Origin and scope

History

• the medieval system of copyhold, which prevailed throughout the East End, into the 19th century. Essentially, there was little point in developing land that was held on short leases.
     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 for instance 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 tentergrounds 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, bone processing for soap and china came to established, they too located in the East End, rather than the crowded streets of the City. The Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, to the south of the river, was built by the Regent to Henry V, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and Henry VIII established a hunting lodge at Bromley Hall. These Royal connections continued until after the Interregnum, when the Court established itself in the Palace of Whitehall, and the offices of politics congregated around them. The East End also lay on the main road to Barking Abbey, important as a religious centre since Norman 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 weavers arrived in the East End, settling to service an industry that grew up around the new estate at Spitalfields, where master weavers were based. They brought with them a tradition of 'reading clubs', where books were read, often in public houses. The authorities were suspicious of immigrants meeting, and in some ways they were right, as these grew into workers' associations and political organisations. When, towards the middle of the 18th century, the silk industry fell into a decline - partly due to the introduction of printed calico cloth - riots ensued. These 'Spitalfield Riots' of 1769 were actually centred to the east, and were put down with considerable force, culminating in two men being hanged in front of the Salmon and Ball public house at Bethnal Green. One was John Doyle (an Irish weaver), the other John Valline (of Huguenot descent). William Booth began his 'Christian Revival Society' in 1865, preaching the gospel in a tent erected in the 'Friends Burial Ground', Thomas Street, Whitechapel. 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, Barnardo 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. 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 was founded, with settlements such as Toynbee Hall 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, Clement Attlee, Guglielmo Marconi, and William Beveridge. The Hall continues to exert considerable influence, with the Workers Educational Association (1903), Citizens Advice Bureau (1949) and Child Poverty Action Group (1965) all being founded or influenced by it. In 1888, the matchgirls of Bryant and May in Bow went on strike 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'd organised a London garment workers' strike for better conditions and an end to 'sweating'. Amongst the Russians was Peter Kropotkin, the anarchist, who helped found the Freedom Press in Whitechapel. 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. Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin attended meetings of the newspaper Iskra in 1903; and in 1907 Lenin and Joseph Stalin attended the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party held in a Whitechapel church. That congress consolidated the leadership of Lenin's Bolshevik faction and debated strategy for the communist revolution in Russia. Trotsky noted, in his memoires, meeting Maxim Gorky and Rosa Luxembourg at the conference.
     By the 1880s, the casual system caused Dock workers to unionise under Ben Tillett and John Burns. 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:
  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 at Blackwall until the beginning of the 20th century. The West India Docks 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 became the basis for the East India Company's East India Docks established there in 1806. The London Docks 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. 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, were built in 1828 to accommodate luxury goods, clearing the slums that lay in the area of the former Hospital of St Katharine. 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. The first railway ('The Commercial Railway') to be built, in 1840, was a passenger service based on cable haulage by stationary steam engines that ran the from Minories to Blackwall on a pair of tracks. It required 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 engines adopted. The building of London termini at Fenchurch Street (1841), and Bishopsgate (1840) provided access to new suburbs across the River Lee, again resulting in the destruction of housing and increased overcrowding in the slums. After the opening of Liverpool Street station (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. In the 19th century, the area north of Bow Road became a major railway centre for the North London Railway, with marshalling yards and a maintenance depot serving both the City and the West India docks. Nearby Bow railway station 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 Lee was a smaller boundary than the Thames, but it was a significant one. The building of the Royal Docks consisting of the Royal Victoria Dock (1855), able to berth vessels of up to 8000 tons; Royal Albert Dock (1880), up to 12,000 tons; and King George V Dock (1921), up to 30,000 tons, on the estuary marshes, extended the continuous development of London across the Lee into Essex for the first time. The railways gave access to a passenger terminal at Gallions Reach and new suburbs created in West Ham, which quickly became a major manufacturing town, with 30,000 houses built between 1871 and 1901. London's main port is now at Tilbury, further down the Thames estuary, outside the boundary of Greater 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, 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 to provide fish to the City. Whereas royalty such as King John had had a hunting lodge at Bromley-by-Bow, and the Bishop of London had a palace at 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 moved his family and goods to Bethnal Green during the Great Fire of London, and Captain Cook moved from Shadwell 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 (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.}}
  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" in 1876 to provide powers to seize slums from landlords and provide access to public funds to build new housing. Housing associations such as the Peabody Trust 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 and Great Eastern Railway 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 lead to the building of new "philanthropic housing" such as Blackwall Buildings 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 Boundary Estate, 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. On 24 August 1940, a single aircraft, tasked to bomb Tilbury, 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 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 and Heinkel bombers and large numbers of fighters. This was followed by a second wave of 170 bombers. Silvertown and Canning Town bore the brunt of this first attack., an era known as 'the Blitz'. 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. 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. Sadly, on 10 September 1940, 400 civilians, including women and children preparing for evacuation, were killed when a bomb hit the South Hallsville School in Canning Town.
     The effect of the intensive bombing worried the authorities and 'Mass-Observation' was deployed to gauge attitudes and provide policy suggestions, as before the war they'd 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'. On the Sunday after the Blitz began, Winston Churchill himself toured the bombed areas of Stepney and Poplar. Anti-aircraft installations were built in public parks, such as Victoria Park 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 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 as a shelter. Many deep tube stations remained in use as shelters until the end of the war. 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 struck in Grove Road, Mile End, on 13 June 1944, killing six, injuring 30, and making 200 people homeless. By the end of the war, it's estimated that 80 tons of bombs fell on the 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. So badly battered was the East End that when Buckingham Palace was hit during the height of the bombing, Queen Elizabeth 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 in Poplar, much of which was built as a show-piece of the 1951 Festival of Britain.

