CHAPTER XX THE KING'S DINNER—AND OTHERS
A Dinner to the Labour Mayor—The Mayoress—The King's Twenty-five Thousand Guests—The Prince and Princess of Wales at Poplar—Organising a Coronation Treat for Children—A Little Girl's Thanks—At the Lord Mayor's Banquet in a Blue Serge Suit—The Mayor of Poplar's Carriage at St. Paul's—A Testimonial on Quitting Office.
Since the Labour Mayor was debarred by what he called his "chronic want of wealth" from entertaining at his own expense, the Poplar Labour League decided to entertain him at a dinner on their own part by way of commemorating his election. Directly the project was talked about, friends of his of all classes expressed a wish to attend.
The dinner was given on January 11th, 1902. An old Chartist was in the chair, Mr. Nathan Robinson, one of the Mayor's colleagues on the London County Council. Lord Monkswell sat at the same table with stevedores and gas-workers. Some of the Mayor's fellow-workers on the Asylums Board fraternised with some of the Mayor's fellow-workers on the Labour League. Nearly every trade and every church in Poplar were represented. Dean Lawless of the Roman Catholics, the Rev. Mr. Nairn of the Presbyterians, and Father Dolling of the Anglicans, sat at meat together for the first time in their lives, drawn by the engaging personality of the Labour Mayor.
"I must just write a word of congratulation on our dinner of Saturday," wrote Dolling from St. Saviour's Clergy House a couple of days later. "I think it was just splendid. It is given to few men to gain the respect, confidence, and esteem—I might say the affection—of friends and foes, colleagues and opponents. God grant you strength and perseverance."
The same spirit breathed through a letter from the Roman Catholic Dean:—"God bless you and God speed you; and also your gentle wife, the Mayoress."
Mrs. Crooks, by the way, filled the office of Mayoress with a quiet dignity and grace that won everyone's regard. As her husband stood primarily as a working-man Mayor, she too as Mayoress made no pretence at being other than a working-man's wife. She could be seen cleaning her own doorstep as housewife in the morning and taking part in some public function as Mayoress in the afternoon.
The day the appointment was announced a journalist from an evening paper went down to Poplar, hoping evidently to find the new Mayoress greatly elated. He seemed surprised to find her so busy in the kitchen preparing the children's dinner that she had barely time to grant him the interview he sought.