Category Archives: schools

Hackney Peoples Press – the first three issues, 1973

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Hackney People’s Press was a local left-leaning community newspaper published regularly from 1973 until 1985.

An interview with HPP contributor Charles Foster is available elsewhere on this site. As you can see from the masthead below, HPP was formed by the merger of Hackney Action and Hackney Gutter Press, who were both publishing in the early 70s and have also been covered here previously.

Charles has very kindly donated his archive to this site. The plan is to gradually upload an overview of Hackney People’s Press, year by year, alongside the many other things I want to cover.  I won’t have time to scan every single page, and the combination of oversized tabloid pages and the scanner I have occasional access to will mean that some details are missed out. Nevertheless I hope this gives a good flavour of the HPP project and the radical culture of Hackney in the late 20th Century…

The issues below are all large tabloid format – click on the images for a full size version.

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The debut issue – 5 pence, worra bargain! As you can see from the introduction on the cover, the plan was to publish monthly and to hold open public meetings for contributors. The issues I have from 1973 suggests that this schedule was kept to initially. (Although the page count went down from 12 to 8).

We kick off with an excellent lead story on parents in De Beauvoir seizing some vacant land to use as an adventure playground for kids. The author, Crispin Aubrey, was an interesting figure who was later prosecuted under the official secrets act for interviewing a former GCHQ worker.

(The De Beauvoir Association has published an archive of the “De Beaver” newsletter from the 1970s and 80s which is well worth a look and also covers this).

Other contents:

A critical account of a Hackney Trades Council meeting, in which various union leaderships are criticised for not seeing the wisdom of bringing down the Tory government and establishing socialism via the Labour Party. The meeting “erupted into what was at times an extremely violent violent argument between a small contingent from the Socialist Labour League (Trotskyist) and a much larger number of Communist Party (Stalinist) members.”

Learning Exchange: a free service which puts people interested in learning the same subject in touch with each other. (c/o Centerprise).

Support for striking teachers campaigning for an increase in the London Allowance (and concern that rising housing, prices etc mean that teachers were leaving London – just like now).

After Six in Hackney: full page piece on an advice service for homeless people, operating after 6pm every evening.

An article on closing cinemas with the overly dramatic title “Who Raped Our Screens?” – “Hackney now has only 6 cinemas amongst a population of over 200,000, and one of those, the Dalston Tatler, is for members only. The Stamford Hill Odeon closed only a few months ago, largely on the pretext that the Dalston Odeon has been converted into 3 separate screens. At the same time, prices at Dalston have gone up to a minimum of 55p…”

Homes Saved From Ringway: 1,000 properties no longer being demolished because of the collapse of plans for a big road through Dalston and Hackney Wick following protests.

A double page spread on Kingsmead Estate which is critical of the Tenants Association, but more positive about the work of the Claimants Union on the estate – a representative is quoted on their work to get people the right benefits, help make sure repairs are done by the council and demands for police patrols to sort out menacing kids with airguns attacking people. Also: “We would not let anyone on the estate be evicted without one hell of a fight. We will organise barricades, cordon off the estate if necessary. The days when they could come in and evict someone in relative peace are all over.” (did this ever actually happen though?)

Also interesting to see the council criticised for making Kingsmead into a ghetto, concentrating black people, OAPs and benefit claimants there, the implication being that other estates were reserved for white, relatively more affluent types?

Haggerston Food Co-Op is introduced (but more on them below).

Perhaps slightly jarring with the community articles is a press release about the Stoke Newington 5 (originally the Stoke Newington 8).

Tony Soares (who ran the Grass Roots bookshop in Ladbroke Grove) writes about being convicted for “incitement to murder persons unknown“. Which is as mad as it sounds. Turns out Tony had reprinted the Black Panther Party’s “On organising self-defence groups” article: “The police conceded that there probably would have been no prosecution had it not been for a complaint from Jack Backsi, the Community Relations Officer for Hackney”. Backsi apparently referred the publication to Hackney’s then MP Stanley-Clinton David, asking him to raise it in parliament. Soares was sentenced to 200 hours of community service, which suggests that everyone agreed that the threat he posed was minimal – but that this sort of politics was not welcome in the UK.

