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from Zoe (zoegray200@hotmail.com)
Art In The Park is a community based project which aims to bring to life the history and stories of Kennington Park. Using the attached text as a starting point, we invite writers, artists, and performers to create site specific pieces for a day-long event to be held on Sunday 7th July 2002, under the umbrella of the Vauxhall Festival.

For further details or to speak to us about your initial ideas, call us for a chat by the 9th June, with a view to meeting in the park on Sunday 16th June. You can also visit the park yourself, situated between Kennington and Oval tube stations on Kennington Park Road.

Thanks

Shehani – 07815 042 148

Zoe – zoegray200@hotmail.com

KENNINGTON PARK: The Birthplace of People's Democracy

Abbreviated from a pamphlet by Stefan Szczelkun. © 9-9-97.

To read the full text, go to www.bak.spc.org/kenningtonpark

A short one hundred and fifty years ago Kennington Common, later to be renamed Kennington Park, was host to a historic gathering which can now be seen as the birth of modern British democracy. In reaction to this gathering, the great Chartist rally of 10th April 1848, the common was forcibly enclosed and the Victorian Park was built to occupy the site.

The significance of Kennington Park goes back to its origins as a common. What is important about this site is not the physical aspects of its layout but the traditions of its usage, a usage which arises from its unique position in South London. It is here that the road from Buckingham Palace to Dover crosses the older road from the City of London to Portsmouth. It was the last common before the centres of power to the north of the river, particularly Parliament. It was first recorded as a common on Rocque's 1746 map of London, but it must have been crucial as a public meeting place long before that. The southbound highways date from pre-Roman times when a fork in a major road was considered to have magical significance.

Executions

From the 17th century, if not before, the south western corner of the common was selected as the South London site of public execution. In the 18th century the country was still dominated by an aristocracy who had ruled by the sword. History has painted a picture of the elegance and chivalry of the old ruling aristocracy but the term gangster would be more appropriate. But by the 17th century the unifying monarchical state had transformed this naked violence into ordered spectacles of horror - public executions.

The first execution recorded is of Sarah Elston, who was burnt alive for murdering her husband in 1678.

On the day of execution Sarah Elston was dressed all in white, with a vast multitude of people attending her. And after very solemn prayers offered on the said occasion, the fire was kindled, and giving two or three lamentable shrieks, she was deprived of both voice and life, and so burnt to ashes." H.H. Montgomery, 'The History of Kennington', 1889 p.32

The most infamous of those terrible spectacles was the execution for treason of nine Catholic members of the Manchester Regiment, Jacobites, who were hung, drawn and quartered on Wednesday July 30th 1746. Now that Scottish devolution has finally been achieved with somewhat less bloodshed, we might dedicate the fountain, which stands on the site, to their memory. (The fountain is outside the park perimeter railings to the south west, opposite Oval tube station). It continued as a place of execution until the last years of the 18th century. The last person to be executed was a fraudster from Camberwell Green by the name of Badger, hanged in 1799.

The enclosure of Kennington Common marks a point at which class oppression changed gear replacing external violence with more cultural and psychological mechanisms of social control.

The Common on the site of the current park had been a meeting place since the 18th century if not earlier. It belonged to people communally and it was the South London speakers corner. It seems as if there was a mound at this time, perhaps an ancient tumulus, from which the orators could air their thoughts. What were the issues of the day that were broadcast from this site?

Earlier times: Methodism

Large crowds were attracted to many brilliant radical orators. The most famous of these may have been John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who addressed as many as 50,000 people on Kennington Common around 1739. Whilst he was preaching the congregation would have seen the silhouettes of hanged corpses against the skyline. This was a church with a stern morality which stood firmly against slavery. Inevitably anti-establishment and without hierarchy, almost anyone could become a preacher. Methodist preachers could interpret scripture in ways which linked plebian magical beliefs with primitive Christian egalitarianism.

Robert Wedderburn was one such preacher who operated in this area. He was born to Rosanna, an African born house slave in Kingston, Jamaica, who was sold by her owner, Roberts father, before he was born. He arrived in England aged 17 in 1778 and was in the Gordon Riots of 1780. In 1786 he fell under the thrall of a Methodist street preacher and experienced an instantaneous conversion. Intoxicated on the power of grace and inspired by Wesley's stance against slavery, he soon obtained a dissenting preacher's licence. At the same time he stayed firmly a part of the underclass and its vulgar culture. By 1813 he had become a follower of Thomas Spence who linked opposition to slavery with opposition to the enclosures of the commons in England. This talismanic interpretation of scripture led to millenarianism, freethought and political radicalism. Spence was a prolific publisher and distributor of handbills, broadsheets, songs, tracts, pamphlets and periodicals. He also issued token coinage to publicise his views. The somewhat less radical Evangelical Alliance now inhabit a 'house' overlooking the park named after Wesley's prime colleague, George Whitefield.

