Place explored through a personal selection of the lives, novels, art, architecture, poetry and history inspired by England's industrial era.​

In 1924 Ellen Wilkinson became MP for Middlesbrough. She was Labour’s first female MP. Previously a trade union official and a constant campaigner and activist, she became MP for Jarrow in 1935 and authored ’The Town that Was Murdered: the life story of Jarrow’ (1939). She wrote two novels, “Clash’ (1929) and a whodunnit, ‘The Division Bell Mystery’ (1932) where the hero is Robert West. ‘West tried to shake off the thought that so often came into his mind in these days – that this was all a facade, that the reality of Parliament was something quite different, that the real seat of Government had gone elsewhere, to Lombard Street or perhaps even across the Atlantic Ocean.’ [101]
What intrigues me is that ‘Red Ellen’s’ hero is a Tory MP.
More from Division Bell in later posts…

The Division Bell Mystery (first published 1932 this edition 2018). British Library Classics

Shields Gazette on all you need to know about Red Elllen

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