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David Hoffman At Fieldgate Mansions

May 29, 2018
by the gentle author

David Hoffman has a new exhibition of his photographs entitled A Sort of Home: 1970s Whitechapel at Gallery 46, 46 Ashfield St, Whitechapel, E1 2AJ, opening on 18th July and running until 15th August

Children playing at Fieldgate Mansions, April 1981

This series of photographs by David Hoffman, taken while he was squatting in Fieldgate Mansions off Fieldgate St  in Whitechapel from 1973 until 1984, record a vital community of artists, homeless people and Bengali families who inhabited these streets at the time they were scheduled for demolition. Thanks to the tenacity and courage of these people, the dignified buildings survive today, restored and still in use for housing.

David Hoffman’s photographs record the drama of the life of his fellow squatters, subject to violent harassment and the constant threat of eviction, yet these images are counterpointed by his tender and intimate observation of children at play. After dropping out of university, David Hoffman found a haven in Fieldgate Mansion where he could develop his photography, which became his life’s work.

Characterised by an unflinching political insight, this photography is equally distinguished by a generous human sympathy and both these qualities are present in his Fieldgate Mansions pictures, manifesting the emergence of one photographer’s vision – as David Hoffman explained to me.

“It was the need for a place to live that brought me here. I’d come down from university without a degree in 1970. I’d dossed in Black Lion Yard and rented a squalid slum room in Chicksand St, before a permanent room came up for very little money in Black Lion Yard in 1971 above Solly Granatt’s jewellery shop. But the whole street was due for demolition, and when he died we squatted in it until they knocked it down in November 1973.

Then I found a place in Fieldgate Mansions which was being squatted by half a dozen people from the London College of Furniture. Bengali families were having a hard time and we were opening up flats in the Mansions for them to live there. We were really active, taking over other empty buildings that were being kept vacant in Myrdle St and Parfett St, because the owners found it was cheaper to keep them empty. We also squatted many empty houses further east in Stepney preventing the council from demolishing them. We took over and got evicted, and came back the next day and, when they put them up for auction, we used to bid and our bid won but, of course, we had no money so we couldn’t pay – it was a delaying tactic. It was a war of attrition to keep the buildings for people rather than for profit.

The bailiffs and police came at four in the morning and got everyone out and boarded up the property and put dogs in. Then we got dog handlers who removed the dogs and took them to Leman St Police Station as strays, and then we moved back in again.

When I moved into Fieldgate Manions it was late November and there was no hot water and the council had poured concrete down the toilet and ripped out the wiring. There was no insulation in the roof, it was just open to the slates and the temperature inside was as freezing as it was outside. I found a gas water heater in a skip and got it working on New Year’s Eve, so I counted in the New Year 1974 with hot water as the horns of the boats sounded on the river.

I decided to do Communication Design at the North East London Polytechnic, because I’d been taking photographs since I was a child and I’d helped set up a darkroom at university. At Fieldgate Mansions, I had a two room flat, one was my bedroom and office and other I made into a darkroom and I did quite a bit of photography. When I left college in 1976, I took up photography full time and began to make a slim living at it and I have done so ever since. While I was a student, I had a grant but I didn’t have to pay rent and it was the first time in my life I had enough money to feed and clothe myself. I stayed in Fieldgate Mansions until 1984 when I moved into a derelict house in Bow which I bought with some money I’d saved and what my mother left me, and where I still live today.”

Waiting to resist eviction in front of the barricaded front door of a squat in Myrdle St, Whitechapel, in February 1973. Ann Pettit and Anne Zell are standing, with Duncan, Tony Mahoney and Phineas sitting in front.

Doris Lerner, activist and squatter, climbs through a first floor window of a squat in Myrdle St

Max Levitas, Tower Hamlets Communist Councillor, tried unsuccessfully to convince the squatters that resistance to eviction should be taken over by the Communist Party

March on Tower Hamlets Council in protest against the eviction of squatters

Doris Lerner in an argument with a neighbour during the evictions from Myrdle St and Parfett St

Lavatory in squatted house in Myrdle St, Whitechapel, 1973

Police arrive to evict squatters in Myrdle St

Eviction in progress

Out on the street

Sleeping on the street after eviction

Liz and Sue in my flat in Fieldgate Mansions, September 1975

Coral Prior, silversmith, working in her studio at Fieldgate Mansions, 1977

Fieldgate Scratch Band

A boy dances in the courtyard of Fieldgate Mansions. Scheduled for demolition in 1972, it was squatted to prevent destruction until taken over by a community housing trust  and modernised in the eighties.

Photographs copyright © David Hoffman

You may also like to take a look at

David Hoffman’s East End

David Hoffman at Crisis At Christmas

David Hoffman at Smithfield Market

David Hoffman down the Roman Rd

David Hoffman at St Botolph’s

David Hoffman at St Botolph’s in Colour

12 Responses leave one →
  1. Janice permalink
    May 29, 2018

    fascinating! great photos and documentation of these events. i’m so glad these buildings are still there and now i know some history! thanks

  2. Annelise Goodsir permalink
    May 29, 2018

    Amazing photos and so interesting- really admirable resistance, what a great bunch of people!

  3. Helene Bryer permalink
    May 29, 2018

    I was brought up in Fieldgate Mansions. The whole street was like one big family. My grandparents lived there as did distant cousins.

  4. May 29, 2018

    Great post, thanks.

  5. May 29, 2018

    Great photographs. An eloquent historic record of the Mansions and their amazing occupants.

  6. Paula permalink
    May 29, 2018

    I loved these photos – I’ve lived in the East End (Old St and Whitechapel) since 1978 and I found David’s photos so sensitive and moving.

  7. Juliet Jeater permalink
    May 29, 2018

    What incredible photos. Are they on display anywhere?
    As a just eighteen year old school leaver in 1966 I went to work for the Greater London Council in the department which dealt with compulsory purchase orders (legal and parliamentary dept). One of the CPO’s was Black Lion Yard. I had no idea of the back story to this work. I think the squatters were brave considering what they were up against. When I look back I now think there must have been another way of dealing with slum housing and landlords like Rachman rather than knocking everything down and replacing old streets with tower blocks. I hope the housing that was saved has not been gentrified considering its now prestigious location, so different from the received wisdom in 1966!

  8. janet gordon permalink
    May 29, 2018

    me, my husband and two children livedin fildhate mansios from 1965 to 1968 there was only ne bedroom wich as green with mould and damp the toilet was in the kitchen w had a new tiolet put in and a small sink unit and hot water heater we trid the bestwe could to keep it clean my mum bought me a smll burco boiler and i used to wash my babies nappies in it and my towels and sheets we were on the second floor and i used to bump my prm up and down the stairts then the concil finally rehosed us to greatorex house on the top floor two bedrooms but t least we has a bathroom

  9. Richard Smith permalink
    May 29, 2018

    Good post and great photographs. It’d be interesting to see what the modernised flats look like now.

  10. May 29, 2018

    Wonderful photography. My most favoured photographic exhibitions have always been Black and White images of the 50’s onwards of the East end of London and Industrial Britain. I very much hope to be able to visit your exhibition David.

  11. May 29, 2018

    Great photos. Good to see the happy defiance of squatters from the 70s. I also love the picture with the young Bengali girl looking as pleased punch with the ship in a bottle

  12. Brian Harris permalink
    May 30, 2018

    Yet again Mr Hoffman has nailed a wonderful historical set of images…..interestingly i was there a month ago for my sons 2nd year degree year at No 46 Gallery…..there is still a raw feel to the area….

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