In 1922 St John Groser and Jack Bucknall became curates in Saint Michael and All Angels in Poplar, under Father C. G. Langdon, a socialist and pacifist. The two families lived next door to each other in Teviot Street. They all became friends with George Lansbury, the recently elected Labour Party MP for Bow & Bromley, who was also a Christian Socialist. At the time, Poplar Council was in dispute with the government. As Lansbury points out in his autobiography, Rev William Lax, the minister of the Popular Methodist Church and member of the Liberal Party was a fervent opponent, whereas Groser, Langdon and Bucknall all gave their support to the Labour administration. (6)

The Labour Party had won 39 of the 42 council seats in November 1919. In 1921 Poplar had a rateable value of £4m and 86,500 unemployed to support. Whereas other more prosperous councils could call on a rateable value of £15 to support only 4,800 jobless. George Lansbury, the new mayor of Poplar, proposed that the Council stop collecting the rates for outside, cross-London bodies. This was agreed and on 31st March 1921, Poplar Council set a rate of 4s 4d instead of 6s 10d. On 29th the Councillors were summoned to Court. They were told that they had to pay the rates or go to prison. (7)

On 28th August over 4,000 people held a demonstration at Tower Hill. The banner at the front of the march declared that "Popular Borough Councillors are still determined to go to prison to secure equalisation of rates for the poor Boroughs." The Councillors were arrested on 1st September. Five women Councillors, including Julia Scurr, Millie Lansbury, Nellie Cressall and Susan Lawrence, were sent to Holloway Prison. Twenty-five men, including George Lansbury and John Scurr, went to Brixton Prison. Lawrence commented: "We are in one of the biggest struggles this country has ever seen... Poplar has aroused the whole country, and Poplar is going to lead to victory." (8)

Instead of acting as a deterrent to other minded councils, several Metropolitan Borough Councils announced their attention to follow Poplar's example. The government and the London County Council were now put in a difficult position. Harry Gosling volunteered to negotiate a settlement. As he later recalled: "The actual drafting of the document was no easy matter with such critics as George Lansbury and his son Edgar, Susan Lawrence, John Scurr, and all the others round the table, ready to object at any chance word and upset the whole thing in their eagerness to uphold their cause. Every one of these men and women stood for what was in their view a great principle, and yet a formula had to be found to enable the judges to release them." (9)

On 12th October, the Councillors were set free. The Councillors issued a statement that said: "We leave prison as free men and women, pledged only to attend a conference with all parties concerned in the dispute with us about rates... We feel our imprisonment has been well worth while, and none of us would have done otherwise than we did. We have forced public attention on the question of London rates, and have materially assisted in forcing the Government to call Parliament to deal with unemployment." (10)

Groser and Bucknall organised many street corner meetings in Poplar for the "Catholic Crusade, always dressed in cassocks and flanked by the three symbols of the crucifix, the Red Flag and the flag of Saint George. Father John had no time for the Union Jack, and scouts at Christ Church were only permitted to parade the George, and their neckerchiefs, significantly, were red." (11) It has been claimed that he had become "angry in the 1920s when hopes of a new social order were crushed." (12)

Father John Groser was also very active in support of the trade unionists during the General Strike. According to Margaret Morris, the author of The General Strike (1976), "a handful of Christian Socialist clergy were devoting all their energies to ensuring the success of the strike. At Poplar, Father John Groser addressed large crowds of strikers every day at street corners and union meetings." (13) On 12th May, 1926, Groser was amongst the injured when special constables ran riot and attacked a crowd." (14) Alan Wilkinson, the author of Christian Socialism (1998) claimed that "he considered society to be in a state of war and believed that he should align himself with the victims". (15)

As a result of his political activities his licence to preach was removed for a time. The new vicar, Father Kenneth Ashcroft, was a priest with Labour sympathies, but there were many conflicts with Arthur Winnington-Ingram, Bishop of London. "There were threats of sacking, and in the end, Groser resigned. During a year of unemployment, he did not sign on, as he had threatened, but supported his family by Sunday duties, selling life insurance, and some craft work." (16)

In 1928 Groser became priest-in-charge of Christ Church, Watney Street, in Stepney, where he built up a lively, socially involved community. A member of the Independent Labour Party, he immediately became involved in local politics and played a major role in the campaign for better housing, and served as chairman of the Stepney Tenants' Defence League. Groser also opposed means testing and the use of police powers over "loitering with intent" against unemployed people. (17)

