Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council Decides to Rename Black Boy Lane
Following my consideration on the origins of West Green's Black Boy name back in the summer, Haringey Council has decided to rename Black Boy Lane in West Green.
The Council have called the exercise a 'renaming consultation', but the online questionnaire offers only the ability to choose from a shortlist of two new names. So it appears that the decision to rename has already been taken with only the choice of name left to be decided.
They have issued the following press release.
The council has launched a renaming consultation with residents and businesses located on Black Boy Lane, as part of the wider Review on Monuments, Buildings, Place and Street Names in Haringey – which was launched on 12 June 2020, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The council believes that the names of our monuments, buildings, places and streets must reflect the values and diversity that we are so proud of in the borough. One of the street names that has been identified as not being reflective of this is Black Boy Lane.
Meanings change over time, and the term “Black Boy” is now most commonly used as a derogatory name for African heritage men.
As part of the consultation, the council is asking residents to consider new alternative names that celebrate some of the borough’s most notable influencers, and truly reflect the borough’s rich heritage.
The two names that have been shortlisted for residents to consider are, ‘Jocelyn Barrow Lane’ and ‘La Rose Lane’. The consultation will launch today, Monday 28 September and will run for a period of 4 weeks to Monday 26 October 2020.
Letters will be arriving on Black Boy Lane residents' doorsteps this week, who can respond to the consultation using one of the following methods:
- Online: www.haringey.gov.uk/renaming-black-boy-lane.
- Email:
- bblconsultation@haringey.gov.uk
- Telephone: 020 8489 3797
- By post: Consultation Co-ordinator, The Communications Team, River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, N22 8HQ
If Haringey residents have concerns or queries about place, street or building names in the borough, please get in touch. Send your views to Leader@haringey.gov.uk.
Bios:Dame Jocelyn Anita Barrow (15 April 1929 – 9 April 2020) was a Barbadian/Trinidadian British educator, community activist and politician, who was the Director for UK Development at Focus Consultancy Ltd. She was the first Black woman to be a governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was founder and Deputy Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council.
John La Rose was a publisher, poet and essayist. He founded the Caribbean Artists’ Movement and publishing company New Beacon Books which has a bookshop in Stroud Green. In 1975, he co-founded the Black Parents Movement from the core of the parents involved in the George Padmore Supplementary School incident in which a young Black schoolboy was beaten up by the police outside his school in Haringey.
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Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change, review on monuments, building place and street names
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gordon T on
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A former St Ann's Ward councillor, much respected and effective locally, was Nilgun Canver.
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Yes, if people really feel the need to change it, that would be a great name.
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Indeed, Charlotte, but we seem to be Harringay Online and it punned.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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The names and boundaries of electoral wards have been changed over 130 years by a remote body of people most of who have probably never visited Haringey.
It mystifies me that a few people have an apparently strong sense attachment to a ward name decided by a remote group or people less than 20 years ago.
Here's the history of the ward names (as distinct to the area name) of the quadrangle of land between Green Lanes, West Green Road, Blackboy Lane and St Ann's Road.
1890: West Green
1900: Harringay
1926: Green Lanes
2001: St Ann's
Look in any local paper for most of the twentieth century and the area is always Harringay, or at its north-western extremities, West Green. No one ever thought of it as St Ann's until that remote group of men gave it that name in 2001.
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Ian Craine, I was puzzled initially but Jocelyn Barrow was "a leading member of the North London West Indian Association" [Wikipedia] in the 1960s, part of the Black Education Movement which was active in Haringey.
There was a significant campaign to resist the introduction of ability 'banding' in Haringey schools which would have been based largely on ethnicity - see - https://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/collection/black-education-m...
So there is a Haringey connection with Jocelyn Barrow, she's more than a recently-dead pioneering BAME member of the great and good as I might first have thought.
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I don’t remember seeing any consultation on changing black boy lane apart from a statement from the Haringey leader who mentioned black boy lane and one other road, He asked people to email him with any road, statues and so forth that people wanted to be changed. I didn’t receive anything else. I find it very annoying that in a time when haringey are cutting back on services, including social care, that our council tax is going up, that they state we are going to have hard times, that they are wasting money changing a road name. And as per your comment Hugh, you said that there is no clear evidence that the name originates from slavery past but that they believe. Whoever Is offended by a street name, my reply is GET over it. And certainly if they name it after a person Jocelyn who never lived in haringey is a disgrace I find it offensive
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To clarify, I wrote. "There is no general consensus as to where the origin of the name ‘Black Boy’ for pubs comes from.... There are strong associations connecting this name to the slave trade."
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exactly, there is no 100% certainty where the name originates from
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I kind of agree that scare resources - and in East Haringey we actually live the scarity of these resources everyday - should be used for something else.
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exactly what I've said. In fact of recent more of these other nationalities have shaped this community. They will not agree with this and I don't need to specify why! The answer a Neutral Name
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Changing the name of a street for political reasons is not going to change pasted indiscretions of society.
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Here's some better background on this - a report fom Haringey Council on this issue, dated 30 July, 2020 is attached.
Two points I take from this are:
1. It looks like there might be a further consultation at the end of the year. I'm not sure why the process laid out in this report wasn't inlcluded in the press release this week.
2. A prior renaming exercise (Town Hall Approach) was abandoned due to cost (see item 45 on Attachment 2). The cost of just compensation to business owners for that quite short road was estimated at £21.5k. There would certainly have been significant other costs to the renaming. I don't know what the cost might be for the longer Black Boy Lane. However, the Council did see fit to include the following in their Black Boy Lane report. So one has to wonder what it is going to cost householders.
Whilst the Council is unlikely to be legally liable to pay compensation to those affected by any street name change the Council considers that it may be appropriate to make a small payment in recognition of potential disruption.
There will evidently be a good deal of inconvenience to residents. The Council's report sets out a non-exhaustive list of changes that residents and businesses will need to make :
- Addresses linked with accounts for online shopping etc.
- Utility companies e.g. internet, telephone, electric, gas, water
- Bank accounts
- Mortgages
- Credit ratings
- Insurance: home, contents, etc
- NHS / GP / hospital / pharmacy information
- Tenancy agreements, deposit agreements etc
- Internet shopping / delivery addresses
- Businesses / self-employed – Companies House, websites, stationery, business accounts, invoices, contracts
The Council must clearly set out both costs and inconveniences in the consultation.
None of this need prevent the renamimg. But it ought to be made clear to residents and not brushed under the carpet.
- Attachments:
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