  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,
     In 1786, the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor 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 Loyalists, former slaves who had fought on the side of the British, in the War of Independence. 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 the (predominantly) men from 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. From the late 19th century, a large African mariner community was established in Canning Town as a result of new shipping links to the Caribbean and West Africa.
     Immigrants have not always been readily accepted and, in 1517, the Evil May Day riots, where foreign owned property was attacked, resulted in the deaths of 135 Flemings in Stepney. The Gordon Riots 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 (1899) and Sandy’s Row Synagogue (1766). Jewish immigration to the East End peaked in the 1890s, leading to anti-foreigner agitation by the British Brothers League, formed in 1902 by Captain William Stanley Shaw and the Conservative MP for Stepney, Major Evans-Gordon, who had overturned a Liberal majority in the 1900 General Election 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, that gave the Home Secretary powers to regulate and control immigration.
     Community tensions were again raised by an anti-semitic Fascist march that took place in 1936 and was blocked by residents and activists at the Battle of Cable Street. From the 1970s, anti-Asian violence and more recently anti-white violence occurred, and in 1993, there was a council seat win for the British National Party (since lost). A 1999 bombing in Brick Lane was part of a series that targeted ethnic minorities, gays and "multiculturalists".
     The population of the East End increased inexorably throughout the 19th century. House building couldn't keep pace, and overcrowding was rife. It wasn't until the interwar period that there was a decline caused by migration to new Essex suburbs, like the Becontree estate, built by the London County Council between 1921 and 1932, and to areas outside London. This depopulation accelerated after World War II 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	1931	1991	2001
  Bethnal Green	33,619	74,088	120,104	129,680	108,194	47,078	n/a	n/a	n/a
  Poplar	13,548	31,122	116,376	168,882	155,089	66,604
  Stepney	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. In 1829, the Metropolitan Police Force were formed, with a remit to patrol within of Charing Cross, 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 in height, literate and of good character. Unlike the former constables, the police were recruited widely and so 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) Division appears to have mounted the first local investigation (in Bethnal Green), in November 1830 of the London Burkers. 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.
     By the 19th century, an attitude of toleration had changed, and the social reformer William Acton 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 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 introduction '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 and Elizabeth Wolstenholme led to the formation of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
     Notable 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 In the 1960s the East End was the area most associated with gangster activity, most notably that of the Kray twins. The 1996 Docklands bombing caused significant damage around South Quay Station, to the south of the main 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. This led to the introduction of Police checkpoints controlling access to the Isle of Dogs, 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) was in Spitalfields, and cholera epidemics broke out in Limehouse in 1832 and struck again in 1848 and 1854.
     In World War I, on January 19 1917 73 people died, including 14 workers, and more than 400 were injured, in a TNT explosion in the Brunner-Mond munitions factory in Silvertown. Much of the area was flattened, and the shock wave was felt throughout the city and much of Essex. This was the largest explosion in London history, and was heard in Southampton and Norwich. Andreas Angel, chief chemist at the plant, was posthumously awarded the Edward Medal for trying to extinguish the fire that caused the blast. The same year, on June 13, a bomb from a German Gotha bomber killed 18 children in their primary school in Upper North Street, Poplar. 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, a 23-storey tower block in Newham, suffered a structural collapse due to a natural gas 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 theatres were first established in the Tudor period, 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 (1567), nearby. The first permanent theatres with resident companies were constructed in Shoreditch, with James Burbage's The Theatre (1576) and Henry Lanman's Curtain Theatre (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.
     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 (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 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. 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.
     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.
     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, which, since the 1950s has become a fixture of certain East End pubs, particularly in the area of Shoreditch, despite being a target of local authority harassment.
     Novelist and social commentator Walter Besant 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 degree awarded by the University of London was introduced. In 1931, the building was destroyed by fire, but the Draper's Company, major donors to the original scheme, invested more to rebuild the technical college and create Queen Mary's College in December 1934. A new 'People's Palace' was constructed, in 1937, by the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, 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 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. The theatre enjoyed success, with premières by Dario Fo, Edward Bond and Steven Berkoff, 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.

