Exhibition - Poplar Rates Rebellion: a Response - Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives 1st August - 30th September 2024

Poplar Rates Rebellion 1921

“‘Poplarism’ means the pauperisation of the people by the lavish misapplication of other people’s money.”  

Sir Gerald Hurst, Politician and Judge

Background 

In the 1920s, Poplar, a metropolitan borough, alongside Stepney and Bethnal Green, formed what is now the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. 

From being, historically, a relatively prosperous area, Poplar had become one of the poorest areas of London, with high levels of unemployment, poverty and deprivation.  

Family, Limehouse 1920s

Family, Poplar

Working-class men had only recently gained the right to vote and women were still fighting for full suffrage.

In 1919, Poplar elected an innovative council elected on a socialist mandate to bring about much-needed change to the borough. For the first time, due to extending the electoral franchise, Councillors included ordinary working people. 

The Poor Law was still in existence at this time and the borough was responsible for funding the aid and support to those most in need. 

This new ‘people’s council’ introduced many social reforms.  There were significant improvements including poor relief, the introduction of equal pay for men and women and a minimum wage for council workers. 

However, these reforms could only be funded by an increase in the rates (a tax levied on the properties in which people lived), which would adversely affect local people, causing more suffering. 

Additionally, Poplar ratepayers were required to pay ‘precepts’ to help fund the London County Council, the Metropolitan Police, the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and the Metropolitan Water Board. 

Borough’s own resources and requirements weren’t taken into account when assessing contributions; this resulted in a contributory inequality between boroughs, both in terms of the moneys paid in, and those granted to local Councils. 

Poplar and other similar boroughs subsidised other metropolitan boroughs, a growing and increasingly heavy financial burden for them.

Legal Action

“From the first moment I determined to fight for one policy, and that was decent treatment for the poor outside the workhouse and hang the rates!”

George Lansbury

In 1921, further increased financial contributions were demanded of Poplar.  

At a Council meeting headed by George Lansbury, in March, the Council decided it could not pass on this increase to their, already stretched, residents.  They voted not to collect the required precepts but to only collect the rates to fund local services.

Despite knowing this was illegal, the councillors believed that defying an unfair funding system was their only option as the alternative was cutting basic services or increasing rates to unaffordable levels.

This decision enraged the LCC and Metropolitan Asylums.  They took LB Poplar to the High Court, demanding they be ordered to pay the precepts, and that the refusal to levy this be declared illegal with councillors jailed for being in contempt of Court if they didn't pay the precepts.

On 29th July 1921, 30 councillors including 6 women councillors accompanied by thousands of supporters, marched from Bow to the High Court.  They carried a banner reading: ‘Poplar Borough Council marching to the High Court and possibly to prison’. 

Demonstration, Poplar 1920s

Despite this massive support, and the borough’s particular circumstances, the High Court ordered the council to apply the precepts. 

Poplar councillors felt they had no option but to stick to their guns; to levy the rates required would have caused such immense suffering within the local population. 

In early September 1921, George Lansbury and 29 fellow councillors were found to be in Contempt of Court and were ordered to be imprisoned indefinitely - until they remedied the Contempt (by levying and paying the precepts) - in Brixton (men) and Holloway Prisons (women).

The men and women Councillors were arrested separately.  On the day of their arrest, the five women councillors – Julia Scurr, 5-months pregnant Nellie Cressall, Minnie Lansbury (George Lansbury’s daughter), Jenny Mackay and Susan Lawrence – gathered outside Poplar Town Hall on Newby Place.  An huge crowd of supporters was there to prevent their imprisonment. 

Susan Lawrence spoke to the crowd saying, “We are here representing a principle which we have the right to defend as well as the men. If you prevent us from going, you do us the worst turn you can.”

Surrounded by up to 10,000 followers and given flowers, the women then marched along East India Dock Road where they surrendered to the Sheriffs.  They were taken to Holloway Prison.

Minnie Lansbury on her way to prison

Incarceration and Victory

“To everybody, young and old, rich and poor, comrades in the movement and outside friends-including all those resident in every part of the country who kindly took care of our children – here’s our thanks.”

Sam Marsh, Mayor of Poplar

Imprisoned, the councillors demanded to be treated as political prisoners.  They continued to conduct council business; the women councillors were taken from Holloway for 34 meetings with their male counterparts in Brixton Prison and returned to Holloway following each Council meeting. 

Conditions in these prisons were brutal.  This was the time of Suffragettes and other radical struggles. In later years, many of the councillors suffered from their incarceration; Minnie Lansbury died the year after her release. Her life is commemorated by an imposing clock on Bow Road.

Minnie Lansbury Memorial Clock, Bow Road, E3

Supporters held daily demonstrations, and Stepney and Bethnal Green councils voted to refuse to pay the precepts too.  The concept of ‘Poplarism’, as it came to be known, was spreading.

The rebellion received nationwide recognition and massive public support.  Cabinet papers from the time show that a settlement was considered ‘extremely desirable’ and that ‘drastic action’ was required.

In mid-October, after six weeks imprisonment, the High Court and the government bowed to public opinion, conceded, and ordered the Councillors’ release.  Poplar’s defiant council had won!

