East End of London - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, east of the medieval walled City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

and north of the River Thames

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary. For the purposes of his book, East End Past, Richard Tames regards the area as coterminous with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets

London Borough of Tower Hamlets

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough to the east of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It is in the eastern part of London and covers much of the traditional East End. It also includes much of the redeveloped Docklands region of London, including West India Docks...

: however, he acknowledges that this narrow definition excludes parts of southern Hackney

London Borough of Hackney

The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....

, such as Shoreditch

Shoreditch

Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...

and Hoxton

Hoxton

Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the financial district of the City of London. The area of Hoxton is bordered by Regent's Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east.Hoxton is also a...

, which many would regard as belonging to the East End. Others again, such as Alan Palmer, would extend the area across the Lea to include parts of the London Borough of Newham

London Borough of Newham

The London Borough of Newham is a London borough formed from the towns of West Ham and East Ham, within East London.It is situated east of the City of London, and is north of the River Thames. According to 2006 estimates, Newham has one of the highest ethnic minority populations of all the...

; while parts of the London Borough of Waltham Forest

London Borough of Waltham Forest

The London Borough of Waltham Forest is in northeast London, England. Officially, it forms part of Outer London as it borders Essex. However, it can be seen that the NE London boundary does not extend far compared to elsewhere in the city...

are also sometimes included. It is universally agreed, however, that the East End is to be distinguished from East London, which covers a much wider area.

Use of the term East End in a pejorative sense began in the late 19th century, as the expansion of the population of London led to extreme overcrowding throughout the area and a concentration of poor

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

people and immigrants. The problems were exacerbated with the construction of St Katharine Docks

St Katharine Docks

St Katharine Docks, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, were one of the commercial docks serving London, on the north side of the river Thames just east of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge...

(1827) and the central London railway termini (1840–1875) that caused the clearance of former slums and rookeries

Rookery (slum)

A rookery was the colloquial British English term given in the 18th and 19th centuries to a city slum occupied by poor people...

, with many of the displaced people moving into the East End. Over the course of a century, the East End became synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality.

The East End developed rapidly during the 19th century. Originally it was an area characterised by villages clustered around the City walls or along the main roads, surrounded by farmland, with marshes and small communities by the River, serving the needs of shipping and the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. Until the arrival of formal docks, shipping was required to land its goods in the Pool of London

Pool of London

The Pool of London is a part of the Tideway of the River Thames from London Bridge to below Tower Bridge. It was the original part of the Port of London. The Pool of London is divided into two parts, the Upper Pool and Lower Pool...

, but industries related to construction, repair, and victualling of ships flourished in the area from Tudor times. The area attracted large numbers of rural people looking for employment. Successive waves of foreign immigration began with Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

refugees creating a new extramural suburb in Spitalfields

Spitalfields

Spitalfields is a former parish in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane. The area straddles Commercial Street and is home to many markets, including the historic Old Spitalfields Market, founded in the 17th century, Sunday...

in the 17th century. They were followed by Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

weavers, Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...

and, in the 20th century, Bangladeshis

British Bangladeshi

A British Bangladeshi is a person of Bangladeshi origin who resides in the United Kingdom having emigrated to the UK and attained citizenship through naturalisation or whose parents did so; they are also known as British Bengalis...

. Many of these immigrants worked in the clothing industry. The abundance of semi- and unskilled labour led to low wages and poor conditions throughout the East End. This brought the attentions of social reformers during the mid-18th century and led to the formation of unions and workers associations at the end of the century. The radicalism of the East End contributed to the formation of the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

, and Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...

based campaigns for women's votes in the area.

Official attempts to address the overcrowded housing began at the beginning of the 20th century under the London County Council

London County Council

London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...

. The Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

devastated much of the East End, with its docks, railways and industry forming a continual target, leading to dispersal of the population to new suburbs and new housing being built in the 1950s. The closure of the last of the East End docks in the Port of London

Port of London

The Port of London lies along the banks of the River Thames from London, England to the North Sea. Once the largest port in the world, it is currently the United Kingdom's second largest port, after Grimsby & Immingham...

in 1980 created further challenges and led to attempts at regeneration and the formation of the London Docklands Development Corporation

London Docklands Development Corporation

The London Docklands Development Corporation was a quango agency set up by the UK Government in 1981 to regenerate the depressed Docklands area of east London. During its eighteen-year existence it was responsible for regenerating an area of in the London Boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and...

. The Canary Wharf

Canary Wharf

Canary Wharf is a major business district located in London, United Kingdom. It is one of London's two main financial centres, alongside the traditional City of London, and contains many of the UK's tallest buildings, including the second-tallest , One Canada Square...

development, improved infrastructure, and the Olympic Park

Olympic Park, London

The Olympic Park in London is a new sporting complex currently under construction, adjacent to the Stratford City development in Stratford, Bow, Leyton & Homerton in East London for the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics....

mean that the East End is undergoing further change, but some parts continue to contain some of the worst poverty in Britain.

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

City of London

and north of the River Thames

River Thames

; these included Whitechapel

Whitechapel

Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...

and Stepney

Stepney

Stepney is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in London's East End that grew out of a medieval village around St Dunstan's church and the 15th century ribbon development of Mile End Road...

. By the late 19th century, the East End roughly corresponded to the Tower division

Tower division

The Tower Division was a liberty, a historical form of local government, in the ancient county of Middlesex, England. It was also known as the Tower Hamlets, and took its name from being under the special jurisdiction of the Constable of the Tower of London...

of Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...

, which from 1900 formed the metropolitan borough

Metropolitan borough

A metropolitan borough is a type of local government district in England, and is a subdivision of a metropolitan county. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan districts, however all of them have been granted or regranted...

s of Stepney

Metropolitan Borough of Stepney

The Metropolitan Borough of Stepney was a Metropolitan borough in the County of London created in 1900. In 1965 it became part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.-Boundaries:...

, Bethnal Green

Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green was a civil parish and a metropolitan borough in the East End of London, England. It was formed as a civil parish in 1743 from the Bethnal Green hamlet in Stepney ancient parish. The vestry became an electing authority to the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855 and in 1889 it became...

, Poplar

Metropolitan Borough of Poplar

Poplar was a local government district in the metropolitan area of London, England. It was formed as a district of the Metropolis in 1855 and became a metropolitan borough in the County of London in 1900. It comprised the civil parishes of Bow, Bromley and Poplar until 1907, when it also became a...

and Shoreditch

Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch

The Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch was a Metropolitan borough of the County of London between 1900 and 1965, when it was merged with the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington and the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney to form the London Borough of Hackney....

in the County of London

County of London

The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government Act 1888. The Act created an administrative County of...

. Today it corresponds to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets

London Borough of Tower Hamlets

and the southern part of Hackney

London Borough of Hackney

The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....

.
Parts of the London boroughs of Newham

London Borough of Newham

and Waltham Forest

London Borough of Waltham Forest

, formerly in an area of Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

known as 'London over the border', are sometimes considered to be in the East End. However, the River Lea is usually considered to be the eastern boundary of the East End and this definition would exclude the boroughs, but place them in east London. This extension of the term further east is due to the 'diaspora

Diaspora

A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

' of East Enders who moved to West Ham

County Borough of West Ham

West Ham was a local government district in the extreme south west of Essex from 1886 to 1965, forming part of the built-up area of London, although outside the County of London...

about 1886 and East Ham

County Borough of East Ham

East Ham was a local government district in the far south west of Essex from 1878 to 1965. It extended from Wanstead Flats in the north to the River Thames in the south and from Green Street in the west to Barking Creek in the east...

about 1894 to service the new docks and industries established there. In the inter-war period, migration occurred to new estates built to alleviate conditions in the East End, in particular at Becontree

Becontree

Becontree is a place in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, east north-east of Charing Cross.-Becontree estate:The area was developed between 1921 and 1932 by the London County Council as a large council estate of 27,000 homes, intended as "homes for heroes" after World War I. With a...

and Harold Hill

Harold Hill

Harold Hill is a place in the London Borough of Havering, east London, England. It is a suburban development situated 16.6 miles east-northeeast of Charing Cross....

, or out of London entirely.

The extent of the East End has always been difficult to define. When Jack London

Jack London

John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...

came to London in 1902 his Hackney carriage

Hackney carriage

A hackney or hackney carriage is a carriage or automobile for hire...

driver did not know the way and he observed, "Thomas Cook and Son

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that is now Thomas Cook Group.- Early days :...

, path-finders and trail-clearers, living sign-posts to all the World.... knew not the way to the East End".

Many East Enders are 'Cockney

Cockney

The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...

s', although this term has both a geographic and a linguistic connotation. A traditional definition is that to be a Cockney, one had to be born within the sound of Bow Bells

St Mary-le-Bow

St Mary-le-Bow is an historic church in the City of London, off Cheapside. According to tradition, a true Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of the church's bells.-Bells:...

, situated in Cheapside

Cheapside

Cheapside is a street in the City of London that links Newgate Street with the junction of Queen Victoria Street and Mansion House Street. To the east is Mansion House, the Bank of England, and the major road junction above Bank tube station. To the west is St. Paul's Cathedral, St...

. In general, the sound pattern would cover most of the City, and parts of the near East End such as Aldgate

Aldgate

Aldgate was the eastern most gateway through London Wall leading from the City of London to Whitechapel and the east end of London. Aldgate gives its name to a ward of the City...

and Whitechapel

Whitechapel

. In practice, with no maternity hospitals in the district, today few would be born in the area. The origin of the term is lost, but a plausible explanation is given by Websters. London was referred to by the Normans

Normans

The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...

as the "Land of Sugar Cake" (Old French: pais de cocaigne

Cockaigne

Cockaigne or Cockayne is a medieval mythical land of plenty, an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures are always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist...

), an imaginary land of idleness and luxury. A humorous appellation, the word "Cocaigne" referred to all of London and its suburbs, and over time had a number of spellings: Cocagne, Cockayne, and in Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....

, Cocknay and Cockney.

Its linguistic use is more identifiable, with lexical borrowings from Yiddish, Romani

Romani language

Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....

, and costermonger

Costermonger

Costermonger, or simply Coster, is a street seller of fruit and vegetables, in London and other British towns. They were ubiquitous in mid-Victorian England, and some are still found in markets. As usual with street-sellers, they would use a loud sing-song cry or chant to attract attention...

slang, and a distinctive accent that features T-glottalization

T-glottalization

T-glottalization is a process that occurs for many English speakers, that causes the phoneme to be pronounced as the glottal stop in certain positions. This is an instance of the more general phonetic phenomenon called glottalization...

, a loss of dental fricatives and diphthong alterations, amongst others. The accent is said to be a remnant of early English London speech, modified by the many immigrants to the area. The Cockney accent has suffered a long decline, beginning with the introduction in the 20th century of received pronunciation

Received Pronunciation

Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...

, and the more recent adoption of Estuary English

Estuary English

Estuary English is a dialect of English widely spoken in South East England, especially along the River Thames and its estuary. Phonetician John C. Wells defines Estuary English as "Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England"...

, which itself contains many features of Cockney English.

History

The East End came into being as the separate villages east of London spread and the fields between them were built upon, a process that 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 following:

the medieval system of copyhold
Copyhold
At its origin in medieval England, copyhold tenure was tenure of land according to the custom of the manor, the "title deeds" being a copy of the record of the manorial court....

, which prevailed throughout the East End, into the 19th century. Essentially, there was little point in developing land that was held on short leases.
the siting of noxious industries, such as tanning
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...

and fulling
Fulling
Fulling or tucking or walking is a step in woolen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker. The worker who does the job is a fuller, tucker, or walker...

downwind outside the boundaries of the City, and therefore 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 concentration of the ruling court and national political epicentre in Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...

, on the opposite western side of the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

.

Historically, the East End is conterminous with the Manor of Stepney. This manor was held by the Bishop of London

Bishop of London

The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...