  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 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 renovated, replaced by low rise housing, often in private ownership, or owned by housing associations.
     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 notable Whitechapel Gallery. The artists Gilbert and George have long made their home and workshop in Spitalfields, and the neighbourhood around Hoxton Square has become a centre for modern British art, including the White Cube gallery, with many artists from the Young British Artists movement living and working in the area. This has made the area around Hoxton and Shoreditch fashionable, with many former residents and artists 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 (extended to the East End in 1884 and 1902) and Central Line (1946) were running beyond their capacity, and the Docklands Light Railway (1987) and Jubilee Line (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. Apart from a short section, this was never built, but road communications were improved by the completion of the Limehouse Link tunnel under Limehouse Basin in 1993 and the extension of the A12 connecting to the Blackwall tunnel with an upgraded carriageway in the 1990s. The extension of the 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 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, (the Thames Gateway Bridge) and the proposed Silvertown Link road tunnel, to supplement the existing Blackwall Tunnel. The 2012 Summer Olympics will be held in an Olympic Park created on former industrial land around the River Lee. 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. Also in Newham is 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 has developed a new campus, and 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, Whitechapel and at Charterhouse Square in the City. Whitechapel is the base for the London Air Ambulance, 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, the East End has become a desirable place for business. and Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the People in London (1902).
     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 (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. 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, in the 1960s, the dark side of East End character returned, with a new emphasis on criminality and gangsterism.

  Literature

  » See also East End Literature
  
  The East End features in one of the earliest works in English, Geoffrey Chaucer's (1343–1400) The Prioress' Prologue and Tale (ca. 1390), which makes fun of the Prioress' Cockney accent: "After the scole of stratford atte bowe, For frenssh of parys was to hire unknowe". Charles Dickens (1812–70), throughout his work, draws extensively on his experiences of poverty in London. His godfather had a sail making business in Limehouse, and he based the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters in Our Mutual Friend (1864–65) on a public house still standing there. The Red Bull, a now demolished inn situated in Whitechapel, features in his Pickwick Papers. On leaving it Sam Weller makes the sage remark that Whitechapel is "not a wery nice neighbourhood". Fagin in Dickens's Oliver Twist appears to be based on a notorious 'fence' named Ikey Solomon (1785–1850) who operated in 1820's Whitechapel. Dickens was also a frequent visitor to the East End theatres and music halls of Hoxton, Shoreditch and Whitechapel, writing of his visits in his journals and his journalism. A visit he made to an opium den in Bluegate Fields inspired certain scenes in his last, unfinished, novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870). Arthur Morrison (1863–1945), who was a native East-Ender, wrote A Child of the Jago (1896) a fictional account of the extreme poverty encountered in the Old Nichol Street Rookery. Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) observed the practice of 'people of quality' visiting the many entertainments available in Whitechapel and sent his hedonistic hero Dorian Gray there to sample the delights on offer in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.
     The experiences of the Jewish community in the East End inspired many works of fiction. Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), educated in Spitalfields, wrote the influential Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People (1892) and other novels on this subject. Another Jewish writer, Simon Blumenfeld (1907–2005) wrote plays and novels, such as Jew Boy (1935), informed by his years in Whitechapel.Wolf Mankowitz, of Bethnal Green, was another Jewish writer from the area. His 1953 book A Kid for Two Farthings, set in the East End, was adapted for the cinema three years later. Chinatown, Limehouse, also provided inspiration for novelists. Sax Rohmer (1883–1959) wrote fantasies set there, featuring many scenes in opium dens, introducing one of the 20th century's master villains, Fu Manchu, in a series of novels of which the first was The Mystery of Dr Fu Manchu (1913). Thomas Burke (1886–1945) explored the same territory in Limehouse Nights (1916).
     Playwrights have often located their work in the East End. During the 1950s and 1960s, much drama was inspired and encouraged by the work of Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop, based in the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. Their new works explored the experiences and position of their local audience. Many productions transferred both to the West End and were made into films. In the 1970s and 1980s the Half Moon Theatre presented premières of European works and new works by London playwrights, such as Edward Bond and Stephen Berkoff.
     One contemporary manifestation exploring the 'collision of worlds' made possible by the East End is the school of psychogeography espoused most prominently by Peter Ackroyd (1949– ) in such novels as Hawksmoor (1985) and Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994) and Iain Sinclair (1943– ) in such novels as White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987). A more realistic fictionalisation on the contemporary gentrification of the area, and the rise of the yuppie, is provided by Penelope Lively in Passing On (1989) and City of the Mind (1991) and by P. D. James in Original Sin (1994). Emblematic of the current world-wide clash of civilisations between West and East, of which the East End has historically been a microcosm, are Monica Ali's (1967– ) novel Brick Lane (2003), and Salman Rushdie's fantastic and controversial The Satanic Verses (1988) which also uses Brick Lane as a location.

