In a special edition of the Croydon Chronicles as the borough goes to the polls, DAVID MORGAN has trawled through the Minster archive to take a look at how local elections were run more than 70 years ago

Allegations of parachuting candidates into safe seats, accusations of one party masquerading under the banner of another, massive cuts to council services and worries about getting the vote out were the main themes from the Croydon local elections.

But these were the Croydon local elections of 1953, when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister, post-war rationing still existed, and much of the British public was looking forward to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Election winner: Winston Churchill was back in government for the Conservatives after a General Election win in 1953

The first public meeting of the newly formed South Ward Independent Electors’ Association held in April 1953 produced verbal spats between the public speakers and the audience. People objected to Councillor Bell, a member of the Ratepayers’ Association, being transferred from the marginal Waddon to stand in South ward, which for years had been a safe seat for the RA.

The chair of the meeting Mr Duff, together with several others, felt indignant that a councillor from another ward had been foisted upon them without a general meeting of the Ratepayers’ Association being called or without any consultation of the electorate. Duff said the two candidates who they had chosen for the election came from the ward and understood its problems.

When questions from the floor were taken, Alan Carpenter, the chair of Waddon Young Conservatives, made a point of emphasising that one of the speakers, Mr Ledwidge, a school teacher, wasn’t as independent as he was making out.

Ledwidge, he explained, had tried to become the Conservative candidate for Broad Green, but had failed and had approached the party previously to stand in Waddon ward.
In reply, Ledwidge said that he was a Conservative but was most dissatisfied with the direction that the council were taking and, in particular, the way the RA was doing things.

‘Uproar’: public meetings could become a little raucous, even in 1953, as one candidate was challenged over being ‘parachuted in’ to a safe seat

“I regard them as a dangerous group,” he added.

Alderman Henry Kendall, also in attendance at the meeting, was forced to admit that Ledwidge was also considered as a candidate for the South ward RA. “We turned him down because we didn’t know him,” the Alderman said.

“Nobody has fought harder than I or my colleagues to keep politics out of local government.”

Kendall certainly stirred up emotions in the meeting. The chair struggled to restore order. At least eight people were standing up and shouting.

When order was finally restored, Mrs Donnelly-Wood, an independent candidate for South ward spoke. “The claptrap we have heard from these gentlemen tonight has won me quite a lot of votes,” she said, to much laughter.

The number of votes which Donnelly-Wood eventually gained on election day wasn’t enough to get her elected. She finished fifth place, just ahead of Ledwidge.

In one of the last council meetings held before the pre-election purdah period began, a row broke out about cuts to the education budget: £65,000 worth of cuts were proposed, worth about £2.4million in today’s values. Among the cost-cutting measures proposed were getting rid of school cleaners and switching off the heating for long periods of the year.

At Ashburton School, it was claimed, the children had been asked to bring a little polish and a duster in order to keep their desks clean.

Mr Siers, the secretary of the Croydon Communist Party, spoke against the proposals. “Our children will suffer as a result of these cuts. The Conservatives, or the RA group if they prefer to be known that way, have massacred the social services of Croydon.”

Councillor Marriott replied that the cuts would not have been necessary if the council had not been so extravagant in other areas. The purchase of Addington Palace and Shirley Golf Club were two examples of this.

“Buying a white elephant like Addington Palace is a waste of public money and golfing equipment. The tender heartedness of the council towards golfers is one of the mysteries I shall never understand,” Marriott said.

The municipal elections for Croydon that year were held on Thursday May 7 – exactly 73 years to the day.

In 2026, there are a record 210 candidates contesting the 70 councillor seats across the borough’s 28 wards. Woodside has the highest number of candidates, with 18 standing for the three available council seats. Separately, there are eight candidates standing in the borough-wide election for Executive Mayor.

In post-war Croydon of 1953, there were 47 candidates contesting 19 council seats across 16 wards in what was then the County Borough of Croydon. Croydon was then outside London, an autonomous local government district, independent of the Surrey County Council.

Hot off the press: how the 1953 Croydon election results were reported. No through-the-night live blogs then

The council area did not cover Coulsdon and Purley – those areas were not added until the local government reorganisation of 1965, when Croydon left Surrey to become part of Greater London, in much the form we recognise today.

The 16 wards of Croydon in 1953 were Addington; Addiscombe; Bensham Manor; Broad Green; Central; East; Norbury; Shirley; South ward; South Norwood; Thornton Heath; Upper Norwood; Waddon; West Thornton; Woodside; and Whitehorse Manor.

Following a previous local government reorganisation in the 1930s, the highest number of council election candidates in Croydon was 57, in November 1945.

In 1953, Waddon had six candidates –  two Labour, two Conservative and two Ratepayers’ Association.

South ward  (described as “covering the southern residential expansion”) also had six candidates – two Conservatives, two independents and two Ratepayers’ Association. The Ratepayers’ Association took the top two places for election here.

There was only one change from the previous election in the 19 seats which were contested. Labour gained one seat from the RA in Waddon, leading to the headline in the local paper: “Tory Intervention gives Labour One Seat in Croydon Council Elections”.

National reporting: Croydon’s results (12 RA, 6 Lab, 1 Ind) were reported along with other local authority elections

Of the 19 councillors elected in 1953, six were Labour, one an independent and 12 were Ratepayers’ Association. No Conservatives won a seat, nor any Liberals. Of the nine women who stood for election, two were successful.

Newspaper reports often contained a line or two about the oldest voters. At Sylverdale Hall in Waddon, 92-year-old David Waller, a retired builder from Old Palace Road, was one of the residents who cast their vote early on in the day.

Ward-by-ward: how Croydon voted in 1953

During the morning, the Mayor, Alderman Edmund Arkell, and the Town Clerk, Ernest Taberner (who would be Croydon’s Town Clerk for more than 25 years, and who had the council’s former office tower, Taberner House, named after him) visited Sylverdale Hall to check on the voting arrangements.

Polling was slow but steady at that station. At 3pm, after seven hours of polling, 319 votes had been cast.

The Colonial Office, under the auspices of Oliver Lyttelton, Secretary of State for the Colonies, arranged for an observer from the Gold Coast, who was studying local government and public administration, to tour Croydon’s polling stations and see for themselves how a local election might be organised and run.

The news report on the election included the story that the presiding officer at the Kingsley Road School station had helped an elderly and blind woman to record her vote during the morning.

“Dreadfully slow” was the report from officials at several polling stations, including Scarbrook Road and Waddon School in Cooper Road. At Howard School, their busiest period was between 11 and 12 in the morning when 52 ballots were placed in the box.

The potential voting at one station was 3,770, but after six hours fewer than 300 had voted. “Perhaps people will come after work,” was the optimistic view.

The organisation for the election was thorough. Voting took place from 8am until 9pm. There were 84 polling stations, staffed by 350 clerks and presiding officers. The count was held in the Town Hall and the results declared shortly before midnight, with 160 clerks having tallied the votes.

And so the democratic process for that year came to a conclusion . There were winners and there were losers. There were no close run contests and no recounts. Those people who went out to vote probably looked more closely at what the council were doing than those who didn’t.

The country, though, was set on other matters. There was a coronation to look forward to next month. The councillors could make a tour of the street parties and celebrations to talk to the electorate. After all, the next elections would be upon them before too long.

• David Morgan, pictured right, has been chronicling Croydon’s history for Inside Croydon for almost a decade. Morgan is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups

If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page

Some previous articles by David Morgan:

• ‘Young people out of hand’: perennial problem of street crime
• Duke survived death after he hunted with Croydon’s hounds
• The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history

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