CouncilEighteen and nineteenth centuries
Factories and rows of terraced houses consumed the rural landscape of the 18th century, except for pockets of land saved for parks and gardens, in particular, Victoria Park, Stepney Green, Bethnal Green Gardens and Island Gardens, which remain to this day.
The maritime character of the hamlets around the Tower was transformed in appearance during the 19th century, with the building of huge warehouses and high walled docks. The West India Dock, which opened in 1802, was the first enclosed dock built on the Thames for cargo handling and within 26 years the East India, London and St. Katharine Docks were all working.
As the workshops, docks and factories of East London made a major contribution to the development of London as world trading centre, it was very much at the expense of workers who endured damaging working conditions.
Two famous East London strikes played an important part in organising unskilled workers into unions. In 1888, Annie Besant led the match girls at Bryant and May's factory in Bow, in their fight for better conditions. The following year saw Ben Tillet, Tom Mann and John Burns lead the Dockers' strike to raise wages to 5d per hour, less than 3p in today's currency.
Philanthropists of every description were drawn to the East End. Dr Barnardo trained at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and founded his first home for orphans in Hope Place, Stepney in 1866. The first Ragged Day School was set up in canal-side warehouses at Mile End and is now a museum about the East End and the lives of its children.
Salvation Army founder William Booth began preaching on the Mile End Waste in 1865. In 1869 the Baroness Burdett-Coutts built a gigantic covered market called Columbia, in Bethnal Green.
Of the many political figures in the borough's history, George Lansbury - Councillor, Mayor of Poplar, Member of Parliament and Leader of the Labour Party from 1931 to 1935 - 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.
The borough is historically famous for providing refuge to those fleeing persecution. In the 18th century, the area was occupied by the silk weavers largely descended from the Huguenot refugees (French Protestants escaping from Catholic persecution in France). A hundred years later, Jews fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe founded a thriving community. At the same time, a Chinese community was established in Limehouse as a result of merchant trading.
