Forest Gate's 12 MPs

As an precursor to the forthcoming general election, this blog offers a pen portrait of the 12 MP's who have represented the Forest Gate area over the last 130 years.

Following a significant extension of the franchise in 1884, and the rapid growth of the West Ham area over the previous 30 years, the district became a Parliamentary borough for the first time, in 1885, with two seats: North and South. Forest Gate was firmly within the northern seat.

Edward Cook - MP, 1885 - 1886 (Liberal)

The victor in North West Ham in the 1885 election, and thus Forest Gate's first real MP, was the Liberal, Edward Rider Cook (1836 - 1898). He lost the seat in another election, a year later.

He was a soap manufacturer, who was a senior partner in his father's Bow based soap and chemical manufacturers, Edward Cook and Co.

Prior to becoming the area's MP he had been a member of the Metropolitan Board of Works (a predecessor of the GLC/GLA), was a JP and was described as a radical/progressive Liberal.

J Forrest Fulton - MP, 1886 - 1892 (Conservative)

Fulton had been the unsuccessful Conservative candidate in 1885, but took the seat in the following year's snap election.  He was a senior barrister, prior to entering Parliament.

He has been described as having "made no particular mark" in his six years in Parliament (not the only one of the area's MP's to have failed to impress), and was defeated after only one term.

Forrest Fulton (Cons) -
local MP 1886 - 1892

He returned to the legal profession, as a judge and was knighted after his narrow defeat in the 1892 election.

TN Archibald Grove - MP 1892 - 1895 (Liberal)

Although Grove won the election in North West Ham, the more historically important result, locally, that year,  was in West Ham South, which was won by James Kier Hardie. He became Britain's first Labour MP and leader (although the party had yet to be formed at this time).

Before entering Parliament, Thomas Newcomen Archibald Grove (1855 - 1920) launched and became the magazine editor of a low price "literary" publication (The New Review). He was defeated at the election three years after he was first returned to Parliament.

Archibald Grove (Lib) -
local MP 1892 - 1895

He tried to re-enter Parliament elsewhere and was successful in Northamptonshire in 1906, but stood down, and retired from politics four years later, due to ill health.

Ernest Gray - MP, 1895 - 1906 (Conservative)

Sir Ernest Gray (1856 –1932) was an educational reformer, one-time president of the National Union of Teachers and author of a number of education handbooks.

After an assortment of almost zero impact, one-term, local MPs, Grey became the first local MP to hold his seat for more than one election, serving 11 years, in total.

Ernest Gray (Cons) -
local MP 1895 - 1906

He lost the Parliamentary seat in 1906, tried and was unsuccessful once more in the first election of 1910. He eventually re-entered Parliament in 1918, for Accrington.  In the meantime he was elected to the newly formed London County Council and was for a while a councillor in Brixton (two positions he shared with a successor, a century later - Tony Banks).

He lost his Accrington parliamentary seat to Labour in 1922, and retired from politics soon after, being knighted in 1925.

CFG Masterman - MP, 1906 - 1910 (Liberal)

Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman PC ( 1873 –  1927) was  distantly related to the Gurney family, who were significant local land owners in the Forest Gate area in the nineteenth century.

He was a social reformer, and like his Liberal predecessor in the seat, Archibald Grove, a journalist (The English Review). In 1909 he published The Condition of England, a survey of contemporary society with particular focus on the state of the working class.

Charles Masterman (Lib) -
local MP 1906 - 1910

Masterman worked closely with Winston Churchill and Lloyd George on The People's Budget of 1909 and was responsible for the passage through parliament of the National Insurance Act of 1911, which introduced Old Age Pensions to Britain.

He was re-elected to the seat in both the general elections of 1910, but the second election was declared null and void, and he was returned to Parliament in Bethnal Green, in a by-election, the following year. He lost that seat in 1914, and dropped out of Parliamentary politics for almost a decade, as a result.

During World War 1 he was head of the British War propaganda Bureau (WPB), in the course of which he recruited authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, John Buchan and Rudyard Kipling to add their literary talents to the propaganda war on the home front, and in an effort to get the USA to join the war on the British side.

He re-entered Parliament, briefly, in 1923, as a Manchester MP, but lost his seat in the election the following year. His health declined rapidly, hastened by drug and alcohol abuse. He died in 1927, possibly having committed suicide.

Baron De Forest - MP, 1911 - 1918 (Liberal)

Maurice Arnold de Forest (1879 –  1968) was the son of a one-time circus performer. He was an early motor racing driver and aviator. His title was Austro-Hungarian, and so it did not disqualify him from membership of the British House of Commons.

