Edgar Isaac Lansbury (3 April 1887 – 28 May 1935) was a British

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

politician. His daughter was the British-Irish-American actress

Angela Lansbury Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022) was an Irish-British and American film, stage, and television actress. Her career spanned eight decades, much of it in the United States, and her work received a great deal ...

Life and career

Lansbury was the son of Elizabeth (née Brine) and politician

George Lansbury George Lansbury (22 February 1859 – 7 May 1940) was a British politician and social reformer who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. Apart from a brief period of ministerial office during the Labour government of 1929–31, he spent ...

, who was leader of the Labour Party during the 1930s. He grew up in Poplar in the

East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

, and joined the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

at a young age. In 1910 he left to set up with his brother as timber merchants.Michael Walker,
Edgar Lansbury
, Compendium of Communist Biography Lansbury was elected to Poplar Council in 1912, serving alongside his father. He represented both the Labour Party and (after its foundation in 1920) the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

(CPGB). Later in 1912 he worked on his father's campaign for Parliamentary re-election, after resignation over the issue, on a radical platform of

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

at the Bow and Bromley by-election.John Shepherd,
A Life on the Left : George Lansbury (1859–1940) : a Case Study in Recent Labour Biography
'' He also supported

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...

East London Federation of Suffragettes The Workers' Socialist Federation was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom, led by Sylvia Pankhurst. Under many different names, it gradually broadened its politics from a focus on women's suffrage to eventually become a left com ...

, serving as Honorary Treasurer in 1915. In 1917 he became liable to call-up for

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require a ...

, and an initial application for exemption as a

conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...

was refused, but the refusal was overturned by the London County Military Service Appeal Tribunal. In 1921 Lansbury was one of 30 Poplar councillors to be jailed as a result of the

Poplar Rates Rebellion The Poplar Rates Rebellion, or Poplar Rates Revolt, was a tax protest that took place in Poplar, London, England, in 1921. It was led by George Lansbury, the previous year's Labour Mayor of Poplar, with the support of the Poplar Borough Council, ...

, while in 1924 he was elected as a substitute member of the CPGB's Central Committee. After his first wife

Minnie Lansbury Minnie Lansbury née Minnie Glassman (1889 – 1 January 1922) was an English leading suffragette and an alderman on the first Labour-led council in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar, England. Biography Minnie was the daughter of Annie and ...

died in 1922, he married actress

Moyna Macgill Moyna Macgill (born Charlotte Lillian McIldowie; 10 December 1895 – 25 November 1975) was an Irish actress from Belfast and the mother of actress Angela Lansbury and producers Edgar and Bruce Lansbury. In 2020, she was listed at number 35 on ...

and the two moved to

Regent's Park Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...

. From 1924 to 1925 he served as Mayor of Poplar, the country's second Communist mayor after Joe Vaughan. He left the Council in 1925, the same year that his first child, the future actress,

, was born. Subsequent twin sons,

Bruce The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has been a ...

and Edgar Jr., later became prominent film and TV producers. In 1927 the Lansburys' timber firm was declared bankrupt. In 1934 Lansbury wrote ''George Lansbury, My Father''. In the work he inadvertently quoted from confidential documents his father had allowed him to see. He was found to have contravened section 2 of the

Official Secrets Act 1911 The Official Secrets Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo 5 c 28) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It replaces the Official Secrets Act 1889. The Act was introduced in response to public alarm at reports of wide-scale espionage, some of them ...

, and fined; his book was recalled in order for the text to be censored.

Clive Ponting Clive Sheridan Ponting (13 April 1946 – 28 July 2020)Richard Norton-Taylor, "The Ponting Affair", Cecil Woolf, London, 1985, p. 14. was a senior British civil servant and historian. He was best known for leaking documents about the sinkin ...

, The Right to Know: The Inside Story of the Belgrano Affair, Sphere Books, 1985 He died of

stomach cancer Stomach cancer, also known as gastric cancer, is a cancer that develops from the lining of the stomach. Most cases of stomach cancers are gastric carcinomas, which can be divided into a number of subtypes, including gastric adenocarcinomas. Lymph ...

in 1935.

Publications by Lansbury

*
Poplarism ; The Truth about the Poplar Scale Relief and the Action of the Ministry of Health
' (1924) * ''George Lansbury, My Father'' (1934)

References

Sources

*Janine Booth

Merlin Press, 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lansbury, Edgar 1887 births 1935 deaths 19th-century English people 20th-century English politicians Communist Party of Great Britain councillors Members of Poplar Metropolitan Borough Council Labour Party (UK) councillors Mayors of places in Greater London Members of the Workers' Socialist Federation British conscientious objectors Deaths from cancer in England Deaths from stomach cancer Lansbury family Politicians from London People from Poplar, London