Talk: Poplar 1921: Why Thirty Labour Councillors Went Willingly to Gaol

A look at why thirty Poplar Labour councillors from one of Britains poorest boroughs were jailed for six weeks in 1921.

In 1921 thirty Poplar Labour councillors from one of Britain’s poorest boroughs were jailed for six weeks in Brixton and Holloway prisons for their defence of the poor and destitute. Led by the pacifist George Lansbury, later local socialist MP and Leader of the Labour Party in the 1930s, the rebel councillors’ defiance of the government, the courts and their own party’s leaders brought the new term of ‘Poplarism’ into British politics and earned them a memorable place in Labour folklore. In this talk Professor John Shepherd recounts their remarkable story and explains the importance of their place in London history and British political life.

Professor John Shepherd (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge) is the author of George Lansbury: At the Heart of Old Labour (OUP, 2002/2004) and joint author with Professor Keith Laybourn of Britain’s First Labour Government (Palgrave, 2006).

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