Guest Post by Nigel Khan
Fourth of July 1900, America was celebrating 123 years of independence from the UK, 3,500 miles away in the far western part of Essex, seven men attended a meeting to rubber stamp a process that had moved quite quickly, but had been in arrangement since the March.
Arnold Hills had recently become dis-enfranchised from his works team at the Ironworks in Canning Town, a fervent amateur and leading member of the Temperance society he had seen the creeping professionalism into his works team and by the early part of 1900 he called time on it.
He did not though just walk away, he acknowledged that the area should be continued to be served by a local football team and in line with his philanthropic nature he would continue to finance the set up of the new club, allow them use of his office space and allow them a favourable rent at the stadium he had built for the people of the area just off Manor Road Canning Town, The Memorial ground.
A meeting had been held in the March, organised by the Mayor of West Ham, which took place at the Public Hall on the Barking road to discuss the setting up of a professional football club to replace the Thames Ironworks FC at the end of their current season. Hills pledged for every share bought he would buy one as well, two names were rumoured on the agenda one was Canning Town FC, the other was West Ham united. The choice was made and West Ham as we all know was chosen, as it represented the wider area of the Borough, not just the local vicinity of where the club was based.
55 Barking Road, a nondescript building next to the National Bank was the offices of the Thames Ironworks sports and social club, managed by Cornelius Osborn who had joined the Ironworks from managing the Peoples Palace Cinema on the Mile End Road, a building now part of the Queen Marys University. Osborn would go down as the first Chairman of the club though it seems it was a rotational honour in the first year of the clubs existence.
The Other directors were as follows, Jimmy Cearns, John Byford Jnr, Aitkin Brown, Lazzeleur Johnson, Edwin Smith, George Handley, George Fundell, George Hone and lastly Albert Charles Davis.
Cearns was the first of his family to sit on the board, and until the Icelandic buy out of 2006 a Cearns name was a permanent fixture, The family lived in Plaistow Park Road at No 8 opposite the Lord Stanley public house, which many may know as being close to the Boleyn Ground.
Byford owned a Timber Yard on the River Lea and was a prominent local politician as well.
Aitken Brown was a Scot from Glasgow, a master Brass founder by trade & he worked in the Ironworks while living on the Barking Road in Plaistow.
Johnson worked in the ironworks as well as a clerk, he was a native of the North East from the Sunderland area, he lived in Forest Gate which perhaps his seniority in the Ironworks, Forest Gate at the time was a more gentrified part of the Borough.
Edwin Smith was also in the Timber Industry, he lived In Howards Road Plaistow, which is where the maternity hospital was also situated, a place where literally thousands of Hammers fans were born, (Including Me).
George Handley was a cattle farmer, living in Handley House which was a farm just off the Becton Road, The modern day A13 opposite the Canning Town recreation grounds. This perhaps shows that at the turn of the century West Ham was the edge of the Metropolitan city before the fields took over. The land Handley’s house stood on now is used for housing but used to house the school which i attended from the age go 11 to 14.
George Hone was a leading businessmen of the area living in a large house on the Romford Road,
George Fundell lived on Balaam Street in Plaistow and was an Estate Agent
Lastly Albert Charles Davis, or Bert Davis as he was known, He lived in Canning Town and possibly had been involved in the Castle swifts team that had folded years before as the Ironworks team had formed. Davis would be associated with the club for 50 years up until his death, though he never managed to become Chairman. One reason possibly was a comment he made in the 1930’s that it may be better for West Ham to play in Division 2 and have a good season but fail to go up, than get promoted and just be relegated. His reasoning was that if they were around the top of the second division the crowds would attend. Many for years would associate that comment with the boards lack of ambition for regaining their top flight status. Burts, brother George would also join the board in the 1920s, his address at the time was 442 Green Street, the future home of current Chairman David Gold.
Only seven of the above signed the Article of association on the 4th of July, though another was Welshman Lewis Bowen listed as Secretary, he had worked at the ironworks as well.
The clubs Solicitors, Preston’s of Stratford, filled the document the next day on the 5th and West Ham United F.C was born. While the club continue to celebrate Arnold Hills as the founding father of the club, one should not ignore the contribution these ten men also made, and for some, their family members continued to do so in the following 116 years, without them when the Ironworks club folded there may not have been a club ready to rise like a Phoenix from its Ashes.