Here, Wolmuth writes about the changes he has seen during that time. It was the passion, irreverence and air of apparent anarchy that immediately attracted me on my first visit to Speakers' Corner in A little over 30 years earlier George Orwell had described the place as "one of the minor wonders of the world", writing that in Hyde Park he had listened to "Indian nationalists, temperance reformers, Communists, Trotskyists, the Socialist Party of Great Britain SPGB , the Catholic Evidence Society, freethinkers, vegetarians, Mormons, the Salvation Army, the Church Army, and a large variety of plain lunatics".
By , the Indian nationalists had long since won their struggle, but many of the rest of the religious and fringe political groupings were still there, still preaching, arguing and debating. The subjects under discussion were then, and still are, almost entirely unrelated to day-to-day news headlines. At least half the speakers are preachers. Issues of race, religion and nationality are discussed obsessively.
The place has changed over the years: the Sunday afternoon crowds are smaller; there are fewer platforms belonging to organised groups, a narrower range of speakers, and the proportion of religious meetings has increased. The demographics of both speakers and crowd have also shifted: now at least as many of the preachers are Muslim as Christian.
Nevertheless, despite these changes, Speakers' Corner retains the unique buzz generated by the intensity and eccentricity of face-to-face argument. What's going on in the park becomes clearer with repeat visits. Before they met their death however, all the condemned had a chance to make one last speech, where they could confess, accuse the authorities of injustice, or make any last declarations.
Speeches and executions would often attract quite a crowd, with Londoners lining up to buy tickets, and often resulting in a rowdy audience. While the gallows were eventually moved away to another site, the spirit of Hyde Park as a place for open speech remained in place. But in , when the protesting members of the Reform League found that the park had been locked up, demonstrators responded by tearing up the railings, followed by three days of rioting.
The following year saw an even bigger protest, with over , people marching to Hyde Park, and the government finally conceded with the Parks Regulation Act, which allowed people to meet and speak freely. Nowadays, the corner is less likely to attract riots and violent protests, but you will probably find a variety of passionate and interesting speakers talking on a variety of current topics, as well as asking all the timeless questions we all wonder about.
At the start of the 20th century, the Corner — and Hyde Park itself — was an essential site for the suffragette movement, and meetings were regularly held here. The site has also seen other noteworthy historical figures from the last century, including the political writer, George Orwell, and politicians such as Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.
The audience is free to join in too, and the regular heckler and supporters are part of what makes the atmosphere of the Corner so unique and special. Some confessed; others protested their innocence or criticised the authorities. For onlookers, executions at Tyburn were big social events.
Londoners could buy a ticket to watch executions from a seat on huge wooden platforms. Eventually, the authorities decided the hangings were too rowdy and transferred them to Newgate Prison. But the tradition for protest and pleasure in Hyde Park continued. The origins of Speakers' Corner as it is known today stem from , when a meeting of the Reform League demanding the extension of the franchise, was suppressed by the Government.
Marches and protests had long convened or terminated their routes in Hyde Park, often at Speakers' Corner itself. Finding the park locked, demonstrators tore up hundreds of yards of railings to gain access, and three days of rioting followed.
The next year, when a crowd of , defied another government ban and marched to Hyde Park, police and troops did not intervene. Spencer Walpole, the Home Secretary, resigned the next day.
In the Parks Regulation Act, the right to meet and speak freely in Hyde Park was established through a series of regulations governing the conduct of meetings.
The speaking area of Hyde Park as defined in legislation extends far beyond Speakers Corner but it is here where most people congregate. In addition, Hyde Park's long tradition of accommodating large public demonstrations and rallies continues today.
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