Paul Romane's Upper Cut exhibition - for the record

Forest Gate Arts' stalwart, Paul Romane, recently curated an excellent exhibition on the Upper Cut club, fifty years after its brief sojourn in Forest Gate, as part of the second council Heritage Week programme.

Above and below left, some of the exhibits curated for the exhibition.  Below right - also in the exhibition - a Forest Gate 'mod' of the era - a typical Upper Cut patron

The exhibition was held in the temporary headquarters of Forest Gate Arts, in Upton Lane, and this post is an on-line record of the fine show. Paul, a long time devotee of the club, and in particular some of the Soul acts that played there, had spent a great deal of energy drawing together exhibits for the week-long show.

The Upper Cut club on Woodgrange Road later
became the Ace of Clubs  (above)
and an outside shot of the gallery
hosting the exhibition (below)

A poster advertising the club, preserved
from the era and on display in the exhibition.

Paul collected mementos and memorabilia from a wide range of sources - including Small Faces roadie and brother of band member Ronnie - Stan Lane, and this website, together with many of his own souvenirs, to provide a fascinating, evocative and inspiring exhibition.

Left one of the display boards in the exhibition showing adverts for the gigs appearing at the Upper Cut (loaned by this website). Right, some modern posters in 60's psychedelic style by Forest Gate artist, and sister of modern singer, Plan B, Lauren Drew.

This post is being published to mark the 50th anniversary of the closure of the club - to make way for a bingo hall - in the last week of 1967. The artifacts embraced in many of the photos here are reproduced for the first time on this site, and add to the considerable collection already here. See below for details of other blog articles on the club.

An original poster, featuring acts
 appearing during the club's opening
 week (note mis-spelling of Jimi Hendrix's
 name - he was little known in the UK at
 the time, hence the Boxing Day 
matinee gig).

A flyer for one week's
shows at the club,
on display in the
exhibition

The curator - Paul Romane

Paul is a Newham boy; born in Plaistow in 1960, he has spent his whole life - bar the decade of the 1970's - in the borough. He moved to Forest Gate in 1981 and has developed a fascination with the briefly existing Upper Cut Club ever since. Such is his love for the music it featured, that he named his only son Otis after one of the venue's greatest performers. 


He has spent most of his working life in and around the arts, as a singer, musician, video maker, recording studio owner, poet and local music archivist.

The club

We have written extensively about the club, which lasted for only a year - from December 1966 until New Year's Eve the following year. (see footnote for details of previous articles ).

Insignificant-looking, but historic,
 scrap of paper. Kenny and Eddie
 Johnson (who ran the Lotus Club
 and Stratford's Two Puddings) had
negotiated with Aronsohn to take
 over the empty building that was
to become the Upper Cut, and 
shared  with him their business 
plans.They feel that he duped
  them, when the club opened with
 an identical set of objectives, run
 by Walker Brothers, Billy and George.

The Upper Cut was located in a building on land next to Percy Ingle's, on Woodgrange Road. The building was originally opened in 1902 as Forest Gate Public Hall, and served a variety of roles over the next century - hosting a theatre, cinema, skating rink, the Upper Cut Club (briefly), a bingo hall, The Ace of Clubs club, and an electrical warehouse, until its demolition, in the early years of this century, to make way for a ventilation shaft for the Eurotunnel rail link, which remains today.

Left - adverts for gigs at Upper Cut club, right - coverage of the club - all from the New Musical Express, at the time.

The location was awarded a plaque by Newham Council five or six years ago, in recognition of the fact that it was there that Jimi Hendrix wrote and first performed  Purple Haze - widely regarded as being one of the greatest rock numbers of all time - on Boxing Day 1966. The sign has subsequently been removed, as developers Mura have taken over much of the surrounding land.

The owner - Billy Walker

The club was owned and named after British boxer, Billy Walker, seen as a 'glamour' figure at the time of 'Swinging Britain'. Billy was very much the front man for the club, with his brother, George, the brains and businessman behind it. See here for details of Billy's local associations and views on the club, based on a personal interview with this website.

Above, programmes and Boxing magazines featuring Upper Cut owner, Billy Walker's boxing career, and the corner devoted to him in the exhibition.

Entrance and cloakroom of Upper Cut on
 night of Stax performance, March 1967, 
with large poster of Billy featured
 in the reception area.

