The geography of resistance, both past and present, in the British Isles (formerly Turbulent London)
In the summer of 2019, I was lucky enough to spend 3 weeks travelling around Australia and New Zealand with my sister. As usual, wherever I went I kept an eye out for protest stickers, and the Antipodes did not disappoint. The first city we visited was Sydney. Founded in 1788 by the British as a penal colony, it is now Australia’s largest city.
Street art is everywhere in New York City, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. For those of you that are new to Turbulent London, I am especially interested in stickers, particularly those with political subject matter. So on a recent trip to New York City, I took my camera and my habit of photographing random bits of street furniture to see what protest stickers I could find on the streets of the city that never sleeps. This is the second time I have visited NYC since I started photographing protest stickers, and the first time I struggled to find many. This time however, I found so many stickers that I have decided to do two blog posts, hence the slightly awkward title (the first post, published last week, is here). In the last post, I looked at the different kinds of issues which protest stickers address, the different types of stickers you can find, and some of the most common themes in the stickers I found. This post is far less organised I’m afraid, its just everything else that I wanted to include!
New York City has a thriving street art culture. Almost every neighbourhood has walls covered in art, both official and unofficial. There are also a lot of stickers, of all kinds- I spotted one sticker advertising a new novel, which is something I haven’t come across in London before. Lots of stickers generally means lots of protest stickers, and during the week that I was there in early March I found loads. I wouldn’t like to say whether the amount of protest stickers is increasing, or I have just got better at spotting them since I visited last time, but it certainly felt like there were a lot. I found so many in fact, that I have decided to split this post into 2 parts, with Part 2 being published this time next week.
Protest stickers are a great way of seeing what kinds of issues are important to the people of a city. Some themes crop up again and again, whilst other topics just appear to be a particular bug bear of one zealous stickerer (I am still looking for a less clumsy way of referring to people who put up stickers!) Stickers are just one of the ways in which protest imprints itself onto the physical fabric of a city, but they can also be one of the most long-lasting, although their transience is one of their defining characteristics.
Don’t forget to check back next week for Part 2 of Protest Stickers: New York City 2!
As a national and imperial centre London is, and has long been, a key node in a whole range of networks involving the circulation of ideas, people, and materials. This fact was brought home to me recently when I visited the North East of England. Even though I was about 300 miles away from London, I found multiple connections to Turbulent London. Last week, I wrote about the grave of Emily Wilding Davison, a suffragette from Northumberland who died at the Epsom Derby in 1913. This week, I will be thinking about the ways that the 1936 Jarrow Marchers have been memorialised in their home town in Tyneside.
Jarrow is a small town, with a population of around 30,000. During the industrial revolution the town experienced massive growth thanks to heavy industries like coal mining and shipbuilding. The Palmer’s Shipbuilding and Iron Company shipyard was established there in 1852, and went on to employ as much as 80% of the town’s working population. This dependence on one employer meant that the town was devastated when the shipyard closed in 1933. Unemployment and poverty was rife, setting the stage for the Jarrow March, sometimes called the Jarrow Crusade.
The Jarrow Crusade was a type of protest called a Hunger March. Beginning in the 1920s, groups of demonstrators (normally men) would embark on long marches to London in order to draw attention to issues of poverty, unemployment, and hunger. On the 5th of October 1936, around 200 men set off from Jarrow carrying a petition asking the British government to re-establish industry in the town. 26 days later the men arrived in London, 282 miles away. The House of Commons accepted the petition, but did not debate it. Although they were immediately unsuccessful, the marchers helped develop the attitudes that paved the way for social reform after World War Two.
When I went to Jarrow I found 3 memorials to the Marchers. If you arrive via Tyneside’s Metro train system from the direction of Newcastle and look across to the other platform you will see The Jarrow March, by Vince Rea, unveiled by Neil Kinnock in 1984.
Walking out of the station towards the town centre you have to walk through an underpass, one of several which is decorated with images made up of painted tiles celebrating the town’s history. One of these mosaics shows the Jarrow Marchers.
Finally, if you walk through the Viking Shopping Centre to the Morrisons Supermarket you will see the life-size bronze sculpture Spirit of Jarrow. The sculpture was commissioned by Morrisons, made by Graham Ibbeson, and named by 2 local residents. The marchers are depicting walking out of the frame of a ship, surrounded by scattered tools. It was unveiled in 2001, marking the 65th anniversary of the March. As in Morpeth, the varying ages of the memorials demonstrate that commemoration is an ongoing process, it has to be constantly renewed and maintained.
