The Dulwich Society Journal for Winter 2024.
St Stephen’s Church in College Road, South Dulwich, has recently unveiled a stunning set of stained-glass windows in memory of Dr Joan Greenwood OBE (1933-2019), a distinguished midwife and long-time churchwarden of St Stephen’s. Designed by renowned stained-glass artist Roland Mitton, the windows were installed in September 2024 and reflect themes closely linked to Dr Greenwood’s remarkable career and faith: the Nativity, the Annunciation, and the Visitation.
The Memorial Windows
The design by Mitton was selected through an open competition, with the windows positioned at eye level to allow for appreciation of the intricate details up close. The central panel depicts the Nativity, supported by the Annunciation on the left and the Visitation on the right. The figures in the windows reflect the Middle Eastern heritage of the Holy Family, with the names of the Hebrew midwives from the Book of Exodus, Shiphrah and Puah, incorporated in the details alongside Joan’s name. These elements serve as a poignant symbol of Joan’s lifelong dedication to the care of mothers and babies.
The stained glass also features imagery evocative of the Middle East, such as the sun, pyramids, and date palms, which complement the biblical scenes depicted below. Joan Greenwood’s interests are delicately woven throughout, including a Hebridean sunset. This scene would have delighted her, along with depictions of wildlife like blackbirds, hedgehogs, corncrakes, red squirrels, and her beloved cats. The entire design is framed with borders of vine, grape, and sheaves of corn, completing the association with the Eucharist.
A Tribute to a Remarkable Life
Dr Joan Greenwood was a trailblazer in midwifery, serving as the Midwifery Officer at the Department of Health from 1984 to 1994, where her expertise shaped critical maternity policy in the NHS. She went on to advise governments in several African countries, sharing her knowledge and experience. Her dedication to her profession was recognised with an OBE and an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire.
Beyond her professional achievements, Joan was deeply committed to St Stephen’s church, serving as a churchwarden for many years. Her generous legacy to the church funded much-needed lighting improvements and enabled the commissioning of these beautiful stained-glass windows in her memory.
A Lasting Legacy
These new stained-glass windows not only commemorate her outstanding career and service to the church but also celebrate her life’s passions in a way that will inspire and uplift the congregation for generations to come. St Stephen’s Church invites the community to visit and experience this beautiful tribute to an extraordinary woman.
Bernhard Schunemann, Vicar of St Stephen’s, said, “I am particularly pleased with these windows. With their central message of the incarnation, they enhance our current ‘Lady chapel’, which over recent years has become a place of private prayer and contemplation for many casual visitors to the church as well as for regulars.”
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Dulwich Society celebrates five inspirational women in politics
MCT, Alleyn’s School, at 7.30pm, Tuesday 4 March 2025
International Women’s Day 2025 (IWD) will focus on accelerating progress towards women’s equality. The message is clear: progress is not fast enough, deep enough or widespread enough. Everyone can help build a more equal world and IWD is a chance to inspire and change.
But how to make this happen?
A good place to start is to learn from those who are forging ahead. The Dulwich Society is proud to host a very special event on Tuesday 4 March to hear from five inspirational local women who have each made exceptional contributions in the world of politics.
Our panellists will highlight the achievements that have been significant in their own careers, the women who have inspired them, and the work which needs to be continued in, amongst others, the fields of education, early years, social media and international cooperation.
To help set the agenda for the evening, we’ll be inviting groups of local young people beforehand to debate the issues as they see them and put their thoughts and questions to our panellists and our other specially-invited local audience members on the night.
Harriet Harman
Baroness Harman PC, KC made her home in Herne Hill and represented Camberwell and Peckham for over 40 years, the second longest-serving woman MP in British history.
Harriet was Minister for Women and Equality, Deputy Leader of the Labour party and was briefly Leader of the Opposition in 2010 and 2015. She was the first female Solicitor General. She also won a key victory at the European Court of Human Rights.
Harriet Harman’s book A Woman’s Work examines how far we have come, over the course of her working life, in establishing women’s rights and sets out her agenda for the future. In an interview this year for FDA, the union for managers and professionals in public service, Harriet said:
“I’d like to see more men taking advantage of flexible hours. I want to see more progress on this, including active encouragement and enabling of men to be playing their part in the family on equal terms with women.”
Caroline Pidgeon
“With the growth of social media, the so-called manosphere and dark web, we are seeing a growth in anti-women content and this worries me as an increasing challenge for young women today.”
Baroness Pidgeon MBE has been a member of the House of Lords since 2024.
