George Lansbury and the History of Hutton Poplars

I have lived on the Long Ridings Estate, in Hutton Essex for the last 10 years.  The Estate consists of purpose built social housing built andowned by Brentwood Borough Council. There are a variety of blocks flats, but none are more than 3 storeys high. There are lot of standard 3 bedroom council houses and many bungalows designed for the elderly on the estate. Many of the housing areas and roads are situated around a central “Green” such as Hawksmoor Green and Corram Green near to where I live. The Long Ridings Estate was constructed in the early 1980’s and the majority of these properties are still rented to council tenants.  This is in direct contrast to the large detached houses in privately accessed roads which are owned by the more wealthy residents of Shenfield and Brentwood. The area directly surrounding the Estate also includes a lot of natural woodland, and if you head off in the direction of Chelmsford, past the Hutton Industrial Estate, then you begin to get a few clues as to what may have been here in the past. If you reach Arnolds Farm Lane, then you will find yourself in  narrow rural country lanes, surrounded by hedgerows. There are Victorian farm houses and farm workers cottages stil standing here, along with various agricultural buildings and barns and plenty of fertile fields sown with crops.

On Rayleigh Road heading back towards Shenfield Station, there is an Adult Education Centre which is housed in a wonderful old large red brick building whose Architecture clearly dates from the early 20^th Century. I have often walked past it and wondered what it was in a former life, so I decided to do some in-depth historical research on Hutton in order to find out what the land was used for, before they built the Long Ridings Estate here in the early 1980’s. 

A lot of people, who now reside in this part of Essex, have ancestors who once lived in the poorest parts of the East End of London.  After the 2^nd World War, many families who had been bombed out during the Blitz were rehoused in Essex. My own grandparents – originally from Bow and Canning Town - moved out to Chadwell Heath just before the war began in 1939. However, Hutton’s links with the East End – and with Poplar in particular – go back much further and are mainly down to the actions of one man – George Lansbury.

If you are familiar with the film  “Bed Knobs and Broomsticks” or the popular TV Detective Series “Murder She Wrote” you will know that the veteran English Actress, Angela Lansbury, starred in the Disney movie and became well-known for her portrayal of Crime Sleuth Jessica Fletcher on TV. What you may not know is that her Grandfather was the Socialist MP George Lansbury, who eventually became Leader of the opposition Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. It was his pioneering social reforms at the beginning of the 20^th Century, which took many working class children from the poverty stricken streets of East London, and relocated them to the rural Essex. 

George Lansbury was born in Halesworth, Suffolk on 22 February 1859. His father was a travelling railway worker, also named George Lansbury, and his mother Anne, was a progressively-minded woman who introduced young George to the works of great contemporary political reformers such as Gladstone, at an early age. By the end of 1868 the family had moved into London's East End, the district in which Lansbury would live and work for almost all his life.

Lansbury attended schools in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel. He then held a succession of manual jobs, including work as a coaling contractor in partnership with his elder brother, James, loading and unloading coal wagons, which was heavy and dangerous work. During his adolescence and early manhood Lansbury was a regular attender at the public gallery at the House of Commons, where he heard and remembered many of Gladstone's speeches. He was present at the riots which erupted outside Gladstone's house on 24 February 1878 after a peace meeting in Hyde Park. It was Gladstone's Liberalism, proclaiming liberty, freedom and community which left an indelible impression on George Lansbury and would underpin most of his political principles.

In 1875 George met 14-year-old Elizabeth Brine, whose father Isaac owned a local sawmill. The couple eventually married in 1880, at Whitechapel parish church, where the vicar, J. Franklin Kitto, had been Lansbury's spiritual guide and counsellor. Apart from a period of doubt in the 1890s when he temporarily rejected the Church, Lansbury remained a staunch Anglican Christian until his death.

In 1881 the first of Lansbury's 12 children, Bessie, was born, and another daughter, Annie, followed in 1882. Seeking to improve his family's prospects, Lansbury decided that their best hopes of prosperity lay in emigrating to Australia. The London agent-general for Queensland depicted a land of boundless opportunities, with work for all.  Seduced by this appeal, Lansbury and his wife raised the necessary passage money, and in May 1884 they set sail with their children for Brisbane.

