Marking the 40th anniversary of the unveiling of the International Brigade memorial in London’s Jubilee Gardens, IBMT Chair Jim Jump looks back at the drama behind its installation…

Linger by the International Brigade memorial on London’s Southbank and you’ll soon notice tourists stopping to find out what this imposing piece of public art is all about. Standing four metres high, it’s the only sculpture or memorial in Jubilee Gardens, a green oasis facing onto the Thames and squeezed between the London Eye and the Royal Festival Hall.

The memorial today with its inscription inspired by Cecil Day Lewis's poem 'The Volunteer'.

As these curious tourists read the inscriptions, some, especially Spaniards, are clearly surprised. How come a memorial of this sort, dedicated to a cause still considered controversial in some official and rightwing circles, should be located on a prime site in the heart of the capital?

It’s a good question. Little do most people know the politics and cliff-hanging drama that led up to its unveiling 40 years ago on 5 October 1985.

The impetus for a national memorial emerged in the years following Franco’s death in 1975 and the process of restoring democracy in Spain.

Through the International Brigade Association, the veterans had, until Spain’s often fraught transición, concentrated on campaigning against the country’s brutal dictatorship and on behalf of its many political prisoners.

Now, with the approach of the 50th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1986, they could devote efforts to a national memorial to their more than 500 fallen comrades and to all those anti-fascist volunteers who had, as the memorial in Jubilee Gardens states, ‘left these shores’ to go to Spain. These were carefully chosen words to include all the Irish, Cypriots and those from the dominions and colonies who didn’t count themselves as ‘British’.

Supporters in Scotland had already led the way. In August 1980, Glasgow City Council raised the landmark Pasionaria memorial to the International Brigades. Created by Liverpool sculptor Arthur Dooley, the figure of legendary Spanish Republican leader Dolores Ibárruri faces south across the Clyde, arms outstretched.

Something equally as impressive was needed nationally. And in the leftwing Labour-run Greater London Council, the Brigaders found friends, notably leader ‘Red’ Ken Livingstone, chair Illtyd Harrington and arts committee chair Tony Banks. The GLC agreed to provide a site for the memorial in Jubilee Gardens, which it owned and was located next to its headquarters in County Hall.

The International Brigade Memorial Appeal (IBMA) was set up and began raising the necessary funds, including an £18,800 grant from the GLC.

Six leading sculptors were asked to submit ideas for the memorial, and in December 1984, the commission was awarded to Ian Walters, creator of, among other works, the bust of Nelson Mandela on London Southbank and the statue of Harold Wilson in Huddersfield.

Sculptor Ian Walters (left), with his maquette for the memorial, and (from right) Brigaders Bill Alexander (International Brigade Memorial Appeal chair) and Jimmy Jump (IBMA Secretary).

Meanwhile, Red Ken was becoming a thorn in the side of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The GLC hoisted, for example, a massive banner on top of County Hall, clearly visible across the river from the Houses of Parliament, with a running total of the growing number of unemployed in London.

Thatcher was not amused, and she characteristically went for the political nuclear option, announcing in 1983 that she would abolish the GLC. Two years later, royal assent was given to the Local Government Act, which on 31 March 1986 dissolved the GLC and its powers were distributed to the London boroughs.

County Hall was to be sold off – it’s now a leisure hub for attractions such as the Sea Life London Aquarium and London Dungeon – and Jubilee Gardens was eventually handed over to a specially-formed charitable trust.

Thatcher’s attack on the GLC galvanised campaigners. At the meeting of the IBMA on 8 January 1985, appeal chair Bill Alexander said it was now ‘essential to hold the unveiling ceremony while the GLC is still in control’. Illtyd Harrington urged it to be held ‘the sooner the better’, the meeting heard.

Committee members of the International Brigade Memorial Appeal inspect the unfinished sculpture in Ian Walters’s studio in Battersea. From left are Brigaders Robert Walker (partly hidden) and Joe Monks, Betty Birch, Solly Kaye and Ann Mildwater.