In 1998 she became a Liberal Democrat Councillor on Southwark London Borough Council, where she was Deputy Leader from 2002 to 2004 and also served as a cabinet member for Education and for Children’s Services. In 2010 she was elected Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the London Assembly, where she was also a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and was Chair of the Transport Committee.
Caroline believes “resilience and a strong support network remain key to success.”
Helen Hayes
Taking the helm from Tessa Jowell, Helen Hayes MP has represented Dulwich and West Norwood in Parliament since 2015.
Her background is in town planning but her political activities have spanned a wide range, including roles in Health Trusteeship, being Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years, and seeking justice for the Windrush generation.
Helen began her political career as a Labour Councillor in 2010 before becoming an MP in 2015. In September 2024, she was elected Chair of the House of Commons Education Select Committee, where special educational needs reform, tackling child poverty and fit-for-purpose skill systems are priorities.
In a speech at the House of Commons earlier this year, Helen said “Education……is arguably the most important tool in the government’s box for addressing disadvantage.”
Naima Ali
Councillor Naima Ali was inaugurated as the Worshipful Mayor of Southwark on 22 May 2024, an incredible journey, having arrived in Britain from Somalia in 1997.
She has been a Labour Councillor for Southwark Council since 2022 and has 17 years’ experience of working with people with drug and alcohol misuse issues. She is an activist against female genital mutilation (FGM) and is FGM ambassador for Southwark. She currently works as a health advocate in the NHS, as well as setting up an adult home care business.
Resham Kotecha
Resham Kotecha is a policy and government relations expert with a focus on technology, data, strategic communications and public affairs. She is Global Head of Policy at the Open Data Institute. In 2022 she was appointed a Social Mobility Commissioner by the Cabinet Office and she is also a Director of the Fawcett Society.
She currently serves as Head of Engagement for Women2Win, which aims to create a pipeline of Conservative women to serve in public office, and she is the founder and director of the Conservative Policy Network.
Resham stood as a Conservative candidate in the 2015 and 2017 general elections, formerly in Dulwich and West Norwood, and runs her own public speaking agency, Podium Perfect.
The panel will be chaired by Aruna Iyengar.
BBC news correspondent, political reporter, producer and director, Aruna reports for BBC network TV and radio, including the Today Programme. Her investigative reporting on gender discrimination in sport led to the IAAF changing the rules on sex testing. In the 1990s she sailed halfway around the world with her partner and first-born baby.
Aruna is also a qualified primary school teacher with six years’ class teaching experience. She studied Law at King’s College, London, and has lived locally for 37 years.
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Schools Enrichment Days
A is for Archer who shot at a frog
B is for Butcher boy teaching his dog
My family walking holiday in the Pennines, aged 15, had its moments. I expected the wet socks and Youth Hostel lemon curd sandwiches, but not the most amazing surprise gift from the curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth: the first two pages of a beautifully illustrated alphabet book used by the Brontë sisters to teach their brother Branwell his letters. A formative experience. So, if the pupils from Crawford Primary School in Camberwell are anything like me, I can picture their excitement stepping into the ‘secret’ basement print room at Bell House, discovering the vintage letterpress equipment, playful signs and colourful examples of printed capitals, floor to ceiling cases and drawers full of typefaces with vintage wooden and metal blocks.
Since it opened its doors to the community, thousands of us have wandered through Bell House and gardens, appreciative of the huge restoration efforts and enjoying the lively programme of workshops, courses, talks and events. But I didn’t realise that skilled volunteers are also providing opportunities for local schools to engage with the inspirational world of Bell House.
Simon Trewin and Tania Hurt-Newton have been sharing their print-making expertise with classes from Crawford Primary School as one of the activities offered on the Schools Enrichment Days. The emphasis is on making and doing, not simply watching. This summer the children printed letters spelling out their school name onto 30m lengths of bunting to take back to their classroom.
On Schools Days, one primary school class is divided into three smaller groups with a teacher/TA/parent supporter. Rotating through the day, they plunge into one of three 50-minute activities in turn. There is a light-touch theme, reinforced by the volunteer leader of each session to lend coherence to the day. Printing is one of the activities offered so far, together with gardening, beekeeping, printing, stitching and house history with creative writing.
To give you other tastes of what the young pupils might experience, Sharon O’Connor walks the pupils through the house bringing vividly to life some of its stories about the people who lived there, including, for example, Thomas Wright’s coachman who was transported to America for the theft of a coat. Try turning that into an acrostic poem or a graphic novel and you’ll have an idea of what the children then create. Meanwhile, outside in the stunning garden, Annie McGeoch introduces some junior beekeepers to an observation beehive and discusses insects generally. “I ask them, ‘Do you ever get a bee in your kitchen?’ They go home saying, ‘Next time I see one I’m not going to squash it. I’m going to give it a drop of water with one grain of sugar in it and open a window so that it can fly away.’ I explain how apples grow from seeds and how bees go from one flower to another. The bright ones know the names of the stamens and sepals, but they haven’t looked closely at an actual tree.”
