SUFFRAGETTE CITY

This seemingly bleak 1960s townscape captures several fascinating stories about the East End of not so long ago, even if in many ways it may as well have been an image from ancient history.

The view is straight down Bromley High Street. Don’t make the same mistake as Bruce Robinson in his house brick magnum opus ‘They All Love Jack’ – this High Street is not Bromley in Kent! It is Bromley-by-Bow.

The cameraman was standing in the middle of Bow Road when he took this picture. Bow Church is just to his left. Further down, a hundred yards or so and also to the left was 198 Bow Road (now a gap between blocks of flats) where Sylvia Pankhurst took over a local bakery in 1912 to house the headquarters of the East London Federation of the Women’s Social and Political Union – better known as the Suffragettes. Hence ‘Suffragette City’. Sylvia Pankhurst wanted to garner support from the working class as up to that time it was predominantly a middle class movement.

Several of the scenes depicted in the fictionalised film ‘Suffragette’ (released in 2015) are based on events that occurred in this vicinity.

One of Sylvia Pankhurst’s first open air meetings was held down Bromley High Street. The prominent block of flats which you can see – which is still there – stands on the site of a school. On a cold 17th February in 1913 a cart was pulled up against this school yard wall. A small crowd gathered, observed by the local constabulary.

Sylvia clambered up on top of the cart harangued all who cared to listen, and many who did not. She made a call for arms:

‘I said I knew it to be a hard thing for men and women to risk imprisonment in such a neighbourhood, where most of them were labouring under the steepest economic pressure, yet I pleaded for some of the women of Bow to join us in showing themselves prepared to make a sacrifice to secure enfranchisement.’

There was no movement forwards and the meeting soon broke up. Drastic situations called for drastic measures. Sylvia and her middle class acolytes decided they needed to up the tempo in order to inspire the local populace. She took the only reasonable course of action in such circumstances…

‘I broke an undertaker’s window.’

And there on the right hand corner of Bromley High Street, as if on cue, we find poor innocent C. Selby & Sons, Undertakers (by appointment to Jack T Ripper – according to some). With their windows repaired! Fifty or so years and two World Wars had passed by the time the picture was taken, so I suspect Selby’s windows had been repaired several times in between. As we shall see. But they do make a big target, don’t they?

Sylvia breathlessly continued:

‘I was seized by two policemen, three other women were sized. We were dragged, resisting, along the Bow Rd, the crowd cheering and running with us.’

The first of many broken windows. Job done and the newish Bow Road Police Station (opened 1903) had some guests for the night.

(THE SAME VIEW - JANUARY 2016)

In the 1990s Selby’s moved to more solid premises – the old Bow Road Police Station (opened 1854) about a hundred yards to the right at 116 Bow Road. This is right next to Bromley Public Hall – the scene of various Suffragette meetings, until they were barred from the premises for causing wanton destruction.

Bromley Public Hall is currently the Registry Office for Tower hamlets and holds locally issued Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates, including those of the Ripper victims (excluding Catherine Eddowes as she was murdered in the City of London). Copies of these certificates are on display.

In the 1960s when the picture was taken, Bow Road Police should have had their hands full – unless they were taking back handers – as the Kray Twins’ notorious Double R Club, at 145 Bow Road, was directly opposite Bromley Public Hall. How much simpler it must have been for the Boys in Blue to deal with window breaking women!

Anyway, the Suffragettes took umbrage at being barred from Bromley Public Hall. That could only mean one thing. After all they liked the sound of breaking glass (there is a connection here to the title of this article, music lovers).

On 14^th December 1913 they marched to the house of a prominent Conservative Councillor and former Mayor of Poplar John Le Manquais who they identified as being the prime mover in banning them from council premises. Inconveniently for Le Manquais he lived at 13 Tomlins Grove – just a couple of hundred yards to the right of Selby’s – on the very fringes of Suffragette City!

As the large procession turned into Tomlins Grove they were met by mounted policemen who had turned out of Bow Road Police Station (just across the road) to protect the Councillor’s residence. What followed was a mass brawl – known as ‘the Battle of Tomlins Grove’ no less.

There were many injuries and more arrests. There were cries of police brutality. To even things up a police inspector got a black eye. But Le Manquais avoided defenestration.

(13 TOMLINS GROVE IN JANUARY 2016 - BEHIND THE FIRST CAR)

Nevertheless these protests bore fruit and women were of course given the vote after the First World War. It is time to return to the picture.

On the left we see the Black Swan. It was demolished in the 1970s for road widening.

This Black Swan replaced an earlier pub of the same name that was destroyed in that First World War. And this brings us to a more tragic story.

