In 1897 the Essex Field Club, a naturalist society founded in 1880, was looking for a new home and the West Ham Corporation agreed to include a museum within the library and technical schools they were building. When Passmore Edwards agreed to give £3,000 a separate museum building was proposed and after opening the library and technical school, in October 1898, Edwards went on to lay the foundation stone for the Museum on the adjoining site. The architects responsible for the Library and Technical School were chosen to design the museum. W S Gibson and S B Russell designed a symmetrical building with few external windows but capped with a spectacular leaded glass cupola topped with an art nouveau finial. Inside the light flooding from the lantern above fully illuminated the open octagonal space with minstrel gallery and mosaic floor. The Countess of Warwick opened the museum on 18 October 1900, at the same time unveiling a bronze bust of Edwards given by the sculptor Henry Fehr. Following the opening Passmore Edwards reopened the Technical school, rebuilt after being destroyed in a fire the previous year, and which he referred to as being ‘the people’s university’. Once one of East London’s best known attractions the museum closed in 1995 and the collections dispersed. The Essex Field Club, however, remains a key player in nature conservation in Essex, promoting the publication of natural history guides and scientific surveys in the County. The building then remained empty and run down, rainwater leaking through the roof causing damage to the intricate plasterwork. In 2003 the Duke of Gloucester, Patron of the Victorian Society, reopened the Grade 2 listed building, after it had been rescued and restored by the University of East London. The exhibitions of historic London had been replaced by a café bar, offices and an entertainment area, for the Stratford Campus Student Union. The technical school and former library are also now part of the UEL, with more than 3,000 students including many local residents, students at the ‘peoples university’.
Samuel Bridgman Russell (1864-1955) Articled to Hewitt Bridgman in 1881 for 3 years, attending RA Schools from 1882. Assistant to Thomas Chartfield Clarke and son, Howard Chartfield Clarke from 1885, and to Messers Wallace & Firckart from 1886. Elected to ARIBA in 1890 and commenced independent practice in 1891. In partnership with James Glen Sivewright Gibson from 1888 and with Sir Thomas Edwin Cooper from early 1900 to 1912. Chief Architect to the Ministry of Health. In partnership with his son, Robert Tor Russell for a short time in 1939 and retired he same year. He was both a Freemason and a JP. Extracted from Directory of British Architects 1834-1914, British Architectural Library.
This branch library was designed so that it could be managed by a minimum number of staff, as the sum available from the rates was very small. The design produced by S B Russell appears to have been based on his design for the West Ham Museum, producing one large room, sixty foot square under a domed and barrelled roof. The exterior is in red brick and Bath Stone. When it opened in 1903, the lending library was in the centre, with space for 12,000 books, separated from the newspaper and reading areas by a glass screen, eight feet high, and which gave a single attendant a clear view of the whole of the library. The flexibility of the building has allowed the layout to be adapted to meet different needs over the years and has, perhaps, contributed to it remaining open today. Edwards chose Andrew Carnegie to open the Plaistow library in 1903. Carnegie said that it was the first time that he had been asked to open a library to which he had not contributed even one penny. Any disagreements he may have had with Edwards over the Echo had clearly been forgotten as he praised his former colleague. Perhaps a little tongue in cheek he dubbed him ‘St Passmore‘ and said that if he had been born a hundred years earlier he would certainly been canonised.
Current Use
In December 2020 the Newham Council sought residents views on a proposed move for the library to a new more accessible building in Valetta Grove, close to the Tube Station. As part of the consultation, the council is looking for opinions on what should happen to the existing Grade II listed building. Several other of the Passmore Edwards buildings have found new community use and it is hoped that this wonderful building can continue to do so.
On 30 May 1895 Beatrice Webb wrote in her diary ‘Yesterday the formal opening of the new building of the School of Economics, a day of satisfaction for Sidney, Hewins and myself, Our child born nearly 7 years ago in the back rooms in John Street with a few hundred a year from the Hutchinson Trust, despised by the learned folk as a young man’s fad is now fully grown and ready to start in the world on its own account.
