"E7 Now and then" relaunch (& today is 133th Anniversary of the deaths of 26 Boys at Forest Gate Workhouse)

 

The Forest Gate, (Newham, London) local history site "E7-Now and then" is being relaunched after a 5 year gap. Which is really good news for people like me who live in Forest Gate and is fascinated by all history. Until I read about it in the site I had no idea that the British Union of Fascists had an office and headquarters 200m away from me nor that 26 boys had died in a fire in a workhouse nearby caused by official negligence. 

But anyone interested in history would find something to look at in this site.There is already over 200 articles. 

John Walker is the author/publisher of the site and he has also written a very moving book about the deaths of the boys in workhouse - and the pretty dreadful conditions children endured there for over 70 years. check out :-

"Out of Sight, Out of Mind - Abuse, Neglect and Fire in a London Children's Workhouse, 1854-1907 https://www.newhambooks.co.uk/ ISBN 978-1-7399142-0-2.

We had hoped to mark the anniversary today (fire took place 1 January 1890) as we did in 2021 https://www.johnslabourblog.org/2021/01/an-awful-new-year-day-calamity.html but it didn't happen but maybe next year. 

Follow the site also on twitter 

E7-NowAndThen

@e7_nowandthen

New Year's day morning 1890 - Remembering the 26 Children

 

This morning a small group of Councillors and local historians met in West Ham Cemetery at the memorial to the 26 young boys (see below) who suffocated to death following a fire at the nearby children's Workhouse.  

Author John Walker, who has written a recent book on the fire and the Workhouse "Out of Sight, Out of Mind -Abuse, Neglect and Fire in a London Children’s Workhouse, 1854 - 1907" read out the names and ages of the victims. In his book John  makes it clear who should have been held responsible for this "accident". "Although cleared by the inquest, the management was culpable: it had locked them in their dormitories, so the staff could celebrate the new year in, off site.

Many thanks also to local historian, Alan Regin MBE, who is a font of knowledge about the cemetery and is trying to locate the exact locations of the boys grave. 

Launch of "Out of Sight, Out of Mind - Abuse, Neglect and Fire in a London Children's Workhouse, 1854-1907" By John Walker

Thursday evening I went to the launch at Newham Bookshop of this work by local historian, John Walker. I haven't read it yet but I know that the story of this Victorian workhouse for children (which is only 10 minutes walk from where I live) is pretty horrific. There were similar institutions at the time up and down the land. 

After signing copies of the book outside, John gave a talk about the book and what he found while investigating the achieves. He also pointed out the irony that the lodge (or gatehouse) of the workhouse was used to "allow" parents to see their children for an hours or so every three months (yes every 3 months!) which is now used by the local charity, "The Magpie Project" which supports families and children who are denied access to public funds outside institutions. The new so called "undeserving poor". 

Check out https://www.newhambooks.co.uk/ where you can also order the book (Pub 26 Aug 2021 ISBN 978-1-7399142-0-2. £12.99 from all good bookstores). 

Picture of John with our local London Assembly Member, Unmesh Desai, holding his signed copy of the book. 

Afterwards a number of us went to the famous East Ham pub, The Boleyn, which has recently been refurbished and carried on discussing local Labour movement history. 

"Out of Sight, Out of Mind - Abuse, Neglect and Fire in a London Children's Workhouse, 1854-1907" By John Walker

I was really pleased to be invited to the launch later this month of a new book by local Forest Gate historian, John Walker. Check out @e7_nowandthen

This will take place at https://www.newhambooks.co.uk/ where you can also order the book (Pub 26 Aug 2021 ISBN 978-1-7399142-0-2. £12.99 from all good bookstores).

One of the very last history events I attended before the first lockdown in 2020 was a talk followed by a guided walk led by John at the site of the Forest Gate Childrens workhouse. 

On New Year's Day this year, myself and my fellow ward Councillor, John Whitworth laid a wreath in remembrance of the 26 young boys killed in the fire at the workhouse in 1890. 

(I also by coincidence know John's son, FT journalist, Owen Walker via the pensions world and must get around to write up an appreciation of his excellent book on the Neil Woodford scandal which was also published this year). 

#LAPFF16 Annual Conference - Thursday

This is the day 2 report of last weeks Local Authorities Pension Funds Forum (LAPFF) annual conference by John Walker, who is a UNISON member and sits on the Cambridgeshire Pension Fund Committee as a Member nominated representative. See Wednesday report here

Thursday morning commenced with a presentation on Share Buy Backs. The City Editor of the Evening Standard gave a broad sweep approach pointing out that Company’s often bought back their own shares for tactical reasons but said that this policy often benefited the Company and its Directors and not necessarily the Shareholders.