He was immensely rich, and Winston Churchill spent much time on his yacht (including his honeymoon). He was, however, politically progressive and favoured Irish Home Rule, land nationalisation female suffrage and equality of religion, in education.

Maurice Arnold de Forest (Lib)
- local MP 1911 - 1918

Following the conclusion of World War 1, Parliamentary boundaries were redrawn and the two former West Ham seats became four (Stratford and Upton in North, Plaistow and Silvertown in south). Forest Gate was in the Stratford constituency.

CE Leonard Lyle - MP, 1918 - 1922 (Conservative and Unionist)

(Charles Ernest) Leonard Lyle, later 1st Baron Lyle of Westbourne ( 1882 –1954), was an industrialist whose family were major ship-owners who had diversified into sugar refining, and Leonard joined the firm in 1903, and became a director when his father retired in 1909.

When Abram Lyle & Sons merged with Henry Tate and Sons in 1921 to form Tate and Lyle, he became a director of the new company, then its chairman in 1928, and president in 1937.

His tenure as Stratford MP was short. Following his defeat in Stratford in 1922, he was elected MP for Epping the following year, only to stand down a year later to make the seat available for Winston Churchill. He was elected to parliament again in a bye-election, for Bournemouth, in 1940, where he remained MP until 1945.

In addition to his parliamentary career he was a significant British golfer and tennis player, but was perhaps best known for running the anti-sugar nationalisation campaign, following the election of the 1945 Labour government.

Tom Groves - MP, 1922 - 1945 (Labour)

Thomas Edward Groves (1884 – 1958) was the constituency's first Labour, and one of its longest serving, MPs. But he made little impact, and in a fate to be experienced by another long-serving successor (see below). was unceremoniously de-selected by the Labour Party, for his inactivity.

He successfully contested the division in the elections of: 1923, 1924, 1929, 1931, 1935 and 1939.

He wanted to stand again in the post-war election of 1945, but was deselected by the Labour Party as its candidate. Groves stood as an independent, and was both electorally humiliated and expelled from the Labour party for his troubles.

Henry Nicholls - MP, 1945 - 1950 (Labour)

Henry Richard Nicholls (1893 – 1962) was selected in place of Groves, but he was a one term MP, as the constituency was abolished, following  population decline during and post World War 11, and a subsequent boundary review.

West Ham reverted to having two MPs -one for the North (including Forest Gate) and the other for the south. Nicholls lost out in the selection to the other, former MP for the north of the then borough, Arthur Lewis, who had represented Upton since 1945.

Arthur Lewis - MP, 1950 - 1983 (Labour)

Arthur William John Lewis (1917 - 1998) was an official of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers when he was elected as MP for Upton, in 1945. He beat Nicholls for selection as Labour candidate for the now united North West Ham seat, which he represented until a further boundary review, and the formation of the Newham North West seat, in 1974, which he represented until 1983.

He was won the local seat at the elections of 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 (x2) and 1979.

Arthur Lewis (Lab)
- local MP 1950 - 1979
(photo taken 1947)

In 1983, after 38 years as an MP, Lewis was deselected as Labour candidate by his local constituency Labour Party, which he said had become "100 per cent Trotskyist, Militancy Tendency, Communist and IRA supporters". By this time he was refusing to attend local party meetings or hold "advice surgeries" for his constituents.

He was replaced as Labour candidate by Tony Banks. Lewis stood as an Independent Labour candidate at the 1983 election and was humiliated, coming fourth with 11% of the vote behind the winner, Banks.

Tony Banks - MP, 1983 - 2005 (Labour)

We have already given Tony Bank's parliamentary career a cheerful nod (here), but a little more formally, we'll recognise his time as MP here. Anthony Louis Banks, Baron Stratford ( 1942 – 2006) was an MP from 1983 to 2005, before being created a member of the House of Lords.

He was elected as the local MP at the general elections of 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997 and 2001.

Tony Banks (Lab)-
local MP 1983 - 2005

He was a trade union official and local councillor on both Lambeth and the Greater London Councils before being selected as Labour candidate, to replace the out-of-touch Arthur Lewis. Following a 1995 boundary review, Newham North West was expanded and renamed West Ham for the 1997 election and Banks represented that seat until 2005.

He was Minister for Sport from 1997-9, and then Tony Blair's unsuccessful "envoy" for England to host the 2006 World Cup for another couple of years. He gradually became disillusioned with life as an MP and retired in 2005.