With the clock ticking, plans for an unveiling on 19 July 1986 were scrapped, and Ian Walters was told to speed things up for the new deadline in October 1985.

The new deadline was met, though even after the unveiling, uncertainty still hung over the memorial’s future.

‘It is intended to hold a public event at the memorial on 19 July 1986, 50th anniversary of the fascist revolt,’ wrote Bill Alexander in the International Brigade Association’s newsletter.

‘But the GLC, whose many-sided and generous support made the memorial possible, will have been replaced by a government-appointed quango who will control the Southbank,’ he said. ‘The character and form of the event cannot therefore yet be decided.’

5 October 1985: Michael Foot MP with his hand on the memorial shortly after he unveiled it. From his left to right are: Norman Willis (TUC General Secretary), Brigader Jack Jones, Tony Banks and Communist Party General Secretary Gordon McLennan. With her hand on the plinth is Dame Janet Vaughan and, next to her, Bill Alexander.

Thankfully, not only did the 1986 event go ahead, but a commemoration has taken place in July ever since. And, with excellent relations with the Jubilee Gardens Trust, the IBMT is confident that the volunteers will continue to be remembered at the memorial for many years to come.

Robbie MacDonald reports from May's unveiling of a new memorial in East Lancashire…

Men from East Lancashire who volunteered to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War have been honoured in a new memorial in Burnley.

The Mayor of Burnley, Councillor Shah Hussain, at the unveiling, holding the flag of XV International Brigade.

Volunteers from Pendle, Burnley, Rossendale and Hyndburn are featured in the memorial to the International Brigade near Burnley Library. It was unveiled at a ceremony in May by the Mayor of Burnley, Coun Shah Hussain, and Chris Keene of North East Lancashire Trades Union Council.

The new plaque featuring words from the farewell to the Brigaders given by Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, on 28 October 1938.

The new memorial highlights James Bridge from Nelson, George Buck from Nelson, Freeman 'Frank' Drinkwater of Burnley,  H Eastwood-Taylor of Rawtenstall, Harry Edward Gaze from Accrington, David Hartley King of Salterforth, Jack Howley from Colne, John Jolly of Burnley,  Samuel Martin from Burnley and Frank Welsby, also of Burnley.

Lewis Ashworth, from Barrowford, reading at Burnley Library.

The ceremony included speaker Lewis Ashworth from Barrowford. He is a University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) history graduate who has researched local links to the Spanish Civil War and other conflicts.

In Lancashire, support for the International Brigade and loyal Spanish soldiers who tried to defend Spain's democratic government came in other forms too. Medical aid with volunteer nurses and doctors was provided, along with fund-raising activities for ambulances and humanitarian aid. Towns such as Burnley and Nelson had local Spanish aid committees. Many mayors were involved too in local campaigns to help Spain.

A display at nearby Burnley Library illustrated the range of activities, including photos of activists and an ambulance provided by the people of Burnley. Also pictured were nurses, including Molly Murphy from Leyland.

IBMT member Lisa Croft from the North West with Lorrain McCartney from the North East.

The new Burnley memorial has been supported by organisations including North East Lancashire Trades Council, the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), International Brigade Memorial Trust supporters and Burnley Council. 

The Burnley and Bolton Clarion Choir perform at the unveiling.

The ceremony included songs the Burnley and Bolton Clarion Choir. Clarion choirs and other groups, such as cycling clubs, were originally linked to the former Independent Labour Party, which had a newspaper called The Clarion. 

Today, there is a Clarion House outdoor club at Newchurch in Pendle, near Nelson and the landmark Pendle Hill. The venue has Spanish Civil War memorabilia along with many other local items. It is still used today for outdoor, political and educational activities, including a cafe for visitors on Sundays. Pendle Council has supported it along with charity trustees.

