Elsy Florence Eva Borders, née Kreher, (14 January 1905 – 14 August 1971) was a campaigner for

building standards A building code (also building control or building regulations) is a set of rules that specify the standards for construction objects such as buildings and non-building structures. Buildings must conform to the code to obtain planning permissi ...

who led a large mortgage strike in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in the 1930s.

Early life

Elsy Kreher was born in 1905, in Lambeth, the daughter of John Engelbert Kreher and Edith Eliza Morley Kreher. Her father was a waiter.

Career

In 1937, Elsy Borders and her husband withheld payments and sued the

building society A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization, which offers banking institution, banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage loan, mortgage lending. They exist in the Unit ...

that held the mortgage on their newly built semi-detached house on the

Coney Hall Coney Hall is an area of Greater London, within the London Borough of Bromley, Greater London and formerly in the historic county of Kent. It is located south of Hayes, west of Keston, north of Nash, and east of West Wickham of which it is ...

estate near

West Wickham West Wickham is an area of South East Greater London, London, England, in the London Borough of Bromley. It lies south of Park Langley, Eden Park, London, Eden Park, Beckenham and Bromley town centre, west of Hayes, Bromley, Hayes and north o ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, for misrepresenting the house's "slap-dash" workmanship. She studied law at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

, in order to represent herself in court in 1938. "Not the least occasion for the notoriety of the Borders case," commented an American observer, "was the fact that Elsie Borders herself must be a picturesque character, the wife of a taxi-cab operator, who acted as her own counsel in the case and apparently her own press agent. She proved to be a good one in both cases." "'Portia' Borders became the heroine of thousands of Britons who pay high rents for grimy kennels or find their shiny new houses falling apart," explained ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine in 1939. She appealed the case up to the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

, but it was finally lost in 1941. In a related case, Borders successfully represented her husband in a

libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

case brought by the housing society. Elsy Borders was a member of the Communist party, and helped to form the Federation of Tenants’ and Residents’ Association (FTRA). They led a mortgage strike in

, joined by 3,000 home-owners. The FTRA held its first national convention in 1939, in Birmingham. That year, an amendment to the Building Societies Act, introduced by

Ellen Wilkinson Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (8 October 1891 – 6 February 1947) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who served as Secretary of State for Education, Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. Earlier in her care ...

, addressed some of the FTRA's concerns; however, the Act's final revision increased protections for the building societies. In July 2024 a play written by

Stephen Wyatt Stephen Wyatt, born 4 February 1948 in Beckenham, Kent (now Greater London), is a British writer for theatre, radio and television. Early life and education Wyatt was raised in Ealing, West London. He was educated at Latymer Upper School and ...

about Borders story was broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

Anne-Marie Duff Anne-Marie Duff (born 8 October 1970) is an English actress and narrator. She is best known for her BAFTA nominated television roles in '' Shameless'' and '' The Virgin Queen'', and her performance as Grace Williams in '' Bad Sisters'', for wh ...

portrayed Elsy Borders.

Personal life

Elsy Kreher married James Walter (Jim) Borders in 1926; her husband was a London cabby. They had a daughter, Pamela, born in 1930. The couple jokingly called their house "Insanity", and themselves "the Borders of Insanity." The Borders moved away from London in 1940, and divorced in 1944. Elsy and her daughter moved to

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Elsy Borders died in 1971, aged 66 years, in Exeter.

References

External links

A 1938 news photograph of the Borders family
by Reg Warhurst, at Shutterstock. {{DEFAULTSORT:Borders, Elsy 1905 births 1971 deaths English activists English women activists People from Lambeth People from West Wickham