Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green
Middlesex
Brick Lane, Bethnal Green
Location
Grid reference:	TQ345825
Location:	51°31’39"N, 0°3’58"W
Data
Post town:	London
Postcode:	E1, E2
Dialling code:	020
Local Government
Council:	Tower Hamlets
Parliamentary constituency:	Bethnal Green and Bow

Bethnal Green is an urban village in the south-east of Middlesex, in the East End of London. The area is centred a mile north-east of Liverpool Street station. It has two Overground stations ('Bethnal Green' and 'Cambridge Heath') and one Underground station. Part of the area holds conservation area status, chiefly due to protected small, public greens and listed buildings.

The area emerged from the hamlet which developed around the village green, much of which survives today as Bethnal Green Gardens, beside Cambridge Heath Road.

Economic focus has shifted from mainstream farming produce for the City of London – through highly perishable goods production (market gardening), weaving, dock and building work and light industry – to a high proportion of commuters to city businesses, public sector/care sector roles, construction, courier businesses and home-working digital and creative industries. Identifiable slums in the maps of Charles Booth in Life and Labour of the People in London (3 editions, 1889–1903) were in large part cleared before the Blitz in the Second World War which accelerated clearance of many tightly packed terraces of small houses to be replaced with green spaces and higher-rise social housing. In 1943, such a bomb killed 173 people at Bethnal Green Underground station.

Name

The topographer Daniel Lysons suggested in the late 18th century that Bethnal was a corruption of Bathon Hall which would have been the residence of a notable Bathon family who owned large parts of Stepney, the parish of which Bethnal Green was part. "Green" related to one which lay "about half a mile beyond the suburbs".

More recently it has been suggested that the name could be a derivation of the Old English Blithehale or Blythenhale from the 13th century. healh would have meant "angle, nook, or corner" and blithe would have been the word for "happy, blithe", or come from a personal name Blitha. In either case, the Dictionary of London Place Names supports a contraction involving hall or healh, noting h-dropping in local dialects, to Bethnal Green.

History

Bethnal Green was a smaller set of homesteads and cottages, a hamlet in the fertile fields of the ancient parish of Stepney, but as population and house-building began local intensification in the 18th century, the church agreed to found a fully-functional daughter church — as a parish with benefice in 1743.

Origins

In what would become northern Bethnal Green (known as Cambridge Heath) a tract of common land, which stretched to the east and west, belonged to the old Stepney Manor to the south. The heath was used as pasture where people grazed their sheep in the 13th century, though 1275 records suggest at least one house stood there.

A Tudor ballad, The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, tells the story of an ostensibly poor man who gave a surprisingly generous dowry for his daughter's wedding. The tale furnishes the parish of Bethnal Green's coat of arms. According to one version of the legend, found in Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry published in 1765, the beggar was said to be Henry, the son of Simon de Montfort, but Percy himself declared that this version was not genuine. The Blind Beggar public house in Whitechapel is reputed to be the site of his begging.

Growth

The Green and Poor's Land is the area of open land now occupied by Bethnal Green Library, the V&A Museum of Childhood and St John's Church, designed by John Soane. In Stow's Survey of London (1598) the hamlet was called Blethenal Green. It was one of the hamlets included in the Manor of Stepney and Hackney. Hackney later became separated. In 1678 the owners of houses surrounding the Green purchased the land to save it from being built on and in 1690 the land was conveyed to a trust under which it was to be kept open and rent from it used for the benefit of poor people living in the vicinity. From that date, the trust has administered the land and its minute books are kept in the London Metropolitan Archives. Bethnal House, or Kirby's Castle, was the principal house on the Green. One of its owners was Sir Hugh Platt (1552–1608), author of books on gardening and practical science. Under its next owner it was visited by Samuel Pepys. In 1727 it was leased to Matthew Wright and for almost two centuries it was an asylum. Its two most distinguished inmates were Alexander Cruden, compiler of the Concordance to the Bible, and the poet Christopher Smart. Cruden recorded his experience in The London Citizen Grievously Injured (1739) and Smart's stay there is recorded by his daughter. Records of the asylum are kept in the annual reports of the Commissioner in Lunacy. Even today, the park where the library stands is known locally as "Barmy Park". The original mansion, the White House, was supplemented by other buildings. In 1891 the Trust lost the use of Poor's Land to the London County Council. The asylum reorganised its buildings, demolishing the historic White House and erecting a new block in 1896. This building became the present Bethnal Green Library. A history of Poor's Land and Bethnal House is included in The Green, written by A.J. Robinson and D.H.B. Chesshyre.