, in compensation for his duties in maintaining and garrisoning the Tower of London

Tower of London

Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

. Further ecclesiastic holdings came about from the need to enclose the marshes and create flood defences along the Thames. Edward VI passed the land to the Wentworth

Baron Wentworth

Baron Wentworth is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1529 for Thomas Wentworth, who was also de jure sixth Baron le Despencer of the 1387 creation. The title was created by writ, which means that it descends according to the male-preference cognatic...

family, and thence to their descendants, the Earls of Cleveland. The ecclesiastic system of copyhold, whereby land was leased to tenants for terms as short as seven years, prevailed throughout the manor. This severely limited scope for improvement of the land and new building until the estate was broken up in the 19th century.

In medieval times trades were carried out in workshops in and around the owners' premises in the City. By the time of the Great Fire these were becoming industries and some were particularly noisome, such as the processing of urine to perform tanning; or required large amounts of space, such as drying clothes after process and dying in fields known as tenterground

Tenterground

A tenterground or tenter ground was an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth after fulling. The wet cloth was hooked onto frames called tenters and stretched taut so that the cloth would dry flat and square....

s; and rope making. Some were dangerous, such as the manufacture of gun powder or the proving of guns. These activities came to be performed outside the City walls in the near suburbs of the East End. Later when lead making and bone processing for soap and china came to be established, they too located in the East End rather than the crowded streets of the City.

The lands to the east of the City had always been used as hunting grounds for bishops and royalty, with King John

John of England

John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...

establishing a palace at Bow. The Cistercian Stratford Langthorne Abbey

Stratford Langthorne Abbey

Stratford Langthorne Abbey, or the Abbey of St Mary's, Stratford Langthorne was a Cistercian monastery founded in 1135 at Stratford Langthorne — then Essex but now Stratford in the London Borough of Newham...

became the court of Henry III

Henry III of England

Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...

in 1267 for the visitation of the Papal legate

Papal legate

A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....

s, and it was here that he made peace with the barons under the terms of the Dictum of Kenilworth

Dictum of Kenilworth

The Dictum of Kenilworth, issued 31 October 1266, was a pronouncement designed to reconcile the rebels of the Barons' War with the royal government of England. After the baronial victory at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, Simon de Montfort took control of royal government, but at the Battle of Evesham...

. It became the fifth largest Abbey in the country, visited by monarchs and providing a popular retreat (and final resting place) for the nobility. The Palace of Placentia

Palace of Placentia

The Palace of Placentia was an English Royal Palace built by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in 1447, in Greenwich, on the banks of the River Thames, downstream from London...

at Greenwich

Greenwich

Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...

, to the south of the river, was built by the Regent to Henry V

Henry V of England

Henry V was King of England from 1413 until his death at the age of 35 in 1422. He was the second monarch belonging to the House of Lancaster....

, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester

Humphrey of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Pembroke, KG , also known as Humphrey Plantagenet, was "son, brother and uncle of kings", being the fourth and youngest son of king Henry IV of England by his first wife, Mary de Bohun, brother to king Henry V of England, and uncle to the...

and Henry VIII established a hunting lodge at Bromley Hall

Bromley Hall

Bromley Hall is an early Tudor period manor house in Bow, Tower Hamlets, London. Located on the Blackwall Tunnel northern approach road, it is now owned and restored by Leaside Regeneration.-History:...

. These Royal connections continued until after the Interregnum

English Interregnum

The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military rule by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell under the Commonwealth of England after the English Civil War...

when the Court established itself in the Palace of Whitehall

Palace of Whitehall

The Palace of Whitehall was the main residence of the English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698 when all except Inigo Jones's 1622 Banqueting House was destroyed by fire...

and the offices of politics congregated around them. The East End also lay on the main road to Barking Abbey

Barking Abbey

The ruined remains of Barking Abbey are situated in Barking in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in east London, England, and now form a public open space.- History :...

, important as a religious centre since Norman

Normans

times and where William the Conqueror had first established his English court.

Politics and social reform

At the end of the 17th century large numbers of Huguenot

Huguenot

weavers arrived in the East End, settling to service an industry that grew up around the new estate at Spitalfields

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 to be as these grew into workers' associations and political organisations. Towards the middle of the 18th century the silk industry fell into a decline - partly due to the introduction of printed calico

Calico (fabric)

Calico is a plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may contain unseparated husk parts, for example. The fabric is less coarse and thick than canvas or denim, but owing to its unfinished and undyed appearance, it is still very cheap. Originally from the...

cloth - and riots ensued. These 'Spitalfield Riots

Spitalfield Riots

The Spitalfield Riots occurred in 1769, during a downturn in the silk weaving industry, centred on Spitalfields in the East End of London. The weavers organised to attempt to ensure that the rates of pay paid for their piece work was not cut beneath the level at which they could feed themselves,...

' 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

Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...

. One was John Doyle (an Irish

Irish people

weaver), the other John Valline (of Huguenot descent).

In 1844, "An Association for promoting Cleanliness among the Poor" was established, and it built a bath-house

Public bathing

Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. The term public may confuse some people, as some types of public baths are restricted depending on membership, gender, religious affiliation, or other reasons. As societies have changed, public baths have been replaced as private bathing...

and laundry in Glasshouse Yard, East Smithfield

East Smithfield

East Smithfield is the name of a road in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in east London, part of the A1203 road. It was historically an alternative name for the liberty and parish of St Botolph without Aldgate....

. This cost a single penny

Penny

A penny is a coin or a type of currency used in several English-speaking countries. It is often the smallest denomination within a currency system.-Etymology:...

for bathing or washing and by June 1847 was receiving 4,284 people a year. This led to an Act of Parliament

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

to encourage other municipalities to build their own and the model spread quickly throughout the East End. Timbs noted that "... so strong was the love of cleanliness thus encouraged that women often toiled to wash their own and their children's clothing, who had been compelled to sell their hair to purchase food to satisfy the cravings of hunger".

William Booth

William Booth was a British Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army and became its first General...

began his 'Christian Revival Society' in 1865, preaching the gospel in a tent erected in the 'Friends Burial Ground', Thomas Street, Whitechapel

Whitechapel

. Others joined his 'Christian Mission', and on 7 August 1878 the Salvation Army

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....

was formed at a meeting held at 272 Whitechapel Road. A statue commemorates both his mission and his work in helping the poor. Dubliner Thomas John Barnardo

Thomas John Barnardo

Thomas John Barnardo was a philanthropist and founder and director of homes for poor children, born in Dublin. From the foundation of the first Barnardo's home in 1870 to the date of Barnardo’s death, nearly 100,000 children had been rescued, trained and given a better life.- Early life :Barnardo...

came to the London Hospital, Whitechapel to train for medical missionary work in China. Soon after his arrival in 1866 a cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

epidemic swept the East End killing 3,000 people. Many families were left destitute, with thousands of children orphaned and forced to beg or find work in the factories. In 1867, Barnardo set up a Ragged School

Ragged school

Ragged Schools were charitable schools dedicated to the free education of destitute children in 19th century England. The schools were developed in working class districts of the rapidly expanding industrial towns...

to provide a basic education but was shown the many children sleeping rough. His first home for boys was established at 18 Stepney Causeway

18 Stepney Causeway, London

Dr Thomas John Barnardo opened 18 Stepney Causeway in London, England in December 1870 as a home for working and homeless boys. The property was on a 99 year lease at £57.00 per year. The home housed 60 boys in 5 bedrooms...

in 1870. When a boy died after being turned away (the home was full), the policy was instituted that 'No Destitute Child Ever Refused Admission'.

In 1884, the Settlement movement

Settlement movement

The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community...

was founded, with settlements such as Toynbee Hall

Toynbee Hall

Toynbee Hall is a building in Tower Hamlets, East London which is the home of a charity working to bridge the gap between people of all social and financial backgrounds, with a focus on eradicating poverty and promoting social inclusion....

and Oxford House, to encourage university students to live and work in the slums, experience the conditions and try to alleviate some of the poverty and misery in the East End. Notable residents of Toynbee Hall included R. H. Tawney

R. H. Tawney

Richard Henry Tawney was an English economic historian, social critic, Christian socialist, and an important proponent of adult education....

, Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

, Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...

, and William Beveridge

William Beveridge

William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge KCB was a British economist and social reformer. He is best known for his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services which served as the basis for the post-World War II welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.Lord...

. The Hall continues to exert considerable influence, with the Workers Educational Association (1903), Citizens Advice Bureau

Citizens Advice Bureau

A Citizens Advice Bureau is one of a network of independent charities throughout the UK that give free, confidential information and advice to help people with their money, legal, consumer and other problems....

(1949) and Child Poverty Action Group

Child Poverty Action Group

Child Poverty Action Group is a UK charity that works to alleviate poverty and social exclusion.The stated aims of the CPAG are:CPAG programs include:* Research and publish the latest facts and figures of family and child poverty in the UK...

(1965) all being founded or influenced by it. In 1888, the matchgirls of Bryant and May

London matchgirls strike of 1888

The London match-girls’ strike of 1888 was a strike of the women and teenage girls working at the Bryant and May Factory in Bow, London.-The strike:...

in Bow

Bow, London

Bow is an area of London, England, United Kingdom in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a built-up, mostly residential district located east of Charing Cross, and is a part of the East End.-Bridges at Bowe:...

went on strike for better working conditions. This, combined with the many dock strikes

London Dock Strike of 1889

The London Dock Strike was an industrial dispute involving dock workers in the Port of London. It broke out on 14 August 1889, and resulted in a victory for the strikers and established strong trade unions amongst London dockers, one of which became the nationally important Dock, Wharf, Riverside...

in the same era, made the East End a key element in the foundation of modern socialist and trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

organisations, as well as the Suffragette

Suffragette

"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...

movement.

Towards the end of the 19th century, a new wave of radicalism came to the East End, arriving both with Jewish émigré

Émigré

Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....

s fleeing from Eastern European persecution, and Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

and German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

radicals avoiding arrest. A German émigré, Rudolf Rocker

Rudolf Rocker

Johann Rudolf Rocker was an anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist. A self-professed anarchist without adjectives, Rocker believed that anarchist schools of thought represented "only different methods of economy" and that the first objective for anarchists was "to secure the personal and social...

, began writing in Yiddish for Arbayter Fraynd

Arbayter Fraynd

Arbeter Fraynd , was a London-based weekly Yiddish radical paper founded in 1885 by socialist Morris Winchevsky...

(Workers' Friend). By 1912 he had organised a London garment workers' strike for better conditions and an end to 'sweating

Sweatshop

Sweatshop is a negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may be violated. Sweatshops may have...

'. Amongst the Russians was Peter Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin

Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...

, the anarchist, who helped found the Freedom Press in Whitechapel. Afanasy Matushenko, one of the leaders of the Potemkin mutiny

Russian battleship Potemkin

The Potemkin was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. The ship was made famous by the Battleship Potemkin uprising, a rebellion of the crew against their oppressive officers in June 1905...

, fled the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

to seek sanctuary in Stepney Green. Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

and Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

attended meetings of the newspaper Iskra

Iskra

Iskra was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Initially, it was managed by Vladimir Lenin, moving as he moved. The first edition was published in Stuttgart on December 1, 1900. Other editions were...

in 1903. in Whitechapel; and in 1907 Lenin and Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

attended the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...

held in a Hoxton church. That congress consolidated the leadership of Lenin's Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

faction and debated strategy for the communist revolution in Russia. Trotsky noted, in his memoires, meeting Maxim Gorky

Maxim Gorky

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...

and Rosa Luxembourg at the conference.