Billy, in a staged photo, surrounded
 by "adoring fans" at the club, in the
 midst of the 'Swinging Sixties' .
(photo: copyright Getty Images)

Billy (right) with Lord Bath previewing an
 exhibition of his lordship's controversial artwork
 on the walls of the club.
 (photo copyright of Getty Images)

The performers

Although the club was opened for just one year, it attracted almost all the prominent UK bands of the day (excluding, notably, the Beatles) and some American black acts who were struggling to get recognition at home.

Most notable among them was Jimi Hendrix, who appeared at the club twice.  

Possibly the biggest night in the club's short life was on 18 March 1967, when the so called Stax tour appeared. They performed one of their four UK gigs at the club, as part of a European tour. The star of the show was Otis Redding - who was dead months later following a plane crash. He was supported on the bill by Sam and Dave, The Mar-Keys, Booker T and the MG's, Arthur Conley and Eddie Floyd.

Left - waiting outside the club for the Stax gig, Right - poster advertising the gig

Above and below, the programme
for the night for the Stax gig

New Musical Express coverage of  the Stax night at the Upper Cut club

Ronnie Lane

One of the biggest UK acts to perform at the club was local band, The Small Faces. The lead, Steve Marriott, was brought up in Manor Park, while bass guitarist, Ronnie Lane, spent his youth in Forest Gate's Romford Road.  See here for this site's biography of Ronnie.

Left - a cut-out of Ronnie Lane, with guitar - loaned to the exhibition by his brother, Stan.  Right - a poster advertising one of Ronnie's later projects - Slim Chance

Left - one of Ronnie's jackets, right the label inside from 60's famed 'pop culture' retailer, King's Road's  'Granny Takes a Trip' - loaned to the exhibition by Stan Lane.  Below - one of Ronnie's "country jackets", as Stan calls them.

Paul was able to track down Stan Lane, Ronnie's brother, who was for a while the band's roadie. He now lives in Essex and has a considerable collection of Ronnie's possessions and artefacts. He kindly lent some of these to Paul, and they formed a central part of the exhibition.

What's next?

It is a great pity that at the end of the carefully curated exhibition, its contents had to be returned to their original owners, as there is no location on which to house a longer show in Newham - the borough being one of only seven in London without its own museum.

Newham has a very rich musical heritage - particularly at the popular end of the spectrum.  Other venues in Forest Gate alone worthy of public exhibition and recognition include: the Lotus Club (see here for details), The Princess Alice, as host to the first Rock against Racism (see here), The Tonic Sol-Fa college in Earlham Grove (see here). 

Beyond these narrow geographic boundaries is Canning Town's former Bridge House (see here) and pubs such as the Ruskin Arms in Manor Park (another venues for the Small Faces), Stratford's former Two Puddings pub (along with the Forest Gate's Jive Dive, home to perhaps Britain's first disco), Maryland's Cart and Horses (home, as the poster outside proclaims, of Iron Maiden) and Stratford Angel Lane's Railway Tavern (home of a sixties blues club).

Posters advertising events at Kenny Johnson's Forest Gate's Jive Dive (Earlham Grove) and Lotus Club (Woodgrange Road)

In addition to the Small Faces band members, other prominent musical performers with significant Newham connections include: Dame Vera Lynn, Lonnie Donegan, Joe Brown, David Essex, Forest Gate's Plan B (Ben Drew), and a very lively current Grime scene.

Future shows and dedicated exhibition space devoted to the rich history and locations outlined above would make a significant statement about Newham's pride in its musical heritage. But will the council be prepared to recognise this and facilitate the celebration?

This site's back catalogue

Previous articles on this site related to the history of the Upper Cut club can be found here:

When Otis played Forest Gate (March 1967) May 2013

Upper Cut (1) - a summary of the emergence of the first six months of the club (December 1966 - July 1967) July 2013

Upper Cut (2) - a brief survey of the second, and final half year of the club's existence (August 1967 - December 1967) July 2013

Georgie Fame, The Tremeloes and Unit 4 + 2 - (September 1967 at the Upper Cut) October 2013

When Stevie Wonder played Forest Gate - (October 1967) November 2013

Mouthwatering musical fayre on Woodgrange Road - (November 1967) December 2013

Club bills for the Upper Cut's two Decembers - (Decembers 1966 and 1967) January 2014

The Upper Cut beds down - (January 1967) February 2014

Essex comes to Forest Gate - (February 1967) March 2014

Stax comes to town - (March 1967) April 2014

A mixed bunch at the Upper Cut in April (April 1967) May 2014

Upper Cut - May 1967 (June 1967) June 2014

Summer of Love in Forest Gate (Summer 1967) August 2014

Golden Boy, Billy Walker's Forest Gate memories September 2014

Thanks

To Paul Romane for curating the exhibition and to Sophie Rigg from Forest Gate Arts for allowing us to use some of her photos of it.