On the outward passage the family experienced illness, discomfort and danger - on one occasion the ship came close to foundering during a monsoon. On arrival at Brisbane in July 1884, Lansbury found that contrary to the London agent's promises, there was a superfluity of labour and work was hard to find. His first job, breaking stone, proved to be far too physically punishing. He moved to a better-paid position as a van driver, but was sacked when, for religious reasons, he refused to work on Sundays. He was then contracted to work on a farm some 80 miles inland, only to find on arrival that his employer had misled him about his living conditions and the terms of employment. For several months the family lived in extreme squalor and poverty before Lansbury secured release from the contract. Back in Brisbane, he worked for a while at the newly built Brisbane cricket ground. 

Throughout his time in Australia Lansbury sent letters home, revealing the real truth about the terrible conditions facing immigrants. To a friend he wrote in March 1885: 

"Mechanics are not wanted. Farm labourers are not wanted ... Hundreds of men and women are not able to get work ... The streets are foul day and night, and if I had a sister I would shoot her dead rather than see her brought out to this little hell on earth".  

 In May 1885, after having received from Isaac Brine sufficient funds for a passage home, the Lansbury’s left Australia to return to the East End of London. 

Back in England, Lansbury took a job in his father-in-law’s timber business. In his spare time he campaigned against the false prospectuses offered by colonial emigration agents. His speech at an emigration conference at King's College in London in April 1886 so impressed delegates that shortly afterwards, the government established an Emigration Information Bureau under the Colonial Office. This body was required to provide accurate information on the state of labour markets in all the government's overseas possessions.

Having joined the Liberal Party shortly after his return from Australia, Lansbury became a ward secretary and then general secretary for the Bow and Bromley Liberal and Radical Association. His effective campaigning skills had been noted by leading Liberals, and he was persuaded to become an agent for the Montagu, the Liberal MP. in the 1885 general election. Lansbury's handling of his election campaign prompted Montagu to urge George to stand for parliament himself.  Lansbury declined this, partly on practical grounds (MPs were then unpaid and he had to provide for his family), and partly on principle; he was becoming increasingly convinced that his future lay not as a radical Liberal but as a socialist. He continued to serve the Liberals, as an agent and local secretary, while expressing his socialism in a short-lived monthly radical journal, Coming Times, which he founded and co-edited with a fellow-dissident, William Hoffman.

In 1888 Lansbury agreed to act as election agent for Jane Cobden, who was contesting the first elections for the newly formed London County Council (LCC) as Liberal candidate for the Bow and Bromley division. Jane Cobden was an early supporter of women's suffrage.  The Society for Promoting Women as County Councillors (SPWCC), a new women's rights group, had proposed Cobden as the candidate for Bow and Bromley.  Lansbury counselled Cobden in the issues of greatest concern to the East End electorate: housing for the poor, ending of sweated labour, rights of public assembly, and control of the police. Specific questions of women's rights were largely avoided during the campaign. In April 1891, after a series of legal actions, Cobden was effectively neutered as a councillor by being prevented from voting on pain of severe financial penalties. Lansbury urged her, during the hearings, to "go to prison and let the Council back you up by refusing to declare your seat vacant" but Cobden did not follow this path. A Bill introduced in the House of Commons in May 1891 permitting women to serve as county councillors found little support among MPs of any party and women were not granted this right until 1907. 

Lansbury was offended by his party's lukewarm support for women's rights. In a letter published in the Pall Mall Gazette he made an open call to Bow and Bromley's Liberals to:

"shake themselves free of party feeling and throw the energy and ability they are now wasting on minor questions into ... securing the full rights of citizenship to every woman in the land". 

He was also disillusioned by his party's failure to endorse the eight-hour maximum working day. 

Lansbury had formed the view, expressed some years later that "Liberalism would progress just as far as the great money bags of capitalism would allow it to progress".

