JOE REEVES MP ELECTED 1945

 

 

This month is the 80^th anniversary of the 1945 General Election - the election at which demobbed servicemen elected a Labour government rather than war leader,Winston Churchill.

What is now the Royal Borough of Greenwich were then the Metropolitan Boroughs of Greenwich Wooliwch, and there were three Parliamentary seats. In 1945 Woolwich West was won by councillor, engineer, Henry Berry; Woolwich East re-elected bricklayers’ trade union leader, Ernest Hicks; and Greenwich elected Joe Reeves – and its Joe I’m going to write about today,

Joe was not the first Labour MP for Greenwich, there had been brief Labour wins in 1923 and 1929  but in most of the pre-war period time the seat was held by a Tory - Sir George Hume – an electrical engineer  who  had been prominent on the London County Council.  Joe had been Education Secretary for the Royal Arsenal Co-op and well known throughout the area– he was an energetic left winger with many interests, as we will see.

He was very much a South Londoner, having been born in Camberwell. He is said to have been born in poverty but his father was a compositor – a printworker who made up the trays of metal letters to be printed. (my  Dad was a Paper Worker’s Union activist so I know all about compositors!).

He left school at 13 – most children then, like my Dad and his brothers  left at 11 – and became an apprentice sign writer. He later set up his own business, and described himself in 1911 as ‘a writer’. When the Great War came he was a conscientious objector. is said to have founded the Labour Party branch in Camberwell and he was a member and lecturer for the Independent Labour Party. In 1918 he was working  as a bookkeeper in charge of te Principal Foreman’s office at Woolwich Arsenal.

In the early 1920s he was elected to Deptford Council which implies that he was living in Deptford.  He was later appointed as an Alderman for Deptford in which role he continued for the next 30 years, even after he had been elected to Parliament for Greenwich. This would be very much frowned on today and shows how standards have changed over the last 100 years.   

Whatever his education actually consisted of, by 1918 he was a confidant and articulate speaker and writer capable of putting together coherent and well argued books and articles. He said that he believed that the ‘dynamic of education must be .... to service the community’. He had a busy life with involvement in a huge range of causes and organisations and I can do no more here than mention just a few of them.

He was appointed as Education Secretary of the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society in 1918.  From the start RACS had seen education as part of its remit. Co-operation was to do more than just selling groceries to the new armies of industrial workers.  Recently working on my biography of George Livesey I’ve read about the temperance movement in South London. I’ve also discovered E.O.Greening – and his message  “what do we want? ... good music, the love of flowers, the appreciation of the domestic arts,  the practice of athletics, the desire for culture, association in employment”.  The workers in this new industrial society could improve their lives and should have the opportunities for which education was necessary. In 1879 RACS  had opened the first library in Woolwich and social groups were encouraged -  there were Comrade Circles for young people and the Women’s Co-operative Guilds.  Soon an  extended Education Department was based in an old Baptist Chapel in Parsons Hill , Woolwich – since swept away when the South Circular was extended over the site.

At RACS Joe was involved in its many training programmes and furthered various social and political organisations which RACS was involved in. Throughout his employment with them Joe published books and leaflets on a variety of subjects and always with a background of co-operation

Perhaps one of the most successful and certainly one of the longest lasting of his works was the setting up in 1921 of a youth organisation. This originated as early as 1921 with an organisation called Kibo Kift set up to provide an alternative to the militaristic ideas of the scouts and guides. Initially in Peckham but subsequently in other areas, Joe set up what was to become the Woodcraft Folk  - still with us and expanding

Today Shornells is a Community Hospice in Abbey Wood which was built on the site of a big house.  On their Facebook page is a story from a  few weeks ago about a commemorative plaque telling how how the original grand house was bought by RACS and used as a residential training and education centre. The opening event was held on 25^th September 1920 and I am most impressed that the first speaker was playwright George Bernard Shaw and that he was supported by other speakers of similar eminence and quality.

Joe was to continue his work for RACS until 1939.  In a remarkable career he promoted education through the vast network of shops and ancillary services.  He was very involved in contemporary discussions on the role of co-operative societies in a wider political framework,writing numerous books and articles.  

When he resigned from RACS it was to work as secretary to the Workers Film Association - an organisation which it was intended to promote the educational use of films – then still rather new tech. Sadly the organisation barely survived the Second World War and. I do not know if it had links to the more successful documentary film makers -people who must have shared Joe’s aspirations and ideas.

In 1922 he founded the Workers Travel Association, which arranged travel overseas for the Labour Movement. Personally he travelled widely visiting Russia four times between 1927 and 1961. Later, as a Member of  Parliament, he was involved in the World Parliament Association, which allowed him to visit many European cities and as a member of delegations to the West Indies and Finland.

He had stood for Parliament in the 1931 General Election in Woolwich West (now Eltham).In 1935 he was adopted as candidate for Greenwich, losing by 2000 votes to the Tory sitting member, George Hume. Post war in 1945 Hume had retired and died soon after the election. Reeves won the seat with a comfortable 10,000 majority . The financial backing for his candidacy was provided by RACS.

He was never to achieve office in the new Government but continued to be involved in an astonishing number of organisations.  He was a Vice President of the Ethical Union, a member of the Rationalist Press Association’s board,  in the early 1950s, he convened The Parliamentary Committee for a Humanist Group in Parliament, and in 1965 he set up the Humanist Parliamentary Group.  To name just a few!!

 He remained close to both the Cooperative Movement and the Labour Party taking up the RACS seat on Labour’s National Executive Committee. In Parliament he supported and spoke on many causes- it would take a lot more space than I have here to do more than mention just a couple.

A major triumph for him was through his support for cremation as an alternative to burial. He was chairman of the Cremation Society, a director of the London Cremation Company, and President of the International Cremation Federation. Without Reeves's involvement the regulatory 1952 Cremation Act, would never been introduced to Parliament.

Most notably in 1953 he won a place in the Private Members' ballot and agreed to introduce an Abortion Bill, designed to clarify the situation regarding abortions in the interest of the mother's health. Unfortunately filibustering by Roman Catholic MPs left him with little time, and his measure was easily talked out.

He did not seek re-election in 1959 and the Greenwich seat was won by Richard Marsh. Joe seems to have retired to the seaside with his second wife. He died ten years later in 1969 in Eastbourne..

So, how to sum up the life of this enormously energetic man.  I moved to Greenwich in 1969 and I have never heard anybody in the local Labour movement mention him. In the early 1970s Janet and I put on an exhibition about local Labour history at Charlton House.. Lots of ex-councillors came along but I don’t remember anybody mentioning Joe Reeves.

My recent work on the Road Arsenal Cooperative Society has led me to try find out more about him. I started off with the local papers looking for an local obituary - but nothing at all to remember this man who’d been Member of Parliament for the area for 14 years. And this was someone who spent much of his life preaching community involvement in politics!

How could he disappear quite so fundamentally? This is a question we should well ask.  I think that people remember their local councillors a  lot better than they do ex MPS.  If I went round Greenwich now asking the over 80s about the local Council I would soon find someone telling me about how Len Squirrel was wronged in 1962 – but no mention at all of Joe Reeves!