Groser also organised conferences on the subject of Christian Socialism. One of these was attended by the journalist, Hannen Swaffer: "Father Groser's address to the parsons was an explanations of Marxian theories - how, under Capitalism, when production and consumption are not equative, you must find markets abroad, and how the economic drive pushes towards War." Swaffer quoted Groser as saying: "If you desire peace, you can only do it by destroying the profit-making system, bringing about a new social order in which we produce what we need, and share what we produce." (18)

Father Groser had been deeply influenced by the teachings of William Morris and was a supporter of the Arts and Crafts movement. taught his parishioners folk songs and country dancing. He encouraged the women and girls of the parish to wear bright headscarves and to get rid of lace curtains and aspidistras. In his parish church he created an open sanctuary with a nave altar to enable more corporate worship and decorated it with fabrics woven by himself." (19)

Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, decided to develop a long-term electoral strategy of supporting anti-Semitic campaigns in Jewish areas. Of the 350,000 British Jews, about 230,000 lived in London, 150,000 of them in the East End. In October 1935, Mosley had ordered John Becket and A. K. Chesterton to promote anti-Semitism in those places with the highest number of Jews. (20) According to Robert Skidelsky, "Sixty thousand or so Jews were to be found in Stepney; another 20,000 or so in Bethnal Green; with smaller numbers in Hackney, Shoreditch and Bow." (21)

The BUF opened its first "London branch, in Bow, in October 1934, signalling its intent to build a populist, working-class, fascist movement especially in Irish-Catholic areas bordering Jewish communities. Mosley thought he was pushing an open door, encouraging anti-Semitism there. His emergent movement would have visible targets on which to vent their growing frustration about their own circumstances." (22)

The Morning Post criticised the Conservative Party for ignoring the activities of the BUF and praised the Labour Party for challenging the policies and activities of Mosley's party. (23) However, it was the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain who became "the champions of the Jews in the ant-Fascist cause". John Groser played an important role in the formation of the Jewish People's Council Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism. Established in July, 1936, it became the most important organization opposed to fascism. (24)

This organisations was often critical of the role played in the resistance to fascism by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The leader of the new organisation, Aaron Rapoport Rollin, who was instrumental in establishing the Jewish People's Council, was also the chairman of the Jewish Labour Council, and a trade union leader in the garment industry, pointed out: "The Board of Deputies, constituted as it is on an obsolete and often farcical basis of representation, does not represent the widest elements of the Jewish people in this country... The mass of the Jewish people are not at all yet convinced that a complete and sincere change of heart and mind has taken place in the leadership of the Board. There must therefore be in existence a strong and virile popular Jewish body to act as a driving force in our fight against the dangers confronting us." (25)

The members of this new organisation were also critical of The Jewish Chronicle, whose "editorial policy was closely allied with that of the official leadership and other recognised figureheads of Anglo-Jewry, and gave prominence to their statements." When anti-fascists became engaged with physical encounters with fascists were deemed guilty of "stupid and disgraceful behaviour" and their actions characterised as a "rank disservice to the Jewish people". (26)

In an attempt to increase support for their campaign, the British Union of Fascists announced its attention of marching through the East End on 4th October 1936, wearing their Blackshirt uniforms. The Jewish People's Council Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism produced a petition that stated: "We the undersigned citizens of East London, view with grave concern the proposed march of the British Union of Fascists upon East London. The avowed object of the Fascist movement in Great Britain is the incitement of malice and hatred against sections of the population. It aims to further ends which seek to destroy the harmony and goodwill which has existed for centuries among the East London population, irrespective of differences in race and creed. We consider racial incitement, by a movement which employs flagrant distortions of the truth and degrading calumny and vilification, as a direct and deliberate provocation to attack. We therefore make an appeal to His Majesty's Secretary of State for Home Affairs to prohibit such matters and thus retain peaceable and amicable relations between all sections of East London's population." (27)

