This month seems a poignant time to remember the Rent Strikes of 1915 led by activist Mary Barbour. Almost 100 years after her multidisciplinary activism – campaigners are making calls for Mary’s importance to be officially commemorated by the errection of a monument in her memory.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed that the approaching centenary of the Rent Strikes also coincides with the governments welfare reforms with a controversial piece of legislation dubbed the “bedroom tax” already causing consternation and protests around the UK.

Mary’s work was not only a series of unaffiliated actions but an ideology realised through actions pursued relentlessly through her political office. A clarity of rhetoric action and political integrity sadly lacking from out current political oeuvre.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it

George Santayana

This article was written in 2015 and as such is written in the context of the social and political conditions of the time