obituary PHIL CANTOR Philip Wolmuth


I first met Phil, who has died aged 70, when we were both covering Shirley Porter’s Homes for Votes scandal – Westminster Council’s plot to sell council housing off to potential Tory voters. Under the new tenants’ choice law, the council planned to sell the Walterton and Elgin estates to private developers; however, the residents hijacked this legislation and put in a wholly unexpected and ultimately triumphant bid to buy and run their own homes. Phil was in his element, recording the ‘dirtiest


fight in housing history’, working alongside his neighbours struggling against the powers that be for a better life and a better world. For him, photography was not an escape to higher things but an intimate connection with the lives others lived, where he himself lived, and where he both founded and ran the North Paddington Community Darkroom (NPCD). This, Phil wrote, “taught camera and darkroom skills to local residents, and supported the campaigns and day-to-day activities of local community organisations. The early community arts groups sought to democratise the arts – to engage those who did not otherwise relate to the mainstream’ arts world – by making the arts relevant to their daily lives and experiences”. His account of NPCD and of those times can be read online in his book That Was Then, This Is Now (http://bit.ly/3qDCtoR), which portrays the remarkable resilience and resistance of community activists in one small corner of London. Among battles too numerous to list here, they fought against rent rises, gentrification, the closure of St Mary’s Hospital (sold off for luxury flats) and the sale of their cemeteries for 15p. From there, he roamed across London, then


across the world’, from Georgia in the east to Cuba and Grenada in the west, the resulting archive, the Philip Wolmuth Photo Library (philipwolmuth.com), recording for posterity the extraordinary range of his lifetime’s work. But he always came home to one special place,


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his regular haunt near Marble Arch, giving its name to the book by which he will be best remembered – Speakers’ Corner (https://amzn. to/3vbP71Q). For nearly 40 years, he returned again and again, bringing the skills honed in Paddington to the centre of London and the focus, in the words of the subtitle, on Debate, Democracy and Disturbing the Peace. Phil wrote: “When I first visited Speakers’


Corner in 1977 it seemed just as George Orwell described it in 1945 – the resort of preachers, eccentrics and ‘a large variety of plain lunatics’.” As all this exotic variety of characters


performed before his camera, he produced the definitive account of this uniquely British institution – if that’s the right phrase for the unbridled anarchy of free speech. A discreet observer with an empathetic eye, he brought this strange world to life, from holocaust deniers to diatribes against imperialism, preachers from the Methodist Lord Soper to


Muslims rejecting western civilisation, and he did so with quiet humour and appreciation, somehow never letting it descend into a freak show. Phil also did the writing himself, reporting the cacophony, preaching, zany arguments and fierce debate of today as well as the history of Hyde Park, such as when a crowd of 500,000 demanded votes for women, where “eighty speakers addressed sections of the crowd simultaneously from twenty platforms spread out across the grass”. Phil said: “Whether they are aware of this or not, the speakers, hecklers, regular and irregular visitors that congregate there each week are the vibrant heirs of those who fought for, and won, the rights to freedom of expression and assembly, thereby establishing the park’s worldwide reputation as the home of free speech.” A legacy enshrined in this book. The quiet, self-effacing reticence that allowed Phil such unobtrusive access may help explain why he never made a wider name for himself nor received the recognition this work deserves. He will definitely be remembered in the NUJ,


where our paths crossed again. He was an active, effective member of the London Freelance Branch for decades, and also of the London Photographers’ Branch. As photographer Guy Smallman recalls: “It was an absolute pleasure to work alongside Philip in London NUJ branches. He brought calm to difficult situations and chaired our meetings in a warm and welcoming manner that will be sadly missed.” He is survived by his partner Jane and their


daughters Eva and Anna. And I will miss his friendly face patrolling


the street. Andrew Wiard


A Christian preacher addresses a crowd at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, London, 1993


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