By 1892 the Liberals no longer felt like Lansbury's political home; most of his current associates like William Morris and Eleanor Marx were avowed socialists. Lansbury did not resign from the Liberals until he had fulfilled a commitment to act as election agent for John Murray MacDonald, the prospective Liberal candidate for Bow and Bromley. He saw his candidate victorious in the July 1892 General Election; but as soon as the result was declared, Lansbury resigned from the Liberal Party and joined the SDF. Lansbury quickly became the Socialist Federation's most tireless propagandist, travelling throughout Britain to address meetings or to demonstrate solidarity with workers involved in industrial disputes. Around this time, Lansbury temporarily set aside his Christian beliefs and became a member of the East London Ethical Society. One factor in his disillusion with the Church was the local clergy's unsympathetic approach to poor relief, and their opposition to collective political action.

In 1895 Lansbury fought two parliamentary elections for the SDF in Walworth, first a by-election on 14 May, then the 1895 general election two months later. Despite his energetic campaigning he was heavily defeated on each occasion, and only gained a tiny proportion of the vote. After these dismal results, Lansbury was persuaded to give up his job at the saw mill and become the SDF's full-time salaried national organiser. He preached a straightforward revolutionary doctrine:  

"The time has arrived for the working classes to seize political power and use it to overthrow the competitive system and establish in its place state cooperation". 

 Lansbury's time as SDF national organiser did not last long; in 1896, when Isaac Brine died suddenly, Lansbury thought that his family duty required him to take charge of the sawmill, and he returned home to Bow.

In the general election of 1900 a pact with the Liberals in the Bow and Bromley constituency gave Lansbury, the SDF candidate, a straight fight against the Conservatives. Lansbury's cause was hindered by his public opposition to the Boer War at a time when war fever was strong. Lansbury lost the election, though his total of 2,258 votes was considered creditable by the press. This campaign was Lansbury's last major effort on behalf of the SDF. He became disenchanted by its inability to work with other socialist groups. He resigned from the SDF to join the Independent Labour Party and also rediscovered his Christian faith.

In April 1893 Lansbury achieved his first elective office when he became a Poor Law guardian for the district of Poplar. In place of the traditionally harsh workhouse regime that was the norm, Lansbury proposed a programme of reform, whereby the workhouse became "an agency of help instead of a place of despair". Education for the poor was one of Lansbury's major concerns. He helped to transform the Forest Gate District School, previously a punitive establishment run on quasi-military lines, into a proper place of education that became the Poplar Training School, and was still in existence more than half a century later.  At the 1897 annual Poor Law Conference Lansbury summarised his views on poor relief in his first published paper: "The Principles of the English Poor Law". His analysis offered a Marxist critique of capitalism: only the reorganisation of industry on collectivist lines would solve contemporary problems.

Lansbury added to his public duties when, in 1903, he was elected to Poplar Borough Council. In the summer of that year he met Joseph Fels, a rich American soap manufacturer with a penchant for social projects. Lansbury persuaded Fels, to purchase a 100-acre farm at Laindon, in Essex, which was converted into a labour colony that provided regular work for Poplar's unemployed and destitute. The project was initially successful, but was undermined after the election of a Liberal government in 1906. The new Local Government minister, John Burns, was a firm opponent of socialism. Burns encouraged a campaign of propaganda to discredit the principle of labour colonies, which were presented as money-wasting ventures that pampered idlers and scroungers. A formal enquiry revealed irregularities in the operation of the scheme, though it exonerated Lansbury. He retained the confidence of his electorate and was easily re-elected to the Board of Guardians in 1907.

In 1905 Lansbury was appointed to a Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. . Lansbury, together with Beatrice Webb of the Fabian Society, argued for the complete abolition of the Poor Laws and their replacement by a system that incorporated old age pensions, a minimum wage, and national and local public works projects. These proposals were embodied at the Commission's conclusion in a minority report signed by Lansbury and Webb. Most of the minority's recommendations in time became national policy and the Poor Laws were finally abolished by the Local Government Act 1929.

Lansbury summarised the extent of cronyism and abuse in the Poor Law system by saying:

"'You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' was the basis of policy where jobs and contracts were concerned ... the slum owner and agent could be depended upon to create the conditions which produce disease; the doctor would then get the job of attending the sick, the chemist would be needed to supply drugs, the parson to pray, and when, between them all, the victims died the undertaker was on hand to bury them."