Dressed in bee suits the children come into the apiary tucked around the corner of the garden, plucking up the courage to hold a frame of bees in front of their noses. They learn they won’t get stung unless they squash the bees. By the end of the session, they’re actually touching bees. It’s an unforgettable new experience.
Upstairs with the sewing machines humming, the Quilt Academy offers a range of fabric-based activities. Janis Fuller explains, “The pupils master the joys of using the sewing machine combined with measuring, cutting and design. We were gifted a generous amount of denim, too robust for hospital quilts, but perfect for the children to make sturdy drawstring bags, ideal for trainers or packed lunches. We’ve introduced the pupils to machine appliqué, creating abstract panels that were joined to make quilts destined for the neonatal ward at King’s College Hospital. On another occasion pupils were stencilling with marker pens. Each pupil framed their artwork in fabric and these blocks were then joined to create quilts for Project Linus at King’s.”
Sometimes the learning is unexpected. One day a small boy wouldn’t budge from his sitting position looking through the window. He questioned Janis, “Lady, what’s that?” “Oh, that’s a squirrel.” That particular child might not have wanted to engage with a sewing machine, but he was gripped by what he saw outside and even brought his parents back that weekend to do volunteer gardening.
Nature/Nurture
Covid took a huge swipe at community groups. Post-pandemic, the Bell House schools programme has relaunched more modestly than before, as schools were focused on re-establishing good classroom practice before looking for new opportunities.
As well as the multi-activity days, there’s a second way in which volunteers reach out to children. Every Thursday afternoon in term-time from 1.15 to 2.45pm, 10 pupils from Crawford Primary School come to Bell House for a Nature and Nurture group. These individuals have been selected to help them gain self-confidence. They are easily daunted by the hectic life of the classroom but with Annie McGeogh, they have the chance to thrive in the tranquil atmosphere at the house and gardens.
Annie meets them at Dulwich Library and walks them through the park to Bell House. This is a different world. Even a woodlouse is a novelty. Now they’ve been introduced to looking closely at earwigs, worms and newts. “Once they came in winter when the pond was frozen, so we had a long talk about whether we should break the ice and what would happen to the frogs underneath - if it would give them a terrible shock. We think about what happens to creatures in the winter. It isn’t easy for hard-pressed school staff to make the commitment. It’s about giving the children a good time whenever they arrive. The Head of Crawford Primary is very grateful.”
Resident Artist Atalanta Arden-Miller also leads projects if Annie isn’t free. She explains: “I explore art with the children. Once I planned to use Flower Fairies as a theme because I grew up with them and they’re so nostalgic. When they arrived, quite a lot of them were boys. I’d sort of forgotten that! So, I told them we were going to make Garden Monsters. We wandered round the grounds discussing what kind of places the monsters might live in, chose leaves and little bits, brought them up to the studio and the children cut out their monsters (or fairies) to make little dolls. Then we put them in the garden where we thought they’d live. Really fun.”
Can you help?
Bell House relies on fantastic volunteers to make the magic happen. They are involved in all aspects of the charity. Volunteers willing to share their particular passions and expertise could expand the programme for schools. Don’t be put off if you’re not a trained teacher. These are people generously offering to demonstrate their skills to children. The team also need an organiser. Could you help on a Schools Enrichment Day? Who knows what seeds you could be planting for their future!
If this sounds like you and you’d like to hear more, contact Annie McGeoch:
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Head protection, whether on bicycles, motor bikes or in sports like motor racing, skiing and cricket is today something that is used without comment, but it was not always so. The development of head protection in this country is largely down to an East Dulwich firm, Everitt W. Vero & Co Ltd. In the latter part of the twentieth century, they were the major British manufacturer of protective headgear for sportsmen, under the ‘Everoak’ brand name.
Founded by Everitt Vero Snr. in Atherstone, Warwickshire, to manufacture riding hats, the firm moved to Bermondsey in the late 1870s and then to East Dulwich. The business initially occupied three large houses at 31-35 East Dulwich Road, at the junction with Crystal Palace Road. These were later demolished and a large workshop built at the back with a Shell petrol station at the front. From the 1950s the main office was Crown House, 41-43 East Dulwich Road, next door to the Dulwich Public Baths. This had cutting machines on the ground floor, sewing machines on the first, and offices and research, testing and development above. There were also subsidiary workshops at 49 East Dulwich Road and 88 East Dulwich Grove, which was the fibreglass moulding and spray shop.
