeche Mode did their first recordings at John's studio and Steve from Some Bizarre recorded there, as well.

A very youthful Depeche Mode, with
 Terry Murphy, about the time they recorded
 their first tracks - in Sebert Road!

Chas Thompson produced some great demos for Wasted Youth (a Bridge House favourite band, which included a young Murphy) at John's place. In fact, we used some of them as masters and released them. Chris captured their sound quite beautifully.

Site of John Bassett's studio, and
 launch pad of Depeche Mode, today

Footnote 1 When the Bridge House was CPO'd ready for the A 13 widening scheme in the late 1990's, it was clear that it would remain empty for a couple of years, before demolition and the roadworks begun. Newham Council arranged for it to be used as a hostel for homeless families during this period. The facility was operated by the Renewal Programme, under the management of Alan Partridge. The entertainment connection, however, did not prevail, as this was not the ex-presenter of Radio Norfolk.

Footnote 2 This site is grateful to the source of most of the content photographs, above, which we freely accept are copyright of Geoffrey Young and others mentioned, although not specified by individual photo, in the  Terence Murphy's book: The Bridge House, Canning Town: memories of a legendary rock & roll hangout, published 2007 by Pennant Publishing. This post offers only a glimpse of the wealth of stories and recollections contained within the highly recommended book, available at Newham Bookshop and other outlets.

Suffragette Suburbs - an International Women's Day nod at our neighbours

Last year, to commemorate International Women's Day, we featured the story of Minnie Baldock, the organiser of Forest Gate's Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) - popularly known as The Suffragettes - between 1906 and 1911 (see here).

Minnie Baldock c 1908

This year we focus on a number of local addresses of significance to the WSPU, in Forest Gate, neighbouring Canning Town and the adjacent district of Bow - all within four miles of Forest Gate. We are deeply indebted to Vicky Stewart and Spitalfields Life for the research behind the identification of the Bow addresses and for sourcing some of the photos (see footnote).

Forest Gate

Among local addresses of significance to the suffragette movement are:

Earlham Hall, Earlham Grove (now the Cherabim and Seraphim church)

Location of a WSPU meeting in October 1908. The illustrations below show a near contemporary drawing of the exterior of this, then important, public building and a Stratford Express report of that meeting.

Stratford Express
 account of Earlham
 Hall meeting

Sketch of Earlham Hall,
shortly before WSPU meeting

102 Clova Road

This was the location of a meeting of the WSPU in Forest Gate, in January 1908 (see Stratford Express cutting). The speaker was the national treasurer of the Suffragettes, Emily Pethwick-Lawrence.

102 Clova Road, today

Stratford Express, reporting
 Clova Road meeting

Emily Pethwick-Lawrence

Upton Park station

An outdoor Suffragette meeting, addressed by Emily Pethwick-Lawrence (see above) was interrupted, and probably sabotaged by, a travelling Punch and Judy show, featuring a Mr Punch beating a Judy in September 1906 (see press cutting).

Upton Park outdoor meeting,
 disrupted by Punch and Judy show

Canning Town

Minnie Baldock , Forest Gate Suffragette organiser and subject of our profile last year, was an activist in this area, particularly from 1905 - 1911. Before becoming the Forest Gate organiser, she had been instrumental in establishing the Canning Town branch of the WSPU, at a meeting on 29 January 1906.

Unlike many high profile Suffragettes, she was a working class woman, very much in tune with her local community. She was arrested and imprisoned for a month, for demonstrating outside Parliament, in 1908.

Minnie gave a room in her house in Eclipse St, Canning Town (subsequently demolished) to fellow working class activist and prominent Suffragette , Annie Kenney, when she travelled from Lancashire to fight the cause in London.

Annie Kenney

The pair campaigned together in the East End and more widely elsewhere in England, offering some working class authenticity to the Suffragette cause in many communities, which were sometimes difficult to penetrate by the very middle class Pankhursts and some of their sisters.

