Sadly, today we often hear about youth crime and violence on the streets of South-East London. However, this is not just a modern-day phenomenon, for nearly 70 years ago, the vicinity around the Elephant and Castle was a hotbed of gang violence and anti-social behaviour. In fact, youth gangs had been present in the area since the 1820s and this continued into the interwar period, writes Neil Crossfield…
On the 8 April 1936, the Daily Mirror reported that ‘Gangs with razors and clubs wreck cafes’ in a piece about shopkeepers and coffee bars in the Elephant and Castle being attacked by youths who were ‘armed with razors, rubber truncheons and broken bottles.’ The youths would gather in these late at night and start a ‘rough house’ if anything annoyed them.
Later newspapers printed the story of a gang which had terrorised shopkeepers in the Walworth Road during the summer of 1939. Mark Selby was the owner of the State Milk Bar at 25 Walworth Road. Milk bars had become extremely popular during the 1930s throughout the United Kingdom. These were usually brightly lit, stylish café’s where adults could go to buy food and a range of milk-based drinks, milk shakes etc. The Milk Marketing Board had been established in 1933 and used this new craze for milk bars to increase sales and promote milk as a nutritious, healthy drink.
Selby had been wounded in the First World War serving with the Durham Light Infantry but by 1939, he was running the milk bar in Walworth Road. Unfortunately, his shop was targeted by a gang of local boys who would enter in groups of up to 30 and demand free refreshments and cigarettes. Newspapers called them the ‘Dead End Gang’. Sadly, the strain of this persistent harassment proved too much for Selby, who committed suicide by gassing himself at home on the 15 June.
In 1953, National Newspapers had been reporting on the rise of ‘teen-age gangs’ and associated violence. On the 19 July, The People newspaper ran a story titled ‘London’s Little Chicago’ where it compared large areas of South London to the American city synonymous with gangsters and ‘the mob’. While some of this hysteria may have been media hyperbole, there had been several serious outbreaks of violence involving young people during this period. Perhaps the most notorious of these was the murder of 17-year-old John Beckley. He was an apprentice electrical engineer, from Amelia Street, Walworth, who had been killed by members of another gang on Clapham Common. This had been dubbed the ‘Teddy Boy murder’ by the press. It was not only boys who were involved in these disturbances, with some suggesting that it was the girls who egged on the boys to greater acts of violence. The recently passed Prevention of Crime Act had made it an offence to be found carrying an offensive weapon without reasonable excuse, so gang members would get their girlfriends to hold the weapons as they could not be searched by male police officers.
Perhaps one of the most inventive solutions to the problem of ‘youth ‘delinquency’ was that which was implemented by the Dulwich College Mission, which had been working in Walworth and Camberwell since the 1890s. First with a home for Working Boys home in the Walworth Road, later taking over the running of St Johns Institute in Larcom Street and then also becoming involved with the Hollington Youth Club.
In 1952, the college appointed Cyril S. Smith as its research officer. Not to be confused with the disgraced Liberal MP, Smith studied at the London School of Economics before working with the staff of Sheffield University. He would later go on to work with the National Coal Board as the senior research officer in its industrial relations section. Leaving the NCB he became director of Manchester University’s pioneering Youth Work Diploma, one of the first in the country.
Smith carried out detailed research into the problems of post-war communities and spent time working in Camberwell and parts of Walworth, identifying the problems and needs of its inhabitants. The results of this study were published in his 1957 book, People in Need- A Study of Contemporary Social Needs and of their Relation to the Welfare State. A major part of his research centred on youth provision for the young people of the area. He noted that while the likes of the Wellington Boys Club, Jimmy Butterworths Clubland and the scouting movement provided a positive and useful diversion for young people, these organisations were not suitable for all. Clubs with connections with the church were harshly labelled as pushing the ‘ping pong and prayer’ approach by some of those who wished to reform youth work in the post-war period. Smith had identified a group of adolescents who were more difficult to reach; the ‘unclubbables’.
In a revolutionary departure from traditional approaches to youth work, the Dulwich College Mission decided that they would conduct a radical social experiment by founding what was to become the Teen Canteen. These had first become popular in the United States during the Second World War, where authorities shared similar concerns about teenage ‘delinquency’. Smith wrote, ‘The social need for the canteen arose from the inadequacy of orthodox youth clubs in their relationship with the more aggressive and adult-minded adolescents’.
His study had identified several problems facing the working-class boy and girl: an increase in violence, an increase in drunkenness among teenagers, a high rate of teenage pregnancy with one third of the girls marrying under 20 already pregnant and a lack of employment stability for young boys, many of whom would have already had four jobs or more since leaving school at 14. The canteen aimed to ‘bridge the enormous gap between the responsible adult world and the world of the working-class teenager’. By providing a place where young people could meet it would ‘remove adolescents from the bad company of older men’. It would be in effect a ‘Teen-agers’ pub where only soft drinks were served.
