History of East End (Cockney) London

London's history is its river. Without 'Old Father Thames', it's very doubtful that London would exist at all. The nostalgic images of a river bustling with tall-masted cargo ships and an atmosphere of nefarious trading activities still haunt this old highway. The Thames river corridor, once a gateway for international produce has been succeeded by roads, particularly London's busy orbital motorway, the M25.

This photograph gives an example of the contrasting views offered from the Thames. From the riverside balcony of the Prospect of Whitby public house in Wapping, we see a replica hang man's scaffold and noose set against the modern Canary Wharf complex on the Isle of Dogs. Originally a timber framed country house in 1520, the Prospect of Whitby is reputedly London's oldest riverside pub. First known as the Devil's Tavern, it was a meeting place for sailors from all over the world for some four hundred years.

500 years ago, the East End was no more than green fields through which an old Roman road from Colchester to the City of London passed. The landscape would have been dominated by the old Roman wall and the Norman St. Paul's Cathedral, which was some 180 feet taller than the present one.

The London Docks began in the small area between London Bridge and the Tower of London. Inland from the docks and warehouses, in the 1600s the unpleasant, smelly and dirty trades, epitomised by the building of slaughter houses, fish farms, breweries and factories were being established. This happened on the east side of London because the dominant west winds kept the smells away from what was to become the rich, fashionable and aristocratic West End.

Changes in political conditions abroad have been reflected with the successive waves of immigrants arriving off boats in London's docks beginning with the Jews in 1653 and the French Protestant Huguenot silk weavers in 1685. Between 1870 and 1914 thousands of Jewish settlers from Poland, Romania a Save nd Russia who fled to England to escape appalling economic conditions as well as virulent anti-semitism and Tsarist pogroms. By the 1930s the Jews had established themselves in Stepney, Whitechapel and Hackney; many being tradespeople working in Cabinet making, the fur trade and tailoring. Evidence of the carpentry trade can be found in Cheshire Street, formerly Hare Street, where the Carpenters Arms public house still remains.

Tubby Isaacs cockels and mussels stall, first established in 1919 remains close by Aldgate East Tube Station.

The Jewish East End has gone; it has moved out to the lusher suburbs of North London. Tubby Isaacs cockels and mussels stall, first established in 1919 remains close by Aldgate East Tube Station. The kosher butchers are now halal butchers. The synagogues have had minarets added to them and have become mosques. Ugandan Asians, Bangladeshis and Somalis have taken their place, adding their culture to the area.

The expansion of trade and empire in the late 1700 and 1800 period led to the original docks growing in size, as did the labour force required to service this industry. The newly built housing however became overcrowded and deteriorated into slum conditions and poverty. People lived their squalid lives against a background of immorality, drunkeness, crime and violence. Robbery and assault were commonplace and the streets ruled by gangs. The streets were most unpleasant places, the many alleyways were unlit at night and prostitutes and brothels were common place. In an attempt to overcome these problems William Booth, founded the Salvation Army in Whitechapel, close to Christopher Wren's Trinity House Almshouses. Booth's success in the East End was at best limited because 50 years later, Jack London the American author still described the area as 'outcast London'. In 1889 George Gissing in the 'The Nether World' described it as 'the city of the damned'.

One of the most famous incidents in East End history also took place at a four-story house in Sidney Street on 3 January 1911. The robbery of Harris's Jewellers Shop in Houndsditch by a Russian Anarchist group intending to raise funds went seriously wrong. The gang dispersed to lodgings in the surrounding streets, one of which was 100 Sidney Street. Two of the gang members, Fritz Svaars and 'Josef' Marx barricaded themselves in on the first floor. Winston Churchill, then the Home Secretary, was the most notable visitor to the much publicised shoot out. The anarchists held off the efforts of the armed police and Scots Guards from the Tower of London for some six hours, before the house caught fire. Two charred bodies were found in the ruins. The leader of the gang who had masterminded the original Houndsditch affair, believed to be Peter Piatkov, miraculously escaped, giving rise to the legend of 'Peter the Painter'.

The Whitechapel Murders in 1888 and the Sidney Street seige have created a vision of darkest London with criminality and the East End becoming synonymous. This image has been reinforced by pre-war detective novels by Edgar Wallace and the fictitious character of Sherlock Holmes created by Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle. Films made about Jack the Ripper invariably show him luring victims down dark fog-filled narrow alleys; the Elephant Man was filmed in black and white. Limehouse; London's original China Town, was the setting for Arthur Henry Ward's evil genius, Fu Manchu, who threatened to unleash the 'yellow peril' on the outside world.