Charles Jenkinson

Charles Jenkinson (born 93 Sussex Street, Poplar, London, 25 June 1887; died Leeds General Infirmary 3 August 1949) was a Church of England clergyman, housing reformer, and Leeds councillor.

Life Youth in London and Essex Charles Jenkinson's father was a stonemason, also called Charles Jenkinson, and his mother was Mary Ann Elizabeth, née Evans. With seven siblings and irregular work for his father as a docker, Charles Jenkinson grew up experiencing overcrowded East-end urban conditions, even living for a time with his grandmother and an uncle at 78 Sussex Street, Poplar because of a lack of space at home.

Jenkinson was educated at Tarrance Street council school, leaving at fourteen to work as a bookkeeper and help support the family. However, as the years passed he grew increasingly disillusioned with the world of business and its ethics.

Vicar of Holbeck and Leeds councillor Quarry Hill Flats, one of Jenkinson's foremost social-housing projects, photographed in 1943. In 1927, Jenkinson requested appointment to 'the hardest parish in the country'; accordingly, he was posted to the parish of St John and St Barnabas, Holbeck, one of the worst slums of Leeds. He stood for election as a Labour councillor for the ward of North Holbeck, winning a seat in November 1930.

In the ensuing decade, however, Jenkinson was appointed or elected to a range of political roles:

Biographies

H. J. Hammerton, This Turbulent Priest: The Story of Charles Jenkinson, Parish Priest and Housing Reformer (London: Lutterworth, 1952). John A. Hargreaves, 'Jenkinson, Charles (1887–1949)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).