The Battle Of Cable Street







The mural on St.George's library,
Cable Street.






As I wrote earlier in the summer, on the anniversary of the Victoria Park march, I have a personal connection with Cable Street - it's where my paternal grandparents, great grandparents and x2 great grandparents lived, right up until 1942.

The events of the Battle of Cable Street which took place on 4 October 1936 have been hijacked by various groups wishing to use it for their own political agenda, it has grown in stature over the years until it has assumed the mantle of an East End Peterloo or Tianamen Square. What shouldn't be forgotten however is the importance of its symbolism, of people standing up for their beliefs, unfortunately as you will see from the paragraph in red type it's importance and significance at the time was overshadowed by the reality of East End politics.

The piece below is something I wrote a while ago and is obviously slanted by my own reading of the reports on the event, I spent a lot of time in the Tower Hamlets Local History Library in the 1980's researching my family history.

BUF= British Union of Fascists

A myth has grown over the years about the BUF and the so-called "battle" of Cable Street when it is alleged that on the 4 October 1936, the whole of the area between Leman Street and Stepney East rose as one to prevent a march by the BUF through the heart of the East -End of London which contained a very sizeable Jewish population. There was a confrontation that day, but whatever confrontation there was was strictly between the police on one side and communists / left-wing sympathisers on the other. The overwhelming majority of whom did not even live in the East-End but who had travelled there from various parts of the country.

The communists had been organising such a "anti-Mosley" demonstration for some weeks, and many of those arrested that day came from as far away as Glasgow - a well know communist 'stronghold' in those days. Others who took part in the 'battle' with the police that day were local Jewish criminals* - Jack 'Spot' and three of his thugs (Spot ran a lucrative protection racket on local Jewish shopkeepers) were also among those arrested. However, of the thousands of BUF members and supporters who gathered in the East End of London that day none were arrested, or involved in any confrontation in or near Cable Street.

* I would like to make clear at this point that I did not intended to suggest that the only Jewish people among the 300,000 who held their ground against the anticipated BUF march were criminals - i apologise if that is the impression given. My point was that Jack Spot, a legend in the East End, was among those arrested. (Edited 7 p.m 4/10/2006)

The popular myth surrounds the supposed spontaneous uprising of the local community against the Blackshirts but that is not so. It required a great deal of organisation by the Communists to achieve their undoubted success in East London that day. In 1946 H.W. Carver, chairman of the Stepney Borough Communists, took the credit on behalf of his party when he said:

It was the Communist Party which organised that struggle and it was in the face of the opposition of their own leaders that many Labour party members and Jewish people joined the fight.

After a series of well-supported marches through the East End of London which had attracted little opposition, Mosley decided to hold a mass rally on 4 October 1936 to mark the fourth anniversary of the founding of the party. The intention was that the BUF should assemble at Royal Mint Street at 2.30 p.m. for an inspection by Mosley. This would be followed by a march through the East End and he was due to speak at Salmon Lane, Limehouse, at 5 p.m.; Stafford Road, Bow, half an hour later; Victoria Park Square at 6 p.m. and Aske Street, Shoreditch, at 6.30 p.m.

Appeals by the mayors of the East London boroughs for the march to be banned were ignored by Sir John Simon, the Home Secretary. The Commissioner of Police, Sir Philip Game, set up field headquarters off Tower Hill and 6,000 constables and the whole of the mounted division were drafted in to the area.

The BUF began to assemble at 1.25 p.m. but they had been pre-empted by a group of some 500 or so communists who were already there, with the Communist 'Daily Worker' being sold in Leman and Cable Streets. By 2.15 it was estimated that there were around 2,000 communists and anti-BUF demonstrators in the Aldgate area, about half of whom had blocked the Commercial Road at Gardiner's Corner. At 3 p.m. the BUF, still in Royal Mint Street, now totalled around 2,000 including women and cadets and four bands.

At 3.30 p.m, Sir Philip Simon after receiving reports from the police of the potential for trouble decided that he did not have the resources to keep the communists and BUF apart and consequently forbade the march. He instead allowed the BUF to march West through the City and the BUF moved off at 4 p.m, ending their march at Somerset House in the Strand at 4.30 p.m.

The actual "battle" did not concern them, as they had not been permitted to march along Cable Street that day. Meanwhile the communists in Cable Street had overturned a lorry; timber was expropriated from a builder's yard, along with bricks with which to pelt the police. Broken glass was strewn across the road to hamper and injure the police horses and the battle between the police and communists lasted for some hours, overall there were dozens of injured police and 70 arrests. In other parts of the East End there more hundreds more arrests made.

A Special Branch police report of November 1936 concluded:

"The general cry was that the entire population of East London had risen against Mosley and had declared that he and his followers should not pass and that they did not pass owing to the solid front presented by the workers of East London. This statement is, however, far from reflecting accurately the state of affairs.

There is abundant evidence that the BUF has been steadily gaining ground in many parts of East London and it has strong support in such districts as Stepney, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Hackney and Bow. There can he no doubt that the unruly element in the crowd was very largely Communist-inspired. A number of well-known active communists were seen at, or near, points where actual disorder occurred. While attempts by the Communist Party to raise enthusiasm over the 'Fascist defeat' were comparative failures the BUF, during the week following the banning of their march, conducted the most successful series of meetings since the beginning of the movement.

In Stepney, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Stoke Newington and Limehouse, crowds estimated at several thousands of people (the highest being 12,000) assembled and accorded the speakers an enthusiastic reception; opposition was either non-existent or negligible and no disorder took place".

Ten days after this infamous confrontation between the communists and the police, the BUF did march effectively through the East End.

According to John Warburton: "Mosley held a meeting in Victoria Park Square; an unannounced meeting but people knew Mosley was coming that night. The message flashed through. At the end he was going to speak in Limehouse. "He was told he couldn't march there. 'Very well,' he said, 'I'll walk.' And the crowds followed him. As he walked the couple of miles there were crowds behind him and singing. Shouts of 'Good old Mosley', people leaning out of their downstairs windows to try to shake his hand. There was this great mass movement of support".

"In the March 1937 elections the BUF polled 23 per cent of the vote in Bethnal Green; l0.3 per cent in Limehouse and 14.8 per cent in Shoreditch. ... the size of their vote was a surprise even to those in touch with the East End" - The Observer, 7 March 1937.

The fact is there was considerable support in the East End of London for the British Union from 1936 to 1939, and this was reflected in both the large number of BUF members from the East End of London, and in the high number of votes the BUF received in the LCC Elections.

Sources: The East End Observer, The East London Advertiser, Daily Worker archives, papers at G.L.R.O (now the London Metropolitan Archive) and various books on East End history.

A comprehensive article, about the background to the events of 4 October 1936 and its impact on our history, called The Battle of Cable Street: Myths and Realities is here