Ada's Garden and the Ada Salter statue: Celebration of the pioneering work of Ada Salter

Ada Salter

I am currently writing a post about Alfred and Ada Salter.  Although they achieved a considerable amount independently, the Salters were  very much a partnership but here I want to look very briefly at Ada and how she has been recognized and celebrated locally in recent  years. The Salters were social activists in Bermondsey in the first half of the 20th Century, when the Rotherhithe docks were still thriving and many of the dock workers were working class people who struggled financially in often very insalubrious conditions.  Unlike Michael Caine, Jessica Mitford and Princess Margaret, whose names are often bandied around when Rotherhithe is mentioned in connection with famous residents, Alfred and Ada Salter actually contributed to Rotherhithe and its people.  They helped its residents to combat the effects of poverty by both working to improve conditions on the ground, and helping to innovate social care in British politics.

Alfred Salter is probably the best known of the duo, but recently there has been much more recognition for the work of Ada Salter in her own right.  Salter Road, which connects Lower Road to Rotherhithe Street and Redriff Road, was named for them when it was constructed in the mid 1980s, a Rotherhithe primary school was named after Alfred Salter, and a foot bridge in Southwark Park was also named for him.  A trio of statues by the Angel public house on the Thames Path included Alfred, Joyce and the family's pet cat, but excluded Ada.

Ada's Garden naming ceremony.
Photograph by Steve Cornish

Recently, however, an awareness of Ada's contributions has emerged.  The statues of Alfred, Joyce and the cat, which were stolen several years ago, were replaced after a massive fund-raising campaign, and Ada was a very welcome addition to the group.  A new book has recently been published:   "Ada Salter: Pioneer of Ethical Socialism" by Graham Taylor, which recognizes her importance in early 20th century political and social reform.  And only this month, an undisturbed wildlife zone full of mature trees that sits between houses on Lower Road and the Tesco car park was given an official name:  Ada's Garden. The sign replaces one that was removed over a year ago by British Land, the developer of the shopping centre, which had explained how the wildlife area helped “support and safeguard the diversity of plant and animal life.”   Ada was an early environmentalist, a  follower of Ruskin and believed strongly in the value of nature to people and the importance of urban gardens.  She would have been delighted to be associated with this small corner of greenery that is sandwiched between buildings, roads and a railway.  It epitomizes her ideas of nature and urban life being more integrated for the benefit of all, completely consistent with the programme of beautification that she introduced when she became Mayor of Bermondsey in 1920, planting over 7000 trees throughout the borough, many in her newly established playgrounds.  Ada's Garden, home to a wide variety of insect and bird life, including dunnocks, blue tits, wrens, robins, wood pigeons and blackbirds, is a tiny oasis for wildlife on the edge of the urban chaos of the busy shopping centre.

Statue of Ada Salter, next to the
Angel public house.

Ada Brown (1866 - 1942) was born to a well-to-do family in Raunds in Northamptonshire. Her parents were Wesleyan Methodists, so she was brought up with principles of serving and only seeking leadership roles in order to serve the greater good.  Importantly, they also believed in free will and the ability to influence the future, requiring profound moral integrity in order to influence that future.  In 1896 Ada left Raunds with the intention of doing social work in London, joining the West London Mission to work with people of the slums of Soho and St Pancras.  Her main achievement was to establish social clubs for impoverished girls in those areas, places.  A year later she moved to Bermondsey to work at the Bermondsey Settlement.   The Bermondsey Settlement was run by a well known Methodist minister and Liberal politician, the Reverend John Scott Lidgett.  The Bermondsey Settlement location acted as a base for dedicated Methodists in  a very deprived area. They and other like-minded philanthropists created various societies and medical missions in the area, and Ada continued to establish the social clubs that had been so successful in north London.   Ada met Alfred Salter in Bermondsey.

