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East End of London

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"East End" redirects here. For other uses, see East End (disambiguation).
Christ Church, Spitalfields

The East End of London, known locally as the East End, generally refers to the area of London, England, east of the medieval 'City of London' and north of the River Thames, although it is not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries. Use of the term began in the late 19th Century.[1]

Origin and scope

The term East End was first applied to the districts immediately to the east of, and entirely outside, the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames; these included Whitechapel and Stepney. By the late 19th century, the East End roughly corresponded to the Tower division of Middlesex which from 1900 formed the metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Bethnal Green, Poplar and Shoreditch in the County of London. Today it corresponds to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and the southern part of Hackney.[2]

[The] invention about 1880 of the term East End was rapidly taken up by the new halfpenny press, and in the pulpit and the music hall ... A shabby man from Paddington, St Marylebone or Battersea might pass muster as one of the respectable poor. But the same man coming from Bethnal Green, Shadwell or Wapping was an East Ender, the box of Keating's bug powder must be reached for, and the spoons locked up. In the long run this cruel stigma came to do good. It was a final incentive to the poorest to get out of the East End at all costs, and it became a concentrated reminder to the public conscience that nothing to be found in the East End should be tolerated in a Christian country.[3]

Parts of the London boroughs of Newham and Waltham Forest, formerly in an area of Essex known as London over the border, are sometimes considered to be in the East End. However, the River Lee is often considered to be the eastern boundary of the East End and this definition would exclude the boroughs but place them in East London. The common extension of the term further east is probably due to the diaspora of East Enders who moved to suburban east London, in particular the new estates at Becontree and Harold Hill, or otherwise left London entirely.

History

1745 Roque Map of the East End. London is expanding, but there are still large areas of fields to the East of the City.

The East End came into being as the separate villages east of London spread and the fields between them were built upon, a process which occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. From the beginning, the East End has always contained some of the poorest areas of London. The main reasons for this include

  • the medieval system of copyhold, that prevailed throughout the East End, into the 19th century. Essentially, there was little point in developing land that was held on short leases.[2]
  • the siting of noxious industries, such as tanning and fulling outside the boundaries of the City, and thence beyond complaints and official controls
  • the low paid employment in the docks and related industries; made worse by the trade practices of outwork, piecework and casual labour.
  • and the relocation of the ruling court and national political epicentre to Westminster, on the opposite western side of the City of London.

Politics and social reform

1882 Reynolds Map of the East End. Development has now completely eliminated the open fields.

At the end of the 17th century large numbers of Huguenot weavers arrived in the East End, settling to service an industry that grew up around the new estate at Spitalfields, where master weavers were based. They brought with them a tradition of reading clubs, where books were read, often in public houses. The authorities were suspicious of immigrants meeting, and in some ways they were right, as these grew into workers' associations and political organisations. When, towards the middle of the 18th century, the silk industry fell into a decline - partly due to the introduction of printed calico cloth, riots ensued. These Spitalfield Riots of 1769 were actually centred to the east, and were put down with considerable force, culminating in two men being hanged in front of the Salmon and Ball public house at Bethnal Green; one was John Doyle (an Irish weaver), the other John Valline (of Huguenot descent).[4]

William Booth began his Christian Revival Society, preaching the gospel in a tent, erected in the Friends Burial Ground, Thomas Street, Whitechapel in 1865. Others joined his Christian Mission, and on August 7, 1878 the Salvation Army was formed at a meeting held at 272 Whitechapel Road.[5] A statue commemorates both his mission and his work in helping the poor.

In 1884 the Settlement movement was founded, with settlements such as Toynbee Hall and Oxford House encouraging university students to live and work in the slums to experience life and try to alleviate some of the poverty and misery in the East End. In 1888 the matchgirls of Bryant and May, in Bow struck for better working conditions. This, combined with the many dock strikes in the same era, made the East End a key element in the foundation of modern socialist and trade union organisations, as well as the Suffragette movement.[6]

Towards the end of the 19th century, a new wave of radicalism came to the East End, arriving both with Jewish émigrés fleeing from Eastern European persecution, and Russian and German radicals avoiding arrest. A German émigré, Rudolf Rocker, began writing in Yiddish for Arbayter Fraynd (Workers' Friend); by 1912 he had organised a London garment workers' strike for better conditions and an end to sweating.[7] Amongst the Russians were such luminaries as Peter Kropotkin, the anarchist. Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin all attended meetings of the socialist newspaper Iskra in 1903; a few years later they met in a warehouse in Whitechapel to plot the October Revolution. George Gapon, of the Assembly of Russian Workers, fled the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905 to seek sanctuary in Stepney Green.[8]

By the 1880s, the casual system caused Dock workers to unionise under Ben Tillett and John Burns.[9] This lead to a demand for 6d per hour (2.5p), and an end to casual labour in the docks. After a bitter struggle, the London Dock Strike of 1889 was settled with victory for the strikers, and established a national movement for the unionisation of casual workers, as opposed to the craft unions that already existed.

The philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts was active in the East End, alleviating poverty by founding a sewing school for ex-weavers in Spitalfields and building the ornate Columbia Market in Bethnal Green. She helped to inaugurate the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and was a keen supporter of the Ragged School Union,[10] and founded institutions such as the East End Dwelling Company. This latter, led to the foundation of organisations such as the 3% Dwelling Company, where investors received a financial return on their philanthropy.[11] Between the 1890s and 1903, when the work was published, the social campaigner Charles Booth instigated an investigation into the life of London poor, much of which was centred on the poverty and conditions in the East End.[12]

Sylvia Pankhurst 1882-1960

Sylvia Pankhurst became increasingly disillusioned with the suffragette movement's inability to engage with the needs of working class women, so in 1912 she formed her own breakaway movement, the East London Federation of Suffragettes and based it at a baker's shop at Bow, emblazoned with the famous slogan "Votes for Women" in large gold letters. The local Member of Parliament, George Lansbury, resigned his seat in House of Commons to stand for election on a platform of women's enfranchisement. Sylvia supported him in this and Bow Road became the campaign office, culminating in a huge rally in nearby Victoria Park, but Lansbury was narrowly defeated in the election and support for the project in the East End was withdrawn. Sylvia refocused her efforts, and with the outbreak of World War I, began a nursery, clinic and cost price canteen for the poor at the bakery. A paper, the Women's Dreadnought, was published to bring her campaign to a wider audience. Pankhurst spent twelve years in Bow, fighting for women's rights. During this time, she risked constant arrest and spent many months in Holloway Prison, often on hunger strike. She finally achieved her aim of full adult female suffrage in 1928, but along the way had alleviated some of the poverty and misery, and improved social conditions for all in the East End[13].

The alleviation of widespread unemployment and hunger in Poplar had to be funded from money raised by the borough itself under the Poor Law. The poverty of the borough made this patently unfair and lead to the 1921 conflict between government and the local councillors known as the Poplar Rates Rebellion. Council meetings were for a time held in Brixton prison, and the councillors received wide support.[14] Ultimately, this led to the abolition of the Poor Laws through the Local Government Act 1929.

Industry and built environment

Building on an adhoc basis could never keep up with the needs of the expanding population, and already in 1890 slum clearance programmes had begun. One was the creation of the world's first council housing, the LCC Boundary Estate, which replaced the neglected and crowded streets of Friars Mount, better known as The Old Nichol Street Rookery.[15]

Industries associated with the sea developed throughout the East End, including rope making and ship building. The former location of roperies can still be identified from their long straight, narrow profile in the modern streets, for instance Ropery Street near Mile End. Shipbuilding was important from the time when Henry VIII caused ships to be built at Rotherhithe as a part of his navy. A shipyard at Blackwall became the basis for the East India Company dock established there. On January 31, 1858, the largest ship of that time, the SS Great Eastern designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was launched from the yard of Messrs Scott, Russell & Co, of Millwall. The 211 metre (692 ft) length was too wide for the river, and the ship had to be launched sideways. Due to the technical difficulties of the launch, this was the last big ship to be built on the River, and the industry fell into a decline.

The River Lee (England) was a smaller boundary than the Thames, but it was a significant one. The building of the Royal Docks between 1880 and 1921 on the estuary marshes extended the continuous development of London across the Lee for the first time. Railways were driven through the East End slums at the same time, providing access to new suburbs created in West Ham and East Ham; the latter was set up to serve the new Gas Light and Coke Company and Bazalgette's grand sewage works at Beckton.

Traditionally the home of London's docks and a large part of its industry, especially industries based on processing foodstuffs and other imported raw materials, the area was a continuous target during the blitz of World War II. Post-war, specifically 1950's and 1960's, architecture dominates the housing estates of the area, such as the Lansbury Estate in Poplar, which was built as a showpiece of the 1951 Festival of Britain.

From the mid 20th century, the docks declined in use and were finally closed in 1980. London's main port is now at Tilbury further down the Thames estuary, outside the boundary of Greater London.

Population

Brick Lane has always been a centre for new immigration, welcoming Huguenots, Jews, and Bangladeshi communities in successive centuries (Sep 2005)

Throughout history the area has absorbed waves of immigrants who have each added a new dimension to the culture and history of the area, most notably the French Protestant Huguenots, the Irish, the Jews and the Bangladeshi communities.