Having been enobled after the general election of that year, he suffered a massive heart attack a few months later, and died in January 2006.

Lyn Brown - MP, 2005 - to date (Labour)

Lyn Carol Brown was born in Newham in 1960, and following university became a social worker. She was elected to Newham Council in 1988 and stood, unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate for the Wanstead and Woodford parliamentary seat in 1992.

She was elected as MP for West Ham in 2005, which she retained with an increased majority at the 2010 election.

Lyn Brown (Lab) -
local MP 2005 - to date

Following her election, as MP for West Ham, in 2005, Lyn Brown held a number of minor government positions, until Labour's defeat at the 2010 general election. She has had a number of "shadow" posts while Labour has been in opposition and at the time of the dissolution for the 2024 general election was "shadow" minister for Africa.

Tony Banks, in his own words: a recollection of Forest Gate's much missed local wit, sage and MP

There are few British politicians, living or dead, who could be relied on to light up a room with their utterances. In an era when blandness is the hallmark of Westminster MPs, Tony stood apart from the greyness, and was one of that rare breed.

He was the local MP, for Newham North West (later renamed West Ham) from 1983 - 2005, and lived, for most of that time, in Sprowston Road, pretty much opposite Romford Road's former Live and Let Live pub. He retired as MP when his old constituency was abolished and became Baron Banks, of Stratford. He died of a massive heart attack just a few months later, while visiting friends for a Christmas break, in January 2006.

As we approach the 9th anniversary of his death, it seems an appropriate time to recall some of his wit and barbed comments - and so, perhaps, add to the jollity of the festive season.

Potted biog

First, a quick potted biography.

Tony was born in April 1942, the son of a diplomat (whose language he never quite learned to master). He went to school in Brixton and university in York and the LSE.

He joined the Labour Party in 1964 and was elected to the Greater London Council in 1970 - on which he sat until 1977, then from 1981 until its abolition in 1986. He was a member of  Lambeth Council from 1971-4.

Banksy - as he was known -  was Assistant General Secretary of the Association of Broadcasting Staff (AGS, ABS) from 1973-83. In June 1983 he was elected MP for Newham North-West, with a majority of almost 7,000. He was chair of the GLC in its last year of existence, after which he was elected chair of the group of London Labour MPs. He held a number of shadow portfolios until Labour formed the government in 1997.

Tony quickly became known for his forthright language and acidic utterances; and it was a considerable surprise (not least unto himself and the party's prince of darkness, Peter Mandelson) when Tony Blair appointed him as Minister of Sport in May 1997. He was in heaven.


Tony, swearing his oath of allegiance
to the Queen, with his fingers crossed - one of
many gestures that got him in trouble

But his sharp tongue and unwillingness to toe the line lead to the inevitable: removal from office two and a half years later, after one gaffe too many, to occupy the non-job of "Prime Minister's envoy"  to win the 2016 World Cup bid. The bid, of course, failed, as did his attempt to become the Labour candidate for the London mayoralty in 2004.

He left the Commons a year later and was dead within another twelve months.

His last few years must have seemed like failure to the outside world, but he was characteristically philosophic about it - as will be seen, below.

He had trenchant and colourful views on many of his contemporary politicians, as the following illustrate.

On Margaret Thatcher

 She is happier getting in and out of tanks than in and out of museums or theatre seats. She seems to derive more pleasure from admiring missiles than great works of art. What else can we expect from an ex-spam-hoarder from Grantham, presiding over the social and economic decline of the country.

She is as about as environmentally friendly as the bubonic plague. I would be happy to see Margaret Thatcher stuffed, mounted, put in a glass case and left in a museum. She believes that anybody who opposes her - whether the Opposition or one of her friends - must, by definition, be wrong. She is a natural autocrat surrounded by a bunch of sycophants, many of whom have betrayed everything in which they once claimed to believe. She is far more influenced by Attila The Hun than Saint Francis of Assisi. She is a petty minded xenophobe who struts around the world interfering and lecturing in an arrogant and high-handed manner. 

But Banksy was considerably less ambiguous in his views

She is a half-mad old bag lady. The Finchley whinger. She said the Poll Tax was the government's flagship. Unfortunately for the Conservative Party she keeps bobbing up again. Her head keeps appearing above the waves.

On the Poll Tax:

It was a tax which was drawn up by some half-wit in the Department of the Environment. A tax which was unfair, unloved, unclear - a good description of Margaret Thatcher's government.

