Suburban Labour: The Labour Party in Penge to 1919

Abstract

This article examines the efforts of the early Labour Party to establish a foothold in a Conservative-dominated London suburb. It revisits the notion of a divided working class and ‘labour aristocracy’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and argues for its relevance in understanding the early Labour Party. Within this framework it provides an account of the labour movement in south London and presents a class analysis of Penge. It finds that skilled manual workers provided the party’s initial support, and that they were forced to adapt to a local political culture of working-class Toryism. It argues that their main motivation was to win recognition for the working class as a legitimate ‘interest’ in the local community, with the Labour Party as a vehicle of class dignity. But by the time the party achieved some modest success in 1919, it was already moving on to a broader conception of its working-class identity.