Imprisionment!

In 1921 thirty Poplar councillors took their fight for fairer taxes and social justice for the impoverished people of their borough in London's East End to the point of being imprisoned for their stand. Using their words and some of the contemporary songs that local supporters went to sing to them outside the walls of Brixton Prison, this reading reflects on why they were gaoled, their experiences and the consequences of their actions. 'Prisons are hells' the councillors rapidly concluded. Nonetheless, as this video points out, the situation is in most respects much worse in 2021 at a time when the prison population is ten times that of a century earlier. Moreover, sentences are getting longer. In contrast, ingenious legal stratagems enabled the release of all the councillors, starting with the heavily pregnant Nellie Cressall, after some six weeks of incarceration. The victory of the Poplar councillors, whose courageous stand drew attention to the justice of their cause, was a key staging post in the emergence of Britain's welfare state.