By the 1880s, the casual system caused Dock workers to unionise under Ben Tillett

Ben Tillett

Benjamin Tillett was a British socialist, trade union leader and politician. He was born in Bristol and began his working life as a sailor, before travelling to London and taking up work as a docker....

and John Burns

John Burns

John Elliot Burns was an English trade unionist and politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly associated with London politics. He was a socialist and then a Liberal Member of Parliament and Minister. He was anti-alcohol and a keen sportsman...

. This led to a demand for '6d per hour' (The Docker's Tanner), and an end to casual labour in the docks. Colonel G. R. Birt, the general manager at Millwall Docks, gave evidence to a Parliamentary committee, on the physical condition of the workers:
These conditions earned dockers much public sympathy, and after a bitter struggle, the London Dock Strike of 1889

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

Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts

Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts , born Angela Georgina Burdett, was a nineteenth-century philanthropist, the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet and the former Sophia Coutts, daughter of banker Thomas Coutts...

was active in the East End, alleviating poverty by founding a sewing school for ex-weavers in Spitalfields

Spitalfields

and building the ornate Columbia Market

Columbia Road market

Columbia Road Flower Market is one of many markets in Central London; a street flower market, it is located in East London. Columbia Road is a road of Victorian shops off the Hackney Road in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets...

in Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green

. She helped to inaugurate the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

NSPCC

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is a United Kingdom charity campaigning and working in child protection.-History:...

, was a keen supporter of the 'Ragged School Union

Ragged school

', and operated housing schemes similar to those of the Model Dwellings Companies

Model dwellings company

Model Dwellings Companies were a group of private companies in Victorian Britain that sought to improve the housing conditions of the working classes by building new homes for them, at the same time receiving a competitive rate of return on any investment...

such as the East End Dwellings Company

East End Dwellings Company

The East End Dwellings Company was a Victorian philanthropic model dwellings company, operating in the East End of London in the latter part of the nineteenth century...

and the Four Per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company

Four Per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company

The Four Per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company was a philanthropic model dwellings company, formed in London in 1885, during the Victorian era....

, where investors received a financial return on their philanthropy. Between the 1890s and 1903, when the work was published, the social campaigner Charles Booth

Charles Booth (philanthropist)

Charles Booth was an English philanthropist and social researcher. He is most famed for his innovative work on documenting working class life in London at the end of the 19th century, work that along with that of Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree influenced government intervention against poverty in the...

instigated an investigation into the life of London poor (based at Toynbee Hall), much of which was centred on the poverty and conditions in the East End. Further investigations were instigated by the 'Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 1905-09

Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 1905-09

The Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 1905-09 was a body set up by the British Parliament in order to investigate how the Poor Law system should be changed...

', the Commission found it difficult to agree, beyond that change was necessary and produced separate minority and majority reports. The minority report was the work of Booth with the founders of the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

Sidney and Beatrice Webb

Beatrice Webb

Martha Beatrice Webb, Lady Passfield was an English sociologist, economist, socialist and social reformer. Although her husband became Baron Passfield in 1929, she refused to be known as Lady Passfield...

. They advocated focusing on the causes of poverty and the radical notion of poverty being involuntary, rather than the result of innate indolence. At the time their work was rejected but was gradually adopted as policy by successive governments.

Sylvia Pankhurst

Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst was an English campaigner for the suffragist movement in the United Kingdom. She was for a time a prominent left communist who then devoted herself to the cause of anti-fascism.-Early life:...

became increasingly disillusioned with the suffragette

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. She based it at a baker's shop at Bow

Bow, London

emblazoned with the slogan, "Votes for Women," in large gold letters. The local Member of Parliament, George Lansbury

George Lansbury

George Lansbury was a British politician, socialist, Christian pacifist and newspaper editor. He was a Member of Parliament from 1910 to 1912 and from 1922 to 1940, and leader of the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935....

, resigned his seat in the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

to stand for election on a platform of women's enfranchisement. Pankhurst supported him in this, and Bow Road became the campaign office, culminating in a huge rally in nearby Victoria Park

Victoria Park, East London

Victoria Park is 86.18 hectares of open space that stretches out across part of the East End of London, England bordering parts of Bethnal Green, Hackney, and Bow, such as along Old Ford Road, London E3 and Victoria Park Road E9. The park is entirely within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets...

. Lansbury was narrowly defeated in the election, however, and support for the project in the East End was withdrawn. Pankhurst refocused her efforts, and with the outbreak of the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, she 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

Hunger strike

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...

. She finally achieved her aim of full adult female suffrage

Suffrage

Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...

in 1928, and along the way she alleviated some of the poverty and misery, and improved social conditions for all in the East End.

The alleviation of widespread unemployment and hunger in Poplar

Poplar, London

Poplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...

had to be funded from money raised by the borough itself under the Poor Law

Poor Law

The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws before being codified in 1587–98...

. 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

Poplar Rates Rebellion

The Poplar Rates Rebellion, or Poplar Rates Revolt was a tax protest that took place in Poplar, London, England, in 1921. It was led by George Lansbury, the previous year's Labour Mayor of Poplar, with the support of the Poplar Borough Council, most of whom were industrial workers. The protest...

. Council meetings were for a time held in Brixton prison, and the councillors received wide support. Ultimately, this led to the abolition of the Poor Laws through the Local Government Act 1929

Local Government Act 1929

The Local Government Act 1929 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made changes to the Poor Law and local government in England and Wales....

.

The General Strike

1926 United Kingdom general strike

The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 May 1926 to 13 May 1926. It was called by the general council of the Trades Union Congress in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening...

had begun as a dispute between miners and their employers outside London in 1925. On 1 May 1926 the Trades Union Congress

Trades Union Congress

The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...

called out workers all over the country, including the London dockers. The government had had over a year to prepare and deployed troops to break the dockers' picket lines. Armed food convoys, accompanied by armoured cars drove down the East India Dock Road. By 10 May, a meeting was brokered at Toynbee Hall

Toynbee Hall

to end the strike. The TUC were forced into a humiliating climbdown and the general strike ended on 11 May, with the miners holding out until November.

Industry and built environment

Industries associated with the sea developed throughout the East End, including rope making and shipbuilding. 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

Mile End

Mile End is an area within the East End of London, England, and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located east-northeast of Charing Cross...

. Shipbuilding was important from the time when Henry VIII caused ships to be built at Rotherhithe

Rotherhithe

Rotherhithe is a residential district in inner southeast London, England and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is located on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping and the Isle of Dogs on the north bank, and is a part of the Docklands area...

as a part of his expansion of the Royal Navy

The Tudors and the Royal Navy

The Tudor navy was the navy of the Kingdom of England under the ruling Tudor dynasty 1485-1603. The period involved important and critical changes that led to the establishment of a permanent navy and laid the foundations for the future Royal Navy.-Henry VII:...

. On 31 January 1858, the largest ship of that time, the SS Great Eastern

SS Great Eastern

SS Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by J. Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall on the River Thames, London. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers around the...

, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS , was a British civil engineer who built bridges and dockyards including the construction of the first major British railway, the Great Western Railway; a series of steamships, including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship; and numerous important bridges...

, was launched from the yard of Messrs Scott Russell & Co

John Scott Russell

John Scott Russell was a Scottish naval engineer who built the Great Eastern in collaboration with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and made the discovery that gave birth to the modern study of solitons.-Personal life:John Scott Russell was born John Russell on 9 May 1808 in Parkhead, Glasgow, the son of...

, of Millwall

Millwall

Millwall is an area in London, on the western side of the Isle of Dogs, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the south of the developments at West India Docks, including Canary Wharf.-History:...

. The 692 feet (210.9 m) vessel was too long to fit across the river, and so 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 long decline. Smaller ships, including battleships, continued to be built at the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company

Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company

The Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Limited was a shipyard and iron works straddling the mouth of Bow Creek at its confluence with the River Thames, at Leamouth Wharf on the west side and at Canning Town on the east side...

at Blackwall until the beginning of the 20th century.

The West India Docks

West India Docks

The West India Docks are a series of three docks on the Isle of Dogs in London, the first of which opened in 1802. The docks closed to commercial traffic in 1980 and the Canary Wharf development was built on the site.-History:...

were established in 1803, providing berths for larger ships and a model for future London dock building. Imported produce from the West Indies was unloaded directly into quayside warehouses. Ships were limited to 6000 tons. The old Brunswick Dock, a shipyard at Blackwall

Blackwall, London

Blackwall is an area of the East End of London, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on the north bank of the River Thames.The district around Blackwall Stairs was known as Blackwall by at least the 14th century. This presumably derives from the colour of the river wall, constructed in...

became the basis for the East India Company

British East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

's East India Docks

East India Docks

The East India Docks was a group of docks in Blackwall, east London, north-east of the Isle of Dogs. Today only the entrance basin remains.-History:...

established there in 1806. The London Docks

London Docks

The London Docks were one of several sets of docks in the historic Port of London. They were constructed in Wapping downstream from the City of London between 1799 and 1815, at a cost exceeding £5½ million. Traditionally ships had docked at wharves on the River Thames, but by this time, more...

were built in 1805, and the waste soil and rubble from the construction was carried by barge to west London, to build up the marshy area of Pimlico

Pimlico

Pimlico is a small area of central London in the City of Westminster. Like Belgravia, to which it was built as a southern extension, Pimlico is known for its grand garden squares and impressive Regency architecture....

. These docks imported tobacco, wine, wool and other goods into guarded warehouses within high walls (some of which still remain). They were able to berth over 300 sailing vessels simultaneously, but by 1971 they closed, no longer able to accommodate modern shipping. The most central docks, St Katharine Docks

St Katharine Docks

St Katharine Docks, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, were one of the commercial docks serving London, on the north side of the river Thames just east of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge...

, were built in 1828 to accommodate luxury goods, clearing the slums that lay in the area of the former Hospital of St Katharine

St Katharine's by the Tower

St Katharine's by the Tower--full name Royal Hospital and Collegiate Church of St. Katharine by the Tower--was a medieval church and hospital next to the Tower of London. The establishment was founded in 1148 and the buildings demolished in 1825 to build St Katharine Docks, which takes its name...

. They were not successful commercially, as they were unable to accommodate the largest ships, and in 1864, management of the docks was amalgamated with that of the London Docks. The Millwall Docks were created in 1868, predominantly for the import of grain and timber. These docks housed the first purpose built granary for the Baltic grain market, a local landmark that remained until it was demolished to improve access for the London City Airport

London City Airport

London City Airport is a single-runway airport. It principally serves the financial district of London and is located on a former Docklands site, east of the City of London, opposite the London Regatta Centre, in the London Borough of Newham in east London. It was developed by the engineering...

The first railway ('The Commercial Railway

London and Blackwall Railway

Originally called the Commercial Railway, the London and Blackwall Railway was a railway line in east London, England. It ran from the Minories to Blackwall via Stepney, with a branch line to the Isle of Dogs, thus connecting central London to many of London's docks in the 19th and 20th centuries...

') to be built, in 1840, was a passenger service based on cable haulage by stationary steam engines that ran the 3.5 miles (5.6 km) from Minories

Minories railway station

Minories railway station was a railway station located on the east side of Minories, near Tower Hill, London.It opened on 6 July 1840 as the City terminus for the London and Blackwall Railway . Minories was soon supplemented by a new station several hundred yards west, at Fenchurch Street, designed...

to Blackwall

Blackwall, London

on a pair of tracks. It required 14 miles (22.5 km) of hemp rope, and 'dropped' carriages as it arrived at stations, which were reattached to the cable for the return journey, and the train 'reassembling' itself at the terminus. The line was converted to standard gauge in 1859, and steam locomotives adopted. The building of London termini at Fenchurch Street

Fenchurch Street railway station

Fenchurch Street railway station, also known as London Fenchurch Street, is a central London railway terminus in the south eastern corner of the City of London, England. The station is one of the smallest terminals in London in terms of platforms and one of the most intensively operated...

