Tower Hamlets is the East
End of London, and takes its name from the historical
association between the Tower of London and the hamlets that
surround it. It covers the areas of Stepney, Whitechapel,
Spitalfields, Poplar, Limehouse, Mile End, Bethnal Green, Docklands, the
Isle of Dogs and Wapping. The area has Roman origins and several
Roman roads - on Tower Hill, just outside the tube station, a
section of the old Roman city wall still stands, now nearly 2000
years old.
The Tower of London, one of
the borough's main tourist attractions, dates from the reign of
William the Conqueror. Through the 11th and 12th centuries the
castle consisted of the whitewashed White Tower and the outer
defensive wall. Later the exterior was restored by Sir Christopher
Wren but the Norman work was left largely untouched. The Tower
is famous for the many people executed both within and on Tower
Hill. Among them were Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII's queens Anne
Boleyn and Katherine Howard, as well as Lady Jane Grey, her
husband Dudley and the Duke of Monmouth. The Tower served not
only as a prison until the 19th Century but also as a Royal
residence.
In 1741 the Royal London
Hospital was opened. It was set up to provide medical care for
the 'sick-poor' of east London. The "Elephant Man"
John Joseph Merrick was an inmate at the hospital for 4 years
until he died.
The maritime character of
Tower Hamlets changed dramatically during the 19th century with
the building of huge warehouses behind the docks. West India,
East India, London and St. Katharine's Docks were all established.
One of the largest and most famous ships to be built was the
Great Eastern which was launched in 1858 and laid the first
telegraphic cables across the Atlantic between North America and
Britain. It was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel who, with
his father Marc, also designed the Thames Tunnel in 1825. This
was the first tunnel to be built under a navigable river and it
now forms part of the East London Underground line.
By 1867, despite the thriving
warehouses, economic decline set in and desolation spread through
Ratcliffe, Shadwell and Wapping. On the Isle of Dogs, the
shipyards were replaced by other types of industry which were
attracted by the river transport facilities and the services
provided by the Port of London Authority. Master builder William
Bubit, twice Lord Mayor of London, developed the eastern half of
the 'Iskand'. By the end of the 19th Century, the bank from
Limehouse to Blackwall was crowded with factories and warehouses
which finally closed down in the 1960s and 70s, reflecting the
decline of London as a port and a manufacturing city. Then, in
1981, the London Docklands Development Corporation was formed and
set about regenerating the area.
An extraordinary
transformation has taken place. Empty warehouses have been
converted and derelict sites have been replaced by towering
office blocks and 'groundscrapers', new housing and transport,
including the novel computerised Docklands Light Railway. This
operates without a driver and winds round the steel and glass
buildings to Island Gardens for a breathtaking view (reportedly
the best in London) across the river to Greenwich.
An outstanding feature of
Tower Hamlets past and present is the number and variety of its
street markets, from Petticoat Lane to Roman Road. Columbia
Road is famous today for its 100-year-old Sunday flower market.
In the late 1800s, in an
effort to raise the level of education among the poor and to
improve social conditions, there were a number of university
settlements in the East End, notably Oxford House and Toynbee
Hall. Other institutions brought the arts into what was
considered a cultural desert. The National Museum of Childhood
opened in 1872. Its structure was originally the temporary home of the Victoria & Albert Museum and was re-erected in
Bethnal Green to house the V & A's collection of toys and
dolls.
In 1881 the world famous
Whitechapel Art Gallery opened in a schoolroom. This moved to its
present building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, in 1901.
The People's Palace opened in 1887 to provide education and
leisure facilities for local people and is now Queen Mary and
Westfield College, part of London University.
Throughout Victorian and
Edwardian times, theatre and music hall flourished in the East
End. Stars such as Marie Lloyd, George Robey and Harry Champion
all started here as well as Charlie Chaplin, whose career began
at the Cambridge Music Hall in Whitechapel. These halls became
modernised into 'palaces of variety' but few survived the advent
of cinema and radio in the 1930s. Wilton's, off Cable Street, is
the only hall still standing. It was built in 1850 and is
currently being restored for use as a popular entertainment
centre.
Two famous east London
strikes played an important part in organising unskilled worker
into unions. In 1888, Annie Besant led the 'match girls' of
Bryant & May's factory at Bow in their struggle for better
conditions and in 1898 the successful 'Dockers Tanner' strike
raised dockers' wages to six pennies or a 'tanner'. The Dockers
Union was formed.
During the first half of this
century two notable incidents took place on the streets of the
East End. The first was the Sidney Street Siege of 1911 - An
attempted robbery of a jewellery shop by three anarchists went
dangerously wrong and three policemen were killed. Two of the
anarchists fled to a house in Sidney Street where they held armed
police and soldiers at bay for over six hours. The Home Secretary,
Sir Winston Churchill, was present at the scene and ordered a
field gun to be brought. The anarchists realised the
hopelessness of their situation, set fire to the building and
perished in the blaze.
The second incident was the 'Battle
of Cable Street'. On 4 October 1936, fascists led by Sir
Oswald Mosley marched through the East End. Opponents of the
march gathered along the route and barricaded the street.
Fighting broke out and the police made many arrests but were
unable to control the crowd and the fascists abandoned the march.
Soon after, restrictions were placed on marches and the wearing
of political uniforms in this country was banned. There is a
plaque commemorating this event on a building in nearby Dock
Street.
Of the many political figures
in the borough's history, George Lansbury - Councillor, Mayor of
Poplar, MP and Leader of the Labour Party (1931-35) did much to
try and improve conditions for local people. Sylvia Pankhurst
headed the militant East London branch of the Suffragette
movement based on Old Ford Road.
In May 1907 the 5th Congress
of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held at the
Jewish Social Club Hall in Fulbourne Street. Among the delegates
to this momentous meeting resulting in the Russian Revolution
were Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Litvinoff and Gorky.
Tower Hamlets has always been
a haven and home for ethnic minorities, often fleeing violence
and persecution. During the 17th century the Huguenots (French
Protestants) came to Spitalfields. Nearly two centuries later a
Chinese community was established in Limehouse as a result of
merchant trading and during this period Jews from Eastern Europe,
also fleeing persecution, settled in Stepney and Whitechapel. Now
newcomers from Bangladesh have settled here along with Somali and
Vietnamese refugees.
The borough suffered more
than any other part of London during World War II - 24,000 homes
were destroyed. Tower Hamlets has a history of responding to
change. It has seen traditional industries decline and expansion
of new employment. It has been the forcing ground for many
individuals who have enriched British life in the fields of
politics, the arts, commerce, social welfare and entertainment.
Adapted from a borough information sheet found in the Metropolitan Archives