"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

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. 

An Awful New Year Day Calamity

 

This morning my Councillor colleague, John Whitworth and I, went to West Ham Cemetery to lay some flowers at the memorial to 26 boys who died in a fire exactly 131 years ago. The boys lived in a massive workhouse for children nearby in Forest Gate (now converted into privately owned flats). 

It would appear that the children were locked into dormitories at night and were unable to escape. 

Check our the names and ages of the children below and a full account of the tragedy at this local history website E7 Now & Then. 

Augustus Flowers, aged 10, of 1, Laura Cottages, Millwall ; Theophilus Flowers, aged 9, 1, Laura Cottages, Millwall; John Jones, aged 7,  4, Island Street, Brunswick Road, Poplar; John Taylor, aged 7,  3, Amiel Street, Bromley; Michael Vassum, aged 8, mother in Whitechapel Workhouse; Frederick Smith, aged 9, 50, Church Street, Whitechapel; Edward Kilburn, aged 9, mother inmate in Poplar Workhouse; John Joyce, aged 10, 61, Apperion Road, Bow; Richard Page, aged 7, 45, Vanne Street, Bromley; James Potts, aged 10, 4, Newham Buildings, Pelham Street, Whitechapel; William Hume, aged 9, 52, Railway Street, Bromley ; Frank Chalk, aged 7, of Whitechapel; Herbert Russell, aged 10, mother in Croydon Workhouse; James Rolfe, aged 8,  61, Milton Road, Bow; Thomas North, aged 12, of Poplar Union; Walter Searle, aged 9, an orphan, from Poplar; Charles Biddick, aged 12,  4, Medway Road, Mile End; Frederick Scott, aged 7, 9, Oliver's Court, Bow Road; Henry Sowerbutts, aged 10, mother in Poplar Workhouse; Gilbert Allison, aged 10, 3, Charles Street, Millwall; Thomas Hughes, aged 11, father in Poplar Workhouse; William Dawson, aged 7, mother in Bow Infirmary; Frederick Wigmore, aged 8, mother in Croydon Workhouse; William Sillitoe, aged 9, father in Whitechapel Infirmary; Arthur Pigeon, aged 9, 31, Burdett Road, Bow; Albert Smith, aged 12, 14, Mansfield Road, Millwall.

Talk & Walk: Forest Gate Childrens Workhouse then Maternity Hospital - Tragic Fire, Blitz Bombing & Child Cruelty (E7 Now and then)

"Dickensian stories and tales of the midwife in Forest Gate. 1/2 Talk and walk, lead by yours truly, on the 700 pupil residential Victorian workhouse school and 20th century maternity hospital that existed on Forest Lane. Sat 14 Mar 2-3.30pm, The Lodge, Forest Lane. Free. #BFG

2/2 Tragic fire, blitz bombing, child cruelty on the site of Forest Lane Park. Hear about it and visit the memorial to the 26 workhouse boys suffocated there in 1890. Talk/walk: Sat 14 Mar, 2-3.30 at the Lodge Forest Lane, by yrs truly"

Hat tip E7 Now and then (on twitter)

Victory for decency at work - Sports Direct will hold an independant review into its employment practices.

In what is also a victory for effective pension stewardship, "workhouse employer" Sports Direct agreed to hold an independent review into its awful working practices and governance.

See TUC press release below

"Trade Union Share Owners welcome Sports Direct announcement on independent review

20 September 2016

Trade Union Share Owners (TUSO) have welcomed the announcement today (Tuesday) by Sports Direct that there will be an independent review of the company’s working practices and corporate governance.

The announcement follows a resolution calling for an independent review that was tabled at the company’s AGM earlier this month by TUSO, and supported by a majority of independent shareholders.

TUSO Chair Janet Williamson said: “This is good news for Sports Direct workers, especially young workers who make up a large part of their staff but too often get a poor deal at work.

“The board should now consult both shareholders and trade unions in finalising the plans for the independent review. Trade unions representing workers at Sports Direct stand ready to work with the company to ensure a successful future that is fair for its staff.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:
- The Trade Union Share Owners (TUSO) is a group of investors representing the financial assets of the labour movement, including the TUC staff pension fund, the Unite staff pension fund, the UNISON staff pension fund, and the International Transport Workers’ Federation.
- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk"

Hat tip cartoon Kipper Williams, the Guardian

"Sports Direct" 21st Century Workhouse employer & unacceptable face of capitalism

The press has been full of headlines about vile UK retailer "Sports Direct" as being a "workhouse employer" who treats its workers like dirt.