It is little known but during the First World War Germany sent over several Zeppelin and fixed wing aircraft forays to bomb London in what is now regarded as the first Blitz.

On the night of 23rd September 1916 Zeppelin L-33 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Alois Böcker approached London. Just after midnight it dropped a number of bombs over Bow. One 100 kg High Explosive scored a direct hit on the Black Swan destroying the pub and undoubtedly breaking the windows of Selby’s opposite.

Rather more tragically eleven people were killed in the raid, including four people in the Black Swan. These were the landlord’s twenty year old daughter Cissie Reynolds, his twenty one year old daughter Sylvia Adams, her year old baby daughter also named Sylvia and Mrs Potter their 63 year old grandmother. An eyewitness (Lieutenant Roberts of the London Regiment), on leave from the army reported:

‘After making sure my family were safe, I went to Bow-road, a few yards away, where a large public-house, the Black Swan, had been wrecked. Only the carcass of it was left standing, and a heavy pall of black dust hung over the ruins.

‘I and others groped our way amongst the debris, searching for any victims who might be alive. Lifting some flooring, we discovered the wife of the licensee, Mrs Reynolds, lying in the cellar, where she had been blown by the bomb. It had struck the house dead in the middle, taking all the floors to the basement.

‘Firemen found a baby stuck in the rafters. Fortunately there had been no customers in the house at the time.’

(INSIDE THE BLACK SWAN AFTER THE RAID)

Three other people inside the pub at the time miraculously survived.

The L-33 was damaged during the raid and was forced to land at Little Wigborough near Colchester in Essex in the early hours of the morning. The crew surrendered and earned the distinction of being the only armed Germans captured on British soil during the war. For them the war was over.

As we have seen the Black Swan was rebuilt and a memorial in green tiles was placed on an exterior wall reading:

THIS BUILDING WAS DESTROYED

BY GERMAN AIRCRAFT

SEPTEMBER 1916

REBUILT 1920

After it was demolished what happened to the memorial? The victims have been long forgotten.

And Selby’s? They went on to bury Charles Lechmere (known to some as Cross) in 1920 – the same year that the Black Swan was rebuilt.

On Dick Turpin’s trail - a tramp in the woods to Loughton Camp in Epping Forest

Deep in the heart of the primeval greenwood of Epping Forest lies Loughton Camp – the reputed secret hide-out of the legendary highwayman Dick Turpin.

Dick Turpin and his gang of 18^th century Essex Boy gangsters terrorised the district until one by one they faced justice – which in those days meant a sticky end swinging from a rope.

Epping Forest has been woodland since the last Ice Age. But it is not untouched, virgin territory.

Loughton Camp is an Iron Age hill fort built on one of the highest parts of Epping Forest. At the time there were views over London as the immediate area was clear of trees. It made a perfect base for Turpin – allowing him to see approaching coaches and travellers who he could relieve of their valuables.

Approaching the Camp from the Staples Hill area of Loughton means a walk down the steep slopes of the valley through which flows the meandering stream of Loughton Brook. The slightest rainfall reduces the paths to quagmires which the clay soil clawing at any loose boot. Decent footwear is essential.

Valley’s invariably have two sides. From the still waters of Baldwin’s Pond it is a steady climb up. Small clumps of Gorse can be seen signalling dryer soil and if you look you may see some pollarded trees, of which more later.

Once the ground levels off it is necessary to leave any major path for the Camp is buried in the forest. That no doubt was why it was not rediscovered until 1872! It was originally thought to be a Roman fort but it is much older than that. It seems to have been built around 500 BC (well over 2,500 years ago) probably by a Celtic tribe known as the Trinovantes, whose capital was at Colchester. The fort may have been a defensive border post with their rivals, the Catuvellauni who were the most powerful tribe in Ancient Britain and were based in what is now north London and Hertfordshire.

Loughton Camp consists of a circular earth bank and ditch which is still easily visible although it has eroded and is much less pronounced than it would have been when constructed. A wooden fence would have almost certainly been built around the top. It encloses a large area of around eleven acres.

Besides its warlike use, the camp was probably also used as a cattle enclosure. Some might be surprised to learn that cattle have long grazed in the woodland and have been reintroduced into the forest to help with the natural conservation of the environment.

Before Dick Turpin, this part of the forest was inhabited by a female hermit. Some say she was a witch, or romantically perhaps she was just a vagrant. One side of Loughton Camp falls way to a deep valley known as Kate’s Cellar, named after this shady lady. When did she live there? No one knows. The date is lost to time but suggestions ranging over 400 years apart have been made. A mystery indeed. Perhaps she lived a long time.

