George Lansbury - Bow Road, London, UK
N 51° 31.608 W 000° 01.650
30U E 706187 N 5712598
This small, granite obelisk with a bronze plaque is to the memory of George Lansbury, a local politician. The monument stands on the north west side of Bow Road, at the junction with Harley Grove, where George Lansbury lived for 23 years
Waymark Code: WMPK9T
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/12/2015
Views: 1
The PMSA website tells us about the monument:
Small granite obelisk with a cast bronze plaque on the front (south face) with inscription as above, facing Bow Road.
Paid for by public subscription and sited in the George Lansbury Memorial Garden. Unveiled by Councillor Mrs N. F. Cresswall, when the garden was handed over to the local authority for the benefit of the people for all time. A permanent memorial on the site of George Lansbury's residence which was destroyed by bombs during World War II. The unveiling took place on the fifteenth anniversary of his death.
Commemorates George Lansbury.
The inscription on a bronze plaque on front of memorial reads:
GEORGE LANSBURY
1859 - 1940
MEMBER OF THE
POPLAR BOROUGH COUNCIL
1903 - 1940
MAYOR
1919 - 20 & 1936 - 37
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
MINISTER OF THE CROWN
PRIVY COUNCILLOR
A GREAT SERVANT
OF THE PEOPLE
THE HOUSE WHICH STOOD HERE WAS
HIS HOME FOR 23 YEARS AND THIS
GARDEN WAS CREATED IN HIS MEMORY
BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION
1955
The Encyclopaedia Britannica website has an article about George Lansbury that tells us:
George Lansbury, (born Feb. 21, 1859, near Halesworth, Suffolk, Eng.—died May 7, 1940, London), leader of the British Labour Party (1931–35), a Socialist and poor-law reformer who was forced to resign the party leadership because of his extreme pacifism.
A railway worker at the age of 14 and later a timber merchant, he became a propagandist for Henry Mayers Hyndman’s Social Democratic Federation in 1892 but eventually repudiated its strict Marxism. He helped to found (1912) and for a time edited, the Daily Herald, the first British newspaper devoted to labour subjects. In World War I he defended the rights of conscientious objectors.
A Labour member of the House of Commons (1910–12, 1922–40), he served as first commissioner of works in the Labour government of 1929–31 and then became leader of the parliamentary opposition. Unwilling to join his associates in calling for economic sanctions that might have led to war against Italy for its aggression in Ethiopia, Lansbury resigned in 1935 and was succeeded as party leader by his deputy, Clement Attlee (prime minister, 1945–51). In 1937 Lansbury visited Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in the belief that his personal influence could stop the movement toward war.