London Borough of Tower Hamlets - History

History

Tower Hamlets forms the main area of the East End of London. More detailed local histories may be available for each of the districts (above) within Tower Hamlets.

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets forms the core of the East End. It lies east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Use of the term "East End" in a pejorative sense began in the late 19th century, as the expansion of the population of London led to extreme overcrowding throughout the area and a concentration of poor people and immigrants in the districts that made it up. These problems were exacerbated with the construction of St Katharine Docks (1827) and the central London railway termini (1840–1875) that caused the clearance of former slums and rookeries, with many of the displaced people moving into the area. Over the course of a century, the East End became synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality.

The East End developed rapidly during the 19th century. Originally it was an area characterised by villages clustered around the City walls or along the main roads, surrounded by farmland, with marshes and small communities by the River, serving the needs of shipping and the Royal Navy. Until the arrival of formal docks, shipping was required to land goods in the Pool of London, but industries related to construction, repair, and victualling of ships flourished in the area from Tudor times. The area attracted large numbers of rural people looking for employment. Successive waves of foreign immigration began with Huguenot refugees creating a new extramural suburb in Spitalfields in the 17th century. They were followed by Irish weavers, Ashkenazi Jews and, in the 20th century, Bangladeshis. Many of these immigrants worked in the clothing industry. The abundance of semi- and unskilled labour led to low wages and poor conditions throughout the East End. This brought the attentions of social reformers during the mid-18th century and led to the formation of unions and workers associations at the end of the century. The radicalism of the East End contributed to the formation of the Labour Party and demands for the enfranchisement of women.

Official attempts to address the overcrowded housing began at the beginning of the 20th century under the London County Council. World War II devastated much of the East End, with its docks, railways and industry forming a continual target, leading to dispersal of the population to new suburbs, and new housing being built in the 1950s. During the war, in the Boroughs making up Tower Hamlets a total of 2,221 civilians were killed and 7,472 were injured, with 46,482 houses destroyed and 47,574 damaged. The closure of the last of the East End docks in the Port of London in 1980 created further challenges and led to attempts at regeneration and the formation of the London Docklands Development Corporation. The Canary Wharf development, improved infrastructure, and the Olympic Park mean that the East End is undergoing further change, but some of its districts continue to contain some of the worst poverty in Britain.

Media reports in the 2000s and 2010s suggested that the area was becoming Islamised, and that residents were threatened for behaviour not in accordance with what The Daily Telegraph called "fundamentalist Islamic norms". The Telegraph reported in 2011 that since 2007/2008 there had been an 80 percent increase in homophobic crimes in the area, while The Guardian said there had been a 33 percent increase in homophobic incidents between April 2009 – March 2010 and April 2010 – March 2011. Delwar Hussain, writing in The Guardian, suggests that the perpetrators of such crimes are usually Bangladeshi, a group that faced hostility and violence when they first settled in the area. In February 2011 stickers appeared in the area with the message: "Arise and warn. Gay free zone. Verily Allah is severe in punishment." A man was fined for a public order offence in relation to the stickers in June 2011. In 2007 the Centre for Social Cohesion issued a report saying that libraries in the area contained a large amount of extremist Islamist literature. In 2008 councillors were asked by the council's head of democratic services to observe the Ramadan fast during meetings, a request that angered several of the councillors.