The moving story behind these statues
TRAGIC BUT INSPIRING TRUTH ABOUT THE SALTER FAMILY
SHOULD you ever venture to Bermondsey you might come across the sculptures of a man and a woman by the riverside.
Beyond them, across the Thames, are spectacular views of Tower Bridge and the City - but the immobile couple look elsewhere.
Their eyes rest on a third sculpture of a young girl as she plays against the nearby wall.
These cast metal figures memorialise the Salter family, who sacrificed so much for the people of South London.
As the city industrialised in the mid 19th Century the wharves, immigrant housing and factories along the Bermondsey riverside formed notorious slums. Jacob’s Island, one of the area’s worst, featured in Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist as the hideout of the villainous Bill Sikes.
But what has that got to do with the Salters?
Ada Brown and Alfred Salter met in Bermondsey at the turn of the 20th Century.
Ada left a well-off home in Northamptonshire and Alfred turned his back on a glittering career at Guy’s Hospital in a bid to help the people living in the slums.
They knew that meaningful political change would be needed or the slums would never improve. Alfred was elected as MP for Bermondsey in 1922 and in the same year Ada was elected as the first female mayor in London – she was also the first female Labour mayor in the country.
Together they launched the ‘Bermondsey Revolution,’ an exercise in municipal government that was admired across Europe.
Healthcare drastically improved and the worst of the slums were replaced by well-planned council housing.
But the family was marred by a great personal tragedy.
Although living in the Bermondsey slums helped gain the trust of its people, it came at a great cost.
The Salters only daughter, Joyce, who they loved dearly, contracted scarlet fever as an epidemic swept through the slums.
She was just eight when she died.
Ada and Alfred were inconsolable – but they carried on their work and spent the rest of their lives helping the people of South London.