Community tensions have been raised by racist events such as an anti-semitic Fascist march in 1936 (blocked by residents and activists at the Battle of Cable Street), anti-Asian violence, more recently anti-white violence, a council seat win for the British National Party in 1993 (since lost) and the 1999 bombing in Brick Lane.

During the interwar period there was a decline in population in the East End caused by migration to the suburbs and to areas outside London. This accelerated after World War II and has only recently started to reverse. These population figures are for the area that now forms the London Borough of Tower Hamlets only:

Borough 1901[16] 1931[16] 1961[16] 1971[17] 1991 2001[18]
Bethnal Green 129,680 108,194 47,078 n/a n/a n/a
Poplar 168,882 155,089 66,604
Stepney 298,600 225,238 92,000
Total 597,102 488,611 205,682 165,791 161,064 196,106

Criminality

Due to the rampant poverty in the East End, crime has always been a potential career option. From earliest times, crime depended, as did labour, on the importing of goods to London, and their interception in transit. Theft occurred in the river, on the quayside and in transit to the City warehouses. This was why, in the 17th century, the East India Company built high-walled, guarded docks at Blackwall to minimise the vulnerability of their cargoes. Armed convoys would then take the goods to the company's secure compound in the City. The practise led to the creation of ever larger docks throughout the area, and for large roads to be driven through the crowded 19th century slums to carry goods from the docks.[2]

Said to be England's first, the Marine Police Force was formed by magistrate Patrick Colquhoun and a Master Mariner, John Harriott, in 1798 to tackle theft and looting from ships anchored in the Pool of London and the lower reaches of the river. Its base was (and remains) in Wapping High Street, it is now known as the Marine Support Unit.[19]

High profile crimes in the area include the Ratcliff Highway murders (1813); the killings committed by the London Burkers (apparently inspired by Burke and Hare) in Bethnal Green (1831); the notorious serial killings of prostitutes by Jack the Ripper[6] (1888); and the Sidney Street Siege (1911) (in which anarchists, inspired by the legendary Peter the Painter, took on Home Secretary Winston Churchill, and the army). In the 1960s the East End was the area most associated with gangster activity, most notably that of the Kray twins.[20]

Disasters

1878 drawing. TheBywell Castle bears down upon the Princess Alice.

Many disasters have befallen the residents of the East End, both in war and in peace.

  • The Princess Alice was a passenger steamer crowded with day trippers returning from Gravesend to Woolwich and London Bridge. On the evening of September 3, 1878, she collided with the steam collier Bywell Castle (named for Bywell Castle) and sank into the Thames in under four minutes. Of the approximately 700 passengers, over 600 were lost.
  • On January 19, 1917 73 people died, including 14 workers, and more than 400 injured, by a TNT explosion in the Brunner-Mond munitions factory in Silvertown. Much of the area was flattened, and the shock wave was felt throughout the city, and much of Essex. This was the largest explosion in London, and was heard in Southampton and Norwich. Andreas Angel, chief chemist at the plant, was posthumously awarded the Edward Medal, for trying to extinguish the fire that caused the blast.
  • On June 13, 1917, a bomb from a German Gotha bomber killed 18 children in their primary school in Upper North Street, Poplar. This is commemorated by the local war memorial erected in Poplar Recreation Ground[21][22].
  • On March 3, 1943 at 8:27PM the unopened Bethnal Green tube station was the site of a wartime disaster. Families had crowded into the underground station due to an air raid siren at 8:17, one of 10 that day. There was a panic at 8:27 coinciding with the sound of an anti-aircraft battery (possibly the recently installed Z battery) being fired at nearby Victora Park. In the wet, dark conditions, a woman slipped on the entrance stairs and 173 people died in the resulting crush. The truth was suppressed, and a report appeared that there had been a direct hit by a German bomb. The results of the official investigation weren't released until 1946.[23] There is now a plaque at the entrance to the tube station, which commemorates it as the worst civilian disaster of World War II.

Entertainment

Hoxton Hall, still an active community resource and performance space

Theatres were first established in Shoreditch in the Tudor period, with The Theatre (1576) and Curtain Theatre (1577) standing close together. The Goodman's Fields Theatre was established in 1727, and it was here that David Garrick made his successful début as Richard III, in 1741. In the 19th century the theatres of the East End rivalled in their grandiosity and seating capacity those of the West End. The first of this era was the ill-fated Brunswick Theatre (1828), which collapsed three days after opening, killing 15 people. This was followed by the opening of the Pavilion (1828) in Whitechapel, the Garrick (1831) in Leman Street, the Effingham (1834) in Whitechapel, the Standard (1835) in Shoreditch, the City of London (1837) in Norton Folgate, then the Grecian and the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton. Though very popular for a time, from the 1860s onwards these theatres, one by one, began to close, the buildings were demolished and their very memory began to fade.[24]

There were also many Yiddish theatres, particularly around Whitechapel, developed into professional companies, after the arrival of Jacob Adler in 1884 and the formation of his company that found homes both in the Prescott Street Club (Stepney), and in Princlet Street (Spitalfields)[25]. These declined, as audience and actors left for New York and the more prosperous parts of London.

