Mr. Tatton, the Warden, would often say that the Recreation School was growing to be the most important side of the Settlement work, and himself, bachelor as he was, delighted to watch it; but Mrs. Ward would not willingly have admitted this, even if it were true, for the many developments of the normal work for adults were always immensely interesting to her. Whenever she was in London (and often from Stocks too!) she contrived, in spite of ill-health and the many claims upon her time, to be at the Settlement three or four times a week, attending Council meetings and committees, showing the building to friends, talking to “Associates,” old and new, or listening with delight to the wonderful concerts that took place in the big hall on Saturday evenings. For it had always been intended that music should play a very special part in the life of the Settlement, and the Council had been fortunate in securing as Musical Director Mr. Charles Williams, who, in partnership with Miss Audrey Chapman’s Ladies’ Orchestra, gave concerts of quite extraordinary merit there during the first year or two of the Settlement’s existence. He would take his audience into his confidence, explaining, before the music began, the part of each instrument in the whole symphony, and all with so happy a touch that even untrained listeners felt transported into a world where they understood—for the moment—what Beethoven or Mozart would be at. Those evenings remain in memory as occasions of pure joy, and did much to reconcile the older Associates of Marchmont Hall to the magnificence of the new building—a magnificence which otherwise weighed rather sadly upon their spirits! Some of them, amid the growing activity of the new life around them, confessed that they could not help regretting the old shabby days of pipe-sucking at Marchmont Hall, where the dingy premises were “a poor thing, but mine own.” Mrs. Ward was distressed by this feeling, and sought to draw them in in every way to the life and government of the place; but one of the unforeseen features of the work was that the new Associates who joined the Settlement in considerable numbers were for the most part young people, rather than the contemporaries and friends of the Marchmont Hall Associates. Shop assistants and clerks were also on the increase, desiring to take advantage of the many facilities, social and educational, offered by the new building; and though the new-comers were looked on with distrust by the older members, no definite rule could be laid down excluding them. Admission to the Associate body might be strictly reserved to “workmen and working women” from a definite area, but it was difficult to prove that a shopman or a clerk did not work. One thing, however, was insisted upon—that the new candidates should read over and digest the confession of faith which Mrs. Ward had drawn up in the early days of Marchmont Hall, a creed which put in simple form the aspirations of the Settlement:
‘We believe that many changes in the conditions of life and labour are needed, and are coming to pass; but we believe also that men, without any change except in themselves and in their feelings towards one another, might make this world a better and happier place.
“Therefore, with the same sympathies but different experiences of life, we meet to exchange ideas and to discuss social questions, in the hope that as we learn to know one another better, a feeling of fellowship may arise among us.”
And though some of the younger candidates seemed to have joined the Settlement rather to dance at the Social Evenings than to “exchange ideas and to discuss social questions,” let alone to attend the lectures and classes, still the leaven worked, so that at the end of three years the Warden could report that “an increasing number of Associates use the opportunities of the Settlement to the utmost, and are always to the front when service and help are needed. Such Associates, both men and women, are a chief source of whatever power for good the Settlement may exert.”
And indeed, with what life and movement the whole building hummed on any evening of the week, in those first exciting years! Apart altogether from the children’s work, the attendances of adults during the busy winter terms reached some 1,400 a week, and must surely have represented, when translated into terms of human aspiration or enjoyment, much lightening of the burdens and monotonies of life in the dull streets that surrounded the Settlement. Mrs. Ward herself, in an appeal in favour of the work issued in 1901, summed up in these words her feeling on the place that Settlements might fill in the life of London’s workers:
‘Stand in the street now and look back at the ‘Community House’—the Settlement building and its surroundings. The high windows shine; in and out pass men and women, boys and girls, going to class, or concert, or drill, to play a game of chess or billiards, or merely to sit in a pleasant and quiet room, well lit and warmed, to read a book or listen to music. To your right stretches the densely peopled district of King’s Cross and Gray’s Inn Road, Clerkenwell. Behind the Settlement runs the busy Euston Road, and the wilderness of Somers Town. Immediately beside you, if you turn your head, you may see the opening of a narrow street and the outline of a large block of model dwellings, whence many frequenters of the Settlement have been drawn. Carry your minds into the rooms of these old tenement houses which fill the streets east of Marchmont Street, the streets, say, lying between you and Prospect Terrace Board School. No doubt the aspect of these rooms varies with the character of the occupants. But even at their best, how cramped they are, how lacking in space, air, beauty, judged by those standards which a richer class applies to its own dwellings as a matter of course! and though we may hope that a reforming legislation may yet do something for the dwellings of the London working-class in the essential matters of air and sanitation, it is not easy to foresee a time when the workman’s house shall do more than supply him with the simplest necessaries—with shelter, with breathing-room, sleeping-room, food-room. Yet, as we fully realize, the self-respecting and industrious artisan has instincts towards the beauties and dignities of life. He likes spacious rooms, and soft colour, and pictures to look at, as much as anyone else; he wants society, art, music, a quiet chair after hard work, stimulus for the brain after manual labour, amusement after effort, just like his neighbour in Mayfair or Kensington. The young men and maidens want decent places other than the streets and the public-house in which to meet and dance and amuse each other. They need—as we all need—contact with higher education and gentler manners. They want—as we all ought to want—to set up a social standard independent of money or occupation, determined by manners in the best sense, by kindness, intelligence, mutual sympathy, work for the commonweal. They want surroundings for their children after school hours which, without loosening the home-tie, shall yet supplement their own narrow and much-taxed accommodation; which shall humanize, and soften, and discipline. They want more physical exercise, more access to the country, more organization of holidays. All these things are to be had in or through the House Beautiful—through the Settlement, the ‘Community’ or ‘Combination’ house of the future. The Socialist dreams of attaining them through the Collectivist organization of the State. But at any rate he will admit that his goal is far, far distant; probably he feels it more distant now than he and his fellows thought it thirty years ago. Let him, let all of us work meanwhile for something near our hands, for the deepening and extension of the Settlement movement, for the spread, that is, of knowledge of the higher pleasures, and of a true social power among the English working-class.”
How instinct are these words with the idealisms of a bygone generation, a generation that knew not Communism or Proletarian Schools! No doubt, nowadays, we have gone beyond all that; we may not speak of the “self-respecting and industrious artisan”; class-war is the word of power instead of class-appeasement. So far on the onward road have we travelled since 1901!
For the rest, Mrs. Ward’s main task during these early years was to use her gifts of understanding, of patience and of human sympathy in keeping all the workers at the Settlement together, in straightening out the differences that would arise among so varied a crew of energetic people, and in pushing forward the work in ever new directions. All difficulties were referred to her by Residents, by Associates, by Warden and Treasurer. On her also rested the responsibility for raising the necessary money. Much helped by the Duke of Bedford, who remitted the ground-rent, and also gave a considerable subscription, she prospered beyond all rational probability in the latter task. Her many friends were touched by her infectious enthusiasm, and gladly helped her to the best of their ability, so that the deficits on each year’s working turned out to be far less than the prudent had expected. Such a letter as the following was not uncommon—though the amount enclosed did not always reach so round a figure:—
May 25, 1898.
Dear Mrs. Humphry Ward,—