It was 1894 when Geo. J Dowse founded the solicitor’s practice that still bears his name in Dalston today.
This photograph shows Mr Dowse, solicitor, who founded our firm Dowse & Co. in 1894.
Those were the days when the public arrived in their thousands to Dalston Junction by train from the former Broad Street station in the City, to see the elephants and acrobats performing at Dalston's circus, the North London Colliseum and Amphitheatre.
Sir Robert Fossett's circus performed at Dalston's circus in its opening season in 1886. His great grandson still owns and runs a circus today.
Perhaps Mr Dowse advised the art dealer living at 10 Dalston Lane who gave up his Georgian home in 1898 to enable the sumptious new entrance to be built when the circus was converted to the Dalston Theatre of Varieties.
This 1898 architect's drawing shows the original circus entrance of the Dalston Colliseum and the proposed new entrance for the Dalston Theatre which was to be built in front of it at 14 Dalston Lane.
Mr. Dowse may later have advised Hackney's very own international star of the music hall, Marie Lloyd, who thrilled the crowds at the Dalston Theatre of Varieties and who lived locally in Graham Road E8.
Marie Lloyd - Hackney's very own international star of the Victorian music hall.
She had been summoned to the Town Hall by the Burgesses of Hackney to answer allegations of licentious and lewd performances. But her performance before the Burgesses was said to have been such innocence and charm it was ranked to have been one of her finest. A triumphant acquittal!
Dalston Lane at the turn of the century. Opposite Dalston Theatre, which has now been demolished, you can see the buildings where Dowse & Co. now has its offices at 23-25 Dalston Lane.
Mr. Dowse may also have known the Mayor of Hackney, Herbert Morrison, who in 1920 opened the “the greatest cinema in the British Empire" which Dalston Theatre had by then become after fortunes had been spent.
A sketch of Dalston Theatre in 1886 which in 1920 became the cinema later known as the GaumontBut those were the old days when the Courts were only for the rich and justice seemed to favour the highest bidder. But by 1945, after the heartache of the second World War, Herbert Morrison had become a government Minister working for equality and establishing the welfare state. The Legal Aid Act of 1949 established the principle of equal access to justice for all regardless of wealth. People of “small or moderate means”, of which by then Dalston had no shortage, were finally entitled to a solicitor to champion their claims and protect them from injustice.
But what would Mr Dowse think of the “Access to Justice” reforms since the 1990’s when even pensioners are disqualified from legal aid because, despite their poverty, they own their own homes? Or of the groaning bureaucracy where completion of a 7 page application to the National Assistance Board in 1949 has been replaced with 27 pages of box ticking for the Legal Services Commission? Or which has disenfranchised millions of people and spawned an industry of “claims farmers” who are allowed to tout for clients’ claims and sell them on to solicitors for a handsome fee?
80% of legal aid solicitors are in small firms. A combination of bureaucratic overload and relentless cuts has meant that over 3,000 independent legal aid firms have disappeared from our high streets in recent years. The latest rationalisations are aimed at cutting the number of legal aid firms still further. This threatens competition in the marketplace, the survival of local professional services and removes clients’ freedom of choice.Clients will have to travel to large “one stop shops” (the Legal Aid Commission's “preferred suppliers”) staffed with armies of unqualified, and badly paid, para-legals.
For over 100 years Dowse & Co. has served its community whether rich or poor. The current legal aid reforms further erode the benchmark of professional advice for the needy and of equal access to justice.
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