Cable Street - History

History

Cable Street started as a straight path along which hemp ropes were twisted into ships cables (i.e. ropes). These supplied the many ships that would anchor in the nearby Pool of London, between London Bridge and Wapping and Rotherhithe. Many other "rope walks" can be seen on later maps, showing how demand for ropes grew as shipping increased.

Until Victorian times, the current Cable Street had different names for each of its sections. From west to east these ran: Cable Street, Knock Fergus, New Road, Back Lane, Blue Gate Fields, Sun Tavern Fields, and Brook Street.

Knock Fergus may have been a reference to the large numbers of Irish residents there then, but the name is old - it is found in the St. Dunstan Stepney registers in the early 1600s.

Also, in the 19th century, the area at the western end of Cable Street was identified as "near Wellclose Square", as this was a well-known landmark, where nautical items were sold. The whole of the central area of the current street was named after St. George in the East church and St. George in the East parish.

From Victorian times through to the 1950s, Cable Street had a reputation for cheap lodgings, brothels, drinking inns and opium dens.

The last occasion in England when a stake was hammered through a sinner’s heart at an official burial, took place at the junction of Cable Street and Cannon Street Road: John Williams was found hanged in his cell, after being arrested as a suspect in the Ratcliff Highway murders. Local people went along with the claim that he had committed suicide, from guilt of the crimes. At the time, 1812, suicide was considered to be sinful, and justified him being buried upside down with a stake through his heart. His skull was found when new gas mains were being laid in the 1960s, and was on display for many years in The Crown and Dolphin pub opposite.

On 4 October 1936 a violent confrontation between the Metropolitan Police and local communities on the street was later named the 'Battle of Cable Street'. Communist, anarchist, labour and Jewish groups joined with locals to resist a planned march through the East End by Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. A bus was overturned and used as a barricade, Mosley's car was attacked with bricks, and there was some of the most violent hand-to-hand fighting ever seen in London. The march was eventually abandoned. A large mural on St. George's Town Hall, next to Library Place, depicts scenes from the day. A red plaque at Cable Street's junction with Dock Street commemorates the incident.