Timber and Veneer Merchant and Member of Parliament

52

Married

101 & 103 St Stephen's Road, London

WSPU

Complies

George Lansbury was a prominent East London politician and one of the leading male supporters of women’s suffrage. He married Elizabeth ‘Bessie’ Brine in 1880, and they eventually had twelve children. After spending a period in Australia, Lansbury returned to Britain and worked at the Brine sawmill in Bow. His involvement in campaigns concerning poverty and social reform became closely connected to his support for women’s politics rights. George had stood unsuccessfully as Socialist parliamentary candidate for the SDF where he lived in the East End of London, before joining the Independent Labour Party in 1905
In June 1905, Lansbury worked with Keir Hardie and Dora Montefiore to organise a march of around 1,000 destitute East End women to Westminster. In 1906-7 he donated money to the WSPU, while Bessie became a WSPU member. By 1910 Lansbury was himself a member of the Church League for Women’s Suffrage and though later he is most closely associated with the WSPU (recognised on this map) men were not formally allowed to join. That year he was elected to the London County Council and subsequently became Labour MP for Bow and Bromley. He remained a strong supporter of women’s enfranchisement and became a regular contributor to Votes for Women newspaper. In 1911 Lansbury became an especially vocal supporter of the WSPU. He defended its militant tactics, condemned the force feeding of imprisoned suffragettes and criticised Herbert Asquith’s government for refusing to enfranchise women. Unlike suffragettes who resisted the census, Lansbury participated and was recorded at 101/103 St Stephen’s Road, Old Ford (location on map only approximate due to demolitions and renumbering).
His support continued well beyond 1911. In 1912, with the backing of the WSPU leadership, Lansbury resigned his parliamentary seat to contest a by-election on a “Votes for Women” platform as an independent, pledging not to support other legislation until women were enfranchised. The action was controversial among local East London suffrage campaigners, who had not been consulted by the leadership. He lost the resulting by-election, and the following year was imprisoned for speeches supporting suffragettes involved in illegal activities. He was arrested after a 'vociferous' speech on suffrage militancy in 1913 and sentenced to three months in prison but released under the 'Cat and Mouse Act' after going on hunger strike. Likely due to the threat of bad publicity for the government, he was not sent back to prison as was the usual practice. That same year, George became editor of a left-wing socialist newspaper, the Daily Herald, and in 1914 joined and became vice president, with his wife, of the United Suffragists (US). He worked closely with fellow socialist and suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst during the First World War. In 1916, George was an executive member of the National Council for Adult Suffrage, which continued to press the women's suffrage issue. The well-known actress Angela Lansbury was a descendent. Sources: E Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide (London); Women's Suffrage Resources (The Historical Association); The Marx Memorial Library (www.marx-memorial-library.org.uk); Society for the Study of Labour History (https://sslh.org.uk/2022/10/14/digitised-and-online-the-papers-of-george-lansbury/). Contributed by Elizabeth Von Valtenburg, undergraduate history researcher, University of Warwick.