History
The will of Henry Hutchinson, a member of the Fabian Society, established a Trust, with Beatrice’s husband, Sidney Webb, as Chairman – to dispose of the residue of his estate. When Hutchinson committed suicide in 1894 Webb decided to use the £10,000 available to establish a Central School of Economic and Political Science. Despite objections from leading Fabians, such as Bernard Shaw and Ramsey Macdonald, Webb pressed on, formed a committee and appointed William Hewins as first Director of the School. Initially renting premises at 9 John Street, Adelphi, Hewins opened the School in October 1895, offering twelve courses of evening lectures and a three-year course in economics, economic history, and statistics. More than 200 students enrolled in the first term and this had risen to 281, including 87 women, by the end of the session. The following year, the school moved to more spacious premises at 10, Adelphi Terrace and with that move came the establishment of the British Library of Political Science. Seeking a permanent home for both the school and the library, the Webb’s launched their appeal; Beatrice wrote, ‘In vain I flattered Passmore Edwards’. Sidney was, at first, no more successful. At the beginning of 1899 Edwards wrote to Sidney to say that although he agreed with Webb’s aims, he could not see how he could help as there were many knocking on his door for assistance. However, the very next day Webb received a further letter from Edwards, asking how many rooms would be needed, and how large, so that he could judge the costs involved; and a few days later, after further representations from Webb, another letter arrived to say that he hadn’t sufficient knowledge of the issues and asked Webb to visit. By the end of February Edwards wrote to say that he was prepared to provide a building and suggested that the Trustees should include the Rev Mandell Creighton, Bishop of London. The conditions of his offer, drafted by Webb, included that there should be adequate provision for evening study; recognition by the University of London of the subjects taught; and that the London County Council should provide adequate support from its annual grant to the University. With these assurances Edwards confirmed his offer of £10,000 for the building in a Trust Deed between himself, the Bishop of London, R Haldane QC, and Sidney Webb. With Edwards’ close involvement in every one of his bequests, negotiations were to be both long and tasking; Edwards raising various objections to the terms the London County Council required.The Bishop of London laid the foundation stone in July 1900 by which time the School had been admitted as a school of the newly established faculty of Economics and Political Science within the University of London and in the year of opening, in 1902, the School was incorporated, with Sidney Webb as chairman of the Governors. Passmore Edwards Hall, in Clare Market, designed by Maurice Adams, had cost £18,000, Edwards being persuaded to add another £1,000 to his original offer; Lord Rothschild giving £5,000; and the remainder coming from a long list of other subscribers. In the early years the majority of the classes were held in the evening with regular daytime classes not established until 1906. Expansion was rapid over the next decade, there were 2,137 students by 1912, and the requirement for additional accommodation needed to be addressed. Though delayed by the First World War, construction started in 1920 and by the start of the Second World War accommodation had more than doubled. As part of this expansion the Passmore Edwards building was reconstructed and incorporated into the new buildings, now totally unrecognisable. The only links to the School’s origins is in the Student Services Centre, created in 2002, the Passmore Edwards Room, and the foundation stone.
Current Use
Whilst it can not be argued that without Passmore Edwards’ money the LSE would not have developed, Webb’s determination would have overcome such a set back, it may have taken a number of years before the money was raised and this may have affected the way in which the school developed. Over the years the LSE has greatly influenced British society, developing relationships in politics, business and the law. Amongst those that have attended the LSE in recent years are Ed Milliband, Cherie Blair QC, and Shami Chakrabarti, former Director of the civil rights organisation, Liberty.
The East Ham hospital was one of the Passmore Edwards buildings designed by Silvanus Trevail.
History
In the late 19th Century East Ham had a population of around 100,000 and was growing at the rate of 2,000 a year. The East Ham Council employees’ Hospital Committee, established on similar lines to the Hospital Saturday Fund paying weekly penny subscriptions, launched an appeal to build a hospital, hopefully to coincide with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee . Unfortunately this attracted only a few hundred pounds so they approached Passmore Edwards . He offered to pay £4,000 for the construction of the hospital if the Committee would provide the site and appointed Trevail as architect. Lady Twedlemouth laid the foundation stone on 26 July 1900 and the hospital was opened in 1901 with just 20 beds. Fortunately, unlike at Falmouth, the chosen site allowed for expansion and extensions were built in 1914 and in 1928, the hospital becoming part of the much larger East Ham Memorial hospital with100 beds. Though the hospital was badly damaged by bombing in 1940 it became part of the NHS in 1948, and since then has been under the control of various Hospital boards and Trusts as the management of the health services developed. Today the hospital falls within the control of the Newham Community Health Care Trust. Set amongst a modern, otherwise purpose built, hospital The Passmore Edwards building is now home to both the Newham Community Mental Health Team on the ground floor and the Psychological Treatment Centre. Originally a voluntary hospital, funded from subscriptions and donations, the need to maintain a healthy inflow of funds was essential. One of the ideas put forward was a charity football cup to be competed for by local teams, the Trophy being presented by the leading Doctor at the time, Dr McKettrick in 1904. This competition, one of the oldest in existence and now known as the East Ham Memorial Charity Football Cup Competition, has continued through the years providing much needed funds for the hospital and more recently the Sally Sherman Nursing Home, Alnwick Road, Newham.
