Oxford House in Bethnal Green, East London, was established in September 1884 as one of the first "settlements" by Oxford University as a High-Anglican Church of England counterpart [1] to Toynbee Hall, established around the same time at Whitechapel.
Arising out of the philanthropic and social movement of the mid-Victorian age which had found support at the University of Oxford and from the Tractarianism (or Oxford Movement) of the High Anglican Church, the settlement movement sprang up primarily from the work of the Barnetts (Samuel, rector of Whitechapel, and his wife Henrietta), whose pioneering view saw the first steps to establishing Toynbee Hall. This was considered by some at Oxford, led by the Warden of Keble College, Edward Talbot, "not sufficiently religious enough" [2] and it was this group of Oxford men who looked to provide a more ascetic, denominationally religious, settlement in the East End of London. The first premises used under the Oxford House name was the National Day School of the parish church of St Andrew at Bethnal Green, which provided lodgings for three or four graduates to reside and work in the local neighbourhood, providing help and assistance to the poor and dispossessed of the surrounding area through a variety of activities including boys' clubs, a "talk and smoke" club for working men, and Sunday afternoon Bible lectures. [3]
The appointment of Arthur Winnington-Ingram as Head of Oxford House in 1889 and the ever-widening popularity of the programmes being run by the Oxford House necessitated a move to more substantial property. A substantial fundraising effort that followed included Henry Scott Holland's rallying-cry, "come and be the squires of East London" [4] and Winnington-Ingram's plea to Oxford men that "if they would not come and live in Bethnal Green, they must at least supply a house for those who would." [5] The appeal raised enough capital to purchase the land on which Oxford House now stands, and construct a solid red-brick 5-storey building, designed by the renowned architect Sir Arthur Blomfield. It was opened by the Duke of Connaught in 1892, and designated a Grade II listed building in 2011.[ citation needed ]
Oxford House continued to provide a hub for the community of Bethnal Green and began expanding by purchasing other properties to run the various clubs and activities associated with its work. These included the Excelsior hall and swimming baths at Mansford street, University Club buildings in Victoria Park square, and recreation grounds for sporting clubs further east at Walthamstow.[ citation needed ]
Similar University settlements also started in London (Cambridge House 1889, Bermondsey 1892, Docklands, Mansfield 1890) and other major cities in the UK (Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol) and abroad (New York, Chicago, Helsinki). Some were specifically established to address women and girls, such as St Margaret's and St Hilda's (both 1889) nearby. Oxford House also helped the Devas Club in Battersea south London, early in its development. [6]
The start of World War I curtailed much of the House's activities, many Oxford graduates entering the army and leaving a shortage of resident volunteers. The building was temporarily used as a shelter from air raids during 1917.
After the war the House struggled to return to the pre-1914 levels of residents and volunteers, although it kept a number of boys' clubs and societies for working men going. Relations with the local clergy were fraught at times, as it was "felt that the boys' clubs were a counter attraction to their parochial ventures". Throughout the 1920s and 30s Oxford House, despite severe financial constraints, continued to provide charitable support to the local community, even during the depression, when Bethnal Green had one of the highest unemployment rates in London. The House established links with Berkhamsted, Repton and Chigwell Schools, primarily through sports such as football and cricket, in an attempt to bring boys of different social backgrounds together.
In 1931 on his visit to Britain, Mahatma Gandhi gave an impromptu speech at Oxford House, attracting a crowd of 3,000 people outside to cheer him. From 1933 the East End found itself the target of Anti-Semitic hatred through the activities of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. The Head of Oxford House sent letters to the local paper and the Times, complaining of the disturbances caused by the "Black shirts".