Although each representation of the Jarrow March uses a different medium, the content is very similar. All 3 show male marchers in flat caps, the ‘Jarrow Crusade’ banner, and a dog- Paddy the dog was apparently the marchers’ mascot. The fact that there are so many representations of the March within a small area suggests that this is an event that the local community are proud of.
When comparing these memorials to the grave of Emily Wilding Davison, what really struck me was the difference that location makes. Emily is buried in a churchyard- out of the way, quiet and sedate. You have to consciously decide to go and visit, and for me it felt a little like a pilgrimage. In Jarrow, the memorials are part of the everyday infrastructure of the town and, like a lot of public art, they run the risk of fading into the background. When asking for directions whilst looking for the Spirit of Jarrow, one local woman had no idea what we were talking about. If you travel the same route everyday, you frequently stop noticing what is around you.
Another striking element of the Jarrow memorials was their representations of gender. Both The Jarrow March and the Spirit of Jarrow include a women carrying what appears to be a baby. The only woman permitted to join the march was local MP Ellen Wilkinson, and she only marched sections of the route. No children took part either. The memorials present the March as being more inclusive than it actually was. It is a reminder not to take memorials and other similar representations at face value.
The proliferation of Hunger Marches as a method of protest in the 1920s and 30s linked London to the rest of Britain in a clear way, and the Jarrow March was no exception. Despite being almost 300 miles away, the people of Jarrow decided that London was where they needed to be in order to get their voices heard. London was, and still is, the political heart of Britain, and as such it interacts with the rest of the country in a whole range of complex and interconnecting ways.
Sources and Further Reading
Anon. “Jarrow Crusade Captured in Bronze.” BBC News. Last modified 5th October 2001, accessed 10th August 2015. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1581572.stm
Anon. “Jarrow March.” Wikipedia. Last modified 29th July 2015, accessed 10th August 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarrow_March
Colette, Christine. “The Jarrow Crusade.” BBC History. Last modified 3rd March 2011, accessed 10th August 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/jarrow_01.shtml
Whenever I travel I keep an eye out for evidence or histories of contention, protest and dissent, and I frequently come across interesting stories. I recently got back from a family holiday in Sorrento, a mid-sized city in the Italian province of Campania. As well as the city of Naples, Campania is home to some of Italy’s most popular tourist attractions, including Vesuvius, Pompei and the Amalfi Coast. During my holiday, I came across several examples of protest and contentious politics, both historic and contemporary.
Pompei is perhaps the most famous tourist attraction in Campania, a Roman city buried during an eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, and remarkably well preserved as a result. The city has 2 amphitheatres that are open to the public, one of which was the site of a riot in 59AD, between the local Pompeians and the residents of a nearby town called Nuceria. What started as an exchange of taunts and insults at a gladiatorial competition escalated to the throwing of stones, and finally the drawing of weapons. Casualties were suffered on both sides, although the Nucerians apparently came off decidedly worse. It seems likely that the riot was the culmination of long-term resentments between the citizens of the two towns. As punishment, the Pompeians were banned from holding events in the amphitheatre for 10 years. This story helped me to repopulate the ghostly archeological site, and imagine what Pompei was like before its tragic and sudden destruction.
Of course Campania is not just a tourist destination, it is also a region where millions of people live, and express dissent. Although I don’t pretend to be familiar with Italian politics, or the Italian language, there were quite obvious signs of contemporary contention as we travelled around. I found several stickers for a Naples anti-fascist group (see image below). The first one I noticed was on a train station platform. The local train network seemed to be a focus point of graffiti and stickers, so the anti-facism sticker did not seem out of place. The second time I spotted the sticker was in a much more incongruous location. At the top of Vesuvius there is scientific equipment to monitor the volcano, and provide advance warning for any future eruptions. One such monitoring station was covered in stickers, including the same Naples anti-fascism one I had seen at the station.
The other example of contemporary contention I noticed was the acronym A.C.A.B. Standing for All Cops Are Bastards, it is something I have become quite familiar with in England in recent years. I was surprised to find it in Italy though, as I assumed that the phrase would be different in Italian. I noticed it several times however, graffitied on a wall near my hotel, and written in black marker on a train window. I was intrigued by the international quality of this radical sentiment.
The history of protest in London, let alone the rest of the world, is vast, and I will never be able to learn about all of it. However trying to find out the contentious histories of new place that I visit helps me feel like I am getting to know that place slightly better, as well as providing some interesting anecdotes when for when I get home!
Turbulent Isles 