Chapter XXXIII: "the Happy Warrior"

A Cheerful Invalid and his Neighbours--The Starving Children in the
Schools--Public Confidence in Crooks--Left Smiling.

Shortly afterwards he was laid low for two or three weeks, the victim of his old enemy, muscular rheumatism.

"Some of my ancestors must have been aristocrats," he used to tell his visitors good-naturedly from his sick bed in explanation of his recurring complaint.

As usual, the knocker at No. 81, Gough Street, knew no rest during his illness. Hundreds of people called to leave sympathetic little messages of goodwill. From Woolwich came a telegram from a party of children. An old bedridden man laboriously penned a letter, brought round by his aged wife, to say that Mr. Crooks might like to know that an "ole bloke as is pegging out fast" was thinking of him all day, and hoping he would soon get well.

This message cheered the invalid greatly, and he sent back a reply that renewed the old man's youth for weeks. For Crooks never lost his cheerfulness when lying bandaged in bed. He used to banter his wife and daughters, and his Labour colleagues in Parliament who came to visit him, until they had to hold their sides with laughter. His cheery doctor used to store up good stories for the invalid's delectation; but he always had to admit that Crooks could cap them all with better ones.

Once back at work again, Crooks threw all the time and energy he could spare from Parliament and his Labour meetings into a campaign for feeding starving school children. Perhaps the best instance of the people's trust in him was supplied by what happened in consequence of a powerful plea for hungry children he made on the London County Council. The Moderates were then in power, and he pleaded with them to persist no longer in their policy of refusing to exercise their powers under the Necessitous School Children's Act, which enables them to spend public money on food for starving scholars.

It was nigh on midnight before he got an opportunity of raising the question, and then--according to the _Daily Mail_, which had often been one of his bitterest opponents--he "electrified his sleepy colleagues as he expressed the agony of hungry children and the despair of parents unable to satisfy their cravings. The speech was spoken without a single note; it came from his heart. When Mr. Crooks sat down, exhausted by the effort--he was far from well--there was a moment of dead silence. Then there broke out the applause which relieved the tension. There was scarcely a dry eye in the Council chamber."

In the course of his speech to the Council Crooks said:--

There are no hard-hearted men and there are no hard-hearted women;
there are only men and women ignorant of the need. Only the other
day a teacher in one of our schools showed me a letter from a
mother of three fatherless girls. It ran:--

Dear Teacher,--Will you allow my little girls to
come home at half-past three? I shall have earned sixpence
by then, and shall be able to give them something warm to eat.
They have had nothing all day.

Here are we, satisfied after a good dinner. Yet I know that this
very night hundreds of little children have gone to bed with
nothing but a cup of cold water for their supper, and that in the
morning they will have nothing but water for their breakfasts. What
do you expect them to become? What sort of citizens of this great
Empire City will they make?

I have seen the poor as they live, and I tell you that, much as
they may forgive you for many things, they will never forgive you
for neglecting the children--the children stunted in body and mind
for want of food, old before their time, with the souls, not of
children, but of old men and women.

A nation which neglects its children is damned. You are neglecting
London's hungry children by leaving the provision of meals to
private subscriptions which all over London have failed to meet the
little people's need. You never talk of running the Army and Navy
and the defence of the Empire generally by means of private
subscriptions and charitable doles. Yet the thing that is of
greater importance at the present moment than the Army and Navy to
us, as an Imperial people, is that the children who are going to
inherit the responsibility of the government of our vast Empire
should be properly fed and clothed _now_.

What have you to say to facts like these? A woman, early the other
morning, as soon as the shutters were down, entered a pawnbroker's
shop, and took from under her shawl, in a shamefaced manner, a
small bundle. The pawnbroker's assistant unrolled the bundle, and
there, clean washed and scarcely dry, was the woman's chemise. She
had taken it off her body, washed and partly dried it, and to the
pawnbroker's assistant she said:

"For the love of God, lend me sixpence on this."

"I cannot," said the assistant. "It's not worth it."

"Then give me threepence," pleaded the woman. "I must give my
children a mouthful before they go to school this morning."

You object to feed the children because it would increase the
rates. Yes, it would increase the rates by a farthing. But
indirectly you are increasing the rates to a far greater extent by
starving the children. By neglecting them now you will be compelled
to feed and shelter them later in life in workhouses and
infirmaries.

I appeal to you to rise to a sense of your responsibilities, and
see that these children are fed. If it meant that I should be
driven out of public life by feeding starving children out of the
rates, I should feed them out of the rates. I should then have done
my duty.