There’s a story about some black youths being hassled by the police because one of them was carrying a walking stick – and how this was falsely reported as “Mob Storms Police Station” by the Hackney Gazette.

Also two pages of contact info for community and political groups, and a back page piece by Ken Worpole on William Morris and the meaning of May Day.

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Issue 2 leads with a story about a mother and 4 young kids being evicted from an empty house that they had squatted after waiting for 4 years on the council list. The 3 other squatters who helped her to re-occupy the property were charged with assaulting the police.

Hackney Playbus: Fran Crowther on why it’s needed and an appeal for drivers. (Previousl also covered in an issue of Hackney Action, see here for a scan.)

Unhealthy Health Report – NHS understaffing, infant mortality 33% higher in Hackney than the average for England and Wales, drop in ante natal care sessions, criticism of factory inspectors (2,546 factory premises in Hackney!), etc.

Hackney School Students: participated in a demonstration about democratising school councils. Also uproar at Cardinal Pole school about a DIY students magazine called “Vision” – four of the student contributors were suspended. (Any more info on that would be greatly received!)

“1972 – A Year of Increased Repression”: Overview of The National Council for Civil Liberties annual report, with references to state attacks on the underground press (Oz and IT magazines), republican sympathisers, the Angry Brigade trial, prisoners rights, moves to restrict jury trials and the right to protest, increased arming of the police, etc:

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Mike Knowles of Hackney Trades Council is given a full page right of reply to the drubbing they got in the first issue. Alongside the correction of some errors in the original article, the general tone is that it’s alright for lefty activists to hold forth about a general strike and socialism but the real issue is how to actually get there – especially if it’s not possible to organise a one day strike on May Day as was being mooted.

Also groups and contacts:

groups

The back page is a heartwarming story about some guerrilla street theatre performers and how they were received around the borough:

theatre

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Issue 3 leads with the a story on the closure of the inspiring Haggerston Food Co-op which has been previously covered on this site by this excellent video:

There is an edge of bitterness to the story, the obvious frustration of not being able to get the community sufficiently involved to keep the co-op going when the activist who ran it solo was rehoused elsewhere. (An all to common problem with community politics but getting all narky about it in print isn’t the solution eh?)

Page 2 covers the trial of the squatters featured on the cover of issue 2. Five charges of breach of the peace were dropped as the cops couldn’t produce their lead witness. Two women were found guilty of obstructing the police (the sentence/fine isn’t mentioned). More happily it’s also reported that Anita Keating, the mother who was evicted, was now squatting successfully in Islington with her kids.

Page 3 reports on a Hackney Young Teachers Association meeting on “West Indian Problems” i.e. racism and cultural differences and the detrimental effect they were having on the education of black kids: “The condescending attitude of some middle class educationalists towards the language of working class children and parents, black and white is partly due to a misunderstanding of the theories of Basil Bernstein, which then makes the sad equation that poor language equal working class impoverishment in a never ending circle. This attitude is doubly tragic because it helps to maintain the exam system in all its immorality and because it checks the child-centred advances made so bravely by our infant and nursery schools.”

The centre pages contrast the Matchgirls strike of 1888 with a strike by Ministry of Defence contract cleaners in 1972.

Also:

  • A report on a family of squatters who have had to move 11 times in the last 8 years.
  • An update on De Beauvoir playground which seemed to be doing well despite council indifference.
  • Hackney and Islington World Development Group – concerned with global poverty, development, trade.
  • Workers Education Association music workshop, Learning Exchange, listings.

The back page reports on some incredible community direct action. After getting nowhere with the police or the council, Stonebridge residents move cars which have been dumped on their estate into the middle of Kingsland Road, causing a traffic jam, but resolving the issue!