(1841), and Bishopsgate

Bishopsgate railway station

Bishopsgate station was a railway station located on the eastern side of Shoreditch High Street in the modern London Borough of Tower Hamlets; the western edge of the East End. It was in use from 1840 to 1964 when it was destroyed by fire...

(1840) provided access to new suburbs across the River Lea, again resulting in the destruction of housing and increased overcrowding in the slums. After the opening of Liverpool Street station

Liverpool Street station

Liverpool Street railway station, also known as London Liverpool Street or simply Liverpool Street, is both a central London railway terminus and a connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, England...

(1874), Bishopsgate railway station became a goods yard, in 1881, to bring imports from Eastern ports. With the introduction of containerisation, the station declined, suffered a fire in 1964 that destroyed the station buildings, and it was finally demolished in 2004 for the extension of the East London Line

East London Line

The East London Line is a London Overground line which runs north to south through the East End, Docklands and South areas of London.Built in 1869 by the East London Railway Company, which reused the Thames Tunnel, originally intended for horse-drawn carriages, the line became part of the London...

. In the 19th century, the area north of Bow Road became a major railway centre for the North London Railway

North London Railway

The North London Railway was a railway company that opened lines connecting the north of London to the East and West India Docks. The main east to west route is now part the North London Line. Other lines operated by the company fell into disuse, but were later revived as part of the Docklands...

, with marshalling yards and a maintenance depot serving both the City and the West India docks. Nearby Bow railway station

Bow railway station

Bow railway station was a railway station in Bow, London on the North London Railway, between Old Ford and South Bromley. It was situated on the north side of Bow Road, very close to Bow Road railway station, which is now also closed....

opened in 1850 and was rebuilt in 1870 in a grand style, featuring a concert hall. The line and yards closed in 1944, after severe bomb damage, and never reopened, as goods became less significant, and cheaper facilities were concentrated in Essex.

The River Lea was a smaller boundary than the Thames, but it was a significant one. The building of the Royal Docks

Royal Docks

The Royal Docks comprise three docks in east London - the Royal Albert Dock, the Royal Victoria Dock and the King George V Dock. They are more correctly called the Royal Group of Docks to distinguish them from the Royal Dockyards, Royal being due to their naming after royal personages rather than...

consisting of the Royal Victoria Dock

Royal Victoria Dock

The Royal Victoria Dock is the largest of three docks in the Royal Docks of east London, now part of the redeveloped Docklands.-History:...

(1855), able to berth vessels of up to 8000 tons; Royal Albert Dock

Royal Albert Dock

The Royal Albert Dock is one of three docks in the Royal Group of Docks of east London, now part of the redeveloped Docklands.-History:The dock was constructed to the east of the earlier Victoria Dock by the St Katharine and London dock companies and opened in 1880...

(1880), up to 12,000 tons; and King George V Dock (1921), up to 30,000 tons, on the estuary

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

marshes, extended the continuous development of London across the Lea into Essex for the first time. The railways gave access to a passenger terminal at Gallions Reach and new suburbs created in West Ham

West Ham

West Ham is in the London Borough of Newham in London, England. In the west it is a post-industrial neighbourhood abutting the site of the London Olympic Park and in the east it is mostly residential, consisting of Victorian terraced housing interspersed with higher density post-War social housing...

, which quickly became a major manufacturing town, with 30,000 houses built between 1871 and 1901. Soon afterwards, East Ham

East Ham

East Ham is a suburban district of London, England, and part of the London Borough of Newham. It is a built-up district located 8 miles east-northeast of Charing Cross...

was built up to serve the new Gas Light and Coke Company

Beckton Gas Works

Beckton Gas Works was a major London gas works built to manufacture coal gas and other products including coke from coal. It has been variously described as 'the largest such plant in the world' and 'the largest gas works in Europe'. It operated from 1870 to 1969, with an associated by-products...

and Bazalgette's

Joseph Bazalgette

Sir Joseph William Bazalgette, CB was an English civil engineer of the 19th century. As chief engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works his major achievement was the creation of a sewer network for central London which was instrumental in relieving the city from cholera epidemics, while...

grand sewage works at Beckton

Beckton

Beckton is part of the London Borough of Newham, England, located east of Charing Cross.Its boundaries are the A13 trunk road to the north, Barking Creek to the east, the Royal Docks to the south, and Prince Regent Lane to the west. The area around Prince Regent Lane is also known as Custom House...

.

From the mid-20th century, the docks declined in use and were finally closed in 1980, leading to the setting up of the London Docklands Development Corporation

London Docklands Development Corporation

in 1981. London's main port is now at Tilbury

Port of Tilbury

The Port of Tilbury is located on the River Thames at Tilbury in Essex, England. It is the principal port for London; as well as being the main United Kingdom port for handling the importation of paper. There are extensive facilities for containers, grain, and other bulk cargoes. There are also...

, further down the Thames estuary, outside the boundary of Greater London

Greater London

Greater London is the top-level administrative division of England covering London. It was created in 1965 and spans the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs. This territory is coterminate with the London Government Office Region and the London...

. The dock had been established in 1886 to bring bulk goods by rail to London, but being nearer the sea and able to accommodate vessels of 50,000 tons, they were more easily converted to the needs of modern container ships in 1968, and so they survived the closure of the inner docks. Various wharves along the river continue in use but on a much smaller scale.

Settlement

During the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, settlements had been established predominantly along the lines of the existing roads, and the principal villages were Stepney, Whitechapel and Bow. Settlements along the river began at this time to service the needs of shipping on the Thames, but the City of London retained its right to actually land the goods. The riverside became more active in Tudor times, as the Royal Navy was expanded and international trading developed. Downstream, a major fishing port developed at Barking

Barking

Barking is a suburban town in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, in East London, England. A retail and commercial centre situated in the west of the borough, it lies east of Charing Cross. Barking was in the historic county of Essex until it was absorbed by Greater London. The area is...

to provide fish to the City.

Whereas royalty such as King John

John of England

John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...

had had a hunting lodge at Bromley-by-Bow

Bromley-by-Bow

Bromley-by-Bow, historically and officially Bromley, is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is an inner-city district situated east north-east of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...

, and the Bishop of London

Bishop of London

had a palace at Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green

, later these estates began to be split up, and estates of fine houses for captains, merchants and owners of manufacturers began to be built. Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...

moved his family and goods to Bethnal Green during the Great Fire of London

Great Fire of London

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...

, and Captain Cook moved from Shadwell

Shadwell

Shadwell is an inner-city district situated within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets located on the north bank of the Thames between Wapping to the south and Ratcliff to the east...

to Stepney Green, a place where a school and assembly rooms had been established (commemorated by Assembly Passage, and a plaque on the site of Cook's house on the Mile End Road). Mile End Old Town also acquired some fine buildings, and the New Town began to be built. As the area became built up and more crowded, the wealthy sold their plots for sub-division and moved further afield. Into the 18th and 19th centuries, there were still attempts to build fine houses, for example Tredegar Square

Tredegar Square

Tredegar Square is a well-preserved Georgian square in the Mile End district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located immediately north of the Mile End Road, to the east of, and is a few minutes' walk from Mile End tube station...

(1830), and the open fields around Mile End New Town were used for the construction of estates of workers' cottages in 1820.

Globe Town was established from 1800 to provide for the expanding population of weavers around Bethnal Green, attracted by improving prospects in silk weaving. The population of Bethnal Green trebled between 1801 and 1831, operating 20,000 looms in their own homes. By 1824, with restrictions on importation of French silks relaxed, up to half these looms became idle, and prices were driven down. With many importing warehouses already established in the district, the abundance of cheap labour was turned to boot, furniture and clothing manufacture. Globe Town continued its expansion into the 1860s, long after the decline of the silk industry.

During the 19th century, building on an adhoc basis could never keep up with the needs of the expanding population. Henry Mayhew

Henry Mayhew

Henry Mayhew was an English social researcher, journalist, playwright and advocate of reform. He was one of the two founders of the satirical and humorous magazine Punch, and the magazine's joint-editor, with Mark Lemon, in its early days...

visited Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green

in 1850 and wrote for the Morning Chronicle

Morning Chronicle

The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in...

, as a part of a series forming the basis for London Labour and the London Poor

London Labour and the London Poor

London Labour and the London Poor is a work of Victorian journalism by Henry Mayhew. In the 1840s he observed, documented and described the state of working people in London for a series of articles in a newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, that were later compiled into book form.-Overview:The...

(1851), that the trades in the area included tailors, costermonger

Costermonger

s, shoemakers, dustmen, sawyers, carpenters, cabinet makers and silkweavers. He noted that in the area:

A movement began to clear the slums – with Burdett-Coutts building Columbia Market in 1869 and with the passing of the "Artisans' and Labourers' Dwelling Act

Artisan's and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875

The Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom designed by Richard Cross, Home Secretary during Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's second Conservative Government, which involved allowing local councils to buy up areas of slum dwelling...

" in 1876 to provide powers to seize slums from landlords and provide access to public funds to build new housing. Housing association

Housing association

Housing associations in the United Kingdom are independent not-for-profit bodies that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in housing need. Any trading surplus is used to maintain existing homes and to help finance new ones...

s such as the Peabody Trust

Peabody Trust

Peabody Trust , founded in 1862, is one of London's oldest and largest housing associations with over 19,000 properties. It also a charity and urban regeneration agency...

were formed to provide philanthropic homes for the poor and clearing the slums generally. Expansion work by the railway companies, such as the London and Blackwall Railway

London and Blackwall Railway

and Great Eastern Railway

Great Eastern Railway

The Great Eastern Railway was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia...

caused large areas of slum housing to be demolished. The "Working Classes Dwellings Act" in 1890 placed a new responsibility to house the displaced residents and this led to the building of new "philanthropic housing" such as Blackwall Buildings

Blackwall Buildings

Blackwall Buildings were built in 1890 in Thomas Street, Whitechapel. Thomas Street was later renamed Fulboune Street. They were demolished in 1969.- History :...

and Great Eastern Buildings.

By 1890 official slum clearance programmes had begun. One was the creation of the world's first council housing, the LCC

London County Council

Boundary Estate

The Boundary Estate is a housing development, formally opened in 1900, in the East End of London, England. It is situated in the north western corner of Bethnal Green in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and on the boundary with Shoreditch, in the London Borough of Hackney.The estate, constructed...

, which replaced the neglected and crowded streets of Friars Mount, better known as The Old Nichol Street Rookery. Between 1918 and 1939 the LCC continued replacing East End housing with five or six storey flats, despite residents preferring houses with gardens and opposition from shopkeepers who were forced to relocate to new, more expensive premises. The Second World War brought an end to further slum clearance.

Second World War

Initially, the German commanders were reluctant to bomb London, fearing retaliation against Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. On 24 August 1940, a single aircraft, tasked to bomb Tilbury

Tilbury

Tilbury is a town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England. As a settlement it is of relatively recent existence, although it has important historical connections, being the location of a 16th century fort and an ancient cross-river ferry...

, accidentally bombed Stepney, Bethnal Green and the City. The following night the RAF retaliated by mounting a forty aircraft raid on Berlin, with a second attack three days later. The Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

changed its strategy from attacking shipping and airfields to attacking cities. The City and West End were designated 'Target Area B'; the East End and docks were 'Target Area A'. The first raid occurred at 4:30 p.m. on 7 September and consisted of 150 Dornier

Dornier Do 17

The Dornier Do 17, sometimes referred to as the Fliegender Bleistift , was a World War II German light bomber produced by Claudius Dornier's company, Dornier Flugzeugwerke...

and Heinkel

Heinkel He 111

The Heinkel He 111 was a German aircraft designed by Siegfried and Walter Günter in the early 1930s in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Often described as a "Wolf in sheep's clothing", it masqueraded as a transport aircraft, but its purpose was to provide the Luftwaffe with a fast medium...

bombers and large numbers of fighters. This was followed by a second wave of 170 bombers. Silvertown

Silvertown

Silvertown is an industrialised district on the north bank of the Thames in the London Borough of Newham. It was named after Samuel Winkworth Silver's former rubber factory which opened in 1852, and is now dominated by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery and the John Knight ABP animal rendering...

and Canning Town

Canning Town

Canning Town is an area of east London, England. It is part of the London Borough of Newham and is situated in the area of the former London docks on the north side of the River Thames. It is the location of Rathbone Market...

bore the brunt of this first attack.