Boxing has a long association with Bethnal Green. Daniel Mendoza, who was bare-knuckle boxing champion of England from 1792 to 1795 though born in Aldgate, lived in Paradise Row on the western side of Bethnal Green for 30 years. Joe Anderson, 'All England' champion of 1897, was from Bethnal Green.

The north end of the Green is associated with the Natt family. During the 18th century they owned many of its houses. Netteswell House is the residence of the curator of the Bethnal Green Museum. It is almost certainly named after the village of Netteswell, near Harlow, whose Rector was the Reverend Anthony Natt. A few of its houses have become University settlements. In Victoria Park Square, on the east side of the Green, No. 18 has a Tudor well in its cellar.

The silk-weaving trade spread eastwards from Spitalfields throughout the 18th century. This attracted many Huguenot and Irish weavers to the district. Large estates of small two-storey cottages were developed in the west of the area to house them. A downturn in the trade in 1769 led to the Spitalfield Riots, and on 6 December 1769, two weavers accused of "cutting" were hanged in front of the Salmon and Ball public house.

Bethnal Green Road Market on the road of the same name, founded in the 18th century, grew and grew and became more full with stalls. By 1959 stalls were choking the streets and the council attempted to relocate the market but had no success. In 1986 there had been many shop closures but the stalls were still trading. The street market is now today recognised as a major local shopping area.

Victorian era

Slum children in bed, Bethnal Green, 1900–1910

In the 19th century, Bethnal Green remained characterised by its market gardens and by weaving. Having been an area of large houses and gardens as late as the 18th century, by about 1860 Bethnal Green was mainly full of tumbledown old buildings with many families living in each house. By the end of the century, Bethnal Green was one of the poorest slums in London. Jack the Ripper operated at the western end of Bethnal Green and in neighbouring Whitechapel. In 1900, the Old Nichol Street rookery was replaced with the Boundary Estate (near the limits of Shoreditch). This was a first in council housing. Brothers Lew Grade and Bernard Delfont were brought up on the estate. In 1909, the larger Bethnal Green Estate was opened with money left by the philanthropist William Richard Sutton which he left for "modern dwellings and houses for occupation by the poor of London and other towns and populous places in England". The Peabody Trust administered the funds to complete much of the estate in 1910.

Slum street in Bethnal Green, circa 1900

The Regent's Canal opened in 1820, for horse-drawn canal barges to carry cargo between the London Docklands and the Grand Union Canal. These supplied local coal merchants and gas houses/plants (gasifiers) built along its banks including Bethnal Green.

The London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews built Palestine Place as Cambridge Heath began to be fully developed during the first half of the 19th century. A windmill survived until at least 1836. Most local residents were poor, especially in the streets around the railway line and the Regent's Canal, as well as on Russia Lane.

In 1841, the Anglo-Catholic Nathaniel Woodard, who was to become a highly influential educationalist in the later part of the 19th century, became the curate of the newly created St. Bartholomew's in Bethnal Green. He was a capable pastoral visitor and established a parochial school. In 1843, he got into trouble for preaching a sermon in which he argued that The Book of Common Prayer should have additional material to provide for confession and absolution and in which he criticised the "inefficient and Godless clergy" of the Church of England. After examining the text of the sermon, the Bishop of London condemned it as containing "erroneous and dangerous notions". As a result, the bishop sent Woodard to be a curate in Clapton.

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.