Kate must have been long gone by the time Dick Turpin used the woods for sanctuary.

Dick Turpin was an Essex lad. In 1725 he was a butcher based in Buckhurst Hill. He seems to have been drawn into a life of crime through selling poached deer. He soon got involved in more desperate enterprises. His Essex Gang specialised in breaking into peoples’ houses, terrorising the inhabitants at gunpoint to reveal their wealth and stealing their horses. Their behaviour was anything but glamorous. Rape and torture were their brutal trademarks. As the frequency of their savage attacks increased the authorities set out to stamp them out. By 1735 most of the vicious gang had been captured and swiftly executed.

It seems that Turpin only turned to Highway Robbery after this – the old ’stand and deliver, your money or your life’. Beyond the myth Turpin was hardly a ‘Gentleman of the Road’. Besides his brutality he was rather short and had a pox marked face. His first highway robbery was in Epping Forest and it was here that he made his base in a cave. This was probably a scrapped out shelter in the banks of Loughton Camp rather than a proper cave.

Several locations have been suggested for Turpin’s Cave and at one time there was even a pub of that name in the Forest. Loughton Camp is the most authentic location – featuring in a map by Loughton surveyor William D’Oyley in 1876.

Turpin occasionally travelled to Whitechapel to sell stolen horses. One such foray in 1737 led to a shoot-out and Turpin fled back to his cave where he stayed in hiding.

After a few weeks a local gamekeeper called Thomas Morris stumbled across him. Turpin pulled out his gun and shot Morris to death. He was now a murderer. Epping Forest was no longer a safe haven.

This led to Turpin’s flight up north with a £200 reward on his head – by later legend on the back of his trusty stead Black Bess. He gave himself a new identity – calling himself John Palmer. Like many such miscreants he chose an alias associated with his family – in this case an approximation to his mother’s maiden name.

But Turpin couldn’t stay out of trouble. As ‘Palmer’ he was arrested in late 1738 in Yorkshire on a minor charge but was it was soon established that he was a horse thief and he was transferred to York Castle in handcuffs. From his jail Turpin write to his brother on law in Essex. Unfortunately the postmaster recognised Turpin’s handwriting which led to his true identity being uncovered. The postmaster got the £200 reward. Turpin was tired in York Assizes and on 7^th March 1739 was hung in the gallows at the age of 34.

I mentioned pollarded trees. For hundreds of years Epping Forest was a major source of wood - for constructing and for fuel – particularly for London. Instead of just cutting down trees, this resource was carefully husbanded.

In Epping Forest the trees tended to be cut at about head height so that cattle and deer could not eat the new shoots that turned into saplings and grow into branches. After about twenty years these trees could be harvested, cut and used as poles. This was the major source of heating in London prior to the coal trade being established. Some of the pollarded trees in Epping Forest are believed to be 700 years old.

The relevance here is that virtually every tree inside Loughton Camp is an aged pollard. It was effectively an industrial zone up to 1879 when the last trees were ‘lopped’ – or cut. Since then the pollards have become misshapen and top-heavy, creating strange shapes.

Until 1878 the inhabitants of Loughton would gather at midnight on St Martin’s Day, 11^th November, each year to celebrate the start of the lopping season. After a long session in the pub a torch lit procession would wend its way into the forest and the first bough would be cut with great ceremony. The lopping season would then continue until St George’s Day, 23^rd April, in the following year.

The declining importance of wood as a renewable energy resource led to schemes to develop the forest for housing. As long ago as the 1860s there were attempts to divide the forest into plots of land. A road was pushed through which is now the muddy path that leads past Baldwin’s Pond towards Loughton Camp. When the plan were thwarted by the passing of the Epping Forest Act in 1878 it was abandoned but is still called Clays Road.

Where Clays Road levels off it crosses another wide path at what is called Sand Pit Plain. This other path is called the Green Ride and was created in 1882 for a Royal visit and was formerly called Victoria’s Ride. Loughton Camp is just off Green Ride.

Legend has it that Queen Boudicca of the Iceni used the Camp to rest her army prior to her final battle with the Roman invaders. Rumours that her ghost or that of a Roman Centurion haunt the banks.

Ghost stories abound in the dark woods.

In the stream is that a fish or water vole causing ripples?

The rustle in the bushes. Is it a predatory weasel or a timid rabbit?

The creak of the bough. Is it the restless the lost soul of poor murdered Thomas Morris?

At dusk is that an owl or a bat fluttering overhead - or is it Kate on her broomstick.

Listen! Are those hooves you hear? Is it fallow deer or cattle going to feed in a glade? Or is it the phantom of Dick Turpin riding Black Bess to York.