The Borough of Poplar had always faced high poverty levels. Since the turn of the century the workhouses and orphanages in the borough had been trying to cope with significant overcrowding. George Lansbury now saw another opportunity to expand The Board of Guardians operations into the Essex countryside. This time he managed to convinced the Board to acquire 100 acres of land for £10,100 situated between the Villages of Hutton and Shenfield on the Rayleigh Road. A further £174,180 was spent on buildings, services and roads, architects' fees and furniture - making a total cost of £184,280

 In 1906 the Board completed work on this self-contained community which had its own store, a school, a farm, an indoor swimming pool and an array of ancillary buildings alongside the living accommodation for the staff and the orphans. Hutton Poplars was the name given to the Training School and Residential Home which was capable of housing anything from 400 - 700 children at any one time.

The cost of the project caused uproar in the Houses of Parliament when it first opened. Some MPs complained that with parquet flooring and central heating, the buildings were more of the comfort levels of a public school like Eton than for an East End orphan’s training school. However, once operational, the project received recognition for its good work, with a Governmental inspection in early 1914 rating the facilities as "among the best in Britain" with the children "well cared for by an efficient staff of specially selected teachers." 

 George Lansbury’s typically socialist reaction to the high costs of building Hutton Poplars was “Hang the Rates”. He thought that this is where public money should be spent – on improving the lives and conditions of the poor. 

In February 1907 the very first children arrived at Shenfield railway Station, accompanied by staff. Doreen Buttleman was one of the first residents of Hutton Poplars:

“Nearly 700 babies and children, along with staff walked from Shenfield station up the hill to their new homes on a freezing February day in 1907. The site was like a small town with separate houses for boys and girls, a school, laundry, kitchens, infirmary, swimming pool, dining hall, a small farm with stables, orchards and even shoe menders.” 

The average cost of food per week per child was 2s.7d in 1907 but this had been reduced down to 1s.11d by 1910. An October 1911 report confirms 697 children were being accommodated at the time out of a possible maximum of 743.

Hutton Poplars was like a small town serving all the day to day needs of the children. There was an administration building with the swimming baths and Gymnasium set across from the central green and the school houses situated on either side. The main hall of the school had a beautiful stained glass window. There was a separate dining hall with some beautiful brickwork, and nearby were the Porter's Lodge and the Kitchens. There was also a gardener's shed and greenhouses, the Master's House, and the Matron's block with needlework and laundry training rooms. There was a Bakery and Workshops, the Infirmary and the Receiving Ward and some farm buildings.

The Boys' houses were home to 66 boys and each house had 6 members of staff. The Girl's houses were home to 36 girls and also had accommodation for younger boys up to 8 years old. There was a separate house for Babies' and toddlers and the children would usually be there up to the ages of 14 or 15 years old – the legal age at which state schooling ended – and would then leave, hopefully to find jobs in the areas for which they had received training for during their time at the establishment. 

There was an official Royal visit in 1918 by Queen Mary. She came to inspect the premises and see some of the work that was being done at Hutton Poplars – and she was accompanied by non-other than George Lansbury, who was the Chairman of the Governors.  

Not everyone was happy with having 700 East End children suddenly being re-housed in Hutton. The placement of such an establishment was controversial with the local villagers and the hostility continued for many years, with the children constantly being referred to as "outsiders" and thought best avoided by the local residents.  

The administration of Hutton Poplars passed to the London County Council in the 1920s and subsequently it opened its doors to children from all parts of East and North London. Several thousand children passed through its gates over the next six decades and the memoirs of a few former residents give us a really good idea of what living there was really like. 

James Chalkley attended the Hutton Residential School from 1930 to 1939 and has distinct memories of the Dining Hall:

“We had a big dining hall where all the boys had their meals but it was more like the “Food, Glorious Food” scene from the film, Oliver. The Headmaster and his cronies would sit above us on a stage eating roast chicken & roast potatoes while we ate whatever they dished up to us.”