Ada planting a tree in a newly
established playground

Alfred Salter (1873 - 1945)  was born in South Street, Greenwich.  Although he himself grew up to be agnostic his parents belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, so from early childhood Alfred was surrounded with ideals of charitable activities and the support of the poor.  Like Ada, his childhood experiences had a lot to do with his later directions and achievements.  Although he began his career in medical research, he began to work in Bermondsey to provide medical expertise to the impoverished.  Epidemic diseases were very poorly understood at the time, and were rife.  In the days before the NHS here was no state operated free medical support it fell to philanthropists and social reformers to attempt to provide support for those who were most vulnerable to disease and least capable of coping.  Conditions in Bermondsey were particularly bad. 

It was at the Bermondsey Settlement that Ada and Alfred met. Although up until meeting Ada, Alfred had had no particular religious affiliation, in 1900 he became a Quaker, and he and Ada were married in the same year.  In 1902 their only child Joyce was born.  Adhering to Quaker principles, they decided to live in the areas in which they worked on behalf of the poor, and when Joyce became old enough she attended the local school on Keeting Road.

It soon became evident to the Salters that their own work would only touch the tip of the iceberg, and that to really help the poor political change would be necessary.  Alfred joined the Liberal Party in 1903 and was elected to Bermondsey Borough Council in 1906.   Two years later he became a member of the London County Council. In 1907 women won the right to stand in elections, and Ada was elected as the first female Councillor in Bermondsey.  She and Alfred were founders of the first branch of the young Independent Labour Party (ILP) in Bermondsey. In 1906 she co-founded the  Women's Labour League with Margaret MacDonald.  In 1909 Ada stood as their sole candidate in the elections for the borough council.  She was successful and became the first woman elected to a borough council in London.   In 1911 the whole working population of Bermondsey went on strike for better employment conditions.  Ada organized free meals for the women and children.  She did this again in the General Strike of 1926.  A Quaker and a pacifist, she was deeply disturbed by the First World War and campaigned extensively for peace, establishing the Wonen's International League for Peace and Freedom.  Ada became London’s first female Lord Mayor in 1920 but refused to wear the robes and chain of office, the symbols of status and power that were irrelevant to her work and contrary to hear beliefs. 

Ada Salter

The Salters experienced the impacts of poverty and disease personally.  Their only child Joyce died from scarlet in 1910.  Living in the heart of Bermondsey, the Salters were as vulnerable to disease as the people whom they were there to help. 

This brief summary misses out many important details about Ada's life, but the full post about both of the Salters will expand upon this small introduction to a remarkable person, environmentalist, social reformer and political activist.  It is wonderful to see her being recognized by history and by local residents.  I wonder what she would have thought about Southwark Councillor Mark Williams and his idea of "regeneration" as the replacement of playgrounds and mature nature areas with the sterile blocks and towering monoliths of the Canada Water Masterplan. Ada's Garden, for example, is under imminent threat from the Council who want to eliminate it to put a leisure centre where the wildlife area is located, in spite of 46 acres of land already ear-marked for development where it could easily be incorporated.

John Randall's 1797 HMS Acasta built at Nelson Dock, Rotherhithe

Model of HMS Acasta 1795. Photograph taken
in the Museum of London Docklands.

HMS Acasta was built in 1797 by John Randall at Nelson Dock in Rotherhithe (265 Rotherhithe St, London SE16 5HW).  Nelson Dock (at the time known as Cuckold's Point) is unique in being the sole surviving ship-builders' dry dock in Rotherhithe, preserved in the grounds of the Hilton Hotel. Randall was by no means the first tenant of the dock, which had been occupied since at least 1687.

In the late 18th and throughout the 19th Century Rotherhithe's river front was dotted with these small ship-shaped docks and their yards.  Some were used exclusively for private contracts, but the main form of income came from the Royal Navy and the East India Company.  Although first and second rate ships of the line were built in the Royal docks, third rate ships and below were farmed out to private ship builders to Royal Navy designs, sometimes under they eye of a Royal Navy surveyor.  The hull and its interior fittings were the job of the sub-contractor and ships were usually taken elsewhere to be fitted with masts and rigging and, at another location, with armaments.  Rotherhithe had a busy ship building industry and produced vessels of all sizes from the 17th Century onwards.  The first ship that I know of to be built for the Royal Navy in Rotherhithe was the fourth rate 1654 HMS Taunton.  The last ships to be built for the Royal Navy in Rotherhithe were the steam-powered gunboats HMS and HMS Jackdaw, both launched just over two centuries after Taunton in 1855.