The appeal moved the Council deeply, but on a party vote he was defeated, many of the Councillors who voted against him crowding round him afterwards to assure him of their individual sympathy.

The sequel came the day after his speech was reported in the Press. From all parts of London he and his wife had cheques and postal orders showered upon them from people in all walks of life, from little children to old people. Nearly £200 in all came to hand, together with huge parcels of boots and clothing, every donor leaving it entirely in Crooks's hands as to how the money and the things were distributed, so long as the needy children got them.

This is just the kind of thing that he deprecates, but, public bodies having failed to meet the need, he and his wife set to work, and did their best to meet it in their own neighbourhood. With the aid of a few friends they got in touch with some of the poorest schools in the East End, and soon thousands of hungry school children were fed and hundreds of the naked clothed.

Crooks gave the London County Council no rest on this subject. He went on agitating until the Moderate majority in the succeeding winter at last gave in and agreed to make the feeding of necessitous scholars a public charge.

Thus we leave him, still in the ranks fighting. We must part from him with a smile, since that is how he likes best to leave both friend and enemy. And those who heard him speak in the winter of 1908 at the City Temple smile every time they think of the occasion--a mass meeting of the London Federation of Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhoods.

No written word can adequately describe the hilarious effect of Crooks's speech. Without the man behind them, the words alone convey little, as I many times have been made to feel keenly while writing this narrative. Indeed, one of Mr. Crooks's colleagues in Parliament, a staid, dull man of much wealth, accosted him in the House one afternoon with the remark: "How is it, Mr. Crooks, that when I repeat your stories to my constituents, they never laugh?"

At the City Temple Crooks told his great audience how delighted he had been to observe the growth of the religious and civic spirit among the working classes since this movement for Sunday afternoon meetings began.

"At the meetings in the early days," he said, "you know how you used to be troubled with the irrelevant questioner. I was present once when the speaker, after narrating his experiences abroad, was asked whether he was in favour of compulsory vaccination! Another time a man got up, and after reading out a list of parsons who had been sentenced asked me what I had to say to that?

"'A bad lot,' I answered, 'but it doesn't shake my faith in Christianity any more than to-day's fog shakes my faith in the sun."

"On another occasion a man asked me what I meant by condemning betting, seeing that the aristocracy backed horses.

"'But the aristocracy know no better. You do. So set them an example.'

"Then there was the heckler who wanted to know whether I objected to a man leaving money for the propagation of atheism.

"'If he likes to do it, let him,' I answered. 'He's sure to regret it as soon as he is dead.'

"And that reminds me," continued Crooks, "of what happened at the last County Council election. A local undertaker, who had always supported me before, stopped me in the street to say he was going to vote on the other side this time.

"''Tain't as I don't believe in you, Mr. Crooks. I likes you as well as ever I did; but men in our calling must keep an eye on the party that best helps business, you know!'

"I told him I did not understand.

"'Why,' said the undertaker, 'I could make a decent living when the death rate was 20 per 1,000. I can even get along nicely when it's 18; but since you've bin on the move, Mr. Crooks, I can't make a living nohow, with a death rate no more'n 14.'"