Historically, the main production was helmets for the military and cork tropical hats for the British Empire - like the topi. The firm was responsible for the original headwear for Kitchener’s army and for the Zulu wars (and for the film Zulu). With the introduction of motoring and aviation, the firm’s first protective helmets for drivers and pilots were all based on reinforced riding and polo helmets. While not everyone used them, they were far better than the usual soft leather helmets. The British Auto Cycle Union, for example, had made early versions of motorcycle helmets compulsory for the TT races on the Isle of Man prior to 1914. A pioneer of aviation in Britain, the American Samuel Cody wore a specially padded helmet in his early flights, and the firm manufactured a cork-based flying helmet for the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.
During the interwar years the company diversified with a wide range of products, including police helmets. The impetus for their expansion into a more considered approach to head protection post WW2 came from the medical profession. In the late 1930s Hugh Cairns, a pioneering neurosurgeon working in London and Oxford, had been profoundly affected by treating T E Laurence, the famous Arabist and author, for head injuries during the six days before the latter died after a motorcycle accident. Cairns began a long study of what he saw as the unnecessary loss of life by motorcyclists through head injuries. His research led him to publish a paper in the British Medical Journal in October 1941 - and shortly afterwards, wearing a crash helmet was made compulsory for all army despatch riders. The article was read by Everitt Vero’s son, also called Everitt, a keen motor cyclist and car racer, and he saw how the market for protective head gear could develop after WW2.
Before fibre-glass and plastics gained the monopoly of the safety helmet materials market, crash helmets and riding helmets were mainly made from a material known in the trade as goss. The manufacturing process was called ‘goss work,‘ and those that did this hand work were said to be ‘on the goss.’ The main constituent was shellac, a natural thermoplastic that is soft and flows under pressure when heated but becomes rigid at room temperature. The material was delivered to the factory in the form of tiny flakes which were then boiled in water and ammonia - the resulting resin apparently created an unforgettable stench. Sheets of cotton attached to large wooden frames were dipped into it and then dried, cut into patterns, and ironed on to a layer of felt (for a soft inner lining) applied to wooden moulds (heated moulds came later). A hot iron softened the goss and melted the resin, sticking each laminate to the one below. The layers were built up to create the required thickness and stiffness.
Research and development were an integral part of the Everitt Vero & Co Ltd philosophy and, from 1951, it was a member of the World Helmet Standards Committee. It produced a fibreglass helmet as early as 1952 and was active in the addition of temple protection for racing driver helmets - leading to the full-face helmet of the 1970s and 1980s, versions of which are still used today. The firm made helmets not only under their own brand but also for other suppliers like Herbert Johnson of New Bond Steet. Racing driver Stirling Moss used the ‘Everoak Corker’ throughout the 1950s, and the first Everoak motor racing helmet with temple protection was worn from 1957 by 1958 the World F1 Champion Mike Hawthorn. For 1959, a revised design, the ‘Racemaster,’ was introduced based on USAF fighter pilot helmets. These proved enormously successful throughout the 1960s.
For those who remember the famous British racing drivers of the fifties and sixties, Everitt Vero’s grandson, who was also involved with the business (and hand-painted the chequered pattern on Innes Ireland’s helmet), recalls how impressed the workers were with the speed of Mike Hawthorn’s departure down Crystal Palace Road after a factory visit, and how world champion Jim Clark came to East Dulwich in his large American coupé, one of his prizes from winning the 1965 Indianapolis 500.
With thanks to Bill Vero for the historical background.
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We bought our house in Court Lane some 30 years ago from the wartime “Forces’ Favourite” singer, Anne Shelton. Reading her biography and Brian Green’s books on historic Dulwich, and looking at old Ordnance Survey maps, it became apparent that the house was on the site of the old Court Farm farmhouse and next to the site of its former farm buildings - further evidenced by a farmyard wall still in place between us and a neighbour, and their collection of old horseshoes.
Patrick Darby’s excellent article “The Fields that became Dulwich Park” (Dulwich Society Journal, Winter 2013) traces the history of the farmhouse known as Dulwich Court and its attached c. 135 acres of land from its ownership by the Priory of St Saviour, Bermondsey in 1127 (Bermondsey Abbey from 1399) as part of the manor of Dulwich. The first mention of Dulwich Court by name was in 1602, and the “capital messuage or mansion house called Dulwich Court” headed the list of properties within the manor of Dulwich sold to Edward Alleyn in 1606. From this and earlier documents the presumption is that Dulwich Court was “the manor house of Dulwich”.