John Randall was a big name in Thames ship-building, building almost exclusively for the Royal Navy.   Randall was based at Nelson Dock in different sections and in different partnerships between 1755 and 1803.  This long period of time is accounted for by the fact that there were two John Randalls, father and son, with the father retiring sometime around 1775.  John Randall Senior was trusted with many high profile ship builds, including a number of prototype designs.  John Randall, father and/or son, had yards at both Nelson Dock and Greenland Dock.  Although most ship building, like later dock work, was supplied by casual labour, the bigger ship builders would sometimes provide tied housing for their more important employees, and at some point the Randalls provided housing of this sort along the passageway now known as Randalls Rents. 

A view of Cuckold's Point, where Nelson Dock was
located.  By Samuel Scott, c. 1750-60

Business partnerships into which the Randalls entered included Randall, Grey and Brent and later Randall and Brent,  but at the time of Acasta's build the lease of Nelson Dock is listed simply under John Randall Esq, probably John Randall Senior's son.  Given that John Randall Senior is thought to have retired in around 1775, the Acasta contract must have been made with John Randall Junior.

In 1802, only five years after Acasta's launch, the Peace of Amiens provided a pause in the wars with France, and new ships were no longer required, causing shipyards to drop wages and shed employees.  This resulted in strikes and escalating violence.  Writing in 1907, Canon Edward Josselyn Beck tells a really tragic story of the younger John Randall, writing in his excellent book Memorials to Serve for a History of the Parish of St Mary Rotherhithe (1907):

In his time, the shipwrights mutinied, and not only refused to work themselves, but laid violent hands on those who were sent to work in their place.  This worthy man entreated them to desist and return to their duties, but in vain.  And being himself struck by one of his workmen he retired from the scene and was so greatly distressed at the events he had witnessed that he throw himself out of his window and was killed by the fall." 

Randall had already had a thoroughly bad year by this time (the summer of 1802), his business being the centre of a scandal surrounding the build of HMS Ajax, which found Randall and Brent being taken to court (and which I'll cover on a future post).  It is certainly clear from the records provided by Stuart Rankin, taken from the Rotherhithe Poor and Parish Rate records, that Randall and Brent Esq and Company was ended in 1803, and Messrs Brent were now listed at Nelson Dock instead.

HMS Acasta was built for service in the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) and later saw action in the Napoleonic Wars that followed immediately afterwards (1803-1815).  According to Rif Winfield, she was a 5th rate frigate fitted with 40 guns on two decks, built to the design of Sir William Rule.  She was the first frigate to have 30 main guns (18 pounders) on her upper deck.  She was launched on the 14th March 1797, having been fitted out in Deptford.  Her first captain was Richard Lane and her first long distance voyage was to Jamaica in 1798, where she immediately took several privateers.

Frigates had been in use in the Royal Navy since the mid 1600s.  The term was applied to a variety of designs but the role of the frigate was always the same - to move at speed, with sufficient fire-power to defend herself and cause problems for others, but not as well armed as much slower but larger warships.  They were classed as fifth or sixth rate ships, depending on the number of guns they carried.  Frigates were used as scouts for the main fleet, and in battle they would assist disabled ships and take command of captured ships.  She could also take on ships of comparative size and fire-power.  Independently, they were sent to foreign seas to capture pirates and foreign privateers in order to protect British commerce.  The 28-gun ships were phased out during the early 19th century - in 1794 there were 22 of them but by 1814 there were none remaining in service. 

HMS Acasta is in the foreground in this painting of the 1806
Battle of San Domingo. By Thomas Whitcombe, 1817,
National Maritime Museum.

Rather than going through the fine details of Acasta's past, I thought I would pull out some of the more interesting features of her career.  There is very little point providing a blow by blow history of the ship here here because she has been so thoroughly covered on the HMS Acasta page on Wikipedia, with plenty of references to The London Gazette, so readers are referred to that article for the details.  Details of Acasta's ship's crew are also available, together with her vital statistics and a year by year chronology of her activities and naval engagements on the HMS Acasta website: http://www.hmsacasta.com/p/ship.html.  However, there are some features of her career that merit further inspection.    