INDEX

A

Adult Sunday Schools, 213, 259

Afforestation for unemployed, 265

B

Baby-farming in London, 94

Balfour, Mr. Arthur, 17, 238, 261

Baptist Union, Crooks addresses the, 257

Barnett, Canon, 222, 290

Beresford, Lord Charles, 186, 187

Bishop of London, The, 257

Blackwall Tunnel, Crooks and the, 101-04

Boarding-out children, 125

Borough Councillor, Crooks as a, 68, 154-74, 212

Brabazon Society and Poplar Workhouse, 291

Brotherhoods, Men's, 300

Burns, Mr. John, 68, 189, 195, 265, 266, 294

C

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., 195, 294

Canada and the unemployed, 231, 267

Central Unemployed Committee, 232, 235

Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph, 214, 217

Chandler, Bishop, 23, 76

Chaplin, Mr. Henry, 115, 144, 185

Chesterton, Mr. G. K., 148, 149

Children correspondents of Crooks, 171, 198

Children, Poor Law, 119, 125

Children, Starving School, 297

Christianity and the working classes, 259

Churches and Labour, 261

City Temple Speech, 300

"College" at the Dock Gates, Crooks's, 57, 212

Collins, Sir William, 97

Coronation festivities at Poplar, 169-171

Craftsmanship, Need of, 41

Crooks, Mrs., Will's mother; his tributes to, 3, 6, 18, 36

Crooks, Mrs., Will Crooks's second wife, 73, 167, 249

Crooks, Will:
born in a one-roomed home, 1;
taken into the workhouse, 9;
sent to a Poor Law school, 11;
an errand-boy, 16, 26;
at George Green schools, 19;
at Sunday School, 19;
books of his youth, 22;
at work in a smithy, 33;
apprenticed to coopering, 36;
nicknamed "Young John Bright," 37;
first marriage, 43;
dismissed as an agitator, 44;
out of work, 44, 51;
tramping experiences, 45;
finds work at Liverpool, 46, 50;
his child's death there, 46;
gets work as a dock labourer, 50;
his "college" at the dock gates, 57-66;
his part in the Great Dock Strike, 67;
a dangerous illness, 69;
death of his first wife, 72;
his second marriage, 73;
the Will Crooks Wages Fund formed, 75;
his election to the London County Council, 76;
declines a partnership, 81;
refuses a rent-free house, 82;
his work on the L.C.C., 85-104;
helps to formulate the Fair Wage Clause, 87;
is chosen Chairman of the Public Control Committee, 94;
declines the Vice-chairmanship of the L.C.C., 98;
secures open spaces for Poplar, 98;
his overcoat stolen, 99;
pleads the cause of good craftsmanship, 100;
the Blackwall Tunnel one of his monuments, 101;
is chosen Chairman of the Bridges Committee, 102;
becomes a Guardian for Poplar, 105;
is elected Chairman of the Board, 112;
changes the composition of the Board and of its staff, 112;
abolishes the pauper's garb, 114;
reforms the workhouse, 114-118;
sends Poor Law children to Board Schools, 120;
provides a home for them, 123;
his work on the Metropolitan Asylums Board, 128-43;
a peace-maker among the poor, 144;
chosen Mayor of Poplar, 154;
organises the King's Dinner to the Poor at Poplar, 169;
receives the Prince and Princess of Wales, 169;
raises funds for a Coronation treat to children, 170;
his policy of paying old age pensions through the Poor Law, 175-85;
his first election for Woolwich, 186-201;
his maiden speech, 202;
advocates the payment of members, 204;
introduces a Women's Enfranchisement Bill, 206;
retires from the Poplar Borough Council, 212;
up and down the country, 213;
ridicules Protection and Preference, 213-18;
his efforts for the unemployed, 219-51;
advocates the provision of useful work, 221;
his activity as a member of the Poplar Distress Committee, 223-26;
his scheme for a Central Unemployed Committee adopted by Mr. Walter
Long, 232;
his appeal to Mr. Balfour for rating powers for providing
work, 237-40;
overwork and illness, 241-42;
secures the passing of the Unemployed Bill, 244-47;
his children, 252-53;
his home life described by the _World_, 253;
his morning's work sketched by Mr. G. R. Sims, 255-56;
his many-sided activity, 257-60;
his temperance work, 260;
his relations with the Free Churches, 262-63;
his schemes for colonising England, 264-70;
defends the Poplar Board of Guardians at the Local Government
Inquiry (1906), 272;
sees his mistake in having remained Chairman of the Board, 274;
his reply to the Inspector's report, 280;
appeals to the public in defence of his policy, 281;
receives letters of encouragement, 287;
is assured by Mr. John Burns that there had been a
misunderstanding, 294;
is besought not to leave Poplar, 295

Crown Lands and small holdings, 264

D

_Daily News_ Woolwich Election Fund, 188

Deaths from starvation, 278

Dickens, Charles, References to, 19, 32, 149, 118

Dock Strike, The Great, 67-69

Dolling, Father, 23, 166, 235

Drage, Mr. Geoffrey, 191, 193

E

East India Company, The, 28, 29

F

Fair Rent Courts advocated by Crooks, 162

Fair Wage Clause in the L.C.C.'s contracts, 87

Farm Colonies, 231, 243, 266, 268

Feeding Necessitous Scholars, 297-300

First offenders, Children as, 138

Foreshore reclamation, 220

Free Church Council, Crooks and the, 261

Free Trade defended by Crooks, 191, 214

Frenchman, A, on Poplar, 257

Fry, Mr. C. B., 148

G

General Election of 1906, 200

George the Fourth at Blackwall, 31

Gorst, Sir John, 209

Government employees' wages, 203

Guardians, _see_ Poplar Board of Guardians

Guildhall Poor Law Conference, 121

H

Hardie, Mr. Keir, 189, 195

Hills, Mr. A. F., 224, 226, 247

Hollesley Bay Farm Colony, 268

Holyoake, George Jacob, 42

Hungry 'Forties, The, 284

I

Illness of Crooks, 241, 296

J

Juvenile Offenders' Bill, 137

K

King's Coronation Dinner to the Poor, 158, 169;
his Majesty's visit to Poplar as Prince of Wales, 102