To find out its more recent history, I visited the Dulwich College Archive, an astonishing collection of treasures, with records of what became the Dulwich Estate dating from the 1300s, including Dulwich Court Rolls dating from 1333 (the latter are available on the Society’s website).
The helpful Keeper of the Archive, Mrs Calista Lucy, allowed me to view the surviving leases, the earliest dated 1624 and the latest dating from the early 1920s, when the farmhouse site was sold to local builders, the old house was demolished and our house was built. It was clear from the documents that the farmhouse was, or incorporated part of, the old Dulwich Court, its description in the leases not changing from Dulwich Court to Dulwich Court Farm until the 1840s, and to Court Farm until the 1870s (when it was also known as Constable’s Farm after its then lessee). Much of its associated farmland was incorporated into Dulwich Park in the 1880s.
From the 1760s, the leases include plans of Dulwich Court and its surrounding fields. The plan from 1814 shows the acreage of the fields (underpinning the rent for the College) noted on each field. The plan shows a gated green lane between Lordship Lane and Dulwich Court Farm to the east of what is now Eynella Road, draining into a horse pond opposite the farm. There is a further green lane to the west of the farmhouse, which became the Court Lane entrance into Dulwich Park (what is now Eynella Road tracks a footpath from there across a field to The Plough in Lordship Lane).
The plan also shows the then (1814) very recent extension of Dulwich Court Lane east from Dulwich Court Farm to Lordship Lane, probably to allow the tollgate to be built there, with deductions being noted on the plan from the acreages of the two fields affected. The tollgate operated at the top of Court Lane from c. 1814 to 1884 - see Ian McInnes’s article “The Court Lane Tollgate”, Dulwich Society Journal, Spring 2024.
Some images of the old farmhouse survive - one in Brian Green’s Victorian & Edwardian Dulwich, an indistinct photo someone kindly gave me dating from c. 1920, showing the farmhouse and derelict farm buildings before their demolition; and other images of some of the old farm buildings.
Patrick Darby feels that the site and its nearby former farmland could possibly date back to Roman times and advises that we and neighbours dig our gardens with care for evidence of such early occupation. Detectorists welcome, but nothing so far.
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In June Britain came together to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the beginning of the Allied liberation of Europe.
The role of entertainers during the war was crucial, not only to those on the home front, but perhaps most importantly to the soldiers, sailors and airmen fighting to preserve our freedom. Amongst the British entertainers who helped ‘win the war’ was Dulwich’s own Anne Shelton, affectionately named by the British troops as ‘the forces’ favourite’.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Anne’s passing, in 1994 aged 70. Thirty years on, it is appropriate that we should remember both the part she played in the war effort and the contribution she made to popular music during her long career.
Shelton (real name Patricia Jacqueline Sibley) was born on 10 November 1923 in Coleman Road, Camberwell. She was the third of four children to Lammatana and William Sibley. She was educated at the Convent of Mercy in Camberwell and the Sacre Coeur Convent in Forest Hill. During this period, the Sibleys moved first to Ewelme Road, Forest Hill and, by the late 1930s, to Woodwarde Road, Dulwich. When Shelton’s career eventually took off the family relocated to 142 Court Lane, Dulwich, where she lived happily for over 50 years. Anne is still fondly remembered by society member, Pearl Orchard.
In 1936, at the age of twelve, Shelton initially recorded with the Jack Hylton Orchestra under her real name, Pat Sibley. She didn’t catch on. But when four years later she took the name Anne Shelton, her fortunes changed, and she was catapulted to ‘overnight’ stardom.
She first appeared on the BBC radio show Monday Night at Eight and her performance so impressed the dance band leader, Bert Ambrose, that he asked Shelton to audition for him. Shelton was duly hired and sang with Ambrose throughout the remainder of the war years. Such was her growing popularity that in 1942 Shelton was given her own radio show, Introducing Anne. The show became an important link with home for British troops serving in North Africa. In 1944 Shelton’s career reached new heights when she duetted with Bing Crosby on Variety Bandbox, a popular radio programme of the day. Later that year she sang with the famous bandleader Glenn Miller and his Allied Expeditionary Forces (AEF) Orchestra. She was later invited to accompany Miller on a trip to France to entertain the Allied Forces following D-Day. Luckily for her she didn’t go, as Miller’s plane tragically disappeared over the channel with all souls lost.