  TV

  One of the earliest television portrayals of the East End was Dixon of Dock Green (1955–1976). In this programme, Sergeant George Dixon pounded the fictional beat of Dock Green, with a script by Ted Willis. The series arose from the film, The Blue Lamp (1950) that was based on the real life murder of a policeman based at Leman Street, Aldgate. The television series enjoyed considerable success. The script was based on research at Paddington Green Police Station and filmed at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, in West London. The characterisation by the lead, Jack Warner, was held in such high regard that officers from Paddington Green bore the coffin at his funeral in 1981. EastEnders, a BBC soap opera broadcast since 1985, is set in the fictional London Borough of Walford. The programme is actually filmed at a purpose-built set at the Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, and the paradigms for the show are thought to lie beyond the East End, in Stratford and Walthamstow. In that, the programme does represent the diaspora of East Enders who have moved out of the district, and draws on the themes of family and social integration. An earlier programme, Til Death Us Do Part (1965–1975) attempted to satirise the stereotypical attitudes of an East Ender, Alf Garnett, played by Warren Mitchell. The locale for this programme has been variously placed in Wapping and West Ham, with the principal character a supporter of West Ham United F.C.. The comedic theme of the programme was the interaction between members of the family, and the inability of the principal character to adapt to the rapid changes in his world. The piece inspired the hit American remake All in the Family, among others.

  Film

  Film has also explored the issues and themes affecting the East End. Many early films were made in Hoxton, at Gainsborough Studios. With their association with German cinema realism, many of these were made in the streets around the studio.
     In more modern films, gangsterism has featured. Sparrers Can't Sing (1962), developed by Theatre Workshop, dealt with issues of change in the East End — a sailor comes home from the sea, to find his home redeveloped and his family moved to a new council block. The sets were often visited by local gangsters, the Krays, who actually made a cameo appearance in the film. The The Long Good Friday (1980) develops the same themes of change, with a gangster seeking legitimacy in the redevelopment of Docklands. His brutality is only matched by that of the IRA.
     The theme of a return to find a changing society is also brought out in For Queen and Country (1989). Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) again explores gangsterism, with change represented by amateur white collar criminals. Conflict arises between them and old firm criminals, immigrant gangsters and a group of less than honest friends, raised in the East End.
     Romantic encounters with a multi-cultural erotic frisson, set in Limehouse's Chinatown, are the theme of Broken Blossoms (1919), derived from a story in Thomas Burke's Limehouse Nights and Piccadilly (1929) starring Anna May Wong as an alluring Chinese nightclub performer. Limehouse is also the scene of the Fu Manchu films — based on Sax Rohmer's novels. These began with some short British serials 1923–4 before the first American feature film The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu appeared in 1929, followed by many others.
     Further multi-cultural encounters are featured in the film Brick Lane (2007) based on the novel by Monica Ali.
     The East End is featured as the setting for the Hughes brothers' film From Hell (film) (2001) based on the Alan Moore graphic-novel of the same name.
  

  Further Information

  Get more info on 'East End Of London'.

  
  

  External Link Exchanges Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page: <a href="http://east_end_of_london.totallyexplained.com">East End of London Totally Explained</a> Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.    As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.