Unique photo and details of Earlham Grove V2 attacks

We have just acquired a fascinating, captioned, photo from e.bay which helps illustrate a tragic story and raises interesting questions about the circumstances surrounding it.

Photo showing the damage done by V2
rocket on Earlham Grove on 6 March 1945 -
click photo, to enlarge it and see the detail.

This post examines the photo, the story it tells, those affected by it and addresses perturbing questions it poses. You should be able to enlarge the high-quality photo easily enough, in order to see some of the points raised, below.

The photo

The ariel photo - at its simplest - is of a WW2 bomb site. The caption on the back (illustrated, below) makes it of particular interest to this website.  The relevant section reads:

Associated Press Photo (caution: use credit). From: New York.

V-2 Rocket Bomb Damage in London.

Fifteen people were killed, 73 injured and a large number of houses were demolished, or damaged in March 1945 when a German V-2 bomb fell on Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, London. This is a British official photo taken in April 1945 and just released.

Associated Press Photo 5-31-45 (ed: 31 May 1945) etc.

The photo caption
- see transcript, above

It is, in fact, a photo of a bomb which completely destroyed, and killed the residents of nos 56 - 64 Earlham Grove on 6 March 1945. The subsequent bomb site is now the location of Earlham school (see photo below) and it is diagonally opposite what was then the Synagogue on the road - see top right hand corner of the photo for a partial view of the Synagogue.

The West Ham Synagogue, Earlham Grove

Final photo of the former Synagogue -
prior to its sale for housing development in 2004

The caption indicates that the photo was taken in April 1945 - the month following the damage. In the intervening period, the crater was clearly filled in, probably by the rubble (also not apparent)created by the rocket. It is interesting that the photo was not released until 31 May - 8 weeks after the bomb fell and over three weeks after the war in Europe was over.

Earlham Grove school, today - on the
site of the V2 rocket hit in question

The "bomb site" looks remarkably tidy - far more so than those I, as a boy, remember playing in a decade later, elsewhere in Greater London. 

The fact that it was an "official photograph", released in the United States  after the end of the war, begs the suggestion whether it was a propaganda plant, aimed at encouraging American post war economic support. I.e. 'Although we've been bombed, we are doing our best to clear up - now help us rebuild?'

A very close examination of the photo shows a number of points of interest.

Firstly, trees in the road were still standing, some in leaf, even very close to the centre of the blast - which is a testimony to their resilience.

Second, close examination of a number of the roofs on houses close to the bomb damaged area show what look like tarpaulin coverings, providing temporary respite for those still living in them from rain and other weather damage, pending repairs to them.

Third, there are clearly a number of people in the centre of the bombed area, which begs the question as to whether they were scavenging for objects from the destroyed properties - not an unusual feature of the period, following bomb destruction.

Fourth, at the very top right hand corner of the photo, there is the suggestion of another bomb site. Below, we speculate on what that might have been and who those killed by the bomb probably were.

The caption identified the exact number of people killed (see below for details), so there is a good chance that its stated 73 injured was also accurate.

Adler Court, today - on the site of the
former Synagogue on Earlham Grove

For totally understandable reasons, the caption did not, and probably could not, describe the nature of the area, or speculate on the reasons it was targeted.

The circumstances

There is only one, publicly available, contemporary account of the incident, from the Stratford Express of 9 March 1945, just three days after the rocket strike - see below.

It is fascinating from at least two respects.  Firstly, it was careful to adhere to government censorship regulations in that it did not give any close direct clue as to the whereabouts of the bomb - for fear of aiding enemy intelligence - simply referring to the location as being "in a Southern England district".

Second, it clearly relied on local witness statements for the story, published in the very next edition following the bomb hit, unlike, for example, the Dames Road Doodlebug hit that we covered recently (see here), whose definitive account was equally vague on location but came almost 2 months after the bomb, from government information sources. Any local readers would know exactly what and where the article was referring to.