Echoes of this sort of thing were later seen with Reclaim The Streets, where old bangers were driven into the middle of big roads as a way of blocking them off before a party commenced. Hackney Independent Working Class Association were still shaming the council about dumped cars in the south of the Borough in the early 21st Century.

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Caribbean House, Hoxton 1976-1988

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Caribbean House postcard

Caribbean House postcard

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I have to confess that I hadn’t heard of Caribbean House prior to watching the Somewhere In Hackney film from 1980 courtesy of the British Film Institute. That film largely concerns itself with Free Form Arts Trust, who decorated the front of the building (see the section from 6:45-8:00 minutes), so I was curious about what went on inside.

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There’s not a huge amount of information about Caribbean House available online, so this post is mainly based on a book published in 1985 by its founder, Rev Dr Ashton Gibson:

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Ashton Gibson – a black Robin Hood?

Gibson was born in Barbados in 1927. By his own account he was “barely able to speak” when he began school at the age of eight and didn’t do particularly well educationally until his father moved him to a fee-paying “prep” school, where he excelled. After school he worked in a variety of different jobs, (teacher, newspaper sub-editor) as well as embracing Catholicism and committing unspecified “anti-social acts”. In 1952 at the age of 25 Ashton’s mother paid for his passage to England to keep him out of trouble.

Like most Caribbean immigrants of this era, Ashton was forced to take up jobs that were more menial than those he done in his home country. He worked as a kitchen hand, a driver and an office cleaner, using his spare time to train as an accountant. The racism of 1950s England eventually got to him. He began to hear voices.

God was apparently speaking to Ashton and informing him that “the Church had money enough to solve the problems caused by poverty among his people”. He began what can only be described as a campaign of radical wealth redistribution, initially by going from church to church and pleading poverty. The resultant funds were then donated to organisations dedicated to the welfare of West Indian immigrants like himself. In the book, Ashton is at pains to say that none of the money he acquired went into his own pocket.

Nevertheless, the authorities took an interest in him. After a couple of referrals for psychiatric treatment Ashton was eventually sentenced to two years in prison for obtaining money by false pretenses. He shared a cell with a safe cracker, and perhaps inevitably put his newly acquired skills to use on release. Church safes up and down the country were relieved of their contents, although once again Ashton states forcefully that any money obviously set aside for charities was untouched and that he never used the loot for his own gain.

After further brushes with authority, Ashton became involved with slightly more conventional community work – volunteering at the Black House set up by Michael X and the Racial Action Adjustment Society (RAAS) on Holloway Road, then launching the Melting Pot Foundation in Brixton (“with £30,000 of his own money”) – a garment factory aimed at giving West Indians work opportunities/experience. The Melting Pot also branched out into finding places to live for homeless black youth.

The book makes it clear that Ashton’s own upbringing and experience of the the alienation brought on by a racist society and education system inspired him to try and improve the lot of black people in the UK.

Westindian Concern Ltd

Gibson resigned from the Melting Pot Foundation when it became more established, receiving funding from Lambeth Council and support from the wider voluntary sector. He was paid off to the tune of £20,000 and used this to set up a company called Westindian Concern. The launch was held in a church in the City of London on 22 July 1975. The emphasis was on black (or West Indian) self-help – a black-run charity which encouraged black people to develop the skills and networks they needed to survive in the UK. Various locations were sought for premises before the right one was found:

“Three derelict buildings were found near New North Road on the borders of Islington, Hackney Boroughs in Hoxton, North London. The three terraced houses, 76-80 Bridport Place, were all adjacent to one another, making conversion into a single unit relatively simple. But the overwhelming advantage to these premises, dwarfing the many problems raised by their unpromising condition, was that they were cut off from the residential area. This meant that the organisation stood infinitely more chance of succeeding in its long term aims, which naturally included acceptance in the local community. In particular there were no neighbours to complain of noise when social or recreational activities took place. As an added bonus, unimpeded view across Shoreditch Park afforded some pleasure to the eye in a heavily built up and neglected area. The London Borough of Hackney, to whom the property belonged, was persuaded to make a gesture to its large Westindian population; a five year lease was granted to Westindian Concern for the proposed community centre and hostel.”