In nearby Nelson, a building called Unity Hall is a former Independent Labour Party venue with ILP architectural features and a reading room.  Today, the building is used by Nelson Town Council and the local community. The reading room can be visited on arrangement.

On Saturday 12 April Jayne Dunn, Lord Mayor of Sheffield, unveiled the 'Boy with Dove' statue in the city's Weston Park.

Created by artist Anthony Padgett, the statue is a tribute to Picasso, to the International Brigade volunteers from South Yorkshire, to the Basque children who were given sanctuary by the people of Sheffield, and to all Sheffield’s workers and citizens.

The statue is located in Weston Park, Sheffield S10 2TP, and has been added to the IBMT directory and map of memorials.

Here is a selection of photos from the unveiling…

'Boy with Dove', which honours Picasso, who attended the 2nd World Peace Congress in Sheffield in 1950.

A close-up of the plaque on the bench.

Standing, left to right: Sam Morecroft, President Sheffield Trades Union Council, Simon Martinez, Trustee Basque Children Association ’37, Anthony Padgett, sculptor, and Martin Mayer, former Secretary Sheffield TUC.
Seated, left to right: Jayne Dunn, Lord Mayor of Sheffield, Megan Dobney, IBMT Secretary, and Dolores Long, IBMT Executive Committee member.

Artist Anthony Padgett sits alongside his creation, 'Boy with Dove', which depicts Picasso as a boy holding a dove of peace.

Flags representing the organisations that backed the project and the people they support.

Jayne Dunn, Lord Mayor of Sheffield, who unveiled the statue, sits alongside the 'Boy with Dove'.

Photos: Gideon Long.

Pauline Fraser reports from the unveiling in Beeston, Nottinghamshire…

A good fifty people braved the cold to gather outside Nan Green’s birthplace, on Sunday 9 February, for the dedication of a plaque to this former Secretary of the International Brigade Association, volunteer in the Spanish Civil War and peace activist.

Flowers in the colours of the Spanish Republic underneath the new plaque. Photo: Pauline Fraser.

Marlene Sidaway, IBMT President, laid flowers by the plaque, which is attached to the fence in front of Surrey Cottage, 12 Glebe Street, Beeston, while Tamar Feast of Beeston & District Civic Society gave a warm tribute to the work Nan undertook in Spain and accompanying refugees to Mexico. Tamar has campaigned for more Lady Plaques and Nan Green’s is the second in the series. They have a biography of Nan on their website.

Pauline Fraser and Marlene Sidaway in Beeston.

Tamar introduced Sue Paterson, Labour Mayor of Broxtowe Borough Council, who welcomed the initiative to get more plaques to women. Sue was accompanied by Robert Bullock, Deputy Mayor.

Tamar Feast (left) of Beeston Civic Society and Beeston Mayor Sue Paterson. Photo: Pete Fraser.

Five of Nan Green’s grandchildren travelled to Beeston to honour their grandmother, joining members of Beeston Civic Society and Nottingham Local History Society, local Broxtowe councillors and IBMT members and supporters.

Grandchildren of Nan Green: (from left) Crispin Green, Barnaby Green, Katie Green, Polly Green, Emma Brouard. Photo: Pauline Fraser.

Notts TV reporter Kateryna Sabadash covered the event. Her report was broadcast on Monday 10 February. Watch from 37:17.

The full address for those wishing to visit the plaque is Surrey Cottage, 12 Glebe Street/Elm Avenue corner, Beeston, Notts, NG9 1BZ. The plaque has been added to the Trust's directory and map of memorials.

The crowd gathers for the unveiling.

IBMT member Robert Hargreaves reports on the campaign for a new memorial in North West England …

Proud Salford, for so long overshadowed by the adjacent city of Manchester, is fired up to reclaim its place in the history of the British Battalion and the Spanish Civil War.

At least 30 men and women from greater Salford served in the International Brigades. Ten did not return, and many were wounded. Now, North West IBMT stalwart Barrie Eckford is determined to mark their place in history with a new memorial that will remind future generations of the sacrifices made by brave volunteer Salfordians.