Parliament quickly passed a law (the Local Authorities (Financial Provisions) Act 1921) reforming London’s local government funding, essentially equalising tax burdens between rich and poor boroughs, making rich boroughs contribute more, and sharing the cost of maintaining the poor.

Poplar Council gained £250,000 per year; Poplar Councillors’ actions resulted in many other boroughs benefiting too.

However, it wasn’t until 1929 that Poor Law Unions were completely abolished, and the poor relief burden lifted from local councils. 

The imprisoned councillors were:

David Adams, Albert Baker, Joe Banks, George Cressall, Nellie Cressall, Albert Farr, Benjamin Fleming, Thomas Goodway, Walter Green, James Heales, Robert Hopwood, James Jones, Thomas Kelly, Edgar Lansbury, Minnie Lansbury, George Lansbury, Susan Lawrence, Jennie Mackay, Sam March, John Oakes, Joe O’Callaghan, Alfred Partridge, Charles Petherick, James Rugless, Josiah Russell, John Scurr, Julia Scurr, Henry Sloman, Charlie Sumner, Chris Williams

Bringing the works into being

The works shown in the exhibition centre around grassroots community struggles, campaigns and political actions, reflecting concerns and preoccupations relevant to ‘ordinary’ people in Tower Hamlets – one struggle that occurred one hundred years ago; the other struggle contemporary and ongoing. 

Since sea travel became possible, migration has been a constant process in the UK, London, and specifically around the location of docks.  The place and street names in Tower Hamlets are reflective of this. Such diversity brought about by travel, migration, enslavement and colonialism has resulted in the population of Tower Hamlets and of Poplar in 1920s and now, being that of people who reflect, amongst other things, a range of ethnicities and cultures. 

Local People, Pennyfields, 1911

Boarding House, Limehouse, 1924

Lascars, London 1920s

Bangladeshi Sailors (Lascars), London 1920s

Chinese Men, Limehouse 1920s

However, representational images and the mainstream narratives surrounding this movement and campaign are rooted in a mono-ethnic, religious and cultural stereotype: that of the white, working-class, skilled artisan, Christian man.  I am intrigued by the process whereby individuals, communities and traumatic events – and, increasingly, whole countries - become progressively less and less visible, eventually rendering them completely unseen, unknown, rendered structurally powerless; allowing ‘commonsense’ stereotypes and myths to fill these spaces. 

I therefore created a range of mixed media works giving visibility to the unknown, unseen, and unreported, exploring the mainstream lack of representation of particular communities in Tower Hamlets: Black, Chinese, Bangladeshi, white working class men and women. I chose to focus on their ordinary every day lives as EastEnders: resilient, tough survivors - ‘angels’ - who, both in the past and contemporaneously, experience much adversity, challenge and inequality. People who constantly have to strive to prove their existence and their worth.

Reflecting the rich diversity of East End communities in the 1910s and 1920s with a focus on individuals, the images and prints reflect the qualities people in Tower Hamlets must develop and possess to survive and thrive in an area where their lives are often structurally challenged. 

The artworks pay homage to the relentless struggles members of these communities face on a day-to-day basis, the movements and campaigns fought – even now - for equality, liberation and a seat at the table.

Embodying individuals as ‘angels’, complete with halos and wings, also draws on the blend of spiritual and political heritage which informs and has iteration in a tradition of ‘evangelical’ socialism leading back through Chartism to William Blake.

The images are sourced from a range of Tower Hamlets archives, referencing individuals who lived and worked in the area.  They are represented with inks on paper.  Following this, the images were replicated again on tissue paper producing a less solid, defined image becoming increasingly more ghostlike.  These spectral images were photographed, manipulated and the final composite prints were produced following digital modification and enhancement.

I chose to set the grouped figures almost disappearing against a backdrop of iconic buildings and institutions that were significant during the time of the Poplar Rates Rebellion and still exist.  Significantly, these buildings carry no identification as to their role during this important struggle nor of their original purpose. Many have been converted into flats, hotels or offices. Another layer of the invisible past.

Additionally, over the past ten months I have been struck by the passionate discourse and conflict that has been taking place in the streets and outdoor areas of Tower Hamlets, reflecting local communities’ concerns about Gaza, Palestine and Israel. This dialogue does not seem to be reflected in any discourse within mainstream media, the establishment or those in power where a different paradigm seems to exist. 

Parallels can be drawn between community concerns about this contemporary struggle and those of the Poplar Rates Rebellion 100 years ago.  Both have been/are being rendered non-visible and, becoming invisible, are disempowered: they do not exist.  The immediacy and violence of the impassioned struggle conducted by ‘ordinary’ people, manifested on Tower Hamlet’s street furniture, via powerful posters, images, graphics and signs repeatedly layered, ripped off, modified and re-applied, conveys strength of emotions and commitment, and is a dramatic illustration of just how important these concerns are to the people and communities involved.

I decided to include contemporary photographs of this struggle as it seemed to me that it places the intensity felt by local people in relation to this alongside the ‘fire in the belly’ that Poplar’s local people felt 100 years ago.