The Cowley Club is named after Harry Cowley, a Brighton Chimney Sweep and campaigner for workers’ rights. The centre is currently used by the Migrant English Project, which support refugees and asylum seekers.
Everyone who knew Harry tells a story of The Guv’nor’s tireless work in the neighbourhood. They remember Harry organizing outings for the poor kids of Southover St., finding furniture for old people moved in a slum clearance, or standing up to the Board of Guardians to get more money for an out-of-luck family.
‘Anything you wanted, go to Mr Cowley, he’d help you, if you was in trouble, no matter what trouble. Probably hadn’t got the money himself, but he’d find something to help them with. He used to have big concerts and do all this, that and the other so little kiddies could have a good Christmas. He’d give the old people 10s notes, pound notes; what he thought they most needed. And then, when the children was in want of any boots or shoes, if the authorities wouldn’t give it to them, Harry Cowley got round. I remember my dad when he had nothing, he come to us and give us all shoes, and there was eight of us.’
These bread-and-butter needs were the core of Harry Cowley’s politics. His organized campaigns for the unemployed and for better housing were simply an extension of this determination to improve the lives of his working-class neighbours.
Harry won this first battle with the authorities. He secured work for 600 men on the widening of Ditchling Road. But he was not happy when he discovered that ‘his boys’ were receiving below the union rate: ‘I said, ‘Well down tools boys, and straight down to the Town Hall.’ I went before the Council and put the case and got the trade union rate.’
A men’s unemployed centre in Tichborne Street was one successful result of these protests. The club gave unemployed men a respectability that they were fast losing as the vacant days crept by. They organized lively campaigning marches, where banners were waved and bugles blown.
Despite the high unemployment rate, these men were accused of being unskilled and lazy. When a Brighton councillor announced, “Harry Cowley is the leader of a bunch of unemployables,” Harry and ‘his boys’ set out to prove him wrong by marching along the Sussex coast looking for work. Day after day the column of unemployed tramped from one Sussex town to the next. By day they badgered employers, at night they slept in barns and sheds.
After a couple of weeks they were back in Brighton….“Now,” said Harry, “you dare call us unemployables again.”
Walk 50 metres back on London Road from the Cowley Club (away from the sea) and turn left on the pedestrianised path towards the Church of St. Bartholomew on Ann Street. Walk past the church until you reach New England Street, take a left and keep walking onto Whitecross Street until Trafalgar Street. Cross the road into Tidy Street and walk to the end crossing Gloucester Road. Turn right and an immediate left into Upper Gardner Street and walk until North Road.
Take a left at North road and then a right into Gardner street. Go past Komedia and stop at no. 51 (Now called New Fabric Fair) on the left side of the street.