Rebel Britannia

30th November 2014:

How many cat statues are there in London? And how many statues of female politicians?

Dr. Salter's Daydream is in fact a group of four statues, unveiled on the south bank of the Thames on 30 November 2014, depicting a husband and wife, their child and her cat. The man sits on a bench, waving to his daughter, who is leaning against a wall, playing, while the cat watches her from the top of the wall and the busy mother walks towards them carrying a gardener's spade. It has sometimes been called the saddest statue in London: the elderly man on the bench isn't really seeing his little girl, but remembering her as she was before she died, long ago, aged eight.

The woman is Ada Salter (1866-1942), a social worker running girls' clubs in Bermondsey where she met and married Alfred Salter (1873-1945), a GP who had set up a surgery which treated some of the poorest people in the country, either very cheaply or free. Although they could have afforded to live away from the disease-ridden slums of Bermondsey, they chose to make their home with the people they served. This led to the one great tragedy of their lives. Their only child, Joyce, died in 1910, victim of a scarlet fever epidemic which ravaged the most deprived areas of the city.

Like many religious-minded reformers of the time they became disillusioned by the cynicism of the Liberal Party, and defected to the Independent Labour Party. After patient, methodical party-building in an area that had long been Liberal, both Salters began to win elections to various local government bodies. Alfred went on to sit as the Labour MP for Bermondsey West for about 20 years until his retirement in 1945.

Ada, meanwhile, was a pioneer who became the first woman, and the first socialist, to hold any number of council positions. For decades, she topped the poll in every election she entered, and is said by some historians to be, if measured by her electoral results, London's most popular politician ever.

The spade in the hand of Ada's statue, and the fact that her other hand has been designed to hold fresh flowers, refer to her famous "beautification" campaign. As mayor of Bermondsey she was responsible (often personally) for planting thousands of trees and tens of thousands of other plants. This went alongside her slum-clearance programme, which - rather than the usual method of simply bulldozing bad homes and hoping for the best - involved a carefully planned revolution in social housing.

One of Ada's priorities was getting more women active in trade unions. For a long time this work made little visible progress. Then came one of British labour's most astonishing moments: the Bermondsey Uprising of summer 1911, in which the whole borough came out on strike, men, women and children, demanding better wages and humane conditions, not for one trade or from one employer, but for the working class in general. It began conventionally, when men working in and around the docks struck. But what happened next was unprecedented, and unpredicted by anyone.

The women and girls employed in Bermondsey's factories - mostly making jam, and other food items - suddenly, spontaneously, streamed out of the gates. They worked in constant danger of serious injury, on pitiful wages and with no job security, and very few of them were members of a union. They were mostly the wives or daughters of the dock workers, so it was unthinkable that they could afford to strike at the same time as their men.

But that hot August it was if they'd all just had enough. The streets of Bermondsey were full of what a local paper called "wild factory girls" celebrating in a kind of carnival, which to the bourgeoisie must have been terrifying. The strikers had no specific demands, as such: they just wanted a better life. Readers of a certain generation might recall the words of the Sex Pistols: "Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it."

Attempts to bring in scab labour, and to use police to break the strikes, were contemptuously crushed by the sheer number of people in the streets - striking men, striking women, and neighbours showing solidarity. Ada Salter and her colleagues in the Women's Labour League went into action to ensure that thousands of now wageless families were fed. When some of the striking men declared that, although their own disputes had been settled, they would not return to work until the women did, employers began to crumble. In less than a month, the Uprising ended with numerous victories for the strikers, and thousands of new members for the National Federation of Women Workers. Throughout the labour movement, Ada was feted for her part in triggering the Uprising.

There isn't room here to list the many ways in which the Salters were ahead of their time - in housing, health, the environment, and so many other areas. Their achievements were impressive, perhaps in part because their ambitions were unlimited; they demanded a good life for all, not just the amelioration of poverty.

Ada and the Doctor were never forgotten in Bermondsey, and in 1991 three superb sculptures showing Alfred, Joyce and the cat were installed at Bermondsey Wall East. But in 2011, the statue of the beloved Doctor was stolen - presumably for its scrap value. The cat and the girl were then taken away for safe-keeping. Within three years the community had crowdfunded enough for the original artist, Diane Gorvin, to replace the missing figure and, this time, to include Ada.

How many statues are there in London depicting a family group? And how many statues of trades union militants? Perhaps the Morning Star's Quizmaster would know the answer but I don't, nor to this: how many statues in London feature a gardening implement?

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Sources:

www.se16.com/2680-salter-statues-2014

Ada Salter by Graham Taylor (Lawrence & Wishart, 2016)

https://blackcablondon.net/2014/11/15/the-salters-return/

www.bewsgorvin.co.uk/sculpture-dr-salter-and-ada.html

www.thecnj.com/westend/2007/083107/news083107_17.html

www.independentlabour.org.uk/2013/03/28/ilp120-alfred-salter-and-the-bermondsey-revolution/