Hence, genuine local news was provided, without giving succour to German military intelligence.

The extract of the press report, below, should be legible, but in case not, here is a transcript:

V Bomb Stories

Jewish minister had lucky escape.

The minister of a synagogue in a Southern England District probably owes his life to the fact that he was away when a V-bomb fell almost directly opposite the site where he lived. Upon returning, he discovered that several members of his congregation were among those who lost their lives and their homes.

Mr Woolf, with whom the minister resided, found that his wife and son, Murray, had had a lucky escape, and were unscathed, although the front of their house had caught the full impact of the blast.

The missile, which fell on some double-fronted houses, killed elderly Mr Owen and an 18-month baby B Adams (ed: Beryl, see below) and four members of a family named Golding (ed: all listed below).

(Ed: the reported death of Mr Owen is interesting. His is not a name that appears on the West Ham book of the WW2 civilian dead. The title of that book is, however, Residents of West Ham who were killed or died as a result of enemy air attack. The article - below - states that Mr Owen had been bombed out of his own home "in another district" and so was, temporarily, staying with his daughter - see below. West Ham may not have been his normal place of residence, which could be an explanation for his non appearance in the book - though other non-West Ham residents do appear in it. But, the numbers of dead recorded in that memorial book from this bomb blast is exactly the same number as that indicated on the caption of the press photo - above - issues many months before the list of the dead was published.) 

Back to the press report:

Three other members of the (Golding) family, including a soldier recently returned from the Middle East, where during the fighting he was ambushed and the only one of his party to remain alive (ed: this could well have been Jack Golding, aged 23 - he fits the age profile - as indicated in the list of the dead, below), were among those at first accounted for. Digging operations for these and three other people continued after the bomb fell.

 Octogenarian rescued

Mr J Francis, the caretaker of a nearby synagogue, which owning to its sturdy build took the blast well, immediately rushed over to an opposite house and stared searching for the occupants.  After a short while, with the aid of some A.R.P. personnel, they recovered from the wreckage, Mrs Lunt and her 86-year-old mother, Mrs Owen, both only slightly injured.

A further search found Mrs Owen's  husband dead. Mr and Mrs Owens, the parents of Mrs Lunt, had recently been bombed out of their own home in another district and went to live with their daughter. Two cranes and dogs were employed in the rescue operations.

Howard Bloch, Newham's late archivist and local history librarian, wrote an intriguing book on the Earlham Grove Synagogue twenty years ago (Earlham Grove Shul) - see footnote for details. 

In the book, he describes the impact the rocket had on the overwhelmingly Jewish community into which it fell:

The worst incident which affected the Synagogue occurred on (Tuesday) 6 March 1945 at 7.45pm, when a V2 fell opposite the building in Earlham Grove between Norwich Road and Atherton Road. This caused widespread devastation. Murray Woolfe (sic - note difference in spelling from press report, above), who lived at 97 Earlham Grove - the house adjoining the Synagogue - remembers the tragedy:

"The front of our house was taken off at an angle. The blast was almost directly opposite. I was in the back of the house.

Fortunately, it's a very long narrow house and I was with my mother, and I was also with one of the shul (ed: shul = Synagogue, from the old German word meaning school) members because this landed round about the time we were expected to go in ....

There was this enormous vibration and noise and the whole house shook and I opened the door from our living room which opened on to a passageway. The front door had been blown right in and all my stuff (dental equipment) for starting at Guy's (Hospital)in the autumn of 1944 had been upstairs front room and it had just gone - disappeared. 

Half the furniture in the front room had gone and we found curtains from our upstairs front room and had been sucked out as a result, and we found them hanging on trees on the other side of Earlham Grove. Most of the windows had gone. The roof of our house was badly damaged. Opposite there were three or four houses which were just a mass of rubble ...

I could not get out because the door was in the wrong place, so I went out through the side, through the shul grounds, across the road ... The phone was still working ... and I was able to phone through to the post and get through. The light rescue and heavy rescue both came. I wanted to go into the bomb site, but they would not let me in ... Father was allowed to go and assist. The whole thing was absolutely shocking, terrible ...

