Fragments of the past There is a surviving fragment of a terrace of Victorian houses in Bazely Street (formerly Bow Lane), and opposite a typical East End pub – the Greenwich Pensioner, left, which is still open. History Got a story to tell? If you have a tale about East End history, write to John Rennie or email him at johnrennie@gmail.com www.eastlondonhistory.com Life through the lens of London’s deserving poor able as a whole’ while the streets and courts to the east were poor and housing was bad. In 1878, the Metropolitan Board of Works was describing the area as ‘one of the most unhealthy rookeries in Poplar, and a compulsory purchase order saw much of the housing in the area cleared, at a cost of £64,000. Bow Lane was a bustling street. A visitor to the area in the late 1800s would have found the Cotton Street Baptist Chapel, the Union Chapel in Bow Lane (born of a ‘painful separation’ from the former). There was Bow Lane School, endowed by George Green, and which later became the Poplar Synagogue, until its demolition in 1954. The Ladies Charity School stood at 67 Cotton Street, and the Poplar and Blackwall Free British School (in Woolmore Street) was another endowment of the ever-generous George Green. Yet through all the changes, the almshouses survived. They had been endowed by Hesther Hawes, the daughter of shipwright Henry Hall of Blackwall, who left his daughter a yearly income of £10. The long-lived Hesther married John Craven of Shadwell in 1644 and outlived him, secondly marrying Thomas Hawes of Hertfordshire. Hesther did well enough to buy five tenements in Bow Lane in 1685, along with three quarters of an acre of land. The tenements had a water pump in the yard, and Hesther’s 1896 will allowed the monthly allowance of half a crown (12.5p) for the tenants. Perhaps her endowment was too small, or maybe the trustees weren’t doing their job, but by 1730, court action was being considered to enforce repairs. In the 1850s the almshouses were considered unfit for human habitation. It says something about the priority of provision for the poor that 200 years later (and without much evidence of improvements), Poplar Council was still mulling over clearing the site. By then just four widows remained; there were rehoused in 1937 and the council bought the almshouses the next year for £250. Calls were made for them to be preserved because of their historic importance but, in June 1953, days after the Coronation of Elizabeth II, they were razed. The Bazely Street area housing scheme saw the redevelopment of eight acres of Victorian (and earlier) jumble. V2s and V1s had caused much damage during World War II, and the Council took care of much of the rest. New and unarguably better housing arose in its place, with Carmichael House, Lawless House, Newby House, Mermaid House and the rest rising from 1954 onward. Stroll down Bazely Street today (it joins the East India Dock Road to Poplar High Street) and you see the East End in microcosm. There is a surviving fragment of a terrace of Victorian houses, and opposite a typical East End pub; the Greenwich Pensioner (surely lost on this side of the river), has somehow escaped the fate of most its fellows, being still open. There is All Saints Church, dating from the 1820s, when the fast-growing population of dock workers needed their own parish church. It survived major damage during the Blitz, being renovated in the 1950s and again during the 80s and 90s. Dotted around the old buildings are post-war lowrise flats and houses, and more trees and open space than our 103-year-old models would ever have seen on what was then called Bow Lane. Of the almshouses, there is not a trace. Tidied away like so much of the old East End. BY JOHN RENNIE THE two women gazing into the camera come from another world, another century. Dressed in what was once the uniform of the old and poor (black hides a multitude of stains and can bear a minimum of washes) they considerately hold still to allow the shaky focus of a 1910 camera to get its focus. The youngster in the doorway to the street is less patient, and is rewarded by being blurred to history. Arguably, they had time on their hands. These ‘old’ women (though they may simply be middle-aged by 21st century standards were part of the ‘deserving poor’. Their home was one of the many almshouses then dotted around the East End. If a frugal existence, it was better than the workhouse, with almshouses a system of poor relief in England that has lasted from around the 10th century to the present day. The almshouse lay on what was then called Bow Lane (today called Bazely Street), which had gone from being a country lane with a clutch of cottages in the early 1800s to a decidedly urban thoroughfare just a few years later, following the East India Dock Company’s decision, in 1807, to sell its land there for building. The area, bounded by Poplar High Street, the East India Dock Road, Bow Lane and Robin Hood Lane had housed a brickworks for the company; it became more popular with developers when All Saints Church was built in 1823, and buildings and new streets mushroomed (some of the latter long gone in redevelopments). There was Cotton Street, Providence Place, Wells Street and India Row. By 1819, there were 47 houses in the street, the Bricklayers’ Arms pub, a beer shop at No 1, a pork butcher at No 3 and a baker at No 4. At the corner of the High Street and Robin Hood Lane stood the White Hart pub, and there was a scenery store for the Oriental Music Hall (later the New Albion Theatre), which stood in the High Street. And there were some fine townhouses, a few of which remain. Booth’s assiduous researchers found, by the 1890s, that the inhabitants of Bow Lane and Cotton Street were ‘respectable, well to do and comfort- (Above) the Almshouses, (top right) All Saints Church in Poplar and (below) Robin Hood Gardens 6 – 12 JANUARY 2014 N E W S F R O M TOWER HAMLETS COUNCIL AND YOUR COMMUNITY 13
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