With the outbreak of World War II, many of the buildings associated with Oxford House were requisitioned by the War Office for use by the army. Oxford House itself had a new Head in 1940: pacifist Guy and therapist Molly Clutton-Brock. Their daughter Sally was born here in 1942. [7] They set about a programme of opening up the house to the local people and, for the first time, running several clubs for women and girls alongside the boys' ventures. The house offered employment to many conscientious objectors, including John Raven and Peter Kuenstler, working on several of the activities and programmes Oxford House ran during the war.
The Victorian building itself was used as an air raid shelter during the London Blitz in World War II, housing upwards of 600 people. [8] Local children were evacuated to Wales where the House had acquired property enabling it to set up residential schools for 5- to 14-year-olds and under-5s (with accompanying mothers), providing shelter and respite from one of the heaviest bombed parts of London. After the initial bombing, many people returned to the area, only to find that the V1 and V2 rocket attacks in 1944–45 forced them to move out again. At the end of the war Clutton-Brock worked in Germany, and later founded a non-apartheid farm in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
The war had broken down many social barriers and Oxford House saw itself more as a mainstay of the community than an outside settlement dropped into the local area. Increasingly the direction of the House passed to non-Oxbridge people and laity, and the links between the University, Church of England and the House became less pronounced.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Bethnal Green was being rebuilt, and the slum clearances which had begun before the war accelerated, with many housing estates being erected in the area, leading to the formation of community associations in which Oxford House became closely involved. There were no longer the numbers of University graduates coming to reside and learn by gaining experience of working in the community, and financially the House continued to struggle. Eventually, this resulted in a three-month closure in 1972.
In the 1970s and 80s Oxford House emerged from the problems surrounding itself, through a succession of Heads, under the chairmanship of Peter F. Scott CBE. In 1984 the House was able to celebrate the centenary of its founding, with The Princess Royal as patron.
The charity continued to provide projects for a diverse set of needs among the changing local communities. In the 1990s it found a home for Somali groups from the diaspora of the Somali civil war, as well as community health projects, pensioners' clubs, youth work and art workshops.
The restoration of the original Blomfield-designed third-floor Chapel was completed in 1997. In 2003, funded through Arts Council lottery money, a new arts centre extension was opened providing gallery space, a theatre and a dance studio.
Oxford House is now[ when? ] home to many third-sector and social enterprise groups who are active in providing a range of programmes for young people, families, adults, and older people, each of which aims to meet the needs of local people, enabling communities to fulfil their potential.[ citation needed ] Regular events taking place include yoga, pilates, aikido, callanetics, slimming, and dance classes. Oxford House provides the use of a 130-seat theatre, a fully equipped dance studio, café and art gallery, as well as a number of meeting rooms of various sizes all available for hire.
Bethnal Green is an area in the East End of London 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Charing Cross. The area emerged from the small settlement which developed around the Green, much of which survives today as Bethnal Green Gardens, beside Cambridge Heath Road. By the 16th century the term applied to a wider rural area, the Hamlet of Bethnal Green, which subsequently became a Parish, then a Metropolitan Borough before merging with neighbouring areas to become the north-western part of the new London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name applied to a much larger manor and parish. Stepney Green is a remnant of a larger area of Common Land formerly known as Mile End Green.
Samuel Augustus Barnett was a Church of England cleric and social reformer who was particularly associated with the establishment of the first university settlement, Toynbee Hall, in east London in 1884. He is often referred to as Canon Barnett, having served as Canon of Westminster Abbey from 1906 until death.
Arnold Toynbee was a British economic historian also noted for his social commitment and desire to improve the living conditions of the working classes.
Toynbee Hall is a charitable institution that works to address the causes and impacts of poverty in the East End of London and elsewhere. Established in 1884, it is based in Commercial Street, Spitalfields, and was the first university-affiliated institution of the worldwide settlement movement—a reformist social agenda that strove to get the rich and poor to live more closely together in an interdependent community. It was founded by Henrietta and Samuel Barnett in the economically depressed East End, and was named in memory of their friend and fellow reformer, Oxford historian Arnold Toynbee, who had died the previous year.