L

Labour Co-partnership, 41

Labour Representation Committee, The, 199, 242

Laindon Farm Colony, 266

Lansbury, George, 105, 232, 235, 242, 249, 273, 276, 281

Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, 195

Libraries for Poplar secured by Crooks, 65, 174

Licensing Bill of 1904, 260

Liddon, Canon, 47

Little Englanders, 215

Local Government Board Inquiry at Poplar, 117, 183, 271-95

London County Council, 76-104, 297

Long, Mr. Walter, 116, 232, 281

M

Mansion House scene, A, 157

McDougall, Sir John, 96

Metropolitan Asylums Board, 128

Minister for Labour wanted, 269

Monkswell, Lord, 99, 166

Morley, Mr. John, 208

M.P.'s investments, Crooks on, 210

O

Oakum-picking, Cost of, 221

Old Age Pensions, 176-85

Open spaces for Poplar secured by Crooks, 98-100

P

Parliament, Crooks's speeches in, 125, 202, 204, 245, 230, 246, 261, 265

Payment of Members, 204

Peruvian Frigate Mutiny, The, 30

Pirates hung at Blackwall, 29

Political Economy, Crooks on, 88, 150

Poor Law, Pensions paid through the, 179

Poor Law Commission, 243

Poor Law Schools, Parliamentary Committee on, 123

Poplar, A walk round, with Crooks, 25-32

Poplar Board of Guardians, Crooks and the, 105-27, 175-85, 234-40,
271-95

Poplar Labour League, 75, 166

Poplar Municipal Alliance, The, 272, _and ff._

Poplar Workhouse, Will Crooks an inmate of, 8-11;
_see also_ Poplar Board of Guardians

Prince of Wales, The, and Crooks, 170

Q

Queen Alexandra and the unemployed, 250

R

Reformatory schools, 141

Remand homes, 136

Ritchie, Lord, 105, 137

Rosebery, Lord, 72, 89

S

School of Marine Engineering at Poplar, Crooks and the, 101

Scientific starvation, 181

Sheldon, Rev. Charles, 148

Sims, Mr. George R., 148, 255

Slums as investments, 161

Small holdings, 264

South African War, Crooks's opposition to, 201, 263

_Speaker_, The, on the Woolwich by-election, 192, 201

Stanley, The Hon. Maud, 48

Stone-breaking condemned by Crooks, 222

Sutton Poor Law School, Crooks an inmate of the, 11-12

Sweated women, 3, 178, 207

T

Talbot, Bishop, 196

Technical Education Board, The, 100

Technical Education for workhouse children, 124

Trade Unionism and Protection, 217

Trade Unionist, Crooks as a, 43, 53

Tree, Mr. Beerbohm-, 148

U

Unemployed Act, 223, 243, 245

Unemployment schemes, 221, 232, 265

V

_Vanity Fair_ on Crooks, 208, 229

W

Wages Fund, The Will Crooks, 75

Watermen, Old, at Poplar, 30

Welby, Lord, 96

Women's enfranchisement, 206

Women's march to Whitehall, The, 249

Women's wages, 178, 207

Woolwich by-election, 186

Woolwich Labour Association, 187

Workmen's drinking habits, Crooks on, 54

Wyckoff, Professor, 48

PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C. 20.1009.

Books by George Haw.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE WORKING CLASSES. Edited by George Haw, with
contributions by WILL CROOKS, Canon Barnett, Dr. Horton, and
others.

NO ROOM TO LIVE. The Story of Overcrowded London.

TO-DAY'S WORK. A Popular Treatise on Local Government.

THE ENGLISHMAN'S CASTLE. A Survey of the People's Housing
Conditions in Town and Country.

RELIGIOUS DOUBTS OF THE DEMOCRACY. Edited by George Haw, with
contributions by G. K. Chesterton, George W. E. Russell, Professor
Moulton, and others.

BRITAIN'S HOMES. A Study of the Housing Problem.

End of Project Gutenberg's From Workhouse to Westminster, by George Haw