James also recalls a regular Saturday tradition:

“On Saturday we got a penny pocket money. We would rush down to Musgrove’s Shop and buy four golliwog bars for a penny - they were one farthing each back then. The shop would be packed with us boys spending our pocket money. The older boys would pinch a big bar of chocolate; then pass it to one of the smaller boys who would run out of the shop. The big boy would then leave the shop run up the hill and snatch the bar back from us before we had a chance to break a square off for ourselves.”

John Wilson was evacuated from East London and stayed at Hutton Poplars from 1939 to 1949. He remembers using the swimming pool for the very first time: 

“During my three and a half years there I learned a lot and we had some exciting times. The ones I remember most were our swimming lessons. I had never been allowed into a swimming pool before and the first time we went, those who could swim had to race across the pool, and the last one out was supposed to go back to the class room. Those who could not swim were meant to wade across - and again - the last out had to go back to the school.  As I was one of the taller ones I was nearly half way down the pool when I slipped and went into a hypoglycemic coma due to being a diabetic. At first the other kids thought I was lying when I told them that I had never been in a swimming pool before!  I was doing somersaults and cartwheels in the water and it was only when I reached the side that they realised I was really unwell! After that I was never allowed in the pool again and all the other diabetics had an extra slice of bread on swimming days, both boys and girls.”

John also recalls the chores and jobs that the young residents were required to undertake. 

“The girls and also boys up to seven years old were in Block 1 and boys seven years and older were in Block 2. Each week we had a job allocated to us such as scrubbing the corridors and washrooms, polishing the dormitory floors, and also the playroom and dining room floors and stairs. In addition we had to do the washing up and lay the tables. The best job of all was buttering the bread. Each slice was the weight of two pennies in old money, some with makeweights trimmed from those too heavy, the ‘butter’ consisted of two thirds margarine and one third butter mixed together in a bowl. When the Sister in charge of weighing the slices was not looking, we pinched the makeweights to eat on the way to school or to feed to the pet rabbits. When you had done all the jobs on the list (a week at a time) you had a week off.” 

Although the main emphasis was on education and training for employment, the children did get some leisure time too: 

In our free time, after school and when chores had finished, we investigated the woods and surroundings area. The school buildings were in a large circle with the Headmasters house, and the Assembly & Dining Hall on one side, Blocks 1 – 10 were opposite. The Store, and the block for Girls training to go into service were at one end. The Woodwork, Gym, Swimming Pool, Laundry, and Engineers room went across the middle and the Infirmary and Staff Quarters were at the other end near the big woods. During Our first Autumn/Winter there in 1939 we use to go out in the blackout and help ourselves to apples stored in a shed on the floor.”

John remembers a couple of other painful moments too: 

“The Training Block girls were somewhat spiteful. We all played ‘kiss chase’ but when they caught one of us lads, after kissing us, they used to throw us in the bed of stinging nettles. I also learned that daffodils did not grow wild. I picked some to send to my Mum but we were caught by the school caretaker who took us to the Headmaster. He gave us both six of the best, and we never picked daffodils again.”

John also recalls an incident during an air raid in the early1940's:

One night, because of an air raid, we were all sleeping in the corridor downstairs; there were five children to a mattress, all lying across it sideways. A bomb took away the bathroom guttering and landed outside the kitchen. We had to run up to Blocks 9 and 10 (the babies blocks) carrying our mattresses, pillow, and blankets. Thankfully the bomb turned out to be a dud! Some nights we slept in the air raid shelter with just a blanket between you and the concrete floor, not too bad on the smooth part of the floor but not so comfortable on the ridged part.”

John recalls having to walk to Brentwood on a Sunday morning in order to attend Church:

Going to Mass on a Sunday, I took my friend Johnny Russell with me on the two and a half mile uphill walk to Brentwood Cathedral. We weren’t allowed to travel by city coach – they were being reserved for adult war workers. We had to go back one Sunday afternoon because Johnny Russell had left his gas mask there.”

A resident who was there after the war and into the 1950’s recalls some of the staff members:

“The Head master then was Mr Higdon, Teacher of woodwork and my house master was Mr McFadon. There was also a Governor called Mr Reilly, and I remeber Mr. & Mrs. Creasy, and Mr Banister. I left there in 1953 to take up an apprenticeship with the London Electricity Board as an electrical tradesman. I then emigrated to Australia. One thing that always sticks out in my mind is seeing the end of 'sugar rationing' whilst I was living at Hutton Poplars.”