Between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, a sustained bombing campaign was mounted. It began with the bombing of London for 57 successive nights, an era known as 'the Blitz

The Blitz

The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...

'. East London was targeted because the area was a centre for imports and storage of raw materials for the war effort, and the German military command felt that support for the war could be damaged among the mainly working class inhabitants. On the first night of the blitz, 430 civilians were killed and 1600 seriously wounded. The populace responded by evacuating children and the vulnerable to the country and digging in, constructing Anderson shelters in their gardens and Morrison shelters in their houses, or going to communal shelters built in local public spaces. On 10 September 1940, 73 civilians, including women and children preparing for evacuation, were killed when a bomb hit the South Hallsville School. Although the official death toll is 73, many local people believed it must have been higher. Some estimates say 400 or even 600 may have lost their lives during this raid on Canning Town

Canning Town

The effect of the intensive bombing worried the authorities and 'Mass-Observation

Mass-Observation

Mass Observation was a United Kingdom social research organisation founded in 1937. Their work ended in the mid 1960s but was revived in 1981. The Archive is housed at the University of Sussex....

' was deployed to gauge attitudes and provide policy suggestions, as before the war they had investigated local attitudes to anti-Semitism. The organisation noted that close family and friendship links within the East End were providing the population with a surprising resilience under fire. Propaganda was issued, reinforcing the image of the 'brave chirpy Cockney

Cockney

The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...

'. On the Sunday after the Blitz began, Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

himself toured the bombed areas of Stepney and Poplar. Anti-aircraft installations were built in public parks, such as Victoria Park

Victoria Park, East London

and the Mudchute on the Isle of Dogs, and along the line of the Thames, as this was used by the aircraft to guide them to their target.

The authorities were initially wary of opening the London Underground

London Underground

The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...

for shelter, fearing the effect on morale elsewhere in London and hampering normal operations. On 12 September, having suffered five days of heavy bombing, the people of the East End took the matter into their own hands and invaded tube stations with pillows and blankets. The government relented and opened the partially completed Central line

Central Line

The Central line is a London Underground line, coloured red on the tube map. It is a deep-level "tube" line, running east-west across London, and, at , has the greatest total length of track of any line on the Underground. Of the 49 stations served, 20 are below ground...

as a shelter. Many deep tube stations remained in use as shelters until the end of the war. Aerial mines were deployed on 19 September 1940. These exploded at roof top height, causing severe damage to buildings over a wider radius than the impact bombs. By now, the Port of London

Port of London

had sustained heavy damage with a third of its warehouses destroyed, and the West India and St Katherine Docks had been badly hit and put out of action. Bizarre events occurred when the River Lea burned with an eerie blue flame, caused by a hit on a gin factory at Three Mills

Three Mills

The Three Mills are former working mills on the River Lea in the East End of London, one of London’s oldest extant industrial centres. The largest and most powerful of the four remaining tidal mills is possibly the largest tidal mill in the world...

, and the Thames itself burnt fiercely when Tate & Lyle

Tate & Lyle

Tate & Lyle plc is a British-based multinational agribusiness. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index as of 20 June 2011...

's Silvertown sugar refinery was hit.

On 3 March 1943 at 8:27 p.m., the unopened Bethnal Green tube station

Bethnal Green tube station

Bethnal Green tube station is a station on the Central Line of the London Underground in Bethnal Green, East London. It lies between Liverpool Street and Mile End stations, and in Travelcard Zone 2. The station was opened as part of the long planned Central Line eastern extension on 4 December...

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

Z Battery

The Z Battery, was a short range rocket-firing anti-aircraft weapon which fired 3-inch diameter rockets, used in ground-based single and multiple launchers for the air defence of the United Kingdom in World War II.- See also :...

) being fired at nearby Victoria Park

Victoria Park, East London

. 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 were not released until 1946. There is now a plaque at the entrance to the tube station, which commemorates the event as the "worst civilian disaster of World War II". The first V-1 flying bomb

V-1 flying bomb

The V-1 flying bomb, also known as the Buzz Bomb or Doodlebug, was an early pulse-jet-powered predecessor of the cruise missile....

struck in Grove Road, Mile End, on 13 June 1944, killing six, injuring 30, and making 200 people homeless. The area remained derelict for many years until it was cleared to extend Mile End Park

Mile End Park

Mile End Park is a park located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a linear park of some , and was created on industrial land devastated by World War II bombing...

. Before demolition, local artist Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....

made a cast of the inside of 193 Grove Road. Despite attracting controversy, the exhibit won her the Turner Prize

Turner Prize

The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...

for 1993.

By the end of the war, it is estimated that 80 tons of bombs fell on the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green

Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green

alone, affecting 21,700 houses, destroying 2,233 and making a further 893 uninhabitable. In Bethnal Green, 555 people were killed, and 400 were seriously injured. For the whole of Tower Hamlets, a total of 2,221 civilians were killed, and 7,472 were injured, with 46,482 houses destroyed and 47,574 damaged. So badly battered was the East End that when Buckingham Palace was hit during the height of the bombing, Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...

observed that "It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face." By the end of the war, the East End was a scene of devastation, with large areas derelict and depopulated. War production was changed quickly to making prefabricated housing, and many were installed in the bombed areas and remained common into the 1970s. Today, 1950s and 1960s architecture dominates the housing estates of the area such as the Lansbury Estate

Lansbury Estate

The Lansbury Estate is a public housing estate in the Poplar area of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets named after George Lansbury, a Poplar councillor and Labour party MP.It is one of the largest such estates in London...

in Poplar

Poplar, London

, much of which was built as a show-piece of the 1951 Festival of Britain

Festival of Britain

The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...

Population

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

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

Protestant Huguenot

Huguenot

s in the 17th century, the Irish

Irish people

in the 18th century, Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews

fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

towards the end of the 19th century, and the Bangladeshi

British Bangladeshi

community settling in the East End from the 1960s.

Immigration
Immigrant communities first developed in the riverside settlements. From the Tudor era until the 20th century, ships crew were employed on a casual basis. New and replacement crew would be found wherever they were available, local sailors being particularly prized for their knowledge of currents and hazards in foreign ports. Crews would be paid off at the end of their voyage. Inevitably, permanent communities became established, including colonies of Lascars and Africans from the Guinea Coast

Guinea (region)

Guinea is a traditional name for the region of Africa that lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It stretches north through the forested tropical regions and ends at the Sahel.-History:...

. Large Chinatown

Chinatown

A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...

s at both Shadwell

Shadwell

Shadwell is an inner-city district situated within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets located on the north bank of the Thames between Wapping to the south and Ratcliff to the east...

and Limehouse

Limehouse

Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....

developed, associated with the crews of merchantmen in the opium

Opium

Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...

and tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

trades. It was only after the devastation of the Second World War that this predominantly Han Chinese

Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

community relocated to Soho

Chinatown, London

The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street...

.

In 1786, the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor

Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor

The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor was a charitable organization founded in London in 1786 to provide sustenance for distressed people of African and Asian origin...

was formed by citizens concerned at the size of London's indigent Black population, many of whom had been expelled from North America as Black Loyalist

Black Loyalist

A Black Loyalist was an inhabitant of British America of African descent who joined British colonial forces during the American Revolutionary War...

s — former slaves who had fought on the side of the British in the War of Independence

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

. Others were discharged sailors and some a legacy of British involvement in the slave trade. The committee distributed food, clothing, medical aid and found work for men, from various locations including the White Raven tavern in Mile End. They also helped the men to go abroad, some to Canada. In October 1786, the Committee funded an ill-fated expedition of 280 Black men, 40 Black women and 70 White women (mainly wives and girlfriends) to settle in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

. From the late 19th century, a large African mariner community was established in Canning Town

Canning Town

as a result of new shipping links to the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

and West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

.

Immigrants have not always been readily accepted and in 1517 the Evil May Day

Evil May Day

Evil May Day or Ill May Day is the name of a riot which took place in 1517 as a protest against foreigners living in London.- Causes :...

riots, where foreign-owned property was attacked, resulted in the deaths of 135 Flemings in Stepney. The Gordon Riots

Gordon Riots

The Gordon Riots of 1780 were an anti-Catholic protest against the Papists Act 1778.The Popery Act 1698 had imposed a number of penalties and disabilities on Roman Catholics in England; the 1778 act eliminated some of these. An initial peaceful protest led on to widespread rioting and looting and...

of 1780 began with burnings of the houses of Catholics and their chapels in Poplar and Spitalfields.

In the 1870 and 80s, so many Jewish émigrés were arriving that over 150 synagogues were built. Today there are only four active synagogues remaining in Tower Hamlets, the Congregation of Jacob Synagogue (1903 – Kehillas Ya’akov), the East London Central Synagogue (1922), the Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue

Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue

Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue, located at 41 Fieldgate Street in the East End of London, was established in 1899. In 1950 it was rebuilt after damaged caused by a German air raid during WWII. It is currently surrounded on three sides by the East London Mosque...

(1899) and Sandys Row Synagogue

Sandys Row Synagogue

Sandy's Row Synagogue is an historic Grade II listed synagogue in the East End of London.-History:The building was constructed in 1766 by refugee French Huguenots as a community church, named L'Eglise de l'Artillerie , on a small street called Parliament Court, Artillery Street, in Bishopsgate...

(1766). Jewish immigration to the East End peaked in the 1890s, leading to anti-foreigner agitation by the British Brothers League

British Brothers League

The British Brothers' League was a British anti-immigration group that attempted to organise along paramilitary lines.The group was formed in 1902 in east London as a response to waves of immigration from Eastern Europe that had begun in 1880 and had seen an influx of eastern Europeans into the area...

, formed in 1902 by Captain William Stanley Shaw and the Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

MP for Stepney, Major Evans-Gordon

William Evans-Gordon

Major Sir William Eden Evans-Gordon was a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament . As a soldier he had served on the North-West Frontier...

, who had overturned a Liberal majority in the 1900 General Election

United Kingdom general election, 1900

-Seats summary:-See also:*MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1900*The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918-External links:***-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987**...

on a platform of limiting immigration. In Parliament in 1902 Evans-Gordon claimed that "not a day passes but English families are ruthlessly turned out to make room for foreign invaders. The rates are burdened with the education of thousands of foreign children". Jewish immigration only slowed with the passing of the Aliens Act 1905

Aliens Act 1905

The Aliens Act 1905 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Act for the first time introduced immigration controls and registration, and gave the Home Secretary overall responsibility for immigration and nationality matters...

that gave the Home Secretary

Home Secretary

The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...

powers to regulate and control immigration.

Community tensions were again raised by an anti-semitic Fascist

British Union of Fascists

The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...

march that took place in 1936 and was blocked by residents and activists at the Battle of Cable Street

Battle of Cable Street

The Battle of Cable Street took place on Sunday 4 October 1936 in Cable Street in the East End of London. It was a clash between the Metropolitan Police, overseeing a march by the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, and anti-fascists, including local Jewish, socialist, anarchist,...

. From the mid-1970s anti-Asian violence occurred culminating in the murder on 4 May 1978 of a 25–year old clothing worker named Altab Ali by three white teenagers in a racially motivated attack. Bangladeshi groups mobilised for self-defence, 7,000 people marched to Hyde Park

Hyde Park, London

Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...

in protest, and the community became more politically involved. The former churchyard of St Mary's Whitechapel, near where the attack occurred, was renamed "Altab Ali Park

Altab Ali Park

Altab Ali Park is a small park on Adler Street, White Church Lane and Whitechapel High Street, London E1; formerly known as St. Mary's Park it is the site of the old 14th Century white chapel, St. Mary Matfelon, from which the area of Whitechapel gets its name. Having been destroyed in The Blitz...