The once popular music halls of the East End have mostly met the same fate as the theatres. Prominent examples included the London Music Hall (1856-1935), 95-99 Shoreditch High Street, and the Royal Cambridge Music Hall (1864-1936), 136 Commercial Street. An example of a giant pub hall Wilton's Music Hall (1858) remains in Grace's Alley, off Cable Street and the early saloon style Hoxton Hall (1863) survives in Hoxton Street, Hoxton. Many popular music hall stars came from the East End, including Marie Lloyd.

Today

Redevelopment of Isle of Dogs

Some parts of the East End have been subject to a number of urban regeneration projects, most notably Canary Wharf, a huge commercial and housing development on the Isle of Dogs. Many of the 1960s tower blocks have been demolished or have been renovated. The area around Old Spitalfields market and Brick Lane has been extensively regenerated and is famous, amongst other things, as London's curry capital, as well as being the home of a number of London's art galleries, including the famous Whitechapel Gallery.

Much of the area remains, however, one of the poorest in Britain and contains some of the capital's worst deprivation. This is in spite of rising property prices, and the extensive building of luxury apartments, centred largely around the dock areas and alongside the Thames. With rising costs elsewhere in the capital, the East End has become a desirable place for business.

See also

References

  1. ^ Mills, A., Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names, (2000)
  2. ^ a b c Alan Palmer - "The East End", John Murray, London (1989)
  3. ^ The Nineteenth Century XXIV (1888) p.292; in William Fishman, East End 1888 (1998) p.1
  4. ^ The Spitalfields Riots 1769 at London Metropolitan Archives accessed on 10 November 2006
  5. ^ 1878 Foundation Deed Of The Salvation Army accessed 15 Feb 2007
  6. ^ a b William Fishman, East End 1888 (1998)
  7. ^ East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914 - William J Fishman (2004)
  8. ^ The Battleship Potemkin and Stepney Green - EastLondonHistory accessed on 10 November 2006
  9. ^ John Burns is commemorated in the name given to a current Woolwich Ferry)
  10. ^ Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts - National Dictionary of Biography accessed 3 Feb 2007
  11. ^ Social Policy: From the Victorians to the Present Day - Susan Morris (LSE seminars) accessed 10 Nov 2006
  12. ^ Life and Labour of the People in London (London: Macmillan, 1902-1903) at The Charles Booth on-line archive accessed 10 Nov 2006
  13. ^ Barbara Castle, Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst (Penguin Books, 1987) ISBN 0-14-008761-3
  14. ^ "Poplarism, 1919-25: George Lansbury and the Councillors' Revolt" - Noreen Branson (1980)
  15. ^ Taylor, R., Walks Through History: Exploring the East End, (2001)
  16. ^ a b c Vision of Britain - Population: Bethnal Green, Poplar, Stepney
  17. ^ Vision of Britain - Tower Hamlets LB Population
  18. ^ Neighbourhood Statistics - Tower Hamlets
  19. ^ History of the Marine Support Unit (Met) accessed 24 Jan 2007
  20. ^ "Inside the Firm: The Untold Story of the Krays' Reign of Terror" - Tony Lambrianou (2002)
  21. ^ The Poplar War Memorial is an exclusively civilian memorial, reflecting the pacifism of the Mayor Will Crooks, and local MP George Lansbury.
  22. ^ East London in Mourning accessed 2 Apr 2007
  23. ^ Bethnal Green tube disaster (BBC Homeground) accessed 15 Feb 2007
  24. ^ Michael Booth (1991) Theatre in the Victorian Age: 4-6. CUP
  25. ^ Adler, Jacob, A Life on the Stage: A Memoir, translated and with commentary by Lulla Rosenfeld, Knopf, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-679-41351-0

Further reading

  • William J. Fishman, East End 1888: Life in a London Borough Among the Laboring Poor (1989)
  • William J. Fishman, Streets of East London (1992) (with photographs by Nicholas Breach)
  • William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914 (2004)
  • Tony Lambrianou, Inside the Firm: The Untold Story of the Krays' Reign of Terror - (2002)
  • Alan Palmer The East End", John Murray, London (1989)
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