Another former resident has more memories of Hutton Poplars in the late 1960’s:

“I remember living in a large austere Edwardian mansion called Windermere, which was across the field from Serota House, which was a more modern building. Windermere had a large winding staircase and in the playroom there was a rocking horse. I remember playing in the garden where there was an old car, and when they were smashing down the old buildings we were surrounded by bricks. When my mother died in 1969 I was there for a very long time.”

The children were encouraged to spend lots of time outside in the fresh air:

 “We had to play out every day and we were just on the edge of woodland that would be smothered with bluebells. Across the way was a beautiful swing park with a maypole surrounded by rose bushes. I went to Bishops Hill and used to roll down the hill and across the road that was surrounded by tall poplars. There were lots of cherry trees and oak trees too. Every day we had to go out to play unless it rained. I used to love it when it rained because I hated the cold and I could stay in and draw and paint and play games instead.”

Dinner times and bedtimes all had a strict routine’s right up to the end of the 1960’s:

“I remember the wash room for clothes next door to the kitchen and the rules of having to wash dishes and sweep the floors after dinner. At the dinner table we were made to keep our hands on the edge of the table after we had finished eating. The kitchen entry was the main entrance to the house that led into a large hallway. To the left of the hallway was the dining room and living room with a little black and white TV in the back of the room. There was a hatch to the left where we would have to push the plates through after eating. At bedtime the rule was to go to the toilet first before going up to the rooms to get ready for bath. Bedtime was at 6-7pm. The girl’s quarter was to the right and the boys to the left with the bathroom situated to the middle.”

Some children were adopted and others who were not orphans were allowed to go back to their parents when their home situation improved: 

" I remember at dinner times the guardians would announce somebody going home or being adopted. My heart would beat to hear my name being called. I spent a lot of time screaming and crying for my mother, because at this time I had no idea where she was, so I would find myself looking for her whenever we went out. I remember constantly walking into lamp posts along Raleigh Road whilst looking for her. After 7 years, at the age of 10 my name was called and I remember crying my heart out as we pulled away from Serota House to start my new life back in London.  I vowed at that moment at that on my 18th Birthday I would go back to Serota House – and I did on the exact day. The house was derelict like all the rest of the buildings surrounding it. I was just about to go up the wide stairs to where I used to sleep when I heard a movement. I was with a friend at the time. We got scared and ran out with our hearts in our mouth and I never returned.”

The creation of the Greater London Council in 1966 replacing the London County Council resulted in the London Borough of Hackney taking administrative control of Hutton Poplars. Charged with emptying it of non - Hackney residents and ultimately selling it off to property developers, children began leaving for smaller establishments in and around London. Hackney continued to house its children there until 1982. A teacher who taught at the school in the 1970s for the last few years before it eventually closed had this to say:

"I recall the numbers being gradually reduced in the home but local children were also being taught at the school. The aim was to be firm but fair but it was not always easy for all teachers to be fair all the time. I remember only too well how traumatised some of the resident children were from their early childhood and that I feared that some would never adjust to normal life. Sadly, with so many children in each house, the house mother could not give the degree of love and attention that some children needed but that nonetheless they were clearly better cared for than they had been at home. In consequence, I still remember individual children well and by name and some would call at my house in Shenfield knowing they would be welcomed with a glass of lemonade”.

After the school closed in the late 1970’s, the buildings then witnessed various fates under Essex County Council. Some were demolished but the swimming pool was left standing. Brentwood Swimming Club used the pool for training sessions on Saturday mornings and it remained open until 1982 when it too was demolished - despite local resident’s pleas for it to become a facility for the wider community. The school hall, known as Bishops Hill, was maintained as an educational facility and became an Adult Community Learning centre for the Essex Adult Community College. Hutton Poplars Hall was deemed a listed building.  It was restored in 1991 and may now be hired from Brentwood Borough Council for weddings, conferences and other events. The Essex Dining Hall still remains as a traditional village hall.