Both Passmore Edwards and his wife were actively involved in the Charing Cross Hospital. When the hospital were finding difficulty in raising all of the money they needed to build a Convalescent Home, Edwards, as usual, stepped in to say that he would fund it.
History
The Charing Cross Hospital was founded by in 1821 by Dr Benjamin Golding, who first opened his home to treat the poor in 1815. Initially called the Royal West London Infirmary & Lying in Institution the title was changed to the Charing Cross Hospital in 1827 and the purpose built hospital and medical school opened in 1834. The hospital had treated over 370,000 patients by the time of Golding’s death in 1863 and continued to prosper and expand over the years to reflect both the growth of the area and scientific advances in medicine. As a charity the hospital depended on subscriptions and donations and the ‘Roll of Great Benefactors’ is lengthy. It is not known when Passmore Edwards first became involved with the hospital but by 1896 he had given £11,749 towards their work. But Edwards did not only give his money. Both he and his wife, Eleanor, were to take an active part in the support of the hospital over a number of years. It was usual that local ladies were the backbone of many of the hospitals that existed at that time, working not only to provide the funds to construct or maintain the hospital but also to produce much needed linen for the hospital’s use. Eleanor was a member of the Ladies Guild at Charing Cross, which apart from fundraising held soirees, where the ladies gathered together to sew garments and the other linen necessary for use in the hospital. In 1890 it was the task of making a hundred flannel garments for patients that occupied them. Around the same time Passmore Edwards, who was on the Board of Governors, gave books to form a library for the Nurses apartments. In 1888 an appeal was launched to finance a Convalescent Home but Edwards was dismayed at the slow progress. At the Triennial Festival Dinner of 1891, the Lord Mayor, who was presiding, read a letter from Passmore Edwards asking for ‘the privilege to be allowed to build and furnish at his own expense a convalescent home to accommodate fifty beds’. As evidence of his sincerity he enclosed a cheque for £5,000 and an undertaking to send the remainder of the estimated cost when the foundation stone was laid. Initially it was proposed that the Home would be built at Clacton but this was thought to be too bleak during the winter months and an alternative site was looked for within 30 miles of London. When the local gentry heard of their interest in a site at Reigate they put pressure on the landowner and effectually prevented the sale. The next site they looked at was at Sevenoaks but again the negotiations were defeated by collusion amongst the local landowners, as were negotiations for a site near Limpsfield. The well to do clearly felt that the poor and needy of London should ‘know their place’ and that was not as their country neighbours. It was at this stage that Edwards stepped in once more to take an active part in the negotiations. Learning of a similar site, a farm at Limpsfield, he attended the auction, arriving early and sitting at the front, daring not to look right or left in case he was recognised. The farm was the last lot to be auctioned so after sitting for two hours Edwards bid for and purchased it for £4,100. Even then, when it became known who had made the purchase, and for what purpose, the landowners gathered around to try to persuade him to surrender his bargain. The landowners’ actions were, perhaps, understandable, as Limpsfield became a favourite place for the building of schools and institutions. As well as the Charing Cross Convalescent Home there was the Caxton Home, built by Passmore Edwards in 1894 for the members of the printing trade, a Convalescent home for women and children, a home for boys on the edge of the village and a school and home for children of missionaries working abroad. The Charing Cross Hospital Home was opened by the Prince of Wales, accompanied by the Princess of Wales and Princess Victoria, on 12 July 1896. The presence of the Prince was enough to ensure a large company of other worthies attended, with the potential for being signed up as contributors and supporters, and a special excursion train carried the guests from London. Designed by J J Thomson, the Home stands on an escarpment with fine views for many miles around as the land drops quickly away just a few yards from the front elevation. A copy of an Ordnance Survey map that appeared at auction in 2006 suggested that the Convalescent Home was earmarked to play a vital role during the Second World War, as a secret command centre for use by Churchill at a time of invasion, but there was little additional evidence to support this suggestion.
Current Use
Although Edwards’ one condition in providing the Home was that the Hospital should remain in perpetuity under the control of the Governors and Council of Charing Cross Hospital, this was not to prevent them selling the home to The National Sailors and Firemen’s Union in the 1920s and eventually, in 1959, it to the Marie Curie Cancer Care Charity. The building was used as a research Institute for the Charity, with more than 70 world class scientists publishing groundbreaking work on bladder and skin cancer. However, a reorganisation at Marie Curie resulted in the closure of the centre putting the Passmore Edwards building at risk. After standing empty for some time it was sold and redeveloped as housing.