This was followed by a presentation by an American author Robert Tietelman who had written a book entitled ‘Bloodsport’ about Company Mergers, Acquisitions and Takeovers in the USA that had influenced the UK markets. He concluded that mergers and acquisitions meant growth for the Company involved whereas share buy backs did not.

This was followed by an interesting presentation entitled Human Capital Management by the Director of Sustainability of SSE one of the bigger Energy Companies. She outlined a whole raft of statistics showing how SSE was evaluating the performance and worth of its workforce under the banner of ‘A Responsible Employer’. As it progressed and developed the Company paid detailed attention to promoting redevelopment and retraining rather than redundancy. There was also a presentation by the Pensions and Life Savings Association focusing on the importance of Human Capital.

The final morning session was on Directors Pay – the Challenge of Quantum. The speaker was a Director of the High Pay Centre who had been giving evidence to a Commons Select Committee charged with the preparation of a Green Paper for Parliamentary debate early in the New Year. His statics proved that top pay fir Directors and more particularly Chief Executive Officers had grown out of all proportion in the past decade – and continued to grow. He sought (perhaps unsuccessfully) to justify this trend but pointed to checks and balances including the recent legal obligation of workers on Boards. He questioned whether a CEO should justify high pay on the basis of having the ‘final decision’ and whether that was justifiable or desirable. Predictably two of the questions from the floor mentioned PRP and professional footballers’ wages.

The afternoon session began with a session entitled ‘Are the Activists Winning?’ Owen Walker from the Financial Times had produced a book entitled ‘Barbarians in the Boardroom’ which related to shareholder activists that had mounted a challenge to targeting and removing some directors and executives from some of the world’s largest Companies and taken their places. Some Companies subsequently suffer asset stripping.

Next came thought provoking presentation entitled Redefining the Responsibilities of the Corporation. The speaker set out in great detail the responsibilities and duties of Company Directors whose main aim should be to create value on behalf of the Company and its Shareholders. He touched on the vexed question of executive pay and related to the inequality of the north/south divide quoting the outgoing HM Inspector of Schools about those ‘north of the Wash’ having less advantageous education. It was a semi-interactive session with audience participation encouraged.

The final session of the day entitled Shareholder Resolutions – the Last Chance Saloon brought together three unlikely bedfellows in the shape of LAPFF Chairman Kieran Quinn, a Climate Change expert and a representative of UNITE – the Union. The UNITE presentation centered on the recent success of Shareholders led by the Unions (including UNISON) who had forced major changes in the working practises, pay rates and Health and Safety implementation for staff of Sports Direct. Kieran Quinn related the success of the well documented campaign against National Express in the USA and the third speaker gave details of the pressure on Exxon Mobil and other American oil/gas Companies.

#LAPFF Annual Conference - Wednesday.

Last week I went to the annual conference of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF).

I missed the first day (Wednesday) but below is an excellent report on the day by guest blogger John Walker who is a UNISON member and sits on the Cambridgeshire Pension Fund Committee as a Member nominated representative. I will post his other reports later.

"REPORT OF LAPFF CONFERENCE on 7th/9th December 2016 at The Marriott Highcliff Hotel, Bournemouth

This year’s LAPFF Conference was extended by half a day and so commenced at 2.00pm on the Wednesday.

The Wednesday afternoon session featured two topics that were current in the light of recent developments in the LGPS world beginning with a session on Infrastructure Investment entitled ‘Are funds getting it right?’ The first speaker from the Greater Manchester PF said that his fund were investing in Biomass, Wind Farms and Railways which involved having representatives on the Boards of those Companies.

 A second speaker from the Lothians Pension Fund which incorporates the County Fund, the Lothians Transport Fund and Falkirk Pension Fund were investing in Wind Power and other infrastructure to the extent of 10% of the joint £6bn Fund. The third speaker from Investment Managers Ancala Partners who set out his firms specialist Infrastructure investment options.

The second topic was entitled Investing4Growth and featured a variety of speakers setting out investment opportunities in Private Equity and Alternative Investments. These included a very interesting presentation from Cheyne Capital on its Social Property Impact Fund. He began by pointing out that the population of the UK would grow by a further 10 million in the next 25 years into a situation where there was already insufficient housing – and growing year on year. 

 Successive governments of all persuasions have failed quite deliberately to ignore the affordable housing requirement and the combination of depressed wages growth and increasing prices (especially in local authority employed staff) has grown to crisis proportions. He suggested that with housing stock built to last 30/40 years coinciding with the length of provision of pension funds makes this type of investment a ‘perfect match’.

The afternoon concluded with a speech by the Shadow City Minister Jonathan Reynolds MP who is a member of the all party Commons group on Pensions who paid tribute to the work of the LAPFF".