From The Times of the Chesterfords –

July 1976 p.10

THE JARROW CRUSADE ARRIVING IN GREAT CHESTERFORD

Nearly 80 years ago, the problems of the depressed areas in the 1930s imposed themselves on our community. It is perhaps as well to remember this event in these days of unemployment and economic hardship.

As people probably know, the purpose of the Jarrow Crusade was to petition the House ofCommons to provide work in the town. After the sale of Palmer’s Shipyard in 1934, three men out of every four were out of a job and a series of delegations to the Board of Trade to try to get help in establishing new industries, got very little response. As Mr Runciman, President of the Board of Trade told one delegation; “You must go back to Jarrow and work out your own salvation”. However, Jarrow decided to make one more effort to get some action from the government by sending two hundred of its unemployed men to London. At the head of the marchers came the town’s mayor, David Riley, their M.P. Ellen Wilkinson, and a young bricklayer who was also a Councillor, Paddy Scullion.

There were many people who sympathised with the marchers and they got a friendly reception in many of the towns and villages they passed. Mrs HerbertAndrews vividly remembers the day they came to Great Chesterford. They wereon their way south down the A11 from Cambridge and the vicar, the Reverend Doble came out to greet the men as they tramped down the road. He invited them to the old Vicarage (later the Country Club) where Mrs Andrews alongwith other villagers gave them tea, sandwiches and cheese. They had tin mugs tied to the bundles on their backs, and she says they looked weary, poorly clothed and yet surprisingly cheerful. One difficulty was understanding their north country dialect. MrAndrews thinks they went to Saffron Walden to spend the night. “The funny thing is”, says Mrs Andrews, “we never did find out what happened to them afterwards”. In fact there was no response from the government, and no new work was brought to the town. Of course after war broke out in 1939 most of the unemployed in Jarrow found jobs or were called up. Nevertheless at least the goodwill of the people here in Great Chesterford along with that of many others throughout the country showed that as Paddy Scullion remarked “there were still some decent people left in the country”.

 

March 1977 p.6

Letter from the Rev Robert Morgan, Ickleton

To return to the Jarrow March, your article was quite right in the quotation about working out their own salvation. It resulted in no additional work being offered in the area, but it did give a tremendous boost not only to the men who took part but also to the whole town, from the Mayor to the humblest housewife and her man who was on the dole. It was not until the war three years later that Jarrow boomed again with the revival of shipbuilding. I was very interested to hear that the marchers had passed through Great Chesterford, and the marchers had been received so hospitably not only by the then Vicar, but also by the people who helped provide the refreshment, and even at this distance in time, I thank them again on behalf of my fellow northcountrymen.

April 1979 p.7

Letter from Jarrow Marcher Joe Douglas to Dr Treweek.

Dear Dr.,
We arrived in Poplar Saturday night at 10.30 we were greeted by the Mayor and Mayoress of West Ham, also George Lansbury, the M.P. for Poplar. Each marcher got matches, cigs, and a bar of chocolate, we slept in the Kingsley Hall with four blankets per man. At 10a.m. on Sunday we met all working class organisations en route for Hyde Park and what a grand scene altogether, the total parading was 250,000. In the Park was six platforms with four speakers who put our case to the people of London. Resolutions was taken against the Means Test and are to be sent to Parliament. Now Sir I would of like you to of been here to see this great sight we of Northumberland had the honour of leading both to and from the park. In concluding this simple letter I wish to thank you for what you done for me and the other marcher. I will never forget that night and morning, the food the bed and the bath was wonderful.

Yours truly
Joe Douglas

Extract from The Mayor and the Matron by Stanley Wilson, pp.69-70

‘When the two marches took place, together with two friends, I met the miners, one hundred and twenty of them, at the Cambridgeshire border. Led by a powerful loudspeaker organised by George Tompson and Tim Townsend, relaying ‘The Red Flag’ and The Internationale’, we marched to Great Chesterford Vicarage for lunch provided by Mr Doble. We then went on to Saffron Walden for dinner, a meeting and bed.’

Extract from a letter from Mrs Janet Hamilton 15 July 2010

“One of my brothers and a friend took chocolates and cigarettes to the miners. The following day they were summoned by the local JP Lt.Col. Wentworth Stanley, to Chesterford House. There they were roundly castigated for what they had done. This story I only heard a few years ago when the friend was well on in his eighties, and he was still angry about it. The Vicar and the Administrator? of the Congregational Chapel, a baker, had organised rest and refreshment for the miners before they went on to Walden. The Vicar, the Rev. Robert Doble, a Cambridge man, was Socialist in outlook. The JP was very right wing, and he was the Vicar’s Churchwarden who also required the ‘village’ children to bow and curtsey to him.”

POSTSCRIPT
In actual fact the marchers who came to Great Chesterford did not come from Jarrow but were the Durham Miners. The Jarrow Marchers went to London via St Albans.