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Caribbean House

After extensive renovation work, undertaken by people from the black church movement, the centre opened during Easter 1976.

Initial problems included funding issues and an article in Private Eye suggesting that Ashton Gibson was using the centre for his own financial gain. More seriously, a fire broke out in the building, gutting 78 and 80 Bridport Place. Arson was suspected, with reasonable suspicion being leveled at supporters of the National Front, which had a lot of support in the area at the time and would open its headquarters in nearby Great Eastern Street in 1978.

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Repairs were made and funding issues resolved. Activities and work undertaken at Caribbean House included:

  • A children’s hostel
  • A family-centred child care service, with emphasis on the reconciliation of children with their parents where there had previously been conflict
  • A social club for the elderly
  • An Education Unit, helping children with school work – as well as courses for social workers, teachers, probation officers to assist them in better understanding of issues faced by black people.
  • Career advice, and a job-finding scheme
  • A food co-op
  • Music workshops
  • Cricket and dominoes teams
  • Westindian Voice – a newspaper (which admittedly only lasted for 7 months)

Bazil Meade gives a flavour of what Caribbean House was like in his book when describing rehearsals of the London Community Gospel Choir there:

“Soon our rehearsals became like mini-concerts themselves. Caribbean House was a busy place where people came to socialise with their friends. When they heard us rehearsing they would wander into the hall to listen, and before long the hall was full and people were spilling out of the doors, clapping and singing along…”

(from Bazil Meade & Jan Greenough: A Boy, A Journey, A Dream. Monarch Books, 2011. P111)

Policing and “Homeward Bound”

Ashton Gibson gave evidence on behalf of Caribbean House and Westindian Concern to the Scarman Inquiry which was set up after the Brixton riots of 1981. His submission is reproduced in the book. He stops quite a way short of saying that the riots were an understandable reaction to a racist society in general and the institutional racism of the police in particular. Instead he sees prejudice developing as a result of two well meaning groups of people who happen to originate from cultures that do not quite understand each other.

Indeed, most of Gibson’s criticism is leveled at the black community. “Badly run late-night clubs” attended by teenagers are singled out as a source of inter-generational conflict and the breakdown of families.  The “black leadership” in Brixton is criticised as being “very poor… Few of the leaders of those organisations funded and supported by the authorities have any grasp of the problems besetting this area.”

To put things in context, It is worth bearing in mind that the police in Hackney were widely viewed as being intensely racist at this time. Hackney Black People’s Organisation had been set up in 1978 as a result of racist violence and policing, specifically the death of Michael Ferreira. (Ferreira was a black teenager who was stabbed by National Front sympathisers in Stoke Newington. He was taken by friends to Stoke Newington Police Station where he was then questioned by the police about the incident rather than receiving medical assistance. Michael eventually died in an ambulance on the way to hospital.) The tensions between the community and the police would increase throughout the eighties with the killing of Colin Roach inside Stoke Newington police station being just one notable flashpoint.

Ashton Gibson receiving a cheque in 1984 from the Police Property Act Fund via Hackney Mayoress Bella Callaghan

Ashton Gibson receiving a cheque in 1984 from the Police Property Act Fund via Hackney Mayoress Bella Callaghan

Six months after the 1981 Brixton riots, Caribbean House launched its “Homeward Bound Fund”, “to enable Westindians with little hope of adjusting to life in Britain to be resettled in in the Caribbean or other region of their choice”. The fund was severely criticised by Hackney Council for Racial Equality, Darcus Howe (then of the Race Today collective) and even Melting Pot, the organisation in Brixton which Gibson had set up. Essentially the critics felt that the fund was a capitulation to the right wing press and “send them back” racists like the National Front and Enoch Powell.

