Organisers of the Salter Centenary Project have launched a new website to highlight the year-long series of events celebrating ILPers Ada and Alfred Salter in south-east London throughout 2022.
The project marks the 100th anniversary of the Salters’ significant electoral breakthrough in Bermondsey where Ada became mayor – the first woman mayor in London – and Alfred MP in 1922.
Both were leading members of the ILP who dedicated their lives to transforming the environment, housing and public health of this deprived inner-city borough, and improving the conditions for working people across Southwark and the capital.
The project has already attracted the support of Dame Judi Dench, who has agreed to be its patron. The project’s mission, according to the website, is “to revive the Salter inspiration and their vision for the future”.
“Ada Salter was a ‘green before the Greens’,” says the website. “She knew that contact with nature is vital for mental health. She brought trees, flowers and green space to the inner-city.
“Today it is even more urgent to protect the natural world.”
The website aims to be a hub of information about all the Salter centenary events taking place throughout 2022 including a series of planting initiatives called ‘Beautifying Bermondsey’; a number of specially themed guided walks; a set of online primary school lessons about the Salters; and a new booklet reflecting on the lives and work of Ada and Alfred, to be published by the ILP.
Other events include a tree walk, a bike ride, a birthday concert and a cricket match, as well as plays, films and a drama festival.
Details of all the events can be found here.
—-
For more information contact project chair Sheila Taylor on saltercentenary@gmail.com.
Graham Taylor’s ILP pamphlet, Ada Salter and the Origins of Ethical Socialism, is available here for £4.00.
A review of Graham Taylor’s biography of Ada Salter is here.
His ILP profiles of the Salters are here:
‘Ada Salter – Sister of the People’
‘Alfred Salter & the Bermondsey Revolution’.