After the war ended and throughout the 1950s, Shelton, by now an established star, enjoyed considerable success. In 1951 she visited the USA, stayed there for almost twelve months and was the first British artist to tour the States ‘coast-to-coast’. In 1956, Shelton topped the British pop-charts with Lay Down Your Arms. Her last top-ten chart hit, Sailor, came in 1961.
During the remainder of her career Shelton toured Britain and overseas, appearing regularly on television and radio. In 1979, she reprised I’ll Be Seeing You, one of her major wartime hits, in the movie Yanks. In 1984 she re-enacted her association with the Glenn Miller AEF Band, hosting a television spectacular, In the Miller Mood, marking 40 years since Miller’s disappearance. In 1986 Shelton’s vocal was used in Dennis Potter’s BAFTA award-winning television serial drama, The Singing Detective. She was awarded an OBE in 1990 for her work on behalf of armed services veterans. Indeed, she regularly featured at events commemorating important wartime anniversaries.
Shelton’s contemporary, the late Dame Vera Lynn, was surely the most prominent British entertainer to emerge from World War Two. However, there was a period during the war when Shelton’s popularity surpassed that of Dame Vera. The comedy writer and broadcaster Denis Norden once described Shelton as “a fillet steak in a Wimpy world”. She was indeed one of the very best of British artists.
Dr John Temple is an authority on the music of the 1940s & 1950s.
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A few years ago, we celebrated 100 years of the enfranchisement of women. Whilst history focuses on the extremes of the campaign in the later years such as window smashing and hunger strikes, these activities were backed up by the ordinary, day to day foot soldiers who campaigned at grass roots level throughout the UK. Our part of South London was no exception with many women’s suffrage groups active in the area.
Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), led a procession around Peckham Rye in 1908 in support of the Conservative candidate in a Peckham by-election. Perhaps inspired by the visit, the Camberwell and Peckham branch of the WSPU was said to be “in full swing” by January 1909. The Honorary Secretary for the branch was Miss Hefford of 54 Barry Road, East Dulwich. Weekly Sunday outdoor meetings were held on Peckham Rye with many meetings held in members’ homes, including those who lived in East Dulwich. Additionally, frequent meetings were held in Dulwich Library.
In September 1909, the branch called for support from their members for an outdoor meeting held at the Fountain in Dulwich Village, which was considered “new ground” for the campaign. The meeting was considered a great success with all copies of the newspaper Votes for Women sold. It was to be the first of many further meetings in that location. Pictured here is an Edwardian colour postcard of the Fountain, which comes from roughly the same time as WSPU meetings were held there. A few months later, in March 1910, a meeting took place at Imperial Hall in Grove Vale, East Dulwich, with guest speakers Christabel Pankhurst and Georgina Brackenbury, two leading lights of the WSPU.
By April 1911, there seems to have been a split within the Camberwell and Peckham branch, with the formation of a new Dulwich branch. The organizer of the new branch was Miss Markwick of 96 Grove Vale, East Dulwich, and Mrs J D Westbrook was the Honorary Secretary. Born in Dundee, Jessie Duncan Westbrook appears in the 1911 census as living at 65 Calton Road (now Avenue) with her husband Walter Francis, her children Hilda and Ronald, and her widowed mother Helen. Walter was Chief Registrar at the Colonial Office and Chairman of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage. Both he and Jessie were interested in Eastern religions, possibly theosophists, and Jessie rendered sacred Hindu, Sufi and Persian poetry into English verse. Her work is highly respected and some of these collections are still in print and available today. The photo of Jessie printed here is courtesy of her great grandchildren Rehan Kularatne and Sanjiva Senanayake. Rehan’s father had always referred to Jessie as “The Suffragette” but Rehan didn’t know to what extent this was an exaggeration and was delighted with evidence that she was involved in suffragette activities!
In April 1911 it was announced that the Dulwich branch of the WSPU was starting a campaign fund and that subscriptions would be gratefully received. Members and friends were asked to attend meetings as plans for the future campaign would be discussed. A large meeting to be held at St Barnabas’s Church Hall was arranged and hunger striker Leonora Tyson of the Streatham branch was the speaker at a meeting held in Jessie Westbrook’s house in May. The maverick Dulwich branch was short-lived, however, and by September 1911 the group had merged back into the Camberwell and Peckham group, now calling itself Camberwell and Dulwich, although Mrs Westbrook was still the Honorary Secretary.