Within the park the tradition of religious radicalism is upheld by the Rastafarian temple which was established in a converted terrace of four houses in the 1970's. Here the modern faithful come to partake of the sacramental ganga. Recently the Rastas organised a lively youth football tournament on the astro-turf pitch accompanied by a loud sound system.

Radicalism

This was a period of intense popular political discourse and self- education amongst the new urban classes. Radical debating organisations became active but were then made illegal and had to operate covertly or on a smaller scale. One of the most famous was the London Corresponding Society, formed by Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker, in January 1792.

Free 'n' Easies were one form of social in which radical toasting contests and political sing-songs would alternate with heated debates. The Green Man and Horns, on the corner of Kennington Road and Kennington Park Road, was a likely venue. It was later to become known simply as The Horns. More of this later...

Chartism: The World's first national labour movement

From these feverish debates came an agreement on the need for republicanism and universal suffrage - for an all inclusive democracy. In 1832 a voting Reform Act gave the middle class the vote but left the working class, who had agitated in favour of the bill, still entirely disenfranchised. The basic political demands, which had been the elements of radical discourse for some time, were then drawn up as a six point 'Charter'. Presented as a new Magna Carta, by 1838 it was supported by almost every working class group across Britain and rapidly became the basis of the world's first national labour movement.

The people who supported it were Chartists. Not a small active party with a large passive membership but a movement which deeply affected every aspect of people's lives. It was an inclusive organisation with popular leaders who included Catholics, Protestants and Freethinkers: Irish, West Indian and Asian people were also prominent. There were women's groups. Chartist meetings had a carnival like atmosphere, probably sometimes like a contemporary free festival at others with a neo-religious ceremonial being preceded by hymn singing and processions. There was a Chartist culture which had its own christening and funeral rituals and its own songs. It was a counter cultural experience that changed people's perception of themselves... they became consciousness of a unifying class identity.

The main political strategies of Chartism became the petition and the monster rally. The petition also grew to be a monster and assumed the status of an unofficial referendum. The monster rallies were a show of strength which also gave the participants a direct sense of community. By 1848 Chartism had built up a head of steam. The petition for The Charter had grown huge, by then it had between three and six million signatures depending on which side you choose to believe. A carriage, bedecked with garlands, was needed to transport it. Parliament was to be presented with this petition, for the third time, after a monster rally on Kennington Common on the 10th April 1848.

There is still no authoritative history of Chartism published: This is partly because it was such a collective network of groups that it is difficult to reduce to conventional narrative history, partly because the fieldwork is still being done and partly due to the class bias of historians.

An Icon of Modernity

This moment in the struggle for democracy was recorded in a historic photograph. William Kilburn, an early portrait photographer, took daguerreotype plates of the rally from a vantage point from the top of The Horns. These were the first ever photographic representation of a large crowd. Considering the cultural importance that photography was to assume in next 100 years it is perhaps not surprising that the negatives of this iconic image are held in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle which retains a strict copyright control.

The stand-off on Kennington Common that day had shaken the arrogant complacency of the British ruling classes. From then on a unique alliance, between the waning aristocracy and the burgeoning capitalist middle class, was forged. This newly united ruling block determined to crush or commercialise urban popular culture. From then on there was an uneven but constant pressure to undermine and destroy the unity, vigour and autonomy of the new urban lower class.

Enclosure of the common

The first step was to symbolically annihilate the common land that had become such a focus of the Chartist struggle. The Commons have symbolic roots going back to before the Norman conquest. They stand for the right of every human to have access to the fruits of our earth: in stark contrast to the predatory individualism promoted by the 'enlightened' imperialist. This individualism was insensitive to the buzz of communality, unfeeling of the humanity and intelligence of the crowd, and incapable of a non-exploitative relation to the earth.

The ruling class united in the face of this new threat to their power and the cultural diversity of the working classes was erased and replaced with a bland and ugly concept of 'the masses'. The image of the masses as an irrational and potentially savage mob can be traced through Carlyle and Dickens to Hollywood - It is a manufactured falsehood.

Soon after the great Chartist rally a committee of local worthies was set up and found ready support from the Prince of Wales. By 1852 they had already got the requisite bill through Parliament and Kennington Common was 'enclosed' - its status as an ancient commons was reduced to that of a Royal Park. The planting and construction of the park which forms the familiar pattern we know today was largely completed by 1854. This was a colonisation of working class political space which carried a prophetic symbolism.

