Cheery and cheeky, grim and grimy or vicious and violent - the East End
usually provokes a strong reaction of some sort. Yet for nine-tenths of its
history it was largely a rural retreat of fields and farms, marshland and market
gardens, and a suitable setting for hostelries and hospitals, almshouses,
academies and asylums.
London's rise as a centre of global commerce then lined its river gateway
with a labyrinth of docks and warehouses through which the world's wealth
flowed, though little remained in the close-packed streets where sweatshops,
factories, mills and yards have made everything from silks and porcelain to
dog-biscuits and Dreadnoughts.
Notorious for alleged overty of body, mind and spirit, the East End became
celebrated as a training-ground for leaders of church and state and a
breeding-ground for millionares. Irish and Jews, Huguenots and Germans,
Chinatown and Little Warsaw were crammed together to create a city within a
city, which outsiders investigated in fear, wonderment or disgust.
As it's inhabitants' struggle for survival moved from riot to strike to
socialism, the East End became a laboratory for do-gooders and a battleground
against fascism. Between the wars local leaders experimented with do-it-yourself
devolution in defiance of government. After the Blitz they found a false dawn in
high-rise blocks until the docks became Docklands and yesterday's 'aliens' gave
way to new peoples seeking Utopia down Brick Lane.
Captain Cook and Dr Barnardo, Culpeper the herbalist and Jack Ripper, Gandhi
and the Krays, the birthplace of boxing and the Salvation Army - the real East
End has defied both caricature and cliche in its drive to reinvent itself
perpetually.
This informative yet enthralling account, complemented by a selection of
first-rate illustrations, is a great contribution to the history of this
remarkable area.
Contents:
Introduction
Priests and Peasants: The Medieval Manor
Rural Retreat
The Onset of Industry
The World's Warehouse
Streets, Ships and Salvation
Years of Struggle, Years of Hope
Into the Abyss
Making a New World?
No New Jerusalem
Phoenix in the East
Reading and Reference
Chronology
Index