Where women give birth in its toilets and fleets of "999" ambulances have to be sent out to aid workers who are too frightened to report sick. Never mind those forced to give "sexual favours" to managers to keep their jobs.

Check out this post by Tom P arguing that "Sports Direct" is not only a rotten employer but an economic basket case and risk to those pension and insurance funds that invest in it.

Following the collapse of the share price, investors need to get a grip on the company and its complete lack of governance. Inhumane treatment of its workforce is not only morally wrong but hits the bottom line.

I am really proud of the role of Trade Union Share Owners (TUSO) in helping to bang the drum on this issue. Companies that are human right abusers are also in the long term just bad investments.

 

Remember to put your clocks back this weekend?

Don't forget to turn your clocks back this weekend! In accordance to Government edict at 02:00 on Sunday you should turn all your clocks back to 25 October 1865 to reflect the society they want to create. 

Please note that in accordance with this edict the following traditional Tory measures will be introduced (if they can get away with it) :-

• All NHS hospitals will be immediately closed and replaced with fee paying and whatever charities may provide 
• All state schools to be shut.  Your children will have to work in farms, mines and factories to pay their way. There may be some free elementary church or "ragged schools"
• Most of your children will anyway die of disease or hunger before they become adults. A million people died in Ireland from famine between 1845 and 1852
• If you are unemployed, sick or old (there will be no old age pension) then the only assistance you will get is in the workhouse concentration camps, where if you are in anyway able-bodied you will have to break rocks or go on the treadmill to get any food
• You and your family would otherwise live in a room in a private rented slum with no security, no direct sanitary arrangements or fresh water supply
• At work you will have little or no employment rights, health and safety or protection.  Trade unions are to be criminalised. You would work 12 hour days, 6 days a week, with little or no holiday
• Life expectancy for a UK male born in 1865 was 38.4 years. 

This direction of travel is what the current extremist, hard right, Conservative Government wants.

If you don't want our country to descend to this then join a trade union and join the Labour Party.

Hat tip photo @neilroytaylor1

The Future of Housing Associations & Social Housing

Yesterday we had the news that Genesis, a large Housing Association is to stop building homes for rent following the recent Government budget.

Today, Inside Housing magazine reports that other housing associations are seeking advice on how to deregister as social landlords and become completely private bodies. By doing so they think they can avoid the recent measures.

This is a watershed moment. Not only for housing associations but for all social housing including council stock as well.

The Communities and Local Government Select Committee is looking into the future of Housing Associations and there is a call for written evidence by Friday 28 August 2015. I am sure that UNISON will be sending a submission and I will also be consulting with my branch (Greater London Housing Associations Branch) on making a response.

The key threats are :-

• 1% cut in rents that Housing Associations can charge for the next 4 years when only last year they were told that they can plan ahead assuming a 1% increase plus inflation for the next 10 years. This could mean that some will go bust since they modelled an increase into their business plans when they took loans and bonds to pay for new build. Good news for Housing benefit and tenants but not if it means they get Rachman & Sons as their new landlord. 

•  The reduction in rents will also inevitable mean threats to jobs and services. Housing associations have been for many years been providing additional services to residents such as floating support to vulnerable tenants, job training and youth clubs. These will all be at risk. 

• The proposed maximum benefit cap of £23k per family in London and £20k outside will not only result in more evictions and rent arrears especially for tenants with children. It will also make it harder for landlords to let their empty properties to residents on waiting lists since many will not be able to afford the rent due to the cap. This is crazy.

• Extending the Right to Buy will also mean some housing associations going to the wall especailly if the government does not fully refund any discount (100k in London). Others will have financial problems with paying off early fixed rate loans (such as LOBOs) and meeting their convenants even if they get the full value of any sale. 

• Housing associations are at the moment "charities" and many of them have benefited from money or gifts of land in the past and this could cause problems with their status if they sell property in this way.

•  If local authorities have to sell their stock in order to fund the discount then that will be not only unfair but financially disastrous for them and their tenants. The 3 year settlement on council housing finances has also been ripped up.  

• It is rumoured that instead the government will take away the remaining subsidy for new investment and use it to fund the discount. This will pretty much end the supply of new homes at sub market rents in expensive areas such as London. 