" in 1998 as a commemoration of his death. Inter-racial tension has continued with occasional outbreaks of violence and in 1993 there was a council seat win for the British National Party

British National Party

The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...

(since lost). A 1999 bombing

David Copeland

David John Copeland is a former member of the British National Party and the National Socialist Movement, who became known as the "London Nail Bomber" after a 13-day bombing campaign in April 1999 aimed at London's black, Bangladeshi and gay communities.Over three successive weekends between 17...

in Brick Lane

Brick Lane

Brick Lane is a street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. It runs from Swanfield Street in the northern part of Bethnal Green, crosses Bethnal Green Road, passes through Spitalfields and is linked to Whitechapel High Street to the south by the short stretch of...

was part of a series that targeted ethnic minorities, gays and "multiculturalists".
Demographics
The population of the East End increased inexorably throughout the 19th century. House building could not keep pace and overcrowding was rife. It was not until the interwar period

Interwar period

Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....

that there was a decline caused by migration to new Essex suburbs like the Becontree estate, built by the London County Council

London County Council

between 1921 and 1932, and to areas outside London. This depopulation accelerated after the Second World War and has only recently begun to reverse.

These population figures reflect the area that now forms the London Borough of Tower Hamlets only:

Borough	1811	1841	1871	1901	1931	1961	1971	1991	2001
Bethnal Green Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green Bethnal Green was a civil parish and a metropolitan borough in the East End of London, England. It was formed as a civil parish in 1743 from the Bethnal Green hamlet in Stepney ancient parish. The vestry became an electing authority to the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855 and in 1889 it became...	33,619	74,088	120,104	129,680	108,194	47,078	n/a	n/a	n/a
Poplar Metropolitan Borough of Poplar Poplar was a local government district in the metropolitan area of London, England. It was formed as a district of the Metropolis in 1855 and became a metropolitan borough in the County of London in 1900. It comprised the civil parishes of Bow, Bromley and Poplar until 1907, when it also became a...	13,548	31,122	116,376	168,882	155,089	66,604
Stepney Metropolitan Borough of Stepney The Metropolitan Borough of Stepney was a Metropolitan borough in the County of London created in 1900. In 1965 it became part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.-Boundaries:...	131,606	203,802	275,467	298,600	225,238	92,000
Total	178,773	309,012	511,947	597,102	488,611	205,682	165,791	161,064	196,106

By comparison, in 1801 the population of England and Wales was 9 million; by 1851 it had more than doubled to 18 million, and by the end of the century had reached 40 million. Today Bangladeshis form the largest minority population in Tower Hamlets, constituting 33.5% of the borough population at the 2001 census

United Kingdom Census 2001

A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....

, and is the largest Bangladeshi community in Britain. The 2006 estimates show a decline in this group to 29.8% of the population, reflecting a movement to better economic circumstances and the larger houses available in the eastern suburbs. In this, the latest group of migrants are following a pattern established for over three centuries.

Crime

The high levels of poverty in the East End have, throughout history, corresponded with a high incidence of crime. 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

British East India Company

built high-walled, guarded docks at Blackwall

Blackwall, London

to minimise the vulnerability of their cargoes. Armed convoys would then take the goods to the company's secure compound in the City. The practice 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.

No police force operated in London before the 1750s. Crime and disorder were dealt with by a system of magistrates and volunteer parish constables, with strictly limited jurisdiction. Salaried constables were introduced by 1792, although they were few in number and their power and jurisdiction continued to derive from local magistrates, who in extremis could be backed by militias. In 1798, England's first Marine Police Force

Marine Police Force

The Marine Police Force, sometimes known as the Thames River Police and said to be England's first 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...

was formed by magistrate Patrick Colquhoun and a Master Mariner, John Harriott to tackle theft and looting from ships anchored in the Pool of London

Pool of London

and the lower reaches of the river. Its base was (and remains) in Wapping

Wapping

Wapping is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets which forms part of the Docklands to the east of the City of London. It is situated between the north bank of the River Thames and the ancient thoroughfare simply called The Highway...

High Street. It is now known as the Marine Support Unit.

In 1829, the Metropolitan Police Force were formed, with a remit to patrol within 7 miles (11 km) of Charing Cross

Charing Cross

Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London, England. It is named after the now demolished Eleanor cross that stood there, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross is now occupied by an equestrian...

, with a force of 1,000 men in 17 divisions, including 'H' division, based in Stepney. Each division was controlled by a superintendent, under whom were four inspectors and sixteen sergeants. The regulations demanded that recruits should be under thirty-five years of age, well built, at least 5 in 7 in (1.7 m) in height, literate and of good character.

Unlike the former constables, the police were recruited widely and financed by a levy on ratepayers; so they were initially disliked. The force took until the mid-19th century to be established in the East End. Unusually, Joseph Sadler Thomas, a Metropolitan Police superintendent of 'F' (Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

) Division appears to have mounted the first local investigation (in Bethnal Green), in November 1830 of the London Burkers

London Burkers

The London Burkers were a group of body snatchers, operating in London, who apparently modelled their activities on those of the notorious Burke and Hare...

. In 1841, a specific Dockyard division of the Metropolitan force was formed to assume responsibility for shore patrols within the docks, a detective department was formed in 1842, and in 1865, 'J' division was established in Bethnal Green.

One of the East End industries that serviced ships moored off the Pool of London was prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

, and in the 17th century, this was centred on the Ratcliffe Highway, a long street lying on the high ground above the riverside settlements. In 1600, it was described by the antiquarian John Stow

John Stow

John Stow was an English historian and antiquarian.-Early life:The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, he was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. His father's whole rent for his house and garden was only 6s. 6d. a year, and Stow in his youth fetched milk every...

as 'a continual street, or filthy straight passage, with alleys of small tenements or cottages builded, inhabited by sailors and victuallers.' Crews were 'paid off' at the end of a long voyage, and would spend their earnings on drink in the local taverns.

One madame described as 'the great bawd of the seamen' by Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...

was Damaris Page. Born in Stepney in 1620, she had moved from prostitution to running brothels, including one on the Highway that catered for ordinary seaman and a further establishment nearby that catered for the more expensive tastes amongst the officers and gentry. She died wealthy, in 1669, in a house on the Highway, despite charges being brought against her and time spent in Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...

.

By the 19th century, an attitude of toleration had changed, and the social reformer William Acton

William Acton

William Acton was a British medical doctor and book writer. He was known for his books on masturbation.-Biography:Acton was a native of Shillingstone and he enrolled as a resident apprentice at St Bartholomew's Hospital....

described the riverside prostitutes as a 'horde of human tigresses who swarm the pestilent dens by the riverside at Ratcliffe and Shadwell'. The 'Society for the Suppression of Vice' estimated that between the Houndsditch, Whitechapel and Ratcliffe area there were 1803 prostitutes; and between Mile End, Shadwell and Blackwall 963 women in the trade. They were often victims of circumstance, there being no welfare state

Welfare state

A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...

and a high mortality rate amongst the inhabitants that left wives and daughters destitute, with no other means of income.

At the same time, religious reformers began to introduce 'Seamans' Missions' throughout the dock areas that both sought to provide for seafarer's physical needs and to keep them away from the temptations of drink and women. Eventually, the passage of the 'Contagious Diseases Act' in 1864 allowed policemen to arrest prostitutes and detain them in hospital. The act was repealed in 1886, after agitation by early feminists, such as Josephine Butler

Josephine Butler

Josephine Elizabeth Butler was a Victorian era British feminist who was especially concerned with the welfare of prostitutes...

and Elizabeth Wolstenholme led to the formation of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts

Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts

The Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established in 1869 by Elizabeth Wolstenholme and Josephine Butler in response to the Contagious Diseases Acts that were passed by UK Parliament in 1864...

.

Notable crimes in the area include the Ratcliff Highway murders

Ratcliff Highway murders

The Ratcliff Highway murders were two vicious attacks that resulted in multiple fatalities, and occurred over twelve days in the year 1811, in homes half a mile apart near Wapping in London.-Murders:...

(1813); the killings committed by the London Burkers

London Burkers

The London Burkers were a group of body snatchers, operating in London, who apparently modelled their activities on those of the notorious Burke and Hare...

(apparently inspired by Burke and Hare) in Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green

(1831); the notorious serial killings of prostitutes by Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

(1888); and the Siege of Sidney Street

Siege of Sidney Street

The Siege of Sidney Street, popularly known as the "Battle of Stepney", was a notorious gunfight in London's East End on the 2nd of January 1911. Preceded by the Houndsditch Murders, it ended with the deaths of two members of a supposedly politically-motivated gang of burglars supposedly led by...

(1911) (in which anarchists, inspired by the legendary Peter the Painter

Peter the Painter

Peter the Painter, also known as Peter Piaktow , was the leader of a gang of Latvian revolutionary criminals in the early 20th Century. After supposedly fighting in and escaping the Sidney Street Siege in 1911, he became an anti-hero in London's East End...

, took on Home Secretary Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

, and the army).

In the 1960s the East End was the area most associated with gangster

Gangster

A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....

activity, most notably that of the Kray twins

Kray twins

Reginald "Reggie" Kray and his twin brother Ronald "Ronnie" Kray were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London's East End during the 1950s and 1960s...

. The 1996 Docklands bombing

1996 Docklands bombing

The Docklands bombing occurred on 9 February 1996. It was conducted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army and brought an end to their seventeen-month ceasefire...

caused significant damage around South Quay Station

South Quay DLR station

South Quay is a Docklands Light Railway station on the Isle of Dogs, in London. It is between Crossharbour and Heron Quays stations and is in Travelcard Zone 2....

, to the south of the main Canary Wharf

Canary Wharf

development. Two people were killed and thirty-nine injured in one of Mainland Britain's biggest bomb attacks by the Provisional Irish Republican Army

Provisional Irish Republican Army

The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...

. This led to the introduction of Police checkpoints controlling access to the Isle of Dogs

Isle of Dogs

The Isle of Dogs is a former island in the East End of London that is bounded on three sides by one of the largest meanders in the River Thames.-Etymology:...

, reminiscent of the City's 'ring of steel'.

Disasters

Many disasters have befallen the residents of the East End, both in war and in peace. In particular, as a maritime port, plague and pestilence have disproportionately fallen on the residents of the East End. The area most afflicted by the Great Plague (1665)

Great Plague of London

The Great Plague was a massive outbreak of disease in the Kingdom of England that killed an estimated 100,000 people, 20% of London's population. The disease is identified as bubonic plague, an infection by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, transmitted through a flea vector...

was in Spitalfields, and cholera epidemics broke out in Limehouse in 1832 and struck again in 1848 and 1854. Typhus

Typhus

Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...

and tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

were also common in the crowded 19th century tenements. The was a passenger steamer crowded with day trippers returning from Gravesend

Gravesend, Kent

Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...

to Woolwich

Woolwich

Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...

and London Bridge

London Bridge

London Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames, connecting the City of London and Southwark, in central London. Situated between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge, it forms the western end of the Pool of London...

. On the evening of 3 September 1878, she collided with the steam collier Bywell Castle (named for Bywell Castle

Bywell Castle

Bywell Castle is situated in the village of Bywell overlooking the River Tyne, four miles east of Corbridge, Northumberland, England . It is a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument...

) and sank into the Thames in under four minutes. Of the approximately 700 passengers, over 600 were lost.