John James Thomson was articled to his father, James Thomson. Assistant to James Mountford Allen, Robert Howard Short and Sir Horace Jones and traveled in Belgium, France and Germany. Elected to ARIBA in 1864, FRIBA in 1898 and retired in 1900. Commenced independent practice in Chelsea in 1864 and was assistant Architect to the Inclosure Commission and Superintendent to the Board of Agriculture. Extracted from Directory of British Architects 1834-1914, British Architectural Library.
The first library in Shoreditch was the Passmore Edwards Library at Haggerston. Finding a suitable site for the second Shoreditch library, proved difficult as the Baths & Washhouses Committee was also looking for a site on which to build and it was decided to combine the two.
History
A site in Pitfield Street, Hoxton, was chosen and Passmore Edwards laid the Foundation stones for both the extension to the Haggerston Library and the Hoxton library on the same day. When the library was opened in 1898 it bore the name The Passmore Edwards Public Library, Edwards though he had given only £4,450 towards the total cost of £20,000. In recognition of the gift of the two libraries, the Borough of Shoreditch commissioned George Frampton ARA, to produce a marble bust of Edwards. Frampton had already exhibited a bronze bust of Edwards at the Royal Academy and the marble bust unveiled to mark the first anniversary of the Hoxton library was identical. Frampton produced a second marble bust of Edwards, which he presented to Edwards’ wife, Eleanor, and which graced the Edwards family home for many years. The Hoxton library suffered extensive damage during the Blitz in 1943 and was not reopened until 1956. It was finally replaced in 1995 when the Hackney Council opened a new library in Hoxton Street. For a while the building became home to the English National Opera Company (ENO) and in 2003 researcher Knighton Berry went to enquire about the marble bust of Edwards that had stood for many years on the main staircase to the upper floors. The bust was nowhere to be found but his enquiry produced sufficient interest in Teresa Deacon, then Administrator at the ENO, to continue searching amongst the disused rooms at the former library. The lost bust, badly chipped and covered in grime was eventually found in the boiler room. With the permission of the London Borough of Hackney and the ENO he was able to retrieve the bust, have it cleaned and repaired by the ceramics department of the West Dean College in West Sussex and have it transported, with the help of the Tate, to St Ives, in Cornwall, where on 31 May 2007 he presented it to the Cornwall County Council. Today the bust stands once more in its proper place, in a Passmore Edwards library. Following the departure of the ENO the library found a new use in 2007, as the Courtyard Theatre, providing two performance areas and rehearsal space, whilst the upper floors have been converted to office and residential accommodation.
The areas of Haggerston and Hoxton, collectively known as Shoreditch, were, at the end of the nineteenth century, a seething mass of people crammed into slums. Poverty and overcrowding affected almost the entire district and there were few buildings or institutions of an educational character. In March 1891 the overseers of the then parish of St Leonard were asked to adopt the Free Libraries Act. In the all held later that month, 3,154 ratepayers voted for and 2,076 voted against, but only for a maximum of a ¾d rate. In Haggerston the overseers decided to convert the vacant offices of the Independent Gas Company in Kingsland Road, with a large garden at the rear and a house adjoining, rather than build new. The cost was £4,250 and although a loan was arranged from the Prudential Assurance Company Passmore Edwards came forward and offered £5,000 to cover both the purchase and conversion work, and gave 1,000 books. The newsroom and reading rooms were opened first but it was another four months before the lending and reference libraries were ready and the building could be formally opened by the Duke of Devonshire on 10 May 1893.The library was an immediate success; so much so that a temporary reader’s shelter was constructed in the rear garden, such was the demand. Opened with 6,460 books in the lending library and 2,346 in the reference library, and 160 newspapers and periodicals in the reading room, 51,000 books were issued in the first twelve months. It was soon decided that an extension was needed with Passmore Edwards providing the £2,000 needed. The extended library was opened on 17 October 1896, and named The Passmore Edwards Library. In 1975 the library closed its doors for the last time and after standing unused for sometime was converted into residential apartments.
Elizabeth Fry was born in 1780 and married Joseph Fry, the son of a successful Essex merchant in 1800. For more than twenty years they lived at the White House at Plashet Grove, East Ham. In 1813, Elizabeth Fry , a Quaker, made her first visit to Newgate Prison. She was appalled by the horrors of Newgate, where women and their children were crammed thirty to a cell in absolute squalor, . and devoted herself to improving prison She was also opposed to the death penalty and campaigned vigorously for its abolition. At that time more than 200 offences, including the theft of clothing, still carried the death penalty.