Columbia Road Flower Market is on the street of the same name which has kept some Victorian shops and was established as Columbia Market in 1869 as a covered food market, which closed in 1886; revived as a Sunday flower market later.

Bethnal Green Junction, now just Bethnal Green from 1946, and Cambridge Heath railway stations, now on the ‘London Overground’ were opened by the Great Eastern Railway on the Lea Valley Lines in 1872 as part of a more direct route to Enfield. Bethnal Green was also formerly served by trains on the Great Eastern Main Line via Stratford, Essex and saw two derailments in the later 20th century, similar to other contemporary comparators of busy, metropolitan junctions.

In 1855 Bethnal Green was included within the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works to which it nominated one member.

Early 20th century

St Casimir's Church was founded in 1901, with a church on the corner of Christian Street and Cable Street.

The internationally renowned York Hall opened in 1929 with a capacity of 1,200.

The warehouse buildings rose from the Regent's Canal without a towpath to interrupt development, giving direct access to the canal. A row of Victorian workshops was built on Wadeson Street in what was a historically Jewish precinct. This became very overcrowded with 572 inhabitants living in 125 houses by the 1930s. The stretch was then redeveloped into warehouses and factories by 1937.^{[citation needed]}

Second World War

During the Second World War the Luftwaffe began The Blitz on 7 September 1940. Bethnal Green was in "Target Area A" along with the rest of the East End.

Bethnal Green Library was bombed on the very first night of the Blitz. This forced the temporary relocation of the library into the unopened Bethnal Green Underground Station in order to provide continuity of lending services. The library was rebuilt and opened a few months later for the public. Oxford House also had a major role, with some local residents fleeing into the house off Bethnal Green Road seeking shelter, this location was more attractive than the stables under the nearby Great Eastern Main Line arches. The Chief Shelter Welfare Officer at the time, Jane Leverson said "people came to Oxford House not because it was an air raid shelter but because there they found happiness and a true spirit of fellowship".

It is estimated that during this war, 80 tons of bombs fell on the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green, affecting 21,700 houses, destroying 2,233 and making a further 893 uninhabitable. There were a total of 555 people killed and 400 seriously injured. Many unexploded bombs remain in the area, for example on 14 May 2007, builders discovered a Second World War 500 lb bomb.

On 3 March 1943, the air-raid Civil defence siren sounded at 8:17 pm, causing a flow of people down the staircase which had no lights on from the street level into the incomplete Bethnal Green tube station, which had been requisitioned in 1940 by the Borough Council. The panic itself began at 8:27 coinciding with the sound of an anti-aircraft battery (possibly the recently installed Z battery) being fired at nearby Victoria Park. In the wet, dark conditions the crowd was surging forward towards the shelter when a woman tripped on the stairs, causing many others to fall. Within a few seconds 300 people were crushed into the tiny stairwell, resulting in the deaths of 173 people (most of whom were women and children) who were crushed and asphyxiated. Although a report was filed by Eric Linden with the Daily Mail, who witnessed it, it was never published. Very little information was provided at the time. The results of the official investigation were not released until 1946.

Rebuilding

Cambridge Heath Road on 25 March 1962.

Bethnal Green tube station opened on 4 December 1946 on the Central Line: construction of the Central Line's eastern extension into Essex was started in the 1930s and the tunnels were largely complete at the outbreak of the Second World War although rails were not laid. Work could only resume after the War.

The book Family and Kinship in East London (1957) shows an improvement in working class life. Husbands in the sample population no longer went out to drink but spent time with the family. As a result, both birth rate and infant death rate fell drastically and local prosperity increased.

Bethnal Green, being the cultural heart of the East End, has long been a hotbed of organised crime. Its most famous criminals were the Kray twins, known as Ronald "Ronnie" Kray and Reginald "Reggie" Kray who were identical twin brothers and were active during the 1950s and 1960s with a gang known as The Firm.

Sport

• Football:
  • Bethnal Green United F.C. / Tower Hamlets FC
  • Sporting Bengal F.C.

Both play at Mile End Stadium.

See also

• Bethnal Green Town Hall

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Bethnal Green)