There are some lengthy rebuttals to these criticisms by Ashton Gibson in the book. He suggests that the fund was a purely humanitarian venture that was intended to help Caribbean families who were “at breaking point”. Its critics are portrayed as “White Liberals and their Black lackeys in the Race Relations Industry”. The fund was abandoned shortly after its launch, having amassed £2,000.

The criticism of the fund also included various people demanding that funding for Caribbean House be reviewed. Although it is unclear how successful this lobbying was, it does seems that there were some real difficulties with resources when A Light In The Dark Tunnel was published in 1985. The book concludes with an appeal for funds which notes that the Greater London Council (GLC) was to be abolished in 1986 along with its extensive funding of a huge array of community groups (the London Irish Women’s Centre in Stoke Newington would be just one other example). Coupled with this, other sources of funding from local government were due to expire.

Ashton Gibson seems to have been very talented at courting those in positions of influence and power – the book includes numerous testimonials from politicians, bishops and members of the House of Lords. Unfortunately this did not prove to be enough to sustain his organisations through funding cut backs.

I’ve not been able to find much material about the dissolution of Caribbean House. This Youtube clip suggests that it managed to survive its problems with funding until 1988:

The clip also has some great footage of the interior of Caribbean House. However the comment below is slightly ominous:

THAMES NEWS 6.9.88.CARIBBEAN HOUSE,HACKNEY IS IN DEBT; DR. ASHTON GIBSON,WHO RUNS THE HOUSE,IS ACCUSED OF STEALING THE CHARITY MONEY TO RUN THE HOUSE FOR A HOTEL IN BARBADOS._x000D_

 

Bridport Place now

Bridport Place today

Westindian Concern was wound up as a company in October 1988. King Bee Music Academy were based at 76-80 Bridport Place from 1988 “to provide the urban youth of Hackney with the belief and knowledge that music builds self-confidence, and encourages people to play a positive role in their community… “

The building was listed as “an empty commercial property” by Hackney Council in 2011. And seems to have been sold for £2,861,000 in 2012 (BBC PDF linked from this story). It looks like it was divided up into 8 flats later that year. And the company doing the conversion was busted for health and safety offences in 2014.

It’s beyond the scope of this article to get into the nitty gritty of the funding, administration, or legacy of Caribbean House. Whilst I only have the rather uncritical book which is co-authored by Rev Dr Gibson to go on, I will say that trying to provide essential support and resources for marginalised people in a prejudiced society is a noble aim. I’m sure large numbers of people were helped by the work of Ashton Gibson and the many others who organised and contributed to the activities at Caribbean House.

There are echoes of the controversies about funding, administration and the relationship with the state in the recent furore about Camila Batmanghelidjh and Kids Company.

If you have any memories of Caribbean House, feel free to leave a comment below, or get in touch.

film – Somewhere In Hackney (Ron Orders, 1980)

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Screenshot 2015-08-13 20.22.56

http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-somewhere-in-hackney-1980/

A great 50 minute documentary at the British Film Institute site that covers a wide array of the community and cultural groups active in the Borough in 1980, including:

There’s also  lots of great footage of bits of Hackney which have since disappeared or aged gracefully…

Thanks to Good News Hackney on twitter for flagging up this up.

A few screenshots:

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Caribbean House

Lenthall Road Print Workshop and Hackney Womens' Aid

Lenthall Road Print Workshop and Hackney Womens’ Aid

Centerprise, 1980

Weds December 10th: Activism and the under-fives – Radical History Network meeting

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As soon as the women’s movement started, so did campaigns for more and better childcare…

The next meeting of the Radical History Network of NE London group will focus on how pressure was put on institutions and local authorities to provide cheap, good quality provision.

There is also an important story to be told about how alternative provision was set up outside the mainstream, while sometimes the two approaches overlapped.

