LOVELY ANGELA LANSBURY AND HER FAMOUS FAMILY

 

Dame Angela Lansbury, who died today aged 96, was one of my favourite Anglo-American actresses even before starring in the popular American TV series Murder She Wrote and many other award-winning films.

Born in Poplar East London in 1925, Angela was the grand-daughter of the great philanthropist and MP, George Lansbury.  I have often written about Lansbury in local press columns and he is mentioned in my latest book Brentwood in 50 Buildings published by Amberley Books and earlier book Brentwood Voices published by The History Press.

Within both books I outline the building of Hutton Poplars Residential School by the Poplar Board of Guardians in the early 1900s. We owe much to their chairman Lansbury who discovered this ideal site for one of the Board's most successful training schools in Essex. The story goes that he journeyed out from smokey Poplar in the East End of London by train to the recently opened railway station at Shenfield. Leaving the station he was impressed by the serene open countryside. This was the area he had been looking for as he was  perpetually concerned about the state of the terrible overcrowding in which the working classes then lived in his constituency. On his return to London, Lansbury immediately made a bid for the one-hundred acres of prime Essex land, and building began.

By 1906, Lansbury and the Poplar Board of Guardians had developed a large school for boys and girls - today better known as the Bishops Hill Centre.  Although all the small buildings housing the initial 750 youngsters who came to live at the school in those early days were demolished during the 1980s when redevelopment took place, the actual school building and lovely dining-room, were retained. These super surroundings can be hired  from the Brentwood Borough Council and when entering the Lansbury Suite in Hutton Poplars Hall, we may just remember that famous Lansbury family.