On John Major

I have always found it a personal advantage to loathe my political opponents. It is not usually difficult, but the Prime Minister is certainly not one of those. How could I? We both grew up in Brixton. We both like beans on toast. Where on this conjoined road of shared experiences did the Prime Minister go so badly wrong and become a Tory? I think it was when he got turned down for the job of bus conductor. He had his heart set on punching tickets and helping little old ladies on and off the bus, but he was spurned. At that point he vowed hideous revenge on us all, but to be able to get it, first he had to punch the little old lady from Finchley off the bus. Having achieved that he has now turned his attention to the rest of us. Our fate is to be even more horrible than to be frog marched out of Downing Street. We are to be buried under charters. (19 Nov 1991)

He was a fairly competent chairman of Housing (on Lambeth Council). Every time he gets up now I keep thinking "What on earth is Councillor Major doing?" I can't believe he's here and sometimes I think he can't either. (24 Apr 1994)

Throughout the year, he stood like the little boy on the burning deck of the Titanic, with his finger in the dyke, an apple on his head and his foot in his mouth" , awarding John Major, 'Survivor of the Year. (27 Dec 1996.)

John Major, like Tony, was an-ex Brixton
boy, former Lambeth councillor and
Chelsea FC and Surrey CC fan

On other, contemporaries

Kenneth Clarke:

In his usual arrogant and high-handed fashion, he dons his Thatcherite jackboots and stamps all over local opinion.  He's like Hitler with a beer belly.  He is a pot-bellied old soak. (21 Jun 1994)

Michael Portillo:

At one point Portillo was polishing his jackboots and planning the next advance. The next thing is he shows up as a TV presenter. It is rather like Pol Pot joining the Teletubbies. (Oct 1997)

Taking as good as he gave

The Banksy abuse was not a one way street. Every sharp pen in Fleet Street and beyond rose to the challenge of trying to emulate his invective, as the following indicates:

The Times :

Banks' lip, his street cred suits and streetwise insults bring the flavour of Newham to the corridors of Westminster

Overand and Sea - West Ham fanzine:

The Newham Nutcase , (Oct 1997)

Evening Standard :

The names Peter Stringfellow and Tony Banks rarely appear in the same sentence. After all, one's a sharp-dressed, silken-tongued smoothie and the other owns a nightclub (21 May 1996)

Daily Telegraph:

Everyone knows that Banks was going to be the cabaret turn in Blair's government; first there was the record of his parliamentary brawling, then there was the way in which he was blissfully unprepared for ministerdom - he hit the ground stumbling. On his first day, he bounded in half an hour late in jeans, having had to find out where the ministry was, and proceeded to lead the press upstairs to inspect his pokey office. To fantasy footballers everywhere, it was brilliant - as if the fans were bawling national anthem's in the directors' box. To the civil servants used to stiff-collared subtlety, it was disconcerting. (18 Aug 1997)

Matthew Parris:

A total ape, baboon, buffoon,. clown, harlequin, jackass, jester, joker, monkey, pantaloon, pickle-herring, scallywag, tomfool, half-wit, barmpot, headbanger, eejit numpty.   (The Times)

Chelsea  fan

Tony was a huge - and unswerving -Chelsea fan, from the days when it was an unfashionable club. On being appointed Minister of Sport, he said he would give the job up if he was required to be impartial, and on the occasion when Chelsea were at Wembley, during his period in office he sat with the fans, rather than in the royal box.

On being selected to stand for Parliament in Newham, Tony was asked by the Newham Recorder if he was going to switch his political allegiances from Chelsea to West Ham, to which he replied. "In life, you can change your religion, wife and even politics - but never your football team." He lived that sentence, almost to the letter!

And the club were never far from his thoughts, so in Parliament:

When I first heard about this new drug Viagra, I thought it was a new player Chelsea had just signed. (30 May 1998)

He even portrayed his role in government, in self-effacing Chelsea terms:

My role is to serve as the long-stop, for those who are cricketers, or as a sweeper for those who are interested in football. I see myself as perhaps the Ruud Gullit of the government team, although the Honourable Members will probably notice, I am considerably shorter, I am not black and I do not have dreadlocks. (27 Jun 1997)

To his amusement, he shared his support with John Major - who he was always pleased to say sat at the opposite end of Stamford Bridge to him, and the completely loathsome David Mellor, whom, quite inexplicably, he quite liked .