The Rev Einhorn was away at the time when the V2 fell, but on his return he discovered that several members of the congregation had lost their lives.  Murray's story continued:

The Synagogue had been damaged but the Communal Hall at the front had limited the extent of the blast and temporary repairs were subsequently carried out. The extent of the damage to the building was reported at the meeting of the District Synagogue Council on 7 June 1945:

The Synagogue's
Communal Hall (see above and below)

Here again considerable damage was sustained to roofs, ceilings and windows of the Synagogue and Hall, and general damage throughout. The Minister's residence at 91 Earlham Grove was partially demolished and the caretaker's residence extensively damaged - these residences are being repaired by the local authorities. 

Fortunately, the officers concerned and their respective families - though shaken - escaped un-injured. Services are being held temporarily in the lower portion of the Communal Hall.

The condition of the house in Earlham Grove made it uninhabitable and the minister was offered alternative accommodation ... in Romford Road and subsequently moved there.

The victims

Fifteen people were killed and 73 injured by the rocket. The West Ham book of the civilian dead (see copy of cover) identifies those killed. All bar three of them would appear to have been members of the local Jewish community - hardly surprising, given how close they lived to the Synagogue, and Jewish traditions of only walking to the place of worship on the sabbath.

West Ham book of
WW2 civilian dead

We have searched Ancestry for details of those killed by the bomb and supplemented the War Dead register with details from it.  We provide details of those killed, house by house below. 

The one apparently gentile household - the Adams' family of number 56 - stands out not only because of its apparent non-Jewish nature, but also because Ancestry provides considerable details about the head of household - Edgar. We share the information about him below the main section on the deceased.

Earlham Grove - 15 killed, 73 injured

Number 56 - 3 deaths

Joyce Mable Adams, aged 25, husband Edgar Henry Adams, aged 50 and their daughter Beryl Joyce Adams, aged 18 months. These were, perhaps, the only gentiles killed by this bomb, and Edgar has an interesting story - as outlined by the press cutting, below.

Edgar Henry Adams - source Ancestry

Number 58 - 2 deaths

Bernard Carl Marcovitch, aged 16 and his mother Rachel Marcovitch, aged 38. Rachel was the widow of Lazarus Marcovitch and, according to probate records, left £636 in her will.

Number 60 - 6 deaths

Marks Golding aged 63 and his wife Sarah Golding, aged 61.  They were both Russian - Polish nationals. According to census records, Marks had been a cap maker. In addition Hilda Golding, aged 30, the daughter of Mark and Sarah was killed by the blast. She was described as a spinster, and according to probate records left £100 in her will, administered by two of her brothers - Tony Solomon Golding, and audit clerk and Barnett Ben Golding, a tailor.  

Intriguingly, official records indicate that her body was not found until 8 May - two days after the bomb blast - unlike all the other victims who were found on the 6th.  This suggests that she was buried under rubble - and found later by the rescue workers, dog and equipment referred to, above - which had obviously been cleared by the time the blast photograph had been taken.

Also killed were her brother  Jack Golding, aged 23, and his wife Sadie, aged 22, together with Geoffrey Golding, their two year-old son. According to probate records, Jack left £50 in his will, administered by the same two brothers as Hilda's. Jack, as suggested in the Stratford Express report, above appears to have been on leave from military service, having escaped death in a recent incident in the Middle East.

Some of the Goldings were buried in East Ham Jewish cemetery and others in Rainham Jewish cemetery.

East Ham Jewish Cemetery - resting
place of some of the Goldings family

Rainham Jewish Cemetery, resting
place of others of the Goldings family

Number 62 - 3 deaths

Rose Schector, a 62-year old Polish national and widow of Jacob Schector. She appears to have been visited by Hetty (31) and her husband Nathan Bogansky (29), of Hoe St, Walthamstow on that day, as they were also reported as having been killed at this address by this missile hit.

Number 64 - 1 death

Samuel Henry Hoinville, aged 84, a former boot repairer. He would appear to have been visiting from his home address in Holms Street, Hackney.

Edgar Henry Adams of 56 Earlham Grove

Below is an obituary of Edgar, from The Distributive Trades Journal, the newspaper of the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers, the forerunner of USDAW (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers).

In brief, he became an official of the union in 1936 and prior to that had been a member of West Ham Borough council, "when the borough (perhaps more than any other) passed through a period of want and misery unsurpassed in the annals of this country". He specialised in housing, hospitals (at at time when it was a local authority responsibility) and unemployment.

He joined the Co-op, as a 16-year old shop worker in Silvertown and spent four years in France during WW1, as a volunteer.