Oak Crescent, Canning Town (near Bow Flyover)

Currently a green space, but in 1891 home of Minnie Baldock and her trade union and socialist councillor activist husband, Henry Baldock. See census extract, verifying the residence.

Oak Crescent, today

1891 census, showing
 Baldocks in Oak Crescent

490 Barking Road

Home of Minnie Baldock at the time of the 1911 census in April.  Minnie was diagnosed with cancer four months after this census and treated at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital, near Euston.

On recovery, she effectively retired from political activism and retired to Poole, in Dorset, where she was to live for more than 40 further years.

490 Barking Road, today

1911 census entry

Beckton Road

Route of Women's May Day Rally to Victoria Park, 23 May 1914 - see press cutting from Woman's Dreadnought:

Woman's Dreadnought May 1914

Bow - across the water

Bow, as part of the then borough of Poplar, was a hotbed of left wing politics in the first quarter of the twentieth century.  It was an area dominated by casual employment - mainly dockers (men) and seasonal factory work (women). As such, the area was desperately poor. It had already played an important part in the birth and growth of the Dockers' Union, which was to form the basis of what later became the Transport and General Workers' Union T&GWU).

Casual work meant frequent periods of unemployment and reliance on Poor Law payments for men, women and families. The structure of this early form of public assistance required that the entire cost of the benefits distributed  in any one Poor Law district to be met by the other, local people, within the same district.
  
So, people living in the poorest parts of the country paid much higher council rates than those in wealthier areas, because of the larger number of destitute neighbours they were required to support.

This ludicrous position was challenged by Poplar's Labour Council in the 1920's, led by George Lansbury, via a civil disobedience campaign. The councillors' actions in defending the living conditions of their fellow citizens, resulted in their imprisonment - but was ultimately instrumental in ensuring that there was a nation-wide levelling out of support for the poorest areas.

Lansbury, a decade or so later, briefly became leader of the Labour Party, nationally.

Prior to this, however, Lansbury had been very much influenced by the Suffragette movement, which inspired him to resign as the MP for Poplar in 1912. He did so in order to provoke a by-election in which he stood, and focused it exclusively on the issue of Votes for Women.

George Lansbury (Poplar MP and future Labour Party
 leader) in Bow: His 1912 "Votes for Women"
by-election attracted Sylvia Pankhurst to
 the East End, and to the establishment of the
militant East London Federation of Suffragettes. Their
 civil disobedience tactics inspired post WW1 Poplar
councillors to break the law, which in turn,
transformed the welfare state.

Unfortunately, he was defeated in the election, but it proved to be the springboard for longer-lasting and more significant  local and national developments, some of which have been alluded to, above.

Sylvia Pankhurst, one of the formidable family of Suffragettes, came to Bow to assist with the by-election campaign and stayed afterwards to organise within the area. She opened up the first local WSPU headquarters on Bow Road in 1912 (soon after Forest Gate's Minnie Baldock had effectively stepped down in the West Ham area, due to ill-health).

Unlike the rest of her family, Sylvia was deeply committed to actively organising local working class women, not simply around the issue of votes for women, but on a wider range of social issues related to their social and economic conditions and poverty.

As such, she became politically divorced from the rest of her family. In recognition of this, the Bow/Poplar organisation changed its name in 1914 to the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS). Their activities were inspirational and paved the way for the post World War 1 civil disobedience undertaken by the Poplar councillors, referred to above.

The remainder of this blog centres around three almost parallel roads, running West to East into Newham from Poplar.  By coincidence, the WSPU's headquarters was, over a relatively short period of time, located successively on each of them.  The roads were: Old Ford Road, Roman Road and Bow Road.

Buildings on them played a significant role in the history of Votes for Women.

Below we provide details of some of the more significant locations and photographs of most of those which survive, today.

Bow Road

Contemporary photo of Bow Road

Number 198 - First headquarters of WSPU in Bow in 1912. It was an empty baker's shop on which Sylvia Pankhurst painted "Votes For Women" in gold paint, and addressed crowds from its doorstep.