During the First World War, the morning of Wednesday 13 June 1917 was the first ever daylight air-raid over the east end which in total killed 104 people. Sixteen of the dead were 5 and 6 year olds who were sitting in their class room at Upper North Street School, Poplar when the bomb hit. The memorial which still stands today in Poplar Recreation Ground was built by A.R. Adams

A.R. Adams Funeral Directors

A.R. Adams Funeral Directors Ltd is an independent family-run firm of funeral directors in the U.K.The company was established in 1900 in Bow, in the East End of London by Archibald Richard Adams...

, a local funeral director at the time. Also, on 19 January 1917, 73 people died, including 14 workers, and more than 400 were injured, in a TNT explosion

Silvertown explosion

The Silvertown explosion occurred in Silvertown in West Ham, Essex on Friday, 19 January 1917 at 6.52 pm. The blast occurred at a munitions factory that was manufacturing explosives for Britain's World War I military effort...

in the Brunner-Mond munitions factory in Silvertown

Silvertown

. Much of the area was flattened, and the shock wave was felt throughout the city and much of Essex

Essex

. This was the largest explosion in London history, and was heard in Southampton

Southampton

Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

and Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

. Andreas Angel, chief chemist at the plant, was posthumously awarded the Edward Medal

Edward Medal

The Edward Medal is a British civilian decoration which was instituted by Royal Warrant on 13 July 1907 to recognise acts of bravery of miners and quarrymen in endangering their lives to rescue their fellow workers...

for trying to extinguish the fire that caused the blast. The same year, on 13 June, a bomb from a German Gotha

Gotha G

|-See also:-References:* The Complete Encyclopedia of Flight 1848-1939 by John Batchelor and Malcolm V. Lowe-External links:*...

bomber killed 18 children in their primary school in Upper North Street, Poplar

Poplar, London

. This event is commemorated by the local war memorial erected in Poplar Recreation Ground, but during the war a total of 120 children and 104 adults were killed in the East End by aerial bombing, with many more injured.

Another tragedy occurred on the morning of 16 May 1968 when Ronan Point

Ronan Point

Ronan Point was a 22-story tower block in Newham, east London, which suffered a partial collapse when a gas explosion demolished a load-bearing wall, causing the collapse of one entire corner of the building...

, a 23-storey tower block

Tower block

A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, office tower, apartment block, or block of flats, is a tall building or structure used as a residential and/or office building...

in Newham

London Borough of Newham

, suffered a structural collapse due to a natural gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

explosion. Four people were killed in the disaster and seventeen were injured, as an entire corner of the building slid away. The collapse caused major changes in UK building regulations and led to the decline of further building of high rise council flats that had characterised 1960s public architecture.

Entertainment

Inn-yard theatre

In the historical era of English Renaissance drama, an Inn-yard theatre or Inn-theatre was a common inn that provided a venue for the presentation of stage plays.-Beginnings:...

s were first established in the Tudor period

Tudor period

The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...

, with the Boar's Head Inn (1557) in Whitechapel, the George in Stepney and a purpose built, but short lived, John Brayne's Red Lion Theatre

Red Lion (theatre)

The Red Lion was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Whitechapel , just outside the City of London...

(1567), nearby. The first permanent theatres with resident companies were constructed in Shoreditch, with James Burbage

James Burbage

James Burbage was an English actor, theatre impresario, and theatre builder in the English Renaissance theatre. He built The Theatre, the facility famous as the first permanent dedicated theatre built in England since Roman times...

's The Theatre

The Theatre

The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Shoreditch , just outside the City of London. It was the second permanent theatre ever built in England, after the Red Lion, and the first successful one...

(1576) and Henry Lanman's Curtain Theatre

Curtain Theatre

The Curtain Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Curtain Close, Shoreditch , just outside the City of London. It opened in 1577, and continued staging plays until 1622....

(1577) standing close together. On the night of 28 December 1598 Burbage's sons dismantled The Theatre, and moved it piece by piece across the Thames to construct the Globe Theatre

Globe Theatre

The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...

.

The Goodman's Fields Theatre

Goodman's Fields Theatre

Two 18th century theatres bearing the name Goodman's Fields Theatre were located on Ayliffe Street, Whitechapel, London. The first opened on 31 October 1727 in a small shop by Thomas Odell, deputy Licenser of Plays. The first play performed was George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer. Henry...

was established in 1727, and it was here that David Garrick

David Garrick

David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...

made his successful début as Richard III

Richard III (play)

Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...

, in 1741. In the 19th century the theatres of the East End rivalled in their grandiosity and seating capacity those of the West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

. 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

Whitechapel

, the Garrick

Garrick Theatre (Leman St)

The Garrick Theatre, also known as Garrick's Subscription was a small theatre located in Leman St, Whitechapel. The theatre opened in 1831, and closed in about 1881...

(1831) in Leman Street, the Effingham (1834) in Whitechapel, the Standard (1835) in Shoreditch

Shoreditch

, the City of London (1837) in Norton Folgate

Norton Folgate

Norton Folgate is a short length of street in London, connecting Bishopsgate with Shoreditch High Street on the northern edge of its financial district, the City of London. It constitutes a very small section of the A10, the former Roman Ermine Street...

, then the Grecian and the Britannia Theatre

Britannia Theatre

The Britannia Theatre was located at 115/117 High Street, Hoxton, London. The theatre was badly damaged by a fire in 1900. The site was reused as a Gaumont cinema from 1913 to 1940, when this too was destroyed...

in Hoxton

Hoxton

(1840). 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.

There were also many Yiddish theatre

Yiddish theatre

Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and...

s, particularly around Whitechapel

Whitechapel

. These developed into professional companies, after the arrival of Jacob Adler

Jacob Pavlovich Adler

Jacob Pavlovich Adler , born Yankev P. Adler, was a Jewish actor and star of Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and New York City....

in 1884 and the formation of his 'Russian Jewish Operatic Company' that first performed in Beaumont Hall, Stepney, and then found homes both in the Prescott Street Club, Stepney, and in Princelet Street in Spitalfields. The Pavilion became an exclusively Yiddish theatre in 1906, finally closing in 1936 and being demolished in 1960. Other important Jewish theatres were Feinmans, The Jewish National Theatre and the Grand Palais. Performances were in Yiddish, and predominantly melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

. These declined, as audience and actors left for New York and the more prosperous parts of London.

The once popular music hall

Music hall

Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...

s 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

Commercial Street (London)

Commercial Street is a road in Tower Hamlets, east London that runs north to south from Shoreditch High Street to Whitechapel High Street through the East End district of Spitalfields...

. An example of a 'giant pub hall', Wilton's Music Hall

Wilton's Music Hall

Wilton's Music Hall is a grade II* listed building, built as a music hall and now a more general-purpose performance space in Grace's Alley, off Cable Street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets...

(1858), remains in Grace's Alley, off Cable Street

Cable Street

Cable Street is a mile-long road in the East End of London, with several historic landmarks nearby, made famous by "the Battle of Cable Street" of 1936.-Location:Cable Street runs between the edge of The City and Limehouse:...

and the early 'saloon style' Hoxton Hall

Hoxton Hall

Hoxton Hall is a community centre and performance space in Hoxton, at 130 Hoxton Street, in the London Borough of Hackney.A grade II* listed building, the theatre was first built as a Music hall in 1863, as MacDonald's Music hall. It is an unrestored example of the saloon-style...

(1863) survives in Hoxton Street, Hoxton

Hoxton

. Many popular music hall stars came from the East End, including Marie Lloyd

Marie Lloyd

Matilda Alice Victoria Wood was an English music hall singer, best known as Marie Lloyd. Her ability to add lewdness to the most innocent of lyrics led to frequent clashes with the guardians of morality...

.

The music hall tradition of live entertainment lingers on in East End public houses, with music and singing. This is complemented by less respectable amusements such as striptease

Striptease

A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner...

, which, since the 1950s has become a fixture of certain East End pubs, particularly in the area of Shoreditch

Shoreditch

, despite being a target of local authority restraints.

Novelist and social commentator Walter Besant

Walter Besant

Sir Walter Besant , was a novelist and historian who lived largely in London.His sister-in-law was Annie Besant.-Biography:...

proposed a 'Palace of Delight' with concert halls, reading rooms, picture galleries, an art school and various classes, social rooms and frequent fêtes and dances. This coincided with a project by the philanthropist businessman, Edmund Hay Currie to use the money from the winding up of the 'Beaumont Trust', together with subscriptions to build a 'People's Palace' in the East End. Five acres of land were secured on the Mile End Road, and the Queen's Hall was opened by Queen Victoria on 14 May 1887. The complex was completed with a library, swimming pool, gymnasium and winter garden, by 1892, providing an eclectic mix of populist entertainment and education. A peak of 8000 'tickets' were sold for classes in 1892, and by 1900, a Bachelor of Science

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

degree awarded by the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

was introduced. In 1931, the building was destroyed by fire, but the Draper's Company

Worshipful Company of Drapers

The Worshipful Company of Drapers is one of the 108 Livery Companies of the City of London; it has the formal name of The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Drapers of the City of London but is more usually known...

, major donors to the original scheme, invested more to rebuild the technical college and create Queen Mary's College

Queen Mary, University of London

Queen Mary, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

in December 1934. A new 'People's Palace' was constructed, in 1937, by the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney

Metropolitan Borough of Stepney

The Metropolitan Borough of Stepney was a Metropolitan borough in the County of London created in 1900. In 1965 it became part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.-Boundaries:...

, in St Helen's Terrace. This finally closed in 1954.

Professional theatre returned briefly to the East End in 1972, with the formation of the Half Moon Theatre

Half Moon Theatre

The Half Moon Theatre Company was formed in 1972 in a rented synagogue in Alie Street, Aldgate, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Half Moon Passage was the name of a nearby alley...

in a rented former synagogue in Aldgate. In 1979, they moved to a former Methodist chapel, near Stepney Green and built a new theatre on the site, opening in May 1985, with a production of Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...

. The theatre enjoyed success, with premières by Dario Fo

Dario Fo

Dario Fo is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor and composer. His dramatic work employs comedic methods of the ancient Italian commedia dell'arte, a theatrical style popular with the working classes. He currently owns and operates a theatre company with his wife, actress...

, Edward Bond

Edward Bond

Edward Bond is an English playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them Saved , the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK...

and Steven Berkoff

Steven Berkoff

Steven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director. Best known for his performance as General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, he is typically cast in villanous roles, such as Lt...

, but by the mid-1980s, the theatre suffered a financial crisis and closed. After years of disuse, it has been converted to a public house. The theatre spawned two further arts projects: the Half Moon Photography Workshop, exhibiting in the theatre and locally, and from 1976 publishing Camerwork, and the 'Half Moon Young People's Theatre', which remains active in Tower Hamlets.

The football team followed by East End people is West Ham United, founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks. The 'other' East London club is Leyton Orient but rather than rivalry, there is some overlap of support.

Today

Historically, the East End has suffered from under-investment in both housing stock and infrastructure. From the 1950s, the East End represented the structural and social changes affecting the UK economy in a microcosm. The area had one of the highest concentrations of council housing, the legacy both of slum clearance and war time destruction. The progressive closure of docks, cutbacks in railways and the closure and relocation of industry contributed to a long term decline, removing many of the traditional sources of low- and semi-skilled jobs. However, beginning with the LDDC, in the 1980s, there have been a number of urban regeneration

Urban renewal

Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...

projects, most notably Canary Wharf

Canary Wharf

, a huge commercial and housing development on the Isle of Dogs

Isle of Dogs

The Isle of Dogs is a former island in the East End of London that is bounded on three sides by one of the largest meanders in the River Thames.-Etymology:...

. Many of the 1960s tower blocks have been demolished or renovated, replaced by low rise housing, often in private ownership, or owned by housing association

Housing association

s.