Come along and share your experiences, and discuss how this connects with campaigns today.

Speakers will include:

Gail Chester – The struggle for council and community nurseries in Hackney from the 1970s onwards

Ivor Kallin – When Islington nursery workers shared a platform with the miners

Andrea Francke – History of nursery campaigns at the Royal College of Art and London College of Communication

+ other contributors from campaigns in higher education and community settings

Wednesday 10th December 7.30 p.m
Wood Green Social Club 3 Stuart Crescent, N22 5NJ
(off the High Rd, near Wood Green tube)

Free to attend, all interested people welcome.

http://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.co.uk/

image by Hackney Flashers

1985 TV news report: Police charm offensive in Hackney

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Another new upload to the excellent dorlec01 YouTube channel.

This short report covers a lot of ground – the background of the killing of Colin Roach in Stoke Newington Police Station, Hackney teacher Blair Peach being killed by police at an anti-fascist demonstration and of course the general racism and brutality of police in Hackney at the time.

These factors lead to the Hackney Teachers’ Association calling for the Police to be excluded from schools. Their position is summarised in the extremely convincing Police Out of School document which is also available on this site. As you can hear in the report, their proposals were taken up by 18 (about a third) of Hackney’s schools.

The lack of an acknowledgement from police representatives of the deep seated issues in their own force is troubling, but perhaps not surprising: “what has happened to us in the past – is in the past. We must look to the future”.

It’s hard to say in retrospect whether people actually believed that cops spending time disco dancing with kids whose older brothers and sisters still faced daily racism would achieve anything or whether it was a PR stunt. But we do know that serious police brutality and corruption in Hackney continued well into the 1990s.

Hackney Action (1972) – a community newspaper

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Hackney Action was founded in June 1972 by Centerprise, who aimed to “promote a people’s paper. One that will reflect the feelings and attitudes of the people in the borough of Hackney.”

To me, it seems more community-minded and less overtly “militant” that the Hackney People’s Paper which had been published the previous year.

There were five issues of Hackney Action. The two I have (courtesy of Charles Foster) are tabloid six-pagers:

(click on the images below for larger versions)

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Issue 2’s front page features the beginning of lengthy article by Centerprise’s Ken Worpole debunking the council’s “Hackney Cares” slogan.

“What is happening in East Bank” looks at the proposal to make the street in Stamford Hill a “general improvement area”. There’s a handy guide to the pros and cons for tenants and property owners:

Also……..

  • “How I started a playgroup” by Barbara Berks
  • Demand for a public enquiry into a recent death from pneumonia and hypothermia at  childrens’ home “The Beeches”.
  • Green Lanes Tenants Association
  • Contacts/Ads (Centerprise, Legal Aid, Off Centre – a consultation service for young people, MP surgeries, Hackney Claimants Union, Hackney Multiple Sclerosis Society, Half Moon Gallery exhibition)
  • An in-jokey “fable” which might be a dig at some local characters.

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Page 5 (above) is particularly good:

Daphne Morgan on Hackney Committee Against Racialism: “formed in March 1970 when Enoch (Rivers of Blood) Powell was making racialism respectable and threatening the whiter-than-whites with a rising tide of black babies”. Their activities thus far included producing leaflets, having a presence and banner at various demos – including a picket of a meeting of the far right Monday Club in Islington, and quizzing local election candidates (“none of the Tories replied”).

After the election, the group focused on lobbying the council about improving conditions on “ghetto estates” and challenging institutional racism: “We have still had no satisfaction on the question of discrimination in housing. No official or councillor has been been able to explain why so many immigrant families end up in the worst and oldest estates, whereas more modern ones such as George Downing are almost pure white.”

An article on the Hackney Playmobile (still running in 2014 as the Hackney Playbus!) by Pauline Weinstein. She places the playmobile as part of a wider upsurge in working class communities organising or demanding facilities for children after a freeze in nursery places by the government in 1960.