Barrie Eckford addresses the Salford Histories Festival.

Barrie, a retired UNITE the Union member, has teamed up with Salford councillor and UNITE official Jack Youd to spearhead a fund-raising campaign for the memorial. The key element in the campaign is a social media crowdfunding appeal under the auspices of Salford City Council. Including a generous £1,000 donation from the UNITE service branch, the crowdfund has already raised almost £2,000. Moreover, with Jack’s support, Salford’s Mayoral Fund has undertaken to match the donations made from other sources.

Addressing an enthusiastic meeting of Salfordians in the council chamber, as part of the city’s Histories Festival, Barrie spoke of the special contribution Salford citizens made to the defence of the beleaguered Spanish Republic in the face of Franco’s military onslaught on democracy. Said Barrie: 'The people of Salford were politically aware. They had borne deprivation and unemployment with magnificent courage and had witnessed the threat of fascism as Mosley’s blackshirts stalked their streets. When Franco launched his attack on the democratically elected government of Spain, these men and women told themselves: we will fight!'

Councillor Jack Youd.

In turn, Cllr Youd explained his dedication to the cause of a memorial: 'I have always been an anti-fascist. My concerns brought me into contact with the IBMT. It goes without saying that I am a passionate Salfordian, and looking back at the history of our city, I feel that the Brigaders helped to give us our unique identity.'

Jack’s wife, Charlotte, also a councillor, echoed these sentiments. 'Yes, it’s about our history and identity, and that means our children’s future as well.' She added that the city remembers with pride not only the Salford Brigaders but also its citizens who made huge sacrifices to contribute to Spanish Aid and food ships, as well as those who welcomed and cared for many of the Basque children evacuated from Spain at the height of the war.

Supporting Barrie Eckford (centre), IBMT volunteers, from left to right, Rob Hargreaves, Stuart Walsh, Stephanie Turner and Ben Perry.

Another key contributor to the project is Ben Perry, a post-graduate research student at York University whose research has retrieved wide-ranging facts about individual Brigaders. “The IBMT Volunteer database has been invaluable’, said Ben, who helped man the IBMT stall at the festival. 

Stuart Walsh (left) and Barrie Eckford (right) with Salford Deputy Mayor, Cllr Heather Fletcher.

The campaign for a Salford memorial, envisaged as an obelisk bearing the names of the city’s volunteers, in the square adjacent to the Working Class Memorial Library (WCML), has the support of the mayor, Cllr Paul Dennett, Salford Trades Union Council, numerous community groups such as the Ordsall Community and Arts Centre, and the WCML itself.

Donations to the crowdfund can be made via the crowdfunding campaign.

IBMT Scotland Secretary Mike Arnott shares the story behind an unusual memorial in Carbeth, Scotland …

Carbeth is a small hamlet in the beautiful rural hills and woodlands of Stirlingshire, nine miles north of the former shipbuilding town of Clydebank. The history of the Carbeth Hutters begins when returning soldiers from the First World War were granted camping rights by the local landowner; Allan Barns Graham.

The area was noted as a magnet for the industrial working class living in the industrial conurbations along the Clyde and seeking escape and recreation within the river’s rural hinterland. The more robust hut structures developed from the seasonal tented camping sites.

The Hutters are a group, and a philosophy, which grew out of the First World War’s aftermath and the 'camping and trekking' explosion of the 1920s and 30s. The huts, associated camps and other parts of the area have strong links with the Clarion and the wider Labour movement.

Indeed, Rose Kerrigan, wife of leading International Brigade volunteer Peter, organised a camp there providing ante-natal classes for expectant mothers from these working-class communities in the 30s.

The Clarion Camp, with Clarion Hut, at Carbeth.