Edgar Henry Adams' obituary in
Distributive Trades Journal - source Ancestry

He became active in the union on his return from the war, and soon became a shop steward (no pun intended). He later became chair of his union branch and subsequently a full-time paid organiser.

The questions

Earlham Grove was struck by a V2 rocket. These were the world's first long range ballistic missiles, the first artificial objects to fly into outer space. They were deployed in late 1944, for the first time. The British government initially tried to conceal their effectiveness, by describing the explosions they created as being caused by "defective gas mains".

V2 rocket, prior to launch

A total of 1358 were launched on London, over a six month period, resulting in an estimated 2,754 deaths and 6,523 casualties.

The Earlham Grove rocket was one of the more destructive, with over seven times the average number of deaths and almost twenty times the average number of causalities. It was also one of the final strikes.  The last two were launched exactly three weeks later - on 27 March - less than seven weeks before the official end of the war in Europe.

We do not know whether the technology was getting more sophisticated and its accuracy was getting greater as more were deployed. The fact is, however, that the rocket struck incredibly close (less than 10 metres) to the Synagogue, which was, for a while at least, the largest in Essex.

Pin point accuracy from the descending V2?

Was that missile deliberately aimed at the Synagogue, in a last desperate act of trying to address Hitler's "Final Solution" - the total destruction of the Jewish people?

Fanciful thinking? Well, the Third Reich, and their cheerleaders, were certainly aware of the existence of the Synagogue.  As we have mentioned on this blog before (see here), Bryan Forbes wrote in his autobiography of listening to a broadcast by the German wartime propagandist Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) during the Blitz in which he made derogatory comments about the Jewish population of Forest Gate. Forbes said:

We listened to Lord Haw Haw in the Anderson, searching the dial of the wireless until the arrogant rasping voice filled the small enclosure. 'We shan't be dropping bombs on Earlham Grove tonight, we shall be dropping Keating's Powder' (ed: a brand of disinfectant).

William Joyce - Lord Haw-Haw,
German WW2 propagandist

Was Earlham Grove deliberately targeted because of the presence of the Synagogue? 

Given what Howard Bloch has reported on how busy the place of worship would have been at the time of the hit, was its timing aimed to have a maximum destructive impact on a Synagogue and its worshippers?

The Keating's Powder, of which Joyce ranted

We will never know the answers to these questions. Put at their simplest, however, these issues provoke the question: was this V2 deliberately aimed at one of Hitler's key targets, or did those launching this particular missile, just "get lucky", from their perverted perspective?

The second bomb site identified in the photo

A close inspection of the main photo in this article suggests that the blotch at the very top left hand corner of it could well have been the site of another hit, in which case, it was probably the bomb that fell on Earlham Grove on 30 October 1944,killing 10.

The deceased were of that hit were listed in the West Ham book of civilian dead as: 

Number 3 - 4 deaths

Agnes Turner (aged 55) - nee Sullivan. She was the widow of Ernest Turner. In addition to Agnes, her two children, Agnes Frances Turner (aged 24) and William Turner (aged 13) were also killed. Charles William Hazell, (aged 14), the son of M.E. Hazell and the late Alfred Ernest James Hazell, was also killed at number 3.  

Number 5 - 2 deaths

Edith Lillian Read (aged 42) - nee Barrett, husband of Henry Herbert Read (1901 - 1972) and Terence Read (aged 7), her son. 

Number 7 - 4 deaths

All four were members of the Everitt family, whose father had earlier been a well-known local stone mason. The four were: Clara Hall (69) nee Everitt- she had been an elementary school teacher in East Ham.  Between 1911 and 1944 she had married Alfred Hall, who died before the bomb had struck. Clara had subsequently returned to, or continued to live at, the old Everitt family home. Also killed were three of her sisters, none of whom had married. They were: Alice Everitt (aged 66), Annie Everitt (aged 56) and Ellen Everitt (aged 64). At the time of the 1911 census all three (as well as Clara) were living at 7 Earlham Grove with their parents, Robert and Annie Everitt. Alice appears to have been a children's costumier in 1911 and employed her younger two sisters in the same trade.

Footnote 1. Earlham Grove Shul - One Hundred Years of West Ham Synagogue and Community, by Howard Bloch, 1997 pub by the Synagogue. Now out of print, but copies can occasionally be found on Amazon. See here, for this blog's summary of Howard's excellent book.

Footnote 2. For a wider account of V1 and V2 bombs falling on Forest Gate in 1944-45, see here. 

