Poplarism

POPLARISM
There are not many areas of the country whose name is synominous with a form of politics, but there is at least one..........Poplar.

Poplar is part of Tower Hamlets in the eastend of London, it stands at the head of the loop in the river Thames, and although most people have heard of Trotskism and Marxism I wonder how many people have heard of Poplarism.

The name was coined in the early 1920's and was a blend of socialism, pacifism and Christianity embodied by George Lansbury who became Mayor at the same time that Poplar elected its first Labour council in 1919.

At the time Poplar was the poorest borough in the whole of London with nearly a quarter of the population living in dire poverty. The adult population were dependent on the local Docks and railways for employment, or the cluster of small workshops/sweatshops where there was no union representation to fight for a living wage. Child mortality was high among the overcrowded streets with there poor sanitation. This was the situation that the first Labour council prepared to change.

They began by building more houses, expanding the provision of libraries and parks, as well as swimming pools the establishment of a TB officer and a dispensary. Street lighting and cleansing was improved, free milk was distributed and electricity was brought to the area, and for its own employees the council established a minimum wage of four pounds a week for both men and women.

1920 saw the beginning of a recession which meant the as Poplar was reliant on foreign trade coming through the docks it was hit very hard. It was here that Poplarism separated from main stream politics. The Liberal government had introduced a scheme in which grants were available for public works, and Poplar council saw this as a way of helping the unemployed by creating schemes to improve the roads and sewage disposal of the area, they received three thousand pounds which enabled them to put three hundred men, rising to five hundred men into employment.

However there were conditions to the grants, and that was ex-servicemen must be offered employment first, the council disagreed claiming that those with the most dependants were in the greatest need, such as the unemployed railway men who through no fault of their own were prevented from serving in the first world war because their jobs were deemed too important to the war effort. So when King George V came to open a dock bearing his name he was greeted with a direct message, for large numbers of casual dock workers were laid off as the slump in trade continued.

This of course brought Poplar in to conflict with the government, as did the 'Poplar Rates Revolt' of 1921 when George Lansbury led the councillers and over 2.000 of his constituents to the High Court in a demand that rates be equalised across London, for at that time the burden lay far more heavily on the shoulders of the desperately poor boroughs rather than the richer ones. Their refusal to pay what they considered an exorbitant level of rates, instead they diverted the money into a voucher system to feed families that were starving. Up until that time the destitute had to rely of the Poor Law for their existance. The Poor Law came into being in 1834 and was as follows:

(a) no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse;

(b) conditions in workhouses were to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to receive help;

(c) workhouses were to be built in every parish or, if parishes were too small, in unions of parishes;

(d) ratepayers in each parish or union had to elect a Board of Guardians to supervise the workhouse, to collect the Poor Rate and to send reports to the Central Poor Law Commission;

(e) the three man Central Poor Law Commission would be appointed by the government and would be responsible for supervising the Amendment Act throughout the country.

It was the opposision to this bill and the act of using the money collected in rates to feed and clothe the poor rather than passing it on to the government that led to the arrest and imprisonment of George Lansbury and the whole council.

However imprisonment was nothing new to George Lansbury for in 1912 he had resigned his seat in the House of Commons and fought a by-election in favour of women having the right to vote. It was while he was making a speech in favour of the suffragette movement that he was arrested and imprisoned, once there, like the suffragettes, he immediately embarked on a hunger strike, eventually he was released under the 'Cat and Mouse' act.

(The Cat and Mouse act was spefically brought in to deal with suffragettes who went on hunger strike, following the public outcry over their force feeding this act enabled the authorities to release the women before their hunger strike lead to their death, and when they regained their health they could then be rearrested and the whole process started over again)

At this time George Lansbury wasn't fully the pacifist he was to become in the next few years, for by supporting the suffragettes more militant actions he was charged as "a disturber of the peace and an inciter of others to commit divers crimes and misdemeanours".

The Poplar Rates Revolt was a prime instance of  Lansbury as the class warrior, and his ability to mobilise large numbers of ordinary people. His almost unique gift was seen at its best in the Poplar Rates Revolt. He was always remembered as the chief advocate of 'Poplarism' and this reputation remained with him for the rest of his political life and beyond. The term 'Poplarism' — defined since 1921 as the policy of giving outdoor relief to the poor on a generous or extravagant scale — entered the political vocabulary as a symbol of local defiance against central government and struck a deadly blow at the hated poor law system.



By 1914 George Lansbury was a commited pacifist and opposed the 1914-1918 war. Then when a second world war loomed he did all he could to prevent it, even going to visit Hitler but as history tells us it was to no avail. He died on the 7th of May 1940. Four months later the London blitz began and his beloved Poplar was to be changed forever.