100 YEARS OLD – THE WILLIAM MORRIS HALL, WALTHAMSTOW E17 CENTENARY CELEBRATION THIS SUNDAY

Celebration event at:
William Morris Hall, Somers Road Walthamstow E17
2pm on Sunday 13.12.09

Local socialists and trade unionists will join The William Morris Ad Hoc Orchestra at the William Morris Hall to remember the story of the Hall and to call for preservation of local cultural history. Union banners, speakers and music will present a perfect photo/film opportunity.

The event is to celebrate the hall’s 100 years with words and music just as the pioneers who campaigned for a fairer, different world did with verse and song, as well as marches and struggle. We will celebrate the building, the Buck brothers and countless others, but most of all we will celebrate our past into the future.

Those celebrating will then join local cinema campaigners at the disused EMD cinema calling for the cinema to be preserved and a cultural centre in Walthamstow.

History:

On 13 December 1909 artist and socialist Walter Crane opened the William Morris Hall: bringing to a joyous conclusion six years of fundraising, preparation and hard voluntary labour.

In 1903 the brothers Ben and Charles Buck started the idea of a home for the socialist, radical and trade union people of Walthamstow. Funded by workers buying a brick for 2d (old money), sponsored bike rides and social events, the collective organisations of the Social Democratic Federation, Walthamstow Socialist League, the William Morris Club, the Clarion Cyclists, the trades council, anarchists, suffragettes and many more, the hall was built by volunteer craftsmen on Sunday mornings on squatted land.

For 30 years The William Morris Hall was the centre of political and cultural life in the town. Amongst the many speakers who came over the years were: dock worker’s leader, Ben Tillet, the Countess of Warwick, H M Hyndman, Will Thorne, new Labour MP for West Ham South (1906), Sylvia Pankhurst, George Bernard Shaw, Victor Grayson, lion tamer, adventurer, folk hero, firebrand independent socialist MP and Walthamstow’s own Val McEntee. From day one it housed the Socialist Sunday School, where over a hundred children each week come together in secular fellowship to learn the socialist 10 commandments.

In the early 1920s the William Morris Brass Band and the William Morris Orchestra were formed. One for street marching and open air meetings, the other for concerts and dancing. The Hall had its own choir. In 1923 Charles Buck started a theatre group; performing plays by Ibsen and Shaw.

The building is a now home to the Limes Community and Children’s Centre. The inside has changed but most of the bricks are the same.

Contacts for events:

William Morris Hall event:
Roger Huddle 07937 344 3030
roger.huddle@ntlworld.com

EMD Cinema contact
www.mcguffin.info