 In 1982 the development of the new Long Ridings residential estate began. The new housing development on the old site was modelled largely on the original layout with houses forming an oval around central open green spaces. Some back gardens in Colet Road still retain the original fruit trees that grew in the Orchard at Hutton Poplars. 

Being a life- long Socialist, whose maternal grandparents both grew up in Bow and Poplar in the 1900’s, I feel a distinct link to the past, knowing that the area I now live in, was once the site of a home and school for some of the very poorest children from those areas.  What George Lansbury achieved in the early of the 20^th Century by building Hutton Poplars, may now be seen over a hundred years later as an archaic type of institution, but at the time it was built it provided safe homes a good education and led to better work opportunities for many thousands of deprived and under privileged working class children. During the Second World War many more children’s lives were saved by evacuating them out to Essex, and in the post war years, lots of children who had lost parents or had family problems could come to Hutton Poplars and be cared for in a safe environment. 

Centenary celebrations took place in 2006 and Whit Monday is traditionally a reunion day when any former residents are encouraged to visit for the annual open fete day. This now takes place in the Essex dining hall every year. 

So what became of George Lansbury and his children?

He remained a staunch socialist and pacifist for the rest of his life and was also one of the few male politicians who openly supported the Women's Suffragette movement.  He was elected to parliament in 1910, but resigned his seat in 1912 to campaign for women's suffrage, and was briefly imprisoned after publicly supporting militant action.

In 1912 Lansbury helped to establish the Daily Herald newspaper and became its editor. Throughout the First World War the paper maintained a strongly pacifist stance, and supported the October 1917 Russian Revolution. These positions contributed to Lansbury's failure to be elected to parliament in 1918. He devoted himself to local politics in his home borough of Poplar, and went to prison with 30 fellow-councillors for his part in the Poplar "rates revolt" of 1921.

After his return to parliament in 1922, Lansbury was denied office in the brief Labour government of 1924, although he served as First Commissioner of Works in the Labour government of 1929–31. 

After the political and economic crisis of August 1931 Lansbury did not follow his leader, Ramsay MacDonald, into the National Government, but stayed with the Labour Party. As the most senior of the small contingent of Labour MPs that survived the 1931 general election, Lansbury became the party's leader. His pacifism and his opposition to rearmament in the face of rising European fascism put him at odds with his party, and when his position was rejected at the 1935 party conference he resigned the leadership. He spent his final years travelling through the United States and Europe in the cause of peace and disarmament.

Lansbury’s wife had died in 1933, after 53 years of a marriage that had produced 12 children between 1881 and 1905. Of the 10 who survived to adulthood, Edgar Lansbury followed his father into local political activism as a Poplar councillor in 1912, serving as the borough's mayor in 1924–25. He was for a time also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. After the death of his first wife Minnie in 1922, Edgar married an actress from Belfast; and their daughter Dame Angela Lansbury who was born in 1925, became a famous stage and screen actress. George Lansbury's youngest daughter Violet was an active CPGB member in the 1920s. She lived and worked in Moscow for many years and married Clemens Palme Dutt, the brother of the prominent Marxist intellectual Rajani Palme Dutt.

Another of George Lansbury’s daughters, Dorothy, was a women's rights activist and later a campaigner for contraceptive and abortion rights. She married Ernest Thurtle, the Labour MP for Shoreditch, and was herself a member of Shoreditch council, serving as mayor in 1936. She and her husband also founded the Workers' Birth Control Group in 1924. Her younger sister Daisy served as George Lansbury's secretary for 20 years. In 1913 she helped Sylvia Pankhurst to evade police capture by disguising herself as Pankhurst. She was married to Raymond Postgate, the left-wing writer and historian, who was Lansbury's first biographer and founder of The Good Food Guide. Their son, Oliver Postgate, was a successful writer, animator and producer for children's television.

The Lansbury home at 39 Bow Road was destroyed by bombing during the London Blitz of 1940–41 but there is a small memorial stone dedicated to Lansbury in front of the current building, appropriately named George Lansbury House, which itself carries a memorial plaque. There is also a memorial to Lansbury in the nearby St Mary & Holy Trinity Church, known as ‘Bow Church’, where Lansbury was a long-term member of the congregation and churchwarden.