Within 48 hours over 100,000 people signed the petition and it was presented to 2nd October deputation was headed by Father John Groser, James Hall, the Labour Party M.P. for Whitechapel and Alfred M. Wall (Secretary of the London Trades Council). (28) George Lansbury, the M.P. for Bow & Bromley, also wrote to John Simon, the Home Secretary, and asked for the march to be diverted. (29) Simon refused and told a deputation of local mayors that he would not interfere as he did not wish to infringe freedom of speech. Instead he sent a large police escort in an attempt to prevent anti-fascist protesters from disrupting the march. (30)

The Independent Labour Party responded by issuing a leaflet calling on East London workers to take part in the counter demonstration which assembles at Aldgate at 2.p.m. (31) As a result the anti-fascists, adopting the slogan of the Spanish Republicans defending Madrid "They Shall Not Pass" and developed a plan to block Mosley's route. One of the key organizers was Phil Piratin, a leading figure in the Stepney Tenants Defence League. Denis Nowell Pritt and other members of the Labour Party also took part in the campaign against the march. (32)

The Jewish Chronicle told its readers not to take part in the demonstration: "Urgent Warning. It is understood that a large Blackshirt demonstration will be held in East London on Sunday afternoon. Jews are urgently warned to keep away from the route of the Blackshirt march from their meetings. Jews who, however innocently, became involved in any possible disorders will be actively helping anti-Semitism and Jew-baiting. Unless you want to help the Jew-baiters - Keep Away." (33)

The Daily Herald reported that by "1.30 p.m.... anti-Fascists had massed in tens of thousands. They formed a solid block at the junction of Commercial Street, Whitechapel Road and Aldgate. It was through this area that Mosley would have to reach his goal, Victoria Park, Stepney and the Socialists, Jews and Communists of the East End were determined that 'Mosley should not pass!' At the time every available policeman - about 10,000 in all - was converging on Whitechapel from all parts of London. Mounted police rode into the huge throng and forced the demonstrators back into the streets. Cordons were then flung across to keep a clear space for the marchers." (34)

By 2.00 p.m. 50,000, people had gathered to prevent the entry of the march into the East End, and something between 100,000 and 300,000 additional protesters waited on the route. Barricades were erected across Cable Street and the police endeavoured to clear a route by making repeated baton charges. (35) One of the demonstrators said that he could see "Mosley - black-shirted himself - marching in front of about 3,000 Blackshirts and a sea of Union Jacks. It was as though he were the commander-in-chief of the army, with the Blackshirts in columns and a mass of police to protect them." (36) During the fighting, Father Groser, was was hit several times by police batons and suffered a broken nose. (37)

Eventually at 3.40 p.m. Sir Philip Game, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London, had to accept defeat and told Mosley that he had to abandon their march and the fascists were escorted out of the area. Max Levitas, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Stepney later pointed out: "It was the solidarity between the Labour Party, the Communist Party and the trade union movement that stopped Mosley's fascists, supported by the police, from marching through Cable Street." (38) William J. Fishman said: "I was moved to tears to see bearded Jews and Irish Catholic dockers standing up to stop Mosley. I shall never forget that as long as I live, how working-class people could get together to oppose the evil of fascism." (39)

Groser was a member of the London County Council's committee on poor relief applications and chair of the local Public Assistance Committee. His biographer points out that like Conrad Noel, "Groser saw the importance of festivity, of colour, music, and dancing, in the creation of a Christian social consciousness. The Watney Street church was an urban representation of what Thaxted was struggling to manifest in the countryside, with joyful festivals, folk-dancing, and processions. Here too was a democratic Christian community, and a strong sense of the liturgy as a sacramental prefiguring of a liberated world." (40) The chief rabbi Israel Brodie, claimed Groser "'embodied the characteristics of the saint", with his "Amos-like indignation at the grinding of the faces of the poor and his desire for radical social change". (41)

Father Groser was a fierce opponent of Adolf Hitler and was one of the few Anglican priests to speak out against the policy of appeasement with Germany being promoted by Neville Chamberlain and the Conservative government. After the Munich Agreement was signed Groser wrote: "Blackmail has succeeded. The threat of force has triumphed... That Mr Chamberlain should talk of 'peace with honour' when he has surrendered to this blackmail, torn up Article 10 of the League Covenant without reference to Geneva, and sacrificed the Czechoslovaks in order, as he says, to prevent a world war, is bad enough; but that the Archbishop of Canterbury should say that this is the answer to our prayers... is beyond endurance." (42)