Bromley Public Hall - Sylvia Pankhurst in her memoirs: 

On February 14th 1913 we held a meeting at the Bromley Public Hall, Bow Road, and from it lead a demonstration round the district. To make sure of imprisonment, I broke a window in the police station ... and went to prison and began the hunger and thirst strike.

Bromley Public Hall

Bow Palace of Varieties, 156 Bow Road - Built on the rear of the Three Cups pub, it was a public hall, with a capacity of 2,000. Sylvia Pankhurst in her memoirs wrote: 

While I was in prison after my arrest at Shoreditch ... a meeting ... was held in Bow Palace on Sunday afternoon December 14th. After the meeting it was arranged to go in procession around the district and to hoot outside the homes of hostile borough councillors.

Bow Road Police station - The police were brutal to the Suffragettes. Daisy Parsons, who later became a West Ham councillor for Beckton Ward and mayor described part of what she told to Prime Minister, Asquith, as a member of a deputation on 20 June 1914: 

Suddenly, without a word of warning, we are pounced on by detectives and bludgeoned and women were called names by cowardly detectives. When nobody is about ... these men are not fit to help rule the country, while we have no say in it.

Bow Road police station around the time
 Suffragettes were assaulted there

Minnie Lansbury clock - near junction with Alfred Street - Minnie was George's daughter-in-law who was active in local politics. She was imprisoned in Holloway for her Suffragette activities and died age 32.

Minnie Lansbury clock

George Lansbury Memorial - near junction with Harley Grove - Memorial commemorating Suffragette supporter, who lived locally and worked at his father-in-law's timber merchants, nearby.

George Lansbury memorial

Old Ford Road

Near contemporary photo of Roman Road

400 - Third headquarters of local Suffragettes (initially WSPU, later ELFS), in 1914. A women's hall was built on land at the rear, which was used as a cost-price restaurant, providing nutritious meals to women suffering huge increases in food prices in the early months of World War 1.

438, The Mothers' Arms - The East London Federation of Suffragettes set up a creche and baby clinic here, staffed by Montessori-trained nurses.  It was converted from a pub previous called the Gunmakers' Arms.

Roman Road

Public baths and library at about
 the time the Suffragettes' HQ
was were located on Roman Road

Contemporary photo of Roman Road

Roman Road Market - The East London Federation of Suffragettes ran a stall in the market, decorated with posters, selling their newspaper The Woman's Dreadnought.

159 (subsequently renumbered 459)  - Location of WF Arber and Co, a firm of printers that produced free-of-charge handbills for the WSPU.

Photo of Arber's before closure,
but after street renumbering

321 - Second headquarters of Bow WSPU.  Sylvia Pankhurst described it, in her memoirs: 

We decided to take a shop and house at 321 Roman Road at a weekly rent of 14s 6d (73p) a week. It was the only shop to let in the road. The shop window was broken across and only held together by putty. The landlord would not put in new glass, nor would he repair the many holes in the shop and passage flooring because he thought we would only stay a short time.

We would be delighted to hear, and include details of any other local sites of significance, which we will be happy to add to the above account. 

Footnote: Fuller details of the Bow addresses and Spitalfields Life can be found here. An excellent, accessible, publication: East London Suffragettes by Sarah Jackson and Rosemary Taylor provides further details and gives a great account of the suffragette movement in, well, East London.  Priced £9.99, it can be purchased at the Newham Bookshop, and other outlets.

Forest Gate's proud suffragette legacy

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

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

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

.

Rebecca Cheetham, Newham
 Suffragette and educational reformer

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

Minnie Baldock, 1908

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

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

Stratford Express,
29 September 1906

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

Votes for Women

Stratford Express, 25 January 1908

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

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

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

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

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

102 Clova Road, today -
scene of  January 1908 meeting

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

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

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

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

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

Enthusiastic meeting at Forest Gate

Stratford Express,
 19 October 1908

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Minnie Baldock, a brief biography

Minnie Baldock, c 1909

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

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

          Oak Crescent, today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

490 Barking Road, today

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

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

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

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

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

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