Samuel Gurney (1786 - 1856) - Forest Gate's most influential resident

We have written, in passing, frequently about Samuel Gurney - who has probably been Forest Gate's most influential (both locally and nationally) resident. And here we touched on his literal and metaphorical monumental legacy.

This article presents a biography of the man, himself.

He was born on 18 October 1786 in Earlham Hall, Norfolk. The buildings - see photo - now constitute part of the University of East Anglia.

Earlham Hall - the family seat - today,
 as part of the University of East Anglia

The Gurney family can be traced back to the Norman Conquest, when ancestors were given areas of Norfolk as part of William 1's English control and pacification process.

The family had lived in Earlham Hall, as tenants, for over half a century before Samuel was born. Sixteen years before his birth, they established a local Norfolk bank - Gurney's.

As Quakers, the family were denied access to many of the traditional routes of the sons of the rich and famous - university, the army, some professions etc - but not banking. Like the Jewish community, many members were almost forced into the looked-down upon (by the upper class) fields of commerce and banking in order to make a living.

In 1800, aged 14, the young Gurney was placed in the counting house of his brother-in-law, Joseph Fry, in St Mildred's Court, Poultry in the City. Joseph was married to Samuel's older sister, Elizabeth - the prison reformer.  The "favour" by Joseph to Samuel was later returned - see later.

Samuel Gurney (1786 - 1856)

In 1807 Gurney joined the firm of Richardson and Overend, which, over the course of the next few years, became the most significant retail bank in England.

The following year, Samuel married Elizabeth, daughter of James Sheppard of Ham House (which was to become the family seat and provide the grounds 65 years later for West Ham Park - see here). Samuel inherited and moved in to the property on the death of his father-in-law (in the days before the Married Women's Property Act) in 1812.

Samuel and Elizabeth had two children by the time they took possession of Ham House and set about making alterations to it, that made it a Georgian house of distinction. At the time it had about a dozen live-in servants.

Ham House, pre- destruction

In 1809 he borrowed money from his father and father-in-law and bought into the bank in which he was working and had it re-branded as Overend, Gurney and Co.

During the financial crisis of 1825 his bank lent money to a number of other London banks in temporary financial difficulties. For the next 30 years it was to be the largest discounting house in the world. Thus, Gurney became known as 'the bankers' banker' and many firms began to deposit money with his institution in preference to the Bank of England.

Having impressively stamped his mark on the banking world, Gurney devoted much of the rest of his life to his two main passions - land acquisition and disposal in Forest Gate and a variety of (even today) impressively liberal philanthropic endeavours.

Philanthropy

Chronologically, the philanthropic endeavours came first. They are worthy of - and have been recorded in - many histories. For brevity's sake, the more significant of them were:

• Supporting, financially, his sister Elizabeth, the prison reformer and brother-in-law Joseph Fry - who had kick started his career. The Frys were hit in the financial crises of the mid 1820's and were forced to sell their grand house in Plashet - now host to Plashet Park and the borough's registration offices. Gurney rented them Cedar House, next to his own home of Ham House, in Portway. (This later became home to the Territorial Army - ironically for a property owned by pacifist Quakers).

Elizabeth Fry - reading to
prisoners in Newgate Prison

• Supported another brother-in-law, Edward Buxton and his father Fowell Buxton - in the anti-slavery movement. He attended the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 - see picture (in National Portrait Gallery) - below, and was for a while chairman of the organisation.

Gurney, front row, far left at the 1840
 World Anti-Slavery Convention

• Played a significant part in helping to established the African state of Liberia, as a home for slaves freed from Europe and America. Such was his contribution to the establishment to the country, that he had a town named after him there.

• Was a staunch opponent of capital punishment; and was threatened with prosecution himself for refusing to prosecute a man who forged his signature, knowing that the result would be capital punishment for the offender.

• Was patron of two non-conformist British and Foreign Society Schools (see here for details) in Stratford: one for boys and another for girls. He left an annuity of £150 - c£15,000 today - for the future development of the two schools in his will. This passed to West Ham School Board, on its formation - and now rests with Newham Council.

•  Was the national treasurer for the non- conformist British and Foreign Schools Society from 1843, until his death in 1856. He left the Society £5,000 (c £500,000 today), on his death.