Father Groser gave his support to local people in disputes with landlords. On 20th June 1939, the tenants of Alexandra Buildings on Commercial Street "built barricades of tables, doors and sofas at each entrance and a drawbridge to resist the bailiffs. Six were arrested for obstructing and assaulting the police." Father Groser joined forces with Rabbi Israel Brodie and Bishop of Stepney, Robert Moberly. They argued the tenant’s case inside with the landlord for two hours before they agreed to stop the evictions. (43)

During the Second World War he became one of the main spokesman for the people suffering from the results of the Blitz. His biographer points out that he "displayed characteristically heroic care for his people and wrote scathingly about the arrangements made for East Enders. In 1940, he broke into an official food store and distributed rations to homeless people and organised buses to take them to safety. He was involved in the creation of a railway arch air-raid shelter in Watney Street." (44)

Ritchie Calder, the author of Carry on London (1941), has pointed out that he Father John Groser often "took the law into his own hands" and carried out a series of illegal acts: "He smashed open a local food depot. He lit a bonfire outside his church and fed the hungry. There wasn't a cabinet minister or an official who would have dared to stand in his way or to challenge this 'illicit' act.... He broke open a block of flats. He put them in. He got hold of furniture by hook or by crook, he got the electricity, gas and water supply turned on, and he brought them food." (45)

Hannen Swaffer arranged for William Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, the press baron and member of the War Cabinet to meet Father Groser. "It was a terrible story we told Beaverbrook - how scores of thousands of people were still enduring conditions comparable with those in Flanders. While approximately 100,000 are homeless, or living in wrecked houses, many have to walk over eight miles, from centre to centre, in the vain hope of obtaining relief from their sufferings!" (46)

Father Groser was interviewed by The People newspaper. "He (Groser) had huddled with them through nights of terror under dripping railway arches dimly lit by hurricane lamps, watched the stolid men play draughts together, and the shivering ill-clad women sharing their tea and bread with others less fortunate comforting the aged, the sick, and the poor worried mothers with too many babies." (47)

It has been claimed that Father John Groser led the way in persuading the different churches to work together during the war: "Other clergymen, Anglican and Nonconformist, rose spectacularly to the occasion in the East End, and asserted their leadership in almost uncontrollable conditions. Such practical witness to a humane faith made the divisions between the denominations seem more than ever absurd, and the bombing provoked acts of mutual friendship between the churches which exceeded the hopes of those who had worked for inter-denominational co-operation between the wars: a service in the biggest of all Tube shelters, for instance, in which a Roman Catholic priest, a rabbi, a Nonconformist minister, a Salvationist and the Anglican Bishop of London all took part." (48)

Father Groser was delighted by the result of the 1945 General Election. With almost 12 million votes, Labour had 47.8% of the vote to 39.8% for the Conservatives. Labour made 179 gains from the Tories, winning 393 seats to 213. The 12.0% national swing from the Conservatives to Labour, remains the largest ever achieved in a British general election. It came as a surprise that Winston Churchill, who was considered to be the most important figure in winning the war, suffered a landslide defeat and Clement Attlee, became prime minister. (49)

Father Groser was a strong supporter of Aneurin Bevan and his introduction of the National Health Service. It was reported that he was a regular visitor to the House of Commons: "Rev. St. J. B. Groser, Rural Dean of Stepney... the tall, slim ecclesiastic is a familiar figure in the House of Commons, often going there by invitation from a group of Socialist M.P.s who are professing Christians, when they meet informally to discuss coming legislation in the light of their religious faith. His 20 years' experience of parish work in the East End of London and the stories of his heroism during the bombing raids, when both his church and his house were destroyed, have no doubt won their confidence." (50)

In 1948 Groser became warden of the Royal Foundation of St Katharine, located at the Limehouse end of Cable Street. In 1951 he played the role of Thomas Becket in the film Murder in the Cathedral but for the rest of his life was dedicated to his religious work. "Supported by colleagues such as Ethel Upton and Dorothy Halsall, he made St Katharine's a centre for Christian discourse, and a power-house of debate and discussion about the future of east London. Here dockers and trade unionists, Christians and Jews, elderly people, and a wide range of social and political groups would meet, making the centre a kind of early ‘think-tank’ and centre of commitment to the health and welfare of the East End. He was a key figure in the founding of Stepney Old People's Welfare Association and Stepney Coloured People's Association." (51)

St John Beverley Groser died on 19th March 1966.

