The East End of London, known locally as the East End, generally refers to the area of London, England, east of the medieval 'City of London' and north of the River Thames, although it is not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries. Use of the term began in the late 19th Century.
Origin and scope
The term East End was first applied to the districts immediately to the east of, and entirely outside, the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames; these included Whitechapel and Stepney. By the late 19th century, the East End roughly corresponded to the Tower division of Middlesex which from 1900 formed the metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Bethnal Green, Poplar and Shoreditch in the County of London. Today it corresponds to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and the southern part of Hackney.
invention about 1880 of the term East End was rapidly taken up by the new halfpenny press, and in the pulpit and the music hall ... A shabby man from Paddington, St Marylebone or Battersea might pass muster as one of the respectable poor. But the same man coming from Bethnal Green, Shadwell or Wapping was an East Ender, the box of Keating's bug powder must be reached for, and the spoons locked up. In the long run this cruel stigma came to do good. It was a final incentive to the poorest to get out of the East End at all costs, and it became a concentrated reminder to the public conscience that nothing to be found in the East End should be tolerated in a Christian country.
Parts of the London boroughs of Newham and Waltham Forest, formerly in an area of Essex known as London over the border, are sometimes considered to be in the East End. However, the River Lee is usually considered to be the eastern boundary of the East End and this definition would exclude the boroughs but place them in East London. The common extension of the term further east is probably due to the diaspora of East Enders who moved to suburban east London, in particular the new estates at Becontree and Harold Hill, or otherwise left London entirely.
History
The East End came into being as the separate villages east of London spread and the fields between them were built upon, a process which occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. From the beginning, the East End has always contained some of the poorest areas of London.
The main reasons for this include
William Booth began his Christian Revival Society, preaching the gospel in a tent, erected in the Friends Burial Ground, Thomas Street, Whitechapel in 1865. Others joined his Christian Mission, and on August 7, 1878 the Salvation Army was formed at a meeting held at 272 Whitechapel Road. A statue commemorates both his mission and his work in helping the poor. A Dubliner, Thomas John Barnardo came to the London Hospital, Whitechapel to train for medical missionary work in China. Soon after his arrival in 1866, a cholera 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, Barnado set up a Ragged School to provide a basic education, but was shown the many children sleeping rough. His first home for boys was established at 18 Stepney Causeway in 1870. After 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 was founded, with settlements such as Toynbee Hall and Oxford House encouraging university students to live and work in the slums to experience life and try to alleviate some of the poverty and misery in the East End. In 1888 the matchgirls of Bryant and May, in Bow struck for better working conditions. This, combined with the many dock strikes in the same era, made the East End a key element in the foundation of modern socialist and trade union organisations, as well as the Suffragette movement.
Towards the end of the 19th century, a new wave of radicalism came to the East End, arriving both with Jewish émigrés fleeing from Eastern European persecution, and Russian and German radicals avoiding arrest. A German émigré, Rudolf Rocker, began writing in Yiddish for Arbayter Fraynd (Workers' Friend); by 1912 he had organised a London garment workers' strike for better conditions and an end to sweating. Amongst the Russians were such luminaries as Peter Kropotkin, the anarchist. Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin all attended meetings of the socialist newspaper Iskra in 1903; a few years later they met in a warehouse in Whitechapel to plot the October Revolution. Afanasy Matushenko, one of the leaders of the Potemkin mutiny, fled the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905 to seek sanctuary in Stepney Green.
By the 1880s, the casual system caused Dock workers to unionise under Ben Tillett and John Burns. This lead to a demand for 6d per hour (2.5p), and an end to casual labour in the docks. After a bitter struggle, the London Dock Strike of 1889 was settled with victory for the strikers, and established a national movement for the unionisation of casual workers, as opposed to the craft unions that already existed.
The philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts was active in the East End, alleviating poverty by founding a sewing school for ex-weavers in Spitalfields and building the ornate Columbia Market in Bethnal Green. She helped to inaugurate the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and was a keen supporter of the Ragged School Union, and founded institutions such as the East End Dwelling Company. This latter, led to the foundation of organisations such as the 3% Dwelling Company, where investors received a financial return on their philanthropy. Between the 1890s and 1903, when the work was published, the social campaigner Charles Booth instigated an investigation into the life of London poor, much of which was centred on the poverty and conditions in the East End.
Sylvia Pankhurst became increasingly disillusioned with the suffragette movement's inability to engage with the needs of working class women, so in 1912 she formed her own breakaway movement, the East London Federation of Suffragettes and based it at a baker's shop at Bow, emblazoned with the famous slogan "Votes for Women" in large gold letters. The local Member of Parliament, George Lansbury, resigned his seat in House of Commons to stand for election on a platform of women's enfranchisement. Sylvia supported him in this and Bow Road became the campaign office, culminating in a huge rally in nearby Victoria Park, but Lansbury was narrowly defeated in the election and support for the project in the East End was withdrawn. Sylvia refocused her efforts, and with the outbreak of World War I, began a nursery, clinic and cost price canteen for the poor at the bakery. A paper, the Women's Dreadnought, was published to bring her campaign to a wider audience. Pankhurst spent twelve years in Bow, fighting for women's rights. During this time, she risked constant arrest and spent many months in Holloway Prison, often on hunger strike. She finally achieved her aim of full adult female suffrage in 1928, but along the way had alleviated some of the poverty and misery, and improved social conditions for all in the East End.
The alleviation of widespread unemployment and hunger in Poplar had to be funded from money raised by the borough itself under the Poor Law. The poverty of the borough made this patently unfair and lead to the 1921 conflict between government and the local councillors known as the Poplar Rates Rebellion. Council meetings were for a time held in Brixton prison, and the councillors received wide support. Ultimately, this led to the abolition of the Poor Laws through the Local Government Act 1929.
Industry and built environment
Building on an adhoc basis could never keep up with the needs of the expanding population, and already in 1890 slum clearance programmes had begun. One was the creation of the world's first council housing, the LCC Boundary Estate, which replaced the neglected and crowded streets of Friars Mount, better known as The Old Nichol Street Rookery.
Industries associated with the sea developed throughout the East End, including rope making and ship building. The former location of roperies can still be identified from their long straight, narrow profile in the modern streets, for instance Ropery Street near Mile End. Shipbuilding was important from the time when Henry VIII caused ships to be built at Rotherhithe as a part of his navy. A shipyard at Blackwall became the basis for the East India Company dock established there. On January 31, 1858, the largest ship of that time, the SS Great Eastern designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was launched from the yard of Messrs Scott, Russell & Co, of Millwall. The 211 metre (692 ft) length was too wide for the river, and the ship had to be launched sideways. Due to the technical difficulties of the launch, this was the last big ship to be built on the River, and the industry fell into a decline.
The River Lee was a smaller boundary than the Thames, but it was a significant one. The building of the Royal Docks between 1880 and 1921 on the estuary marshes extended the continuous development of London across the Lee for the first time. Railways were driven through the East End slums at the same time, providing access to new suburbs created in West Ham and East Ham; the latter was set up to serve the new Gas Light and Coke Company and Bazalgette's grand sewage works at Beckton.
Traditionally the home of London's docks and a large part of its industry, especially industries based on processing foodstuffs and other imported raw materials, the area was a continuous target during the blitz of World War II. Post-war, specifically 1950's and 1960's, architecture dominates the housing estates of the area, such as the Lansbury Estate in Poplar, which was built as a showpiece of the 1951 Festival of Britain.
From the mid 20th century, the docks declined in use and were finally closed in 1980. London's main port is now at Tilbury further down the Thames estuary, outside the boundary of Greater London.
Population
Throughout history the area has absorbed waves of immigrants who have each added a new dimension to the culture and history of the area, most notably the French Protestant Huguenots in the 17th century, the Irish in the 18th century, Ashkenazi Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe towards the end of the 19th century and the Bangladeshi community settling in the East End from the 1960s.
