As you may have picked up from elsewhere on this site, Sir Cyril Black was one of the original key founders of the Wimbledon Community Association (WCA) back in 1946 and indeed the old community centre was named after him. He was a Conservative councillor of the old Wimbledon Borough Council and then Merton Council until 1971, serving as Mayor from 1966-67, as well as Chairman of Surrey County Council from 1950 to 1964, and was the local Member of Parliament for Wimbledon for 20 years from 1950 to 1970. He was knighted in 1959.
All this you can pick up from an internet search, where there is a lot of further information on his background. This includes the local school he attended – King’s College – his business interests – he became a successful property developer and millionaire by the age of 40 (this was a lot in the 1940’s) – and his religious convictions – he was a strict Baptist like his parents.
It might be stretching it to say my links with his background are similar… True, I went to school locally – but it was Garfield, Priory and Raynes Park – all comprehensives. I also had a career in the property sector – albeit I specialised in social housing. I even have connections with several local churches – my grandmother attended the old Wimbledon Baptist church; my stepfather was at one time deputy minister at Trinity URC and my mother still goes to the Everyday churches locally.
I also found out recently of another link. A couple of years ago I discovered that one of Cyril Black’s grandchildren, Stephen Crabtree, now lives locally again and like me has been a lifelong Wimbledon FC/ AFC Wimbledon fan, and a historian of the club. I met with Stephen recently to discuss his grandfather’s legacy after discovering a picture of the two of them standing together on the terraces back in the 1960’s in a recent football programme. Cyril, as club President, had stepped in to provide support, following the death in 1968 of his brother Sydney who had been Chairman.
Stephen and two of his siblings run the Sydney Black Charitable Trust which also took over the legacy funds from Cyril Black’s Charitable Trust in 2002 and provide support and funding to a variety of local good causes. I remain hopeful that they will also help us with our work one day given our links.
However, it is also clear from speaking to Stephen and from a bit of further internet research that Cyril was quite a divisive character, campaigning strongly as he did against sexual liberalisation laws, commonwealth immigrant rights, divorce laws, gambling and drinking licenses amongst various other things – apparently, he was also vehemently against the creation of Merton Council.
Whilst I have some concerns about the perils of gambling and know (as a lover of real ales) the dangers of drinking to excess, I don’t think Cyril would have seen eye to eye with me on many of his other pet concerns. Would he be upset if he discovered that I was now the Chair of his beloved old charity or would he have welcomed the alternative viewpoints? Who knows for sure?
As I mentioned in an earlier article one of the things that appealed to me about the WCA was the fact that the constitution said the ‘Association shall be non-party political and non-sectarian’. One wonders how that worked in practice when there were several local politicians on the original board and with Cyril’s quite strong religious beliefs, but I think it is a testament to the original members that they somehow found their way through those potential challenges to keep the charity focussed.
None of us are ever that far from politics of course. My (separated) wife is a local Liberal Democrat Councillor, fellow trustee Karl’s wife is a former Labour candidate for Wimbledon and for a while we had former Conservative Councillor, Stephen Ashcroft, as a trustee. It comes into focus every now and then and we must be aware of it. I have my views on politics and religion of course, but values come from a range of family and other sources, a subject I will explore further next time.
Photo courtesy of Stephen Crabtree, featuring Stephen (centre) with this brother (right) and Cyril (left) at the front of the old Stand at Plough Lane.