Dame Henrietta Octavia Weston Barnett, DBE was an English social reformer, educationist, and author. She and her husband, Samuel Augustus Barnett, founded the first "University Settlement" at Toynbee Hall in 1884. They also worked to establish the model Hampstead Garden Suburb in the early 20th century.
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and social interconnectedness. Its main object was the establishment of "settlement houses" in poor urban areas, in which volunteer middle-class "settlement workers" would live, hoping to share knowledge and culture with, and alleviate the poverty of, their low-income neighbors. The settlement houses provided services such as daycare, English classes, and healthcare to improve the lives of the poor in these areas. The most famous settlement house of the time was Hull House, founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Starr.
Old Ford is an area in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets that is named after the natural ford which provided a crossing of the River Lea.
Arthur Guy Clutton-Brock was an English social worker who became a Zimbabwean nationalist and co-founder of Cold Comfort Farm in what was then Rhodesia.
The Boundary Estate is a housing development in Shoreditch, formally opened in 1900, in the far west of the East End of London, England. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and its western limit, Boundary Street, is within the London Borough of Hackney.
Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram was Bishop of London from 1901 to 1939.
Guy Vernon Smith was an Anglican bishop in the mid-20th century.
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have universally accepted boundaries to the north and east, though the River Lea is sometimes seen as the eastern boundary. Parts of it may be regarded as lying within Central London. The term "East of Aldgate Pump" is sometimes used as a synonym for the area.
Peter Kuenstler was a British civil servant and consultant in international social affairs and development. Kuenstler was born in Hampstead, London in December 1919. After preparing at the Hall School and Rugby School, he studied classics at Oriel College, Oxford. He died at his home in Athens, Greece in November 2010 at the age of 90.
The Cranbrook Estate is a housing estate in Bethnal Green, London, England. It is located next to Roman Road and is based around a figure of eight street called Mace Street. The estate was designed by Francis Skinner, Douglas Bailey and an elder mentor, the Soviet émigré Berthold Lubetkin.
St Matthew's, Bethnal Green, is an 18th-century church in Bethnal Green, London, England. It is an Anglican church in the Diocese of London.
Merfyn Lloyd Turner was a Welsh prison social worker and author. In World War II he was refused recognition as a conscientious objector, which led in turn to his refusing to submit to a medical examination as an essential preliminary to call-up; for this refusal he was sentenced to three months imprisonment, giving him a life-long concern for prison reform. On release from prison, he was allowed registration as a conscientious objector, and joined the Pacifist Service Unit in Tiger Bay, Cardiff. In 1944 he moved to the settlement Oxford House, Bethnal Green, joining fellow conscientious objectors Guy Clutton-Brock, John Raven and Peter Kuenstler. In 1954, he opened Norman House as a halfway home for people leaving prison.
St Margaret's House is a community centre in Bethnal Green in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was established in October 1889 as the Bethnal Green Ladies' Committee, with Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, as president. It has since become a charity supporting creativity and wellbeing in Tower Hamlets, running a variety of community projects providing spaces for residents to eat, shop, learn, create and enjoy cultural programmes.
Blackfriars Settlement charitable organization in the UK established to improve the well-being of disadvantaged people. It was originally established as the Women's University Settlement in 1887, and focused especially on the needs of women and children. It was part of the settlement movement promoted by Rev Samuel Barnett who prompted young people with university educations to settle in the worst areas of poverty. The Women's Library has an archival collection of documents related to the group.
Frances Mary Clutton-Brock, known as Molly Clutton-Brock, was a British therapist and youth worker, noted for helping physically disabled children. She and her husband developed a racially integrated farm and Molly developed centres in Rhodesia and Botswana where disabled children could receive physical therapy. She and her husband were expelled from Rhodesia for not supporting the white minority government.
Coordinates: 51°31′34.74″N0°3′41.12″W / 51.5263167°N 0.0614222°W