The Common was occupied, fenced and closely guarded. Not only was the perimeter fenced but so was the grass and the shrubberies. The remaining paths were patrolled by guards administered by H.M.Royal Commissioners. It stayed under direct control of the Royals until it was taken over by the Metropolitan Board of Works (soon to become the London County Council) in 1887.

During the early period of occupation the use of the park was limited to an annual meeting of The Temperance Societies of South London starting in the summer of 1861. It was also used for local schools sports. It is not clear what other sorts of public meetings may have been allowed nor what may have occurred unofficially. Park Superintendents filed six monthly reports from 1893 to 1911 but they may have omitted to report on meetings which were spontaneous or political. Certainly we know the park was used during the General Strike of 1926.

Music Hall Culture

In the late 19th century this area of South London was vibrant with popular culture. It had many theatres, assembly rooms, dancehalls and music halls. In 1889 the London County Council (LCC), later to become the GLC, provided the park with an elegant bandstand and between 1900 and 1950 there were concerts of military bands for a paying seated audience on Sundays, Wednesdays and Bank Holidays. These 'rational recreations' were seen to offer a civilising alternative to the 'vulgar' musichall culture which hemmed in on all sides.

The beautiful Kennington Theatre, facing the northwest corner of the park, opened in 1898 as the Princess of Wales Theatre. It was one of the most sumptuous in London. In 1921 it was showing 'cine-variety'. It closed in 1934, failing to get its licence renewed for the 1935 season - perhaps a victim of the depression. It was finally demolished in the 1950s to make way for Kennington Park House, a block of flats built by the LCC. It is now run by a Tenants Co-op.

World Wars

Local people say that the first bomb to drop of London was dropped from a Zeppelin onto the south end of Kennington Park. For many years a white stone marked the spot but has since disappeared.

In the early C20th the Horns Tavern had become a major social centre with a large assembly rooms to the rear and further back along Kennington road at least one brothel. (The house 'of ill repute' still stands now dwarfed by the adjacent Red Devil Storage Co.) The Horns was said to be the favourite haunt of Charlie Chaplin's profligate father. At one time the young Charlie lived in poor lodgings overlooking the north of the park in Kennington Park Place. The park may have been where he and his friends would imitate their musichall heroes and practice their silly walks. In his autobiography he tells us that he met his first girlfriend in the park.

The Horns, a key social centre whose life would have flowed naturally into the park and energised it, was partly destroyed by a bomb in World War 2. The remains were demolished in the 1960s and replaced with the formidable dark concrete of the Social Security block designed by Colonel Siefert, architect-in-the pocket of many notorious Sixties developers. Since the original tavern was destroyed, the bawdy spirit of the Horns seems to have migrated north to the White Bear with its theatre club and bohemian/crusty reputation.

The people of Lambeth suffered terribly in the Second World War - Over two thousand five hundred bombs decimated the borough. The park was the site of communal shallow trench-style air- raid shelters. On 15th October 1941 these suffered a direct hit and at least 46 bodies were recovered. The chaos of war along with the need to keep up morale meant that no official toll of those dead and missing was taken. From the flimsy evidence in the Lambeth Archives it seems as if the remains of between seven and 17 or more bodies may have been left unrecovered when the site was levelled around the 19th of October. Many people must have been blown to pieces and the south field of the park is their unmarked grave to this day.

The Return of the Commons Spirit

By 1981 the park was again being used for political gatherings. The demonstrators in the Lambeth Fightback Campaign used the park as an assembly point in that year. In subsequent years the park has hosted many important political gatherings including; the Anti Apartheid Rally (1984), Gay Pride (starting 1986), National Union of Students (1986), Irish Solidarity Movement (1986), Vietnamese Community event (1989), Anti Poll Tax March (1990), Kurdistan Rally (1991), Integration Alliance (1993), TUC (1993), Nigerian Rallies (1993), Campaign Against Militarism (1993) and Reclaim the Streets (1997). Lambeth Parks Dept. records.

State of Disrepair

The Victorian monuments that survive in the park do not seem to symbolise or commemorate anything - other than Victoriana. They do not deserve or receive any great respect and have been progressively wrecked and vandalised. The War Memorial, however, dating from 1924, has an important function, is regularly honoured with wreathes and poppies and rarely defaced. In April 2002, a new association, 'Friends of Kennington Park' had their inaugural meeting and plans have been put in place to regenerate the park. Though these initiatives are hindered by the lack of funds, several projects are in place:
  • The Cricket Pitch opened 8/9 June, sponsored by Channel 4
  • New Toilets - problem of cottaging / vandalism
  • Use of the Café - might be used in an installation for Vauxhall Festival.
  • Recent arts projects
  • Sports facilities
  • Multicultural residents - volleyball?
  • Henry Moore statue on Brandon Estate
  • Disused greenhouses.
  • (posted 7974 days ago)

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