• Even if the government does fully refund the cost of Right to Buy (which I doubt) then since new homes costs more to build than exisitng properties there will still be an overall reduction in social homes.

• The so called "pay to stay" will mean that tenants who earn over £40k in London (and £30k outside) will have to pay "market rates". This will be unworkable unless Housing Associations are given the powers to demand income details from tenants with criminal sanctions, which will of course, go down badly with all tenants. I thought this government was against means testing? 

• If "pay to stay" does go ahead and means that renters are charged full market rent they will be effectively forced to try and exercise the right to buy in order to stay in their homes. Even if you are on £40k per year salary in London, you will find it difficult to get a mortgage even with a discount. Market rents will be completely unaffordable in parts of the City.

• I have no doubt that the certain individuals and rogue companies will be looking to making deals with vulnerable tenants into "loans" to enable them to buy their property in order to get hold of the £100k discount.

All in all, the sector is facing a crisis and a threat to its future but we have been here before. Right to Buy for housing associations was defeated in the 1990s following a broadbased campaign against it. The government is vulnerable to pressure on housing. We must campaign against these changes.

Even Tory MPs must understand that if government grant is taken away from building new homes and rents reduced then the current grossly inadeaquate supply of housing will get even worse. The leader of Tory Westminster Council, Phillipa Roe, said it would wipe out "swathes" of social housing and leave it unable to house residents in need.

The issue is not just the future of housing associations or council housing but where will the elderly poor, the disabled, the unemployed and the low paid live in the future? In workhouses, in "barracks for the poor" or in British versions of Les banlieues slums?

Harry Leslie Smith on defending the NHS

91 year old Harry Leslie Smith remembers the time before the NHS when his sister suffered from TB and had to go into the workhouse hospital to die.

Christmas Day in the Forest Gate Workhouse 1896

Check out this fascinating post at E7 Now & Then which is a history site for Forest Gate (E7 is the local post code), Newham in East London where I have lived for the past 24 years.

It has reprinted articles from a local paper on life in the Forest Gate workhouse for children (or "industrial school") during Christmas 1896.

The report does appears to me to be more Disney's "Mary Poppins" rather than Dickens "Oliver Twist".  I cannot believe that 500 children, aged from 4-14 were at all "happy" to be split from their parents? No doubt better than staving or freezing to death in the slums but not as suggested by the reporter the result of some lifestyle choice by feckless parents.

A few years previous 26 children had burnt to death at the Workhouse during a fire amidst allegations that they had been locked in their dormitories and unable to escape. 

Right wing Tories are currently hinting that there needs to be even further savage cuts in welfare spending. It is bad enough already but if this happens many parents will not be able to feed and cloth their kids.  I think that it is a fair question to ask if we will see the rise again of such institutions?

I posted on the Workhouse and its subsequent history as a maternity hospital here in 2011.

"Pensions will not exist by 2050"

It seems that the Daily Telegraph has a silly season in December as well as August (some would argue it actually lasts 12 months).

Michael Johnson, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies is quoted here as warning that private pensions will soon cease to exist since young people see having immediate access to money more important than long term retirement plans.

I need to check with Michael that he has not been misquoted since the Telegraph has been writing some complete hysterical drivel about pensions lately. The reasoning is also a bit odd and Michael is usually pretty "bang on" about private pensions (not public sector pensions).

Young people have always wanted ready access to their money and been reluctant to save for your retirement. That is why you and your employer need incentives to join a pension and (like taxes) for it to be made compulsory. 

Also young (and older) people are not being completely stupid about not saving for their pensions. This is because for many the pension they are currently offered or have access to is just completely rubbish. They are being ripped off for a hugely expensive product that offers them no certainty in retirement.

While I think everyone should save for their pensions I can understand why so many make the understandable (and even rational?) choice not to save.

Auto-enrolment and universal pensions will make a difference. But unless people have the confidence to invest in a product that gives them some sort of guarantee of financial security in their old age then I think many won't bother. This future burden on the taxpayer should be the key issue for the Telegraph.

 I suspect that Michael is being polemic in order to bring attention to a real serious problem.

Yet his reported solution is wrong. Saving in a short term ISA is not the answer but an affordable and sustainable defined benefit scheme for the private sector is.  It is also going to have to be compulsory (at some stage).

Unless we sort this out I suspect we will soon be seeing future articles glamorising the workhouse for pensioners.