Communities also 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 where ever 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. Large Chinatowns at both Shadwell and Limehouse developed, associated with the crews of merchantmen in the opium and tea trades. It was only after the devastation of the Second World War that the Chinese community relocated to Soho.
Community tensions have been raised by racist events such as an anti-semitic Fascist march in 1936 (blocked by residents and activists at the Battle of Cable Street), anti-Asian violence, more recently anti-white violence, a council seat win for the British National Party in 1993 (since lost) and the 1999 bombing in Brick Lane.
During the interwar period there was a decline in population in the East End caused by migration to the suburbs and to areas outside London. This accelerated after World War II and has only recently started to reverse. These population figures are for the area that now forms the London Borough of Tower Hamlets only:
Criminality
Due to the rampant poverty in the East End, crime has always been a potential career option. From earliest times, crime depended, as did labour, on the importing of goods to London, and their interception in transit. Theft occurred in the river, on the quayside and in transit to the City warehouses. This was why, in the 17th century, the East India Company built high-walled, guarded docks at Blackwall to minimise the vulnerability of their cargoes. Armed convoys would then take the goods to the company's secure compound in the City. The practise led to the creation of ever larger docks throughout the area, and for large roads to be driven through the crowded 19th century slums to carry goods from the docks.
High profile crimes in the area include the Ratcliff Highway murders (1813); the killings committed by the London Burkers (apparently inspired by Burke and Hare) in Bethnal Green (1831); the notorious serial killings of prostitutes by Jack the Ripper
Disasters
Many disasters have befallen the residents of the East End, both in war and in peace.
Entertainment
Theatres were first established in Shoreditch in the Tudor period, with The Theatre (1576) and Curtain Theatre (1577) standing close together. The Goodman's Fields Theatre was established in 1727, and it was here that David Garrick made his successful début as Richard III, in 1741. In the 19th century the theatres of the East End rivalled in their grandiosity and seating capacity those of the West End. The first of this era was the ill-fated Brunswick Theatre (1828), which collapsed three days after opening, killing 15 people. This was followed by the opening of the Pavilion (1828) in Whitechapel, the Garrick (1831) in Leman Street, the Effingham (1834) in Whitechapel, the Standard (1835) in Shoreditch, the City of London (1837) in Norton Folgate, then the Grecian and the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton. Though very popular for a time, from the 1860s onwards these theatres, one by one, began to close, the buildings were demolished and their very memory began to fade.
There were also many Yiddish theatres, particularly around Whitechapel. These developed into professional companies, after the arrival of Jacob Adler 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. These declined, as audience and actors left for New York and the more prosperous parts of London.
The once popular music halls of the East End have mostly met the same fate as the theatres. Prominent examples included the London Music Hall (1856-1935), 95-99 Shoreditch High Street, and the Royal Cambridge Music Hall (1864-1936), 136 Commercial Street. An example of a giant pub hall Wilton's Music Hall (1858) remains in Grace's Alley, off Cable Street and the early saloon style Hoxton Hall (1863) survives in Hoxton Street, Hoxton. Many popular music hall stars came from the East End, including Marie Lloyd.
Today
Some parts of the East End have been subject to a number of urban regeneration projects, most notably Canary Wharf, a huge commercial and housing development on the Isle of Dogs. Many of the 1960s tower blocks have been demolished or have been renovated. The area around Old Spitalfields market and Brick Lane has been extensively regenerated and is famous, amongst other things, as London's curry capital, as well as being the home of a number of London's art galleries, including the famous Whitechapel Gallery.
Much of the area remains, however, one of the poorest in Britain and contains some of the capital's worst deprivation. This is in spite of rising property prices, and the extensive building of luxury apartments, centred largely around the dock areas and alongside the Thames. With rising costs elsewhere in the capital and the availability of brownfield land, the East End has become a desirable place for business.
See also
In fiction
Further reading
External links