The area around Old Spitalfields Market

Old Spitalfields market

Old Spitalfields Market is a covered market in Spitalfields, just outside the City of London. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets....

and Brick Lane

Brick Lane

called "London's curry capital" has been extensively regenerated and, amongst other things, has been dubbed as Bangla Town. The contribution of Bangladeshi people to British life was recognised in 1998, when Pola Uddin, Baroness Uddin

Pola Uddin, Baroness Uddin

Manzila Pola Uddin, Baroness Uddin is a British Labour politician, and community activist.-Background:Uddin was born in a village in Bangladesh. She moved with her parents to the United Kingdom in 1973, when she was 13 years of age, and she grew up in the East End of London...

of Bethnal Green became the first Bangladeshi-born Briton to enter the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

; and the first Muslim peer to swear her oath of allegiance

Oath of allegiance

An oath of allegiance is an oath whereby a subject or citizen acknowledges a duty of allegiance and swears loyalty to monarch or country. In republics, modern oaths specify allegiance to the country's constitution. For example, officials in the United States, a republic, take an oath of office that...

in the name of her own faith.

The area is also home to a number of commercial and public art galleries; including the newly expanded Whitechapel Gallery

Whitechapel Gallery

The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it has a long...

. The artists Gilbert and George

Gilbert and George

Gilbert & George are two artists who work together as a collaborative duo. Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore have become famous for their distinctive, highly formal appearance and manner and their brightly coloured graphic-style photo-based artworks.-Early life:Gilbert Proesch was...

have long made their home and workshop in Spitalfields

Spitalfields

, and the neighbourhood around Hoxton Square

Hoxton Square

Hoxton Square is a garden square situated in Hoxton in the London Borough of Hackney, in London's East End. Formerly home to industrial premises, since the 1990s it has become the heart of the Hoxton arts and media scene, as well as being a hub of the thriving local entertainment district...

has become a centre for modern British art, including the White Cube

White Cube

White Cube is a contemporary art gallery designed by MRJ Rundell & Associates in Hoxton Square in the East End of London Mason's Yard, in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London...

gallery, with many artists from the Young British Artists

Young British Artists

Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...

movement living and working in the area. This has made the area around Hoxton and Shoreditch

Shoreditch

fashionable, with many former residents now driven out by higher property prices, and a busy nightlife has developed, with over 80 licensed premises around Shoreditch.

By the mid-1980s, both the District line

District Line

The District line is a line of the London Underground, coloured green on the Tube map. It is a "sub-surface" line, running through the central area in shallow cut-and-cover tunnels. It is the busiest of the sub-surface lines. Out of the 60 stations served, 25 are underground...

(extended to the East End in 1884 and 1902) and Central line

Central Line

(1946) were running beyond their capacity, and the Docklands Light Railway

Docklands Light Railway

The Docklands Light Railway is an automated light metro or light rail system opened on 31 August 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London...

(1987) and Jubilee line

Jubilee Line

The Jubilee line is a line on the London Underground , in the United Kingdom. It was built in two major sections—initially to Charing Cross, in central London, and later extended, in 1999, to Stratford, in east London. The later stations are larger and have special safety features, both aspects...

(1999) were constructed to improve rail communications through the riverside district. There was a long standing plan to provide London with an inner motorway box, the East Cross Route

East Cross Route

East Cross Route is a dual-carriageway road constructed in east London as part of the uncompleted Ringway 1 as part of the London Ringways plan drawn up the 1960s to create a series of high speed roads circling and radiating out from central London...

. Apart from a short section, this was never built, but road communications were improved by the completion of the Limehouse Link tunnel

Limehouse Link tunnel

The Limehouse Link tunnel is a 1.1 mile long tunnel in the Limehouse area of east London on the A1203 road which runs from the northern approach to Tower Bridge eastwards to a point just north of Canary Wharf in London Docklands...

under Limehouse Basin

Limehouse Basin

The Limehouse Basin in Limehouse, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets provides a navigable link between the Regent's Canal and the River Thames, through the Limehouse Basin Lock. A basin in the north of Mile End, near Victoria Park connects with the Hertford Union Canal leading to the River Lee...

in 1993 and the extension of the A12 connecting to the Blackwall Tunnel

Blackwall Tunnel

The Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels underneath the River Thames in east London, linking the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the London Borough of Greenwich, and part of the A102 road. The northern portal lies just south of the East India Dock Road in Blackwall; the southern...

with an upgraded carriageway in the 1990s. The extension of the East London line

East London Line

to the north, on the border between Islington and Hackney, is scheduled to provide further travel links in 2010. From 2017, Crossrail

Crossrail

Crossrail is a project to build a major new railway link under central London. The name refers to the first of two routes which are the responsibility of Crossrail Ltd. It is based on an entirely new east-west tunnel with a central section from to Liverpool Street station...

line 1 is expected to create a fast railway service across London, from east to west, with a major interchange at Whitechapel. New river crossings are planned at Beckton

Beckton

, (the Thames Gateway Bridge

Thames Gateway Bridge

The Thames Gateway Bridge was a proposed crossing over the River Thames in east London, England. It was first mooted in the 1970s but never came to fruition...

) and the proposed Silvertown Link

Silvertown Link

The Silvertown Link is a new Thames river crossing proposed to supplement the existing Blackwall Tunnel, although this crossing will join the Greenwich Peninsula with West Silvertown.It is intended to ease traffic congestion around the Blackwall Tunnel...

road tunnel, to supplement the existing Blackwall Tunnel

Blackwall Tunnel

.
The 2012 Summer Olympics

2012 Summer Olympics

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012...

and Paralympics

2012 Summer Paralympics

The 2012 Summer Paralympic Games will be the fourteenth Paralympics and will take place between 29 August and 9 September 2012. The Games will be held in London, United Kingdom after the city was successful with its bid for the Paralympics and Summer Olympic Games.Even though 2012 will be London's...

will be held in an Olympic Park

Olympic Park, London

created on former industrial land around the River Lea. It is intended that this should leave a legacy of new sports facilities, housing, and industrial and technical infrastructure that will further help regenerate the area. This is linked to a new station in the Newham

London Borough of Newham

, and the future Stratford City

Stratford City

Westfield Stratford City is a shopping centre in Stratford, London, owned by the Westfield Group. The centre opened on 13 September 2011. With a total retail floor area of , it is one of the largest urban shopping centres in Europe. It is the 3rd largest shopping centre in the United Kingdom by...

development. Also in Newham is London City Airport

London City Airport

, built in 1986 in the former King George V Dock, a small airport serving short-haul domestic and European destinations. In the same area, the University of East London

University of East London

The University of East London is a university located in the London Borough of Newham, East London, England, based at two campuses in Stratford and Docklands areas...

has developed a new campus which will provide the United States Olympic Team its training base during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Queen Mary campus has expanded into new accommodation both adjacent to its existing site at Mile End, and with specialist medical campuses at the Royal London Hospital

Royal London Hospital

The Royal London Hospital was founded in September 1740 and was originally named The London Infirmary. The name changed to The London Hospital in 1748 and then to The Royal London Hospital on its 250th anniversary in 1990. The first patients were treated at a house in Featherstone Street,...

, Whitechapel and at Charterhouse Square

Charterhouse Square

Charterhouse Square is a historic square in Smithfield, between Charterhouse Street and Clerkenwell Road. It lies in the extreme south of the London Borough of Islington, just north of the City of London....

in the City. Whitechapel is the base for the London Air Ambulance

London Air Ambulance

London's Air Ambulance, also known as London HEMS , is an air ambulance service that responds to seriously ill or injured casualties in and around London, England....

, and the hospital's clinical facilities are undergoing a £1 billion refurbishment and expansion.

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 former dock areas and alongside the Thames. With rising costs elsewhere in the capital and the availability of brownfield land

Brownfield land

Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. Cf. Waste...

, the East End has become a desirable place for business.

Popular culture

The East End has been the subject of parliamentary commissions and other examinations of social conditions since the 19th century, as seen in Henry Mayhew

Henry Mayhew

's London Labour and the London Poor

London Labour and the London Poor

(1851) and Charles Booth

Charles Booth (philanthropist)

's Life and Labour of the People in London (third, expanded edition 1902-3, in 17 volumes). Narrative accounts of experiences amongst the East End poor were also written by Jack London

Jack London

in The People of the Abyss

The People of the Abyss

The People of the Abyss is a book by Jack London about life in the East End of London in 1902. He wrote this first-hand account by living in the East End for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets...

(1903), by George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

in parts of his novel Down and Out in Paris and London

Down and Out in Paris and London

Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell , published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is a picaresque account of living on the breadline in Paris and the experience of casual...

, recounting his own experiences in the 1930s, as well as the Jewish writer Emanuel Litvinoff

Emanuel Litvinoff

Emanuel Litvinoff was a British writer and human rights campaigner, and a well known figure in Anglo-Jewish literature.-Background:...

in his autobiographical novel Journey Through a Small Planet

Journey Through a Small Planet

-Synopsis:In "Journey Through a Small Planet" , the writer Emanuel Litvinoff recalls his working-class Jewish childhood in the East End of London: a small cluster of streets right next to the city, but worlds apart in culture and spirit...

set in the 1930s. A further detailed study of Bethnal Green was carried out in the 1950s by sociologists Michael Young and Peter Willmott, in Family and Kinship in East London

Family and Kinship in East London

Family and Kinship in East London was a 1957 sociological study of how the urban working class lived as a community, and the effects of the post-war governments' social housing policy on this way of life, which saw many East Londoners moved out into the new estates of Essex. The study was carried...

.

Themes from these social investigations have been drawn out in fiction. Crime, poverty, vice, sexual transgression, drugs, class-conflict and multi-cultural encounters and fantasies involving Jewish, Chinese and Indian immigrants are major themes. Though the area has been productive of local writing talent, from the time of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...

(1891) the idea of 'slumming it' in the 'forbidden' East End has held a fascination for a coterie of the literati.

The image of the East Ender changed dramatically between the 19th century and the 20th. From the 1870s they were characterised in culture as often shiftless, untrustworthy and responsible for their own poverty. However, many East Enders worked in lowly but respectable occupations such as carters, porters

Porter (carrier)

A porter, also called a bearer, is a person who shifts objects for others.-Historical meaning:Human adaptability and flexibility early led to the use of humans for shifting gear...

and costermonger

Costermonger

s. This latter group particularly became the subject of music hall songs at the turn of the 20th century, with performers such as Marie Lloyd

Marie Lloyd

, Gus Elen

Gus Elen

Ernest Augustus Elen was an English music hall singer and comedian. He achieved success from 1891, performing cockney songs including Arf a Pint of Ale, It's a Great Big Shame, Down the Road and If It Wasn't for the 'Ouses in Between in a career lasting over thirty years.Born in Pimlico, London,...

and Albert Chevalier

Albert Chevalier

Albert Onesime Britannicus Gwathveoyd Louis Chevalier was an English comedian and actor.-Early life:Albert Chevalier was born in the Royal Crescent, in London's Notting Hill...

establishing the image of the humorous East End Cockney and highlighting the conditions of ordinary workers. Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America pp 351-2, Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald P. McNeilly (Routledge 2006) ISBN 0-415-93853-8 accessed 22 October 2007 This image, buoyed by close family and social links and the community's fortitude in the war, came to be represented in literature and film. However, with the rise of the Kray twins

Kray twins

Reginald "Reggie" Kray and his twin brother Ronald "Ronnie" Kray were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London's East End during the 1950s and 1960s...

in the 1960s the dark side of East End character returned with a new emphasis on criminality and gangsterism.

External links

The East End of London on h2g2
H2g2
h2g2 is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project engaged in the construction of, in its own words, "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the science fiction comedy series...
Jewish East End of London
Stepney and Bethnal Green Victoria County History of Middlesex Vol 11

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Origin and scope

History

Politics and social reform

Industry and built environment

Settlement

Second World War

Population

Crime

Disasters

Entertainment

Today

Popular culture

See also

Museums of local history

External links