Having been aware for many years of Carbeth and its labour movement links, and keen to try and pin down rumoured links to the International Brigaders, I struck up an email conversation with Tom McKendrick, a Board member of the Carbeth Hutters Community Company. He has been incredibly helpful in both confirming several links to the Brigaders and in initiating a dialogue within the wider Carbeth Hutter community to hopefully help us pin down more detailed information and handed-down recollections.

He was familiar with the story that the camp and its surroundings had been used as an ad hoc training area for potential Brigaders, ideal for the purpose with varieties of terrain (forests, hillsides and open ground) and well away from the sight of unsympathetic authorities.

Evidence has also come down from Bob Grieve, who was a veteran attendee at the famous Craigallian Fire, a campfire site by Carbeth. His fellow ‘fire sitters’ were industrial workers and the unemployed and the talk was of Socialism and Communism. Grieve and others were aware that a number of those who fought in Spain had been fire-sitters at Craigallian.

His sons, Willie and Iain, recalled their father’s anecdote that returning Spanish Civil War veterans brought a different edge to the camping: He claimed a number kept weapons to hunt deer on the slopes of Ben Lomond and that the occasional exchange of shots with local gamekeepers was not unknown. The same website also mentions David McConnell, a fire sitter from Glasgow, who volunteered for Spain. Due to a hitherto undetected heart problem caused by a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, he failed the medical but was nevertheless accepted, allegedly due to the intercession of a family friend: Harry Pollitt, Communist Party General Secretary.

But McConnell never made it. He was arrested by French police as he was crossing the Pyrenees and repatriated. British Secret Service files do indeed record him leaving the UK on a ferry in March 1938 but returning three days later.

Tom has also confirmed the story of a 'farewell weekend' at Carbeth, when girlfriends and comrades gathered to say goodbye to those who were about to depart for Spain. He has shared the following photographs, the first of which was taken at that event and another showing a group in uniform, taken in Spain, which shares some faces with the first.

Most importantly. he has also been able to confirm three names of Brigaders associated with Carbeth, which we have been able to link to biographies on the IBMT website: Thomas Flynn from Glasgow, who was killed at Chimorra in April 1937, Andrew Smith from Clydebank and Joseph Harkins, also from Clydebank, who fell at Gandesa in July 1938. (Tom had a fourth name; James Harkins, Joseph’s brother, but we haven’t been able to confirm his being in Spain.)

Following the deaths in Spain, a tree was planted by the family of one of the fallen and was formally designated as The Soldiers Tree. It survives, is still remembered by this name today and is located at 55°58’53”N, 4°21’42”W, within the Carbeth Hut site.

The Soldiers Tree today.

The story of the tree makes it possibly the oldest UK memorial to the fallen of the International Brigade, certainly the oldest in Scotland, and we have agreed to work with the Carbeth Hutters Community Company to supplement it with a formal, interpretative memorial. It has also been added to the IBMT’s official database of UK memorials.

Sources:
Tom McKendrick
Carbeth Hutters
Friends of Craigallian Fire

Andy Jones reports from the annual No Pasarán Memorial Committee North Lanarkshire commemoration …

The No Pasarán Memorial Committee of North Lanarkshire held its annual memorial on Sunday 28 July in the Duchess of Hamilton Park Motherwell. A large crowd attended the event.

Committee members Frankie McGuinness Jim Baxter, John Milligan, Brian Molloy and Andy Jones.

Andy Jones of the committee explained that the memorial was primarily erected to remember the 11 brave individuals who left North Lanarkshire as part of the International Brigades to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War, some giving their lives in the ultimate sacrifice.

Each year, we also always remember all who fought with the International Brigades as well as those affected by fascism.

The main speaker was Mike Arnott of the IBMT, with music by Paul Sheridan. There was also a reading of the poem 'Graves of Spain' and the from the roll of honour. The service ended with a minute's silence and the laying of wreaths.

After the event in the park, a social was held in The Railway Tavern. 

Speaker Mike Arnott (in front of the banner), Paul Sheridan singing 'These Hands' and Andy Jones (right) of the committee.