Pauline has reflected recently on the playbus, the importance of archives (hear hear!) and her life in this article for the Planned Environment Therapy Trust. She is now involved with the Working Lives of Older People archive.

The back page of this issue is an article about Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal in Stratford E15, emphasising its links with the community and funding problems.

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Issue 3 came out after a respectable three months gap in October 1972. The lead article is about a rent increase for council tenants of 90p, which will have many of our readers choking on their cornflakes in amazement – but that is about £11 in today’s money. The article names and shames councillors who voted for implementing the rise (31) and those who voted against (27). It also mentions a proposed two week rent strike.

This theme continues on Page 2 with an article by Bob Darke, Secretary of Hackney United Tenants Federation entitled “Fight The Tory Rent Bill – It’s a class act directed against one section of the community – the working class”.

A previous entry on this website covers Darke’s involvement in and rejection of the Communist Party in Hackney in the 1950s. I was pleased to see he was still active in the 1970s.

Also this issue:

  • Poems by black youth Vivian Usherwood
  • Education in Hackney by Ruth Silver (against school closures and selective entry).
  • Two cheap recipes, including “Mackerel egg and sweetcorn pie for five” (a precursor to “A Girl Called Jack” perhaps?)
  • Hackney Trade Council Action Committee: against entry into the Common Market (“a new way of organising Europe in the interests of the Boss Class”), opposing the Industrial Relations Act, campaigning to make “Hackney a better, cleaner, healthier and more beautiful place to live and work in”
  • A back page feature on the Geffrye Museum by its curator Jeffrey Daniels

Page 4 of this issue is given over to notices and contact details (click on the image for a larger version. And apologies for there being a bit chopped off, an inevitable result of some covert scanning at someone’s workplace):

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According to the Hackney Archives (who have copies on microfilm), Hackney Action transformed into Hackney Peoples Press in 1973.

Standing up to corporal punishment, 1904

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An article by Dora B Montefiore, which appeared in the journal New Age in February 1904.

There were 28 Board Schools in Hackney at that time – it’s not clear from the article where this small bit of resistance took place. (See below for some notes on Board Schools)

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Women’s Interests
Corporal punishment

Humanitarians, among whom I trust are many women, owe a debt of gratitude to Arthur Hall, aged 13, who on January 13 at the Board school, Hackney, vindicated by passive resistance his right as a human being to refuse willingly to submit to the indignity of corporal punishment.

If mothers held in the State the position which is their right, it is scarcely believable that these degrading exhibitions of violence inflicted on those still too weak to resist physically could continue. If a boy or girl of thirteen has the moral courage to offer the example of moral resistance to the terror of violence, which hypnotises for the time being his or her companions, that child, properly treated, has the makings of a Hampden, a Josephine Butler, or a Wilberforce.

According to the report in the Morning Leader, the North London magistrate, Mr. Fordham, “compared the boy to a jibbing horse, and said most people would hold that it was not cruelty to thrash a jibbing horse into submission.” As far as I have seen, no one has protested in print against the insolence of this magisterial pronouncement. Putting aside the very doubtfully effective cure in the case of horses (the most highly nervous and sensitive amongst animals) of brutal and senseless thrashings to induce them to submit to the will of man, I would ask Mr. Fordham by what right he dares, in his magisterial capacity, to compare the children entrusted by their parents to the teachers in the Board schools for physical, mental, and moral training to jibbing dumb animals, and advises and approves of their being treated as such?

I would remind him that Board school teachers and magistrates are paid servants of the people, and that they are entrusted with their offices in order that they may train, educate, and influence the children of the people in the highest ideals of good citizenship, and of morality based on the sanctions of what is best in socialised action, not that they may degrade and brutalise those children through the terrors of corporal punishment.