The slimeball Mellor was, of course, caught up in a sleazy affair with an  "actress" Antonia De Sancha, which resulted in claims that he  had sex with her, wearing a Chelsea kit - memorably recreated by the ever-helpful Sun (see photo). On seeing this, Banksy quipped, of his mate:

I couldn't possibly emulate the feats of one D Mellor. Since the great days of Jimmy Greaves, it's the only time anyone's managed to score four times in night in a Chelsea shirt. The question we are all asking is, of course, did they change ends at half time? (Aug 1997)

David Mellor, the ugly face of politics,
Chelsea support and taxi passengers

Newham

He was characteristically blunt, when discussing his views on his constituents:

To Private Eye, - describing the children in his constituency, he said that they were: "More likely to be out nicking TVs than watching them." (Feb 1990)

I seem to represent some of the dirtiest constituencies in the country, and what's more I say so in the local papers. That was the gist of my New Year's message to the good folks of Newham - that they were a pretty filthy bunch who should clean up their act. (1994)

I have a personal concern about blight; the (Channel) tunnel goes immediately underneath my house. I am quite happy about that, but is there any compensation in this for me? My property, along with many others, has been blighted; its value has gone down. People do not want to buy a house over a tunnel (Nov 1995)

Although the tunnel will go immediately under my house in Forest Gate, I cannot wait to sit in my front room and hear the rumble of the trains on their way to Stratford. (29 Feb 1996)

For the benefit of those Hon Members who think that I live in a concrete jungle I should point out that many cattle once wandered on Wanstead Flats, which is in my constituency, and it was a delight to see them. I have not seen them around recently, but I suppose they have gone the way of all flesh (13 Nov 1996)

In his own words:

I am a vegetarian. However, I am nobody's turnip. I came to vegetarianism fairly late in my somewhat dissolute life; it has been a journey of discovery ... I am however, no food fascist. If people wish to eat meat and run the risk of dying a horrible, lingering hormone-induced death after sprouting extra breasts and large amounts of hair, it is, of course, entirely up to them. (8 Mar 1995)

'm personally going to be pushing very hard for synchronised nose-picking. I think it has a great future, judging by the number of MPs who indulge in it. (1 Feb 1998)

On cash for questions:

Since I was elected, I have tabled 6,919questions. If I had received £1,000 for each of these, I'd have netted a cool £7million, which would have meant that I could have faxed this speech from Mustique. (13 Jul 1994)

Tony was just like Ruud Gullit
- except he was shorter, not black
and didn't have dreadlocks

On sex:

I certainly didn't manage it until I was quite a bit older than most people. It really annoys me, even now, when I realise that so many of my most creative years were wasted in an unnecessary and unwanted celibacy.

To fellow Newham MP, Nigel Spearing, in the Commons, on a debate on drugs

If my Hon Friend wants a spliff, I will no doubt be able to supply him with one, but it will not be one that I have rolled myself. (9 Jun 1995)

I was totally and utterly gobsmacked when I got The Call (to be Minister of Sport). I mean that. I'm not just saying it. It was a complete and utter surprise. Because I had no reason whatsoever to expect a call. Perhaps, some might argue, no justification.  So, when I got the call I thought it was a spoof. Then, when I heard the very efficient voice on the switchboard at Number 10 Downing Street, I thought: 'Oh, no, I'm going to get told off."' Perhaps the lavatories were blocked or something. Could I possibly come round with me plunger. And then it turned out it was Himself, saying 'I'd like you to be the new Sports Minister ... I actually said 'Fuck me!' Then I said 'I don't quite know what to say', except then, of course, I managed to say 'Yes'. There wasn't much of a pause. Nanoseconds. I went for it. (19 Sept 1997).

He was equally blunt on the role of local MP, when discussing his retirement , with the BBC's then political editor, Robin Oakley:

To be honest I found it intellectually numbing, and tedious in the extreme. I most certainly won't miss the constituency work. I've got to tell you that honestly. It's 22 years of the same cases, but just the faces and the people changing. It might sound a little disparaging to say this about people's lives and their problems and we did deal with them ... but I got no satisfaction from this at all. I really didn't. And all you were was a sort of high-powered social worker and perhaps not even a good one at that.

Last words

My epitaph will be: 'He Was a Complete Tosser'

Footnote

Thanks for much of the material to West Ham fan, Tory, broadcaster and publisher, Iain Dale, the source of many of the quotes, above, from his jolly little stocking filler, published in 1998 The Wit and Wisdom of Tony Banks - a Tribute to a Parliamentary Character. There's much more of a similar nature in there, so if the above has tickled a rib or two - get the whole cage in motion by purchasing, or otherwise acquiring, the volume!

Happy Christmas - one and all!