Tory Return to Victorian Health & Safety Values at Work? Sign e-petition against

Some more dangerous nonsense. This Tory led Coalition is now proposing to get rid of an important health & safety protection that was first introduced in 1898.

What next? if you fall ill, become old or unemployed - will they be reintroducing the workhouse? I shouldn't give them ideas I suppose.

Sign the e-petition to force a Parliamentary debate and pass on the link.

"The amendment to Section 47 of the Health and Safety Work Act 1974, has been added to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill at the eleventh hour.

The amendment would mean:

- Employers would no longer have a strict liability for the health and safety of their workers, for the first time since 1898.

- Workers could not rely on an employer's breach of health and safety law to win a personal injury claim, they would have to provide proof of negligence.

- Enforcement of health and safety law would be increasingly left up to a significantly weakened and less effective Health and Safety Executive.

- Employers will increasingly hide behind the defence that complying to health and safety regulations was not "reasonably practicable".

Please rescind this amendment and preserve workers' rights to a safe workplace".

The Workhouse – The original Tory “Barracks of the Poor”

Last year I spent a lovely week in a rented cottage in Stanhope, County Durham. This is a really smashing place to visit and there are just fantastic walks all around the county. It is Yorkshire without the tourist crowds.

The end terrace "cottage" we stayed at appeared to be part of some sort of wider local complex and I did wonder about its origin. I thought that it was part of a former hospital or possibly purpose built worker accommodation for some long lost local factory, pit or quarry. The nearby road was even called “Union Street” and even that didn’t wake me up from my stupor.

On the last day as we packed up to leave I spoke to its owners who lived next door and asked about its history and they looked at each other before saying that this area all use to be part of the local workhouse. Our cottage was part of the “stone breaking” building. In the 19th century if you were unemployed, sick or elderly you would have to go into the local work house in order to not starve to death. If you were “able bodied” you had to break large stones up into small pieces with hammers and pick axes. Often there was no economic point to this stone breaking and after they were broken up they were just dumped. The only purpose was to discourage anyone from applying for relief by making it as physically unpleasant and demeaning as possible.

It was a little bit shocking to think that we had enjoyed a pleasant week’s accommodation at what had been the site of a sadistic punishment camp for the poverty stricken.

Thinking about such things you can understand the race memory amongst the working class about “The Workhouse” and why even nowadays so many pensioners refuse to even apply for what they think is modern day “poor relief” (pension credit).

It has also made me think about the recent Tory "think tank" report Principles for Social Housing Reform which shamefully refers to public housing as “slums” and “barracks of the poor”. While I am not saying that the Tories if they get back in power will reintroduce concentration camps for the poor I do think that their recent pronouncements on getting rid of security of tenure for secure tenants, introducing market rents for all and exporting their poor out of their local boroughs reminds us that they are still the same old “Nasty Tories”.

Somerfield’s adoption by the Co-operative family

Our local Somerfield (in a very handy location just next door to Forest Gate Station) is now giving out leaflets about being part of the “Co-op family”. I also got a marketing email today about this (see picture left).

I have asked staff when the full rebranding will take place but they were not too sure. But good news for us local residents and no doubt the staff.

I am a member of the “Co-op” (and the Labour affiliated Co-op Party) but there had been nowhere locally to buy goods and groceries since the stores in Leytonstone and Stratford closed many moons ago.

Tonight on BBC local News I watched a report on a campaign to have the former East End work house and mental health hospital, St Clements, (where I use to do trade union site safety inspections - a very interesting experience) turned into a Housing Co-op site and Community Land Trust.

The mutually owned Banks and building societies have been attracting fresh interest since it appears that due to their ownership structure they have survived the recent financial turmoil much better that their Joint Stock competitors (not all of course). There is never the less a lesson here for the benefits of active ownership.

The Co-op financial services has also recently taking over the Britannia Building society (a long term partner with UNISON) to produce a new “super mutual”.

So it appears that the Co-op movement in the UK (and especially Newham) seems to be on the march again.

BTW - I must admit that I was disappointed that last week while on a self catering holiday in the Durham Dales I could not use my membership card at local Co-op stores when making purchases. Especially since we were asked every purchase if we had a shareholder account number. I appreciate that local Co-op’s are proud of their independence but I think that it would benefit the movement as a whole if your support by spending at other Co-ops was recognised in some way.

Just a thought- not really a moan.