The Facts of the Case

As presented to the public in the newspaper reports, the facts of the case are as follows:- The Chief Technical Instructor at the Board school blew a whistle for the boys to fall into line, “but at that moment another boy had struck at Hall with a knotted rope, and missed; Hall laughed, and the instructor ordered him to stand out for two ‘handers.’.” It was then that Hall, feeling he had done nothing to deserve punishment of that sort refused to submit to the indignity, and the head master, who was then called, must have felt more or less in sympathy with the boy’s attitude, for the report says he advised the boy to submit.

Most lads would have submitted, would have taken the two “handers,” and would thereby have lost force and independence of character. All honour to Hall that he still passively resisted, and refused to hold out his hand to receive the traditional and conventional indignity, which, be it remembered, when all the forces of the powers that be are arraigned against a luckless youngster, is so much easier to submit to than to resist. “He would not, however,” says one of the reports, “be persuaded or forced into submitting to take a punishment which he did not consider he deserved,” and six times he was forcibly held over a bench while he received in silence six blows with a stout cane.

Nine days after the thrashing severe bruises were found by the police surgeon on the boy’s body. Do mothers realise that the bodies of their children are their own flesh and blood, and, that each blow inflicted on those tender organisms is a blow struck at their own personal dignity and at their own motherhood?

The senselessness of the punishment

To take no higher ground, but arguing merely from the comparison of the jibbing horse, which appeared appropriate to the magistrate before whom the case was tried, I am prepared to maintain from experience that more horses are made confirmed jibbers by thrashing than are cured of the habit by the use of this too often senseless method.

In Australia, where horseflesh is cheaper, where colts are seldom handled till they are rising four, and where the methods of breaking are sharp, senseless, and brutal, the young animal, not understanding what is required of it, often becomes sulky and inclined to jib. The only panacea known to the ordinary bushman is thrashing, and more thrashing, and still more thrashing. Sickening scenes, that have made my blood boil, and caused me to feel ashamed for male humanity, are the result; and Australia possesses a record number of jibbers.

Just as in old convict days what were known as obstinate convicts both in Tasmania and Australia were on several occasions flogged to death, so nowadays wretched, nervous, terrified horses, flogged into stupidity, lie down and die on dusty bush roads, the victims of men in whom the germs of senseless cruelty have doubtless been sown by previous cruel treatment.

From personal experience on two occasions with young horses, pronounced confirmed jibbers, and sold for a song, I can affirm that kind and understanding training and handling can change these poor obstinate dumb beasts into affectionate willing friends, eager to respond to the slightest turn of the wrist or pressure of the muscle of the leg when being driven or ridden.

I therefore deny Mr. Fordham’s assertion that it is necessary and not cruel to thrash a jibbing horse into submission, and I protest in the name of human dignity, of advanced morality, and of scientific pedagogy against the methods of discipline advocated by that gentleman, and carried out by the head master of the Board school, Hackney.

DORA B. MONTEFIORE.

From: http://www.marxists.org/archive/montefiore/1904/02/corporal-punishment.htm

montefiore-dora

Dora B Montefiore (1851-1933) was a communist and suffragette.

NOTES

Board Schools

The London School Board was created under the Elementary Education Act 1870 to set up schools in the area covered by the London County Council.

The Hackney division of the school board for London included Shoreditch and Bethnal Green and had offices at 205 Mare Street. The board was warned in 1872 that compulsory attendance could be achieved only after a building programme in the poorest districts, where absentees were “of such a low order” as to be unfit to mix with children in regular attendance.

From: ‘Hackney: Education’, A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 10: Hackney (1995), pp. 148-165. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22718

Corporal Punishment

From Wikipedia:

In state-run schools, and also in private schools where at least part of the funding came from government, corporal punishment was outlawed by Parliament with effect from 1987.

In other private schools it was banned in 1999 (England and Wales), 2000 (Scotland) and 2003 (Northern Ireland).

(However in 1993, the European Court of Human Rights held in Costello-Roberts v. UK that giving a seven-year-old boy three ‘whacks’ with a gym shoe over his trousers was not a forbidden degrading treatment.)