The Middle Ages

The Normans

The Tudors

The English Civil War

Industrial Revolution

First World War

Russian Revolution

Nazi Germany

United States: 1920-1945

(1) Patrick Comerford, Remembering Father John Groser (1890-1966), once the best-known priest in the East End (20th November, 2016)

(2) Kenneth Brill, St John Beverley Groser: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2013)

(3) Patrick Comerford, Remembering Father John Groser (1890-1966), once the best-known priest in the East End (20th November, 2016)

(4) Chris Bryant, Possible Dreams: A Personal History of the British Christian Socialists (1996) page 237

(5) Catholic Crusade Manifesto (10th April, 1918)

(6) George Lansbury, Looking Backwards and Forwards (1935) pages 134-135

(7) Janine Booth, Guilty and Proud of It! Poplar's Rebel Councillors and Guardians 1919-25 (2009) pages 28-33

(8) The Daily Herald (6th September, 1921)

(9) Harry Gosling, Up and Down Stream (1927) pages 100-101

(10) Joint statement by the Labour councillors when released from prison (12th October, 1921)

(11) Patrick Comerford, Remembering Father John Groser (1890-1966), once the best-known priest in the East End (20th November, 2016)

(12) Alan Wilkinson, Christian Socialism (1998) page 165

(13) Margaret Morris, The General Strike (1976) page 322

(14) East London Advertiser (22nd May, 1926)

(15) Alan Wilkinson, Christian Socialism (1998) page 165

(16) Patrick Comerford, Remembering Father John Groser (1890-1966), once the best-known priest in the East End (20th November, 2016)

(17) Kenneth Brill, St John Beverley Groser: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2013)

(18) Hannen Swaffer, The Daily Herald (3rd April, 1936)

(19) Alan Wilkinson, Christian Socialism (1998) page 165

(20) Special Branch Report (24th October, 1934)

(21) Robert Skidelsky, Mosley (1981) page 393

(22) David Rosenberg, Rebel Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London's Radical History (2015) page 263

(23) The Morning Post (22nd October, 1933)

(24) Robert Benewick, The Fascist Movement in Britain (1972) pages 223-224

(25) Aaron Rapoport Rollin, speech at the People's Council Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism Conference (26th July, 1936)

(26) David Rosenberg, Battle for the East End: Jewish Responses to Fascism in the 1930s (2011) page 141

(27) Petition organised by the Jewish People's Council Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism that was presented to the Home Office on 2nd October 1936.

(28) The Daily Worker (3rd October 1936)

(29) The Jewish Chronicle (9th October, 1936)

(30) Nigel Copsey, Anti-Fascism in Britain (2000) pages 54-55

(31) The Daily Worker (3rd October 1936)

(32) Robert Benewick, The Fascist Movement in Britain (1972) page 220-225

(33) The Jewish Chronicle (2nd October, 1936)

(34) The Daily Herald (5th October 1936)

(35) Martin Pugh, Hurrah for the Blackshirts (2006) page 225

(36) William J. Fishman, The Daily Mirror (23rd September, 2006)

(37) Patrick Comerford, Remembering Father John Groser (1890-1966), once the best-known priest in the East End (20th November, 2016)

(38) Kurt Barling, Cable Street: Solidarity stopped Mosley's fascists (4th October, 2011)

(39) Audrey Gillan, The Guardian (20th September, 2006)

(40) St John Beverley Groser: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2013)

(41) Kenneth Brill, John Groser, East London Priest (1971) page 102

(42) St John Beverley Groser, The Anglican Guardian (October, 1938)

(43) The Daily Herald (20th June 1939)

(44) Patrick Comerford, Remembering Father John Groser (1890-1966), once the best-known priest in the East End (20th November, 2016)

(45) Ritchie Calder, Carry on London (1941) page 65

(46) Hannen Swaffer, The Daily Herald (2nd October, 1940)

(47) R. S. Buchanan, The People (15th December, 1940)

(48) Angus Calder, The People's War (1969) page 482

(49) A. J. P. Taylor, English History: 1914-1945 (1965) page 723

(50) The Scotsman (24th February, 1948)

(51) Kenneth Brill, St John Beverley Groser: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2013)