As much of the trouble had occurred around the Elephant and Castle, a suitable venue was found at 9 St Georges Road. This building was next to the Pineapple Pub, which was demolished in the 1970s and had previously been the premises of the Griffin Dining rooms.
On the 20 June 1955, the Teen Canteen opened in a ceremony attended by M.P. for Southwark, Rt. Hon. George Issacs, Mr. R.R Groves (the Master of Dulwich College) and various other dignitaries. Issacs made a speech in which he mentioned that ‘we had the same exuberant spirits and the same little gangs when I was a lad around here more than 40 years ago’. Journalists from The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, News Chronicle and The South London Press were in attendance. Even the Director of the London Information Centre of the United Nations was present, recording an interview for the U.N. Radio Service from Paris.
The building had been in poor condition before the Dulwich College Mission invested money into its renovation, which once completed meant that its interior compared to some of most modern coffee bars which were highly popular in London at this time. The target age group was 15–19-year-olds and while other organisations might have segregated the sexes, the Canteen was mixed from the start. It was thought that girls could play an ‘socially important role in taming some of the wilder and more unbalanced boys’. Initially the club was open six evenings a week usually from 7pm till 11pm. It had a juke box and a table football game, but these were removed after around six months as they were found to be full of foreign coins! The club acquired a television set in 1956 and the previously unused basement area was transformed into an area for dancing and table tennis. A record player and speakers were purchased so the members could listen to the latest hits.
No membership was required, and attendance was not compulsory. Cyril Smith had insisted that in no-way was it to resemble a normal youth club and that it should not appear to be ‘oppressively respectful’. It was recognised that the early users of the club would set the tone rather than it being constrained by rules and regulations. The idea was that the youths would make it their own place and in time, would build up a relationship with the canteen Manager, who could then guide and support them. At first there was some reluctance by local youths to come to the Teen Canteen but soon numbers began to grow. Attendance could fluctuate but on average some 50 youths would attend each evening and at times up to 70 could be present. The ratio of boys to girls being roughly 2 to 1.
Boys would sometimes indulge in boisterous horse play but apart from a few incidents, the club was largely trouble free. At times the manager would have problems trying to get the young people to leave quietly at night but after a few standoffs and threats to shut down the club, some semblance of order was established. Girls tended to stay separate from the boys and a 1960 report said, ‘most of the girls’ dress well, and they all take a considerable interest in clothes. Fashions change frequently: one period will have white artificial flowers, the next white fluffy berets with gloves to match.’ Many of the boys were also conscious of their appearance. In 1958, the manager, Ian Durnford, reported that Teddy boy suits were out, and many boys were wearing the ‘latest Italian cut suits and pointed shoes.’ Some of the young men received good wages and many others would buy suits on hire purchase.
He also reported that the carrying of offensive weapons seemed to be on the increase saying, ‘it is fashionable to possess a bicycle chain, a large knife, or, in one case, a gun’. With echoes of modern-day schools installing metal detectors to prevent knife crime, over 60 years ago, the canteen had a policy of collecting weapons at the door. It is difficult to quantify what impact it had on levels of violence in the local area but the Canteen itself was a relatively safe space.
Problems like this illustrate the challenges faced by the manager and while larger youth clubs may have had many members of staff, the Canteen was largely operated by the manager alone. Its first manager was Mr. Fred King, 30 years old and an ex Royal Navy physical training instructor and amateur boxer. It had been felt that whoever was to run the Teen Canteen should be capable of handling themselves. Though King was no doubt a tough man, he had problems relating to the young people and left after just six months on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Several managers came and went during its life, such were the difficulties experienced. One of these was Joe Benjamin, a future pioneer of the adventure playground movement in Britain.
From the start, the Teen Canteen had been a social experiment and Dulwich College Mission decided that the experimental period would end on the 31 May 1958, though it would financially support it to the sum of £350 for another year from this date. The LCC did help fund the club, but it officially closed in December 1962 when the premises was demolished as part of the Elephant and Castle redevelopment. The site of the Teen Canteen was located where the London College of Communication now stands.
The Teen Canteen only operated for seven years and is now largely forgotten, but it deserves greater recognition for its pioneering approach. Revolutionary in its time, it introduced a style of youth work which would be familiar to youths attending clubs in the present day by using progressive methods to try and deal with the problem of youth violence.
Thank you to Dulwich College Archive for their support and access to the documents used in this article.