Samuel Gurney in 1840

• Although a Quaker, he was non-sectarian in his approach to education. So, he also supported Church of England schools. In 1853 he donated land on the corner of Woodgrange Road and Forest Street to build Emmanuel (later St Saviours) National School.

• Toured Ireland in 1849 and made many donations to those affected by the Potato HUnger of that decade.

• Established the Poplar Hospital for Accidents in 1853, to look after injured dock workers, in the first instant.

• In 1856, his will gifted £800 - c £78,000 today - for the "maintenance and winding up of clocks in public places" in Forest Gate, including one to be erected on Forest Gate Congregational Church. Since 1860 the income has been given to West Ham, now Newham, Council.

Local land acquisition and disposal

Having inherited the area of what is now West Ham Park from his father-in-law in 1812, Gurney was quiet on the local land acquisition front until his effective retirement from his successful banking career.

His transactions and their subsequent disposals, however, have shaped the area, making what is recognisably Forest Gate, today.

in 1851 he bought the 131 acres of Hamfrith Farm/estate for £17,710 - c £2,250,000, at today's prices - from the Greenhill estate. This was roughly the area between Romford Road and Wanstead Flats, to the east of Woodgrange Road, as far as Station Road, Manor Park.

Two years later he bought the 200 acres of the Woodgrange farm - most of the Forest Gate area to the west of Woodgrange Road.

He also acquired about 250 acres in what was then Little Ilford (now Manor Park) and acquired the Lordship of the manors of Woodgrange and Hamfrith.

He promptly resold much of the land he had acquired, to become the West Ham and Jewish cemeteries, as well as the Industrial School on Forest Lane (see here and here, for details).

Ever the astute businessman, he clearly saw the development opportunities with the arrival of the railways into Forest Gate (see here); and in the short period  remaining in his life, began to package some of the land up, with a view to housing development resale.

So, from 1855, development started on the Gurney and Dames estates - to the west and north of Forest Gate station (see here, for details).

He died on 5 June 1856 and was buried in the Friends' burial grounds in Barking. He was survived by 9 children and 40 grandchildren. His oldest son died soon after and the estate subsequently transferred to his grandson, John.

Within 10 years, however, the bank that Samuel Gurney established and built became mired in severe financial difficulties, by diversifying into greedy, risky projects (sound familiar?) and faced bankruptcy. Many shareholders, including members of the Gurney family, lost fortunes and faced financial ruin.

It was this crash that spurred the rapid building boom in Forest Gate, as grandson John disposed of land and property in order to stabilise family finances.

Most notable among the disposals was the sale of the family home, in 1872, to become West Ham Park (see here), for a knocked down price of £15,000 - c £1.5 million, today.

The grounds of Ham House, before being
 turned into West Ham Park, in 1874

Also, in 1872, he sold most of the north side of what had been the Hamfrith estate to the British Land Company, which, in turn sold some to the Manor Park Cemetery Company (see here) and enabled the development of much of which in estate agents-speak is now known as "The Forest Gate Village".

Thomas Corbett acquired much of the south side of the Hamfrith estate and developed it into what is now the Woodgrange estate, between 1877 and 1892 (see here).

The period 1870 - 1890 saw the development of the western end of Forest Gate, from lands that had been part of the Gurney estate. This lead to the construction of Hamfrith, Atherton, Sprowston (see here), Norwich and Clova Roads,. as well as Earlham Grove (see here).

So, Quaker, banker, philanthropist, land-owner, Samuel Gurney stands as the man whose property dealings lay the foundations of Forest Gate, as we know it today.

He is most visibly remembered locally not in Forest Gate, but by the obelisk and drinking fountain in the grounds of St John's church, in Stratford. It is interesting that there should be a monument to a Quaker in the grounds of a prominent CofE church - but such was the regard in which he was held locally.

An 1861 drawing of the Gurney
memorial, soon after its erection

The monument is 40 feet high and made of granite. It was unveiled in 1861, having been designed by Gurney's fellow Norfolk-man, John Bell.

The inscription reads:

In remembrance of Samuel Gurney, who died on 5th of June 1856. Erected by his fellow parishioners and Friends (Quakers) 1861.

When the ear heard him, then it blessed him.

 (ed: this is a paraphrase from the Book of Job) 

One final point. Although the bank that Gurney turned into such a success bombed a decade after his death, its entrails survive as part of what is now Barclays Bank. If only he had been around in 2008 to offer them his counsel, prior to the banking crash of 2008.