ABSTRACT
Ben Tillett was born at John Street, in Easton, Bristol, on 11 September I860. His mother is said to have been Irish, though she listed Bristol as the city of her birth in the 1861 census; his father, who worked at a cart factory as a polisher, was almost certainly from Bristol as well. One evening in 1873, his father discovered him in the gallery of a Bristol playhouse, and in short order marched him to the nearest Navy recruiting station and endorsed the papers which made it possible for the boy to be signed up. He was just 13 years old at that time. Between sailing trips, Tillett often stayed with his sister’s mother-in-law in Bethnal Green, East London. This was his introduction to the East End, to the happy family life that had been denied him during his childhood, and to his eventual wife, Jane Tompkins, who was the sister of his own sister’s husband.
