London: Truth and Reconciliation - Page 7

Bedhead · #**121** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:13 PM**

PART SEVEN: LEFTIES

Highgate (East): Tiptoe Through the Tombstones

Bedhead · #**122** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:15 PM**

XXIV - Marx

Welcome back to our tour of Prodigal London - our search for citizens of London who have been punished or shunned in their own lifetime, only to be honoured by later generations.

Most of the people in the list have been tortured, enslaved, imprisoned or gunned down in cold blood. In comparison, Karl Marx got off lightly; the worst he had to endure was a visit from a Prussian agent, who commented that the Marx family home in Dean Street was so dirty that anyone who sat down there would ‘risk a pair of trousers’.

London did manage to extract its pound of flesh from Marx however – the squalor of Dean Street claimed three of his five children in infancy. The brutal realities of Victorian capitalism gave birth to the ideology of Communism, making Karl Marx a more than appropriate member of London’s battalion of unlikely heros.

In death, Marx enjoys much more upscale accommodation than he did for most of his life. Highgate Cemetery, nestled in a comfortable suburb of North London, is home to politicians, rock stars and famous novelists.

In the 1950s, a huge bust was added to the grave by the British Communist Party. A steady stream of visitors still make their way to the memorial – as much out of curiosity as reverence, although fresh flowers can always be seen there.

Here’s looking at you, Karl.

Bedhead · #**123** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:16 PM**

Islington: Gentrification Perfected

Bedhead · #**124** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:17 PM**

XXV - Lenin

In Islington Museum, just down the road from Marx, sits his mate Lenin.

Lenin himself lived in London between 1902 and 1903. A blue plaque marks his old address, but this grander monument has led a more eventful life. The museum’s commentary takes up the story:

Bedhead · #**125** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:17 PM**

XXVI - Ho Chi Minh

In case you thought that the fashion for dedicating monuments to Communist heroes ended in the 50s, here is a plaque that was erected in 1990 to Ho Chi Minh on the wall of the New Zealand embassy in Westminster.

The plaque hangs about 300 yards from the statue of George Washington in Trafalgar square, confirming London’s status as a city where founding fathers of all persuasions can hang out together.

Bedhead · #**126** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:18 PM**

XXVII - Wilkes

London’s persecuted radicals weren’t all imported from abroad. John Wilkes - satirist, pornographer, parliamentary reformer and champion of both American independence and freedom of the press - was born in Clerkenwell, represented Middlesex in Parliament and eventually became Mayor of London.

Before his rise to respectability, Wilkes was outlawed, imprisoned and barred from taking up his seat in Parliament for his attacks on the rich and powerful; but the British establishment specialises in assimilation, and Wilkes ended his career opposing the French revolution and ordering troops to fire on rioters in London.

It is for his achievements as a reformer, however, that he is best remembered, not least through this statue in Holborn.

The subversive streak still ran strong in Wilkes’ family, however: John Wilkes Booth was a distant relative named after the London politician.

Bedhead · #**127** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:19 PM**

XXVIII – The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Lenin and Marx may have been London’s most famous socialists, by they are by no means its oldest. North London has a wide collection of memorials to the casualties of class warfare, and a mural dedicated to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, currently being restored, takes pride of place amongst them.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of six Dorset farm workers who were deported to Australia for setting up a trade union. Although none of them ever lived in London, England (five eventually emigrated to London, Ontario) they attracted huge support in the British capital. By 1837, the martyrs had all been released after a massive campaign that included a demonstration attended by 100,000 workers in Copenhagen Fields, near King’s Cross.

Bedhead · #**128** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:19 PM**

Blackheath: I Do Like To Be Beside The Green

XXX – Wat Tyler

The Tolpuddle Martyrs may have been around at the birth of trade unionism, but London’s stock of working class heroes goes back far further.

In the 1380s Wat Tyler led the Peasants Revolt under the slogan: ‘When Adam delved and Eve spun, Who was then the gentleman?’

His army, tens of thousands strong, camped at Blackheath, four miles from the city walls, before marching into London and taking the Tower. Wat Tyler was killed during negotiations with the King, and his force was persuaded to disband. The revolt did achieve one of its aims, however – the abolition of a poll tax of one shilling for every person over 15 years old, regardless of weath.

In the seventeenth century a similar poll tax was introduced, which caused riots in northern England, before being abolished in 1689 by William and Mary. Then, in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher introduced a poll tax that was met with riots in London before being hastily abolished by her successor. It seems that that it takes precisely three hundred years for English governments to forget what happens when they introduce a poll tax.

Meanwhile, Wat Tyler’s memory is preserved on a pair of road signs on Blackheath, which, despite the fact that London has grown all around it, remains a wide, flat grassy common.

Bedhead · #**129** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:20 PM**

XXXI - Jack Straw

Up in north London, in Hampstead, another leader of the Peasant’s Revolt is immortalised in the name of a former pub, which has now been converted to apartments.

After the Revolt, Jack Straw lived on for more than 600 years, joining SSP in 2007. His appetite for rebellion was undimmed, however, and he was banned in 2009, but not before posting some masterpiece photo tours – most notably of Johnstown, PA, the links for which are now, sadly, broken.

Bedhead · #**130** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 5:21 PM**

Notting Hill: Just A Girl, Standing In Front Of A Boy...

The Pankhursts

Perhaps the most influential people featured on this page are Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, who led the struggle to win womens’ right to vote, and endured imprisonment and hunger strike in the process.

Today, a statue of Emmeline Pankhust, chained to an imaginary railing, stands in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, and a plaque to both her and her daughter mark the house in Notting Hill in West London where they lived.

XXXII - Emmeline Pankhurst, in the tradition of British radicals, drifted to the right in later life, eventually supporting the Conservative Party out of concern for the rise of Bolshevism in the 1920s.

Political differences led to a permanent rift with her daughter, Sylvia, who wanted to affiliate the Suffragette movement with trade unions and socialist parties. The rift was permanent, and Sylvia’s name does not appear on any of the London memorials to the Suffragettes.

No one gets left out of London's Truth and Reconciliation process, though - join us again in a couple of months as we go from lefties to aristos - the nobs who were brought down to earth by London's bloodthirsty politics.

Expat · #**131** Posted: **May 28, 2011, 8:35 PM**

Wow! You put a lot of work into this. The writer's tombstone decorated with pens really got my attention. You are my hero

.

Greavsie · #**132** Posted: **May 29, 2011, 7:03 AM**

Absolutely brilliant BedHead.....

Aznavour · #**133** Posted: **Jul 6, 2011, 10:38 AM**

Very good pictures. I like the Bloomsbury area a lot some of the best
colleges in London are there. Very pretty buildings. I should upload some
of my pictures.

toyota74 · #**134** Posted: **Jul 7, 2011, 7:54 PM**

Great stuff Bedhead.You know that commie block that is in one of the
Nothing Hill photos,where is that exactly?.I passed it on the way to Ruislip
a few months ago.

Bedhead · #**135** Posted: **Jul 8, 2011, 1:06 PM**

Thanks for the comments!

Aznavour - you should definitely upload some of your pictures, it would be great to see your take on London.

Toyota - that block is the much loved and hated Trellick Tower - it's on Golborne Road, just north of the railway line. There are some great shots of it (inside and out) in this thread by -AX- from a while back.