First, it is worth noting a recurring success story in her career that says a lot about maritime preoccupations during 18th Century naval wars.  Anyone who has read any of the Jack Aubrey books by Patrick O'Brian will be familiar with the concept of prize money.  It's a bit like banking bonuses today - ships' captains were encouraged to capture opposition ships so that the could be reprocessed, either used for parts (particularly their guns) or renamed and re-employed in the Royal Navy.  Privateers were a favourite target of Royal Navy ships. Privateers were ships authorized by governments to target naval vessels whilst not being naval ships themselves.  They were never employed in naval engagements but were highly effective as adjuncts to naval activities because their main role was to cause disruption.   Many naval and privateer ships carried valuable cargo, and this too featured in the reward system of prizes.  Prizes were split unequally between the crew members, and it was a significant motivation to sailors, many of whom had been pressed into service, to safely secure opposition ships rather than destroy them. Rewards could make crew members very wealthy.  Acasta is remarkable for the number of prizes that she won, described on the above Wiki page.  Well worth a read.

It is also worth drawing attention to the fact that she underwent surprisingly few refits.  All ships of the line that were engaged in active service went through a hard live.  Made of wood, powered by sail, and held together by rope rigging, they were highly vulnerable not only to fire-power but also to the weather and natural decay, as well as the effects of wood-consuming organisms in the sea itself.   However, in her 24 year career Acasta was apparently brought in for one major refit in Portsmouth, in 1802, which probably had more to do with the temporary peace afforded by the Peace of Amiens, which provided a brief pause in hostilities.  War broke out again in 1803.  HMS Acasta was then paid off in both 1811 and then 1815, and at both times her crew would have been paid, free to find other ships on which to work, and the ship would have been repaired and refitted for whatever future service awaited her. 

Acasta was broken up at Woolwich in 1821 after 24 years of service, which is not a bad life span for a wooden war ship of the period.

Plan of HMS Acasta on the HMS Acasta website.

Boost given to campaign for restoration of Alfred Salter statues

Dr Salter's Daydream, stolen in 2011,  from the
http://www.salterstatues.co.uk website

This week's Southwark News reports that Ladbrokes has donated £5000 to the Salter Statues Campaign.  Installed in 1991 next to the Angel Public House, sculptress Diane Gorvin's "Dr Salter's Daydream" statues were stolen in 2011, three years after the bronze "Nature Girls" statues were stolen from Surrey Water (leaving just the red shoes) and some of the animals from the farmyard collection were stolen from outside Surrey Docks Farm.  None of them were recovered and they were almost certainly melted down for their scrap value.  The sad remains of "Nature Girls" have been completely removed, and the surviving animals from the farmyard set have been moved to within the Surrey Dock Farms grounds.

"Dr Salter's Daydream" showed Dr Alfred Salter sitting on a seat, waving at his daughter Joyce and the family cat.  Joyce, the only daughter of Alfred and Ada Salter, had died at the age of eight of scarlet fever.  Alfred and Ada Salter were campaigners for improved public health support and social reform, basing much  of their work in the Bermondsey area.  Both were active and held important positions in the community.  I'll write more about them soon.  The group was charming, and much loved by local residents, who started the campaign for their replacement.

The Salter Statues Campaign needs to generate £100,000, but the Southwark News story says that Southwark Council has promised to match-fund whatever the community generate.  With the Ladbrokes contribution they have now reached £29,400, which takes them closer to the £50,000 they need to enable them to reach the grand total.  

As well as replacing the missing statues, the fund will include enough to add a statue of Ada to the group, and will provide additional security to prevent a repeat of the 2011 theft (although the Campaign's website doesn't actually specify what sort of security will be provided, unless I've missed it).

You can find out more about the campaign at the Salter Statues Campaign website, from which the above photograph is taken:  www.salterstatues.co.uk.