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
Beryl Bainbridge Bradford Castleford CLR James Comedian Ian Smith Cultural Geography Ellen Wilkinson England is Rich Featherstone George Orwell Gerard Benson Get Carter Goole Halifax Harry Hopkins Huddersfield Iain Nairn Isle of Axholme Jack Common JB Priestley Kellingley Kevin Boniface Killingworth Manuscript in a Red Box Minty Alley Morning in the City Nelson Newbiggin-By-The-Sea Newcastle Normanton Pontefract Pre-Raphaelite Psychogeography Robert Westall Rotherham Sean O'Brien Selby Social History Southwold Stuart Maconie Ted Lewis The Division Bell Mystery The Rocket Tom Puddings Vermuyden
Places and Cultural Traces 