The Dulwich group had commenced weekly meetings on a Friday evening outside Dulwich Library from the end of April 1911 and these continued after the regrouping. At these meetings, copies of Votes for Women were sold and local WSPU and guest speakers addressed onlookers. The speakers needed a strong disposition for they often encountered the sport of ‘Suffragette Baiting’, when the audience loudly heckled the speakers and threw eggs, red ochre and flour. At one meeting, a guest speaker from The Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage was kicked hard in the back as he left. A 21-year-old clerk from Lordship Lane was later fined 20 shillings for using insulting behaviour.
Sometimes Suffragists/Suffragettes were heckled, and at other times it was they who did the heckling. David Lloyd George, the Liberal Chancellor, who was in favour of extending the vote to women, made a speech about unrelated matters at a Liberal garden party held in the grounds of Kingswood House in Dulwich in July 1913. There were several suffragettes in the audience who interrupted his speech with calls of “Votes for Women” and cries of “How long are you going to allow women to be slowly murdered in our prisons?” Several hecklers were forcibly and roughly ejected by stewards, while Lloyd George himself said he did not mind the interruptions and that if anyone had to be expelled, he hoped it would be done with as little use of force as possible. One woman who criticized the government was struck violently in the face by a Liberal guest and roughly thrown out by the stewards.
In 1912 the National WSPU launched a bombing and arson campaign, which Christabel Pankhurst described as a “reign of terror”. Many terrorist acts were carried out in the next two years, although these tactics were divisive within the WSPU and many members left as a result or were expelled.
In 1913, an arson attack at Dulwich College was carried out and described in great detail in the September 1913 issue of The Suffragette, which was the means by which the WSPU indicated they took full responsibility. Fires were set in the early hours of the morning in two laboratories, the chemical laboratory in the South West Wing and the science laboratory in the East Wing. The school was on vacation and the resident caretaker was in another part of the site. “The persons who were responsible for the fire therefore ran small risk of detection, having evidently laid their plans with great care and ingenuity.” By chance, a passing policeman saw the flames and smoke, and sounded the alarm. The fire brigade from the Dulwich Fire Station in Lordship Lane attended, along with those from Herne Hill and West Norwood, and they contained the fires; though the fires caused considerable damage, the extent was minimised. Blame for starting the fires was placed on Suffragettes, as when the grounds were searched, copies of The Suffragette and pamphlets by Mrs Pankhurst were discovered fastened by women’s hatpins to several of the trees near the parts of the buildings where the fires had occurred. Suffragettes had been blamed for another attack nearby a few weeks earlier when a large marquee containing a quantity of furniture on the playing fields of Wilson’s Grammar School on Dulwich Common was found set alight. Again, Suffragette literature was found nearby.
When World War I broke out in July 1914, the WSPU, while still maintaining their campaign for women’s suffrage, suspended the arson and bombing activities and contributed to the war effort. It was reported that individual members of the local group were already contributing to the war effort by means such as nurse training and volunteering for the Red Cross Society.
Most of the above has been obtained from ‘Votes for Women’, the official newspaper of the WSPU until 1912 and ‘The Suffragette’, the official newspaper of the WSPU after that date. Both are available at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
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Many members will recall using dubbin to help keep leather football boots and walking boots more supple - preventing the leather drying out and cracking from frequent use in wet conditions. While today it is made from a mix of wax and petroleum-based oil, few will appreciate that originally, in Victorian times, its main constituent was porpoise oil. Not only were whales an important source of oil in Victorian Times, so it seems was their fellow sea creature, the porpoise.
Born in 1849 in Upwell in Cambridgeshire, John Dales came from a family historically involved in the leather trade, although his father was a grocer and draper. He started in his father’s business but moved down to London in the late 1870s and set up a business to manufacture dubbin. By 1882 he was working in premises at 287 Crystal Palace Road - the building and its yard behind are still there (the current access doors are not original but look the part). In May 1883 he exhibited at the International Fisheries Exhibition held in London at South Kensington and won a gold medal for his product. The exhibition catalogue entry said: DALES, JOHN T., 287 Crystal Palace Road, London, S.E. Dales’ Porpoise Oil Dubbin for waterproofing, preserving and softening boots, harness, and leather goods; also useful as a kid reviver. Rats or mice will not touch leather on which this dubbin is used.
From then on, he called his product ‘Dales ‘Gold medal’ Dubbin.’ Popular Victorian rural sports author Basil Tozer’s 1887 book ‘Practical Hints on Shooting’ quoted Dales’ Dubbin as the best way of waterproofing walking boots, and Dales was a regular advertiser in Scottish and military newspapers throughout the 1880s and 1890s.
Dales lived at 320 Upland Road but moved his works to new premises at 85 Melbourne Grove in 1882. In the early 1900s he was looking to expand and, as there were few large sites in East Dulwich, he was tempted by a Dunstable Town Council initiative to bring new industry to Bedfordshire. In 1902 he took over a former basket manufacturing works in the town and continued in business with his two daughters, his wife and son having died earlier, in 1887. He was elected as a local councillor in 1908 and was mayor of Dunstable in 1919-20. He later became a county councillor until his death at 84 in 1934. The business finally closed in 1947 when it was taken over by an Essex-based manufacturer, Carr, Day, and Martin. The product is no longer in production.
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Members of the Dulwich Society were delighted to attend the official opening of the Crystal Palace Subway. The restoration project was the result of a 14-year, community-led campaign, spearheaded by the Friends of Crystal Palace Subway. The Dulwich Society helped to secure a grant towards the works from Southwark Council’s Cleaner Greener Safer scheme.
Originally opened in 1865, the subway, leading from the new High Level Train Station, was designed by Charles Barry Jnr and was intended to enable first class passengers to access the Crystal Palace more conveniently. The stunning architecture created an immediate sense of grandeur and drama upon arrival. Following its use as an air raid shelter during World War Two and the closure of the High Level Station in 1954, the subway fell into disrepair. It was listed by English Heritage in 1972, but bricked up to prevent its misuse.
The Subway’s restoration is a key element of Bromley Council’s regeneration plan for Crystal Palace Park.
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Jim Fyrth was a historian, writer and university lecturer who lived at 72 College Road between 1982 and 1993. Born in Dorset in 1918, son of a country vet, he took a degree in economics at what was then the University College of the South West in Exeter, and then a PhD on the history of the Devon ports, sponsored by the local authority, which was interrupted by the outbreak of war.
Fyrth joined the University Labour Federation in 1935 and the Communist Party in 1938, having met the communist novelist Sylvia Townshend Warner, who lived near him. He attended anti-fascist rallies in Dorset. He also visited the Soviet Union and served in the Royal Signals in India during the war. In India, he met Gandhi, discussing whether India could become democratic, as well as power politics in Europe and the future of Poland. Fyrth also met a wide range of Indian nationalists, socialists and communists and had tea with Kalpana Dutt, who was a nationalist heroine who had been convicted for terrorism. Gandhi invited Fyrth to stay at his ashram and Jim clearly regretted that he missed this opportunity. Gandhi was keeping silence and wrote answers to Fyrth’s questions on scraps of paper.
Fyrth wrote an article for the Forces journal Contact, criticising the postwar Attlee government for supporting the monarchists in Greece. In the mock election in his unit to coincide with the postwar British general election which brought the Labour government to power, Fyrth stood unsuccessfully as the Communist candidate, receiving 21 votes to the Labour candidate’s 58, but beating both the Liberal and the Conservative, an interesting reflection of the attitudes of soldiers at the end of the war. Considered unfit to teach soldiers, he was instead put in charge of a boys’ company at the Signals training centre, for whom he arranged three sessions of sex education. Fyrth, with his first-class economics degree, actually applied to join the economic section of the cabinet office in the Attlee government, but it is perhaps not surprising, given the postwar Labour Party’s attitude to communists, that his application was turned down, though he was actually called to London for an interview. Being a communist in England was not illegal, but distributing communist literature in the army in India was. Jim was convicted at the Old Bailey and imprisoned for six months, while his brother Pat, who was in the Royal Navy at Nantes in France and who had supplied the literature, was given 12 months. A memoir of his time in India was published by the Socialist History Society in 2001 under the title An Indian Landscape.
On demobilisation, Fyrth became senior tutor in history for the London University extra-mural department and then at Birkbeck University in the Department of External Studies. In 1986, Fyrth published The Signal that was Spain - a detailed account of the Aid Spain movement in Britain - in support of the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Amongst other sources for the book, Fyrth used the library of James Allen’s school and former Dulwich resident Jack Jones, who fought in the International Brigade. Fyrth was also co-author in 1959 with Henry Collins of a trade union history, The Foundry Workers, a study of the union that was formed in 1809 as the Friendly Iron Moulders Society. In 1985 Fyrth edited Britain, Fascism and the Popular Front, in 1993 Labour’s High Noon, subtitled Government and the Economy 1945-51, and in 1995 Labour’s Promised Land?, subtitled Culture and Society in Labour Britain 1945-51. Fyrth died in 2010 in Torbay, aged 92. Fyrth’s papers are held at the Bishopsgate Institute in the City. He was a member of the Dulwich Society and in 1987 published a letter in the Society’s Journal, complaining about rubbish being dumped in Dulwich Woods and Grange Lane.
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