Comments on: Ray Newton, Historian Of Shadwell

By: Denise Driver

Denise Driver — Wed, 06 May 2026 03:54:22 +0000

Hi Ray, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your writeup about your life in Shadwell because my great great great grandfather Samuel Driver was the captain of a privateer operating out of Shadwell in the 1820s and 30s. He belonged to a multi-generational Sheffield family of ivory merchants and tradesmen and they procured ivory from the London docks which was turned into handles for upmarket cutlery. In turn this led to Samuel becoming the captain of a privateer, his adventures taking him as far afield as the African Atlantic coast and Genoa. Well known Wapping watchmaker Morris Tobias made a customized watch for him replacing the numerals 1 to 12 with the letters of his name SAMUEL DRIVER. The watch with original case, chain and seals is currently in my possession and his chronometer is with a relative. Many years later his son Henry would tell his grandchildren including my grandfather, also a Samuel Driver, how as a child living in Shadwell he had attended the same church that Captain James Cook had once worshipped in. Keep up the great work.

By: Tanya Wren

Tanya Wren — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 12:09:39 +0000

My grandmother lived in Shadwell at 1 Dock Cottages at the beginning of last century. Her father was a dock policeman at that time. I’m amazed the cottages have been preserved (right beside the church).

By: Ian Dunn

Ian Dunn — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 08:33:12 +0000

I have recently found out my Grandad was a Fireman at Shadwell how can I find out if he did
Many thanks

By: Tony Lloyd

Tony Lloyd — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 10:14:50 +0000

I was born in Wapping in Jan 1936 and both my parents were from Wapping too. We lived in Riverside Mansions for a while before moving to Diggon St near Arbour Sq. for a while. Sometime before the war we moved to Peabody Buildings, as it was known, in Glamis Place just off The Highway!
My father Harry Lloyd was a docker working at Middleton & St Brides Wharf in Wapping Lane before and during the war until he sadlydied in 1945 just 3 months after my sister Shirley was born.
My mum, Edith Lloyd, and I were evacuated to Abertillery, S.Wales during the Blitz which I remember quite vividly! It was a close community in those days and I have very fond memories of friends and neighbours, mainly I think that we were all ” in the same boat ” as it was. People looked after each other a lot more in those days!!
I went to Nicholas Gibson school just around the corner before I found myself, much to my surprise, moving to Raines Foundation Grammar school in Arbour Square in 1947 ! phew !!
Although I’m now approaching my 80th birthday I would love to hear from anyone who similar recollections of families etc from that background, if you do please let me know.

By: Sue Rockall

Sue Rockall — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 00:35:35 +0000

My grandfather served in the London Fire Brigade from about 1925 and my mother was born in Shadwell Fire Station in 1928. This must have been the building in Glamis Road, which was demolished in the 1960s, ie the second fire station in Shadwell.

I’d love to discover more about its history and also where I might find photographs of the building or fire crew. I’d be very grateful for any information or advice.

By: Anna Davin

Anna Davin — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 21:13:02 +0000

Ray’s memories and research and the photos are wonderful.

On comments:
Bombadier Billy Wells: the late Stan Shipley published his life and times in 1993.
Louis Heren: see huis memoir, Growing Up Poor in London (1973).

By: Nicola

Nicola — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 16:40:07 +0000

An interesting and varied life. And he proves that intellect isn’t the preserve of the chattering classes 😉

By: Kate Heren

Kate Heren — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 13:16:24 +0000

My grandmother Beatrice Keller (born in 1891) worked as a cook for the Port of London Authority. My sister sill has a saucepan, part of a set given her as a wedding present, stamped POA. After she married my grandfather Philip Heren, a printer or compositor at The Times, she lived in Shadwell and ran a coffee shop (I think we would call it a cafe today) for the dockworkers called the City of London Dining Rooms. My grandfather died aged only 32, and she brought up her three children there. Philip’s younger brother Uncle Lou lived with them because he was blinded in he First World War in 1917 (aged, I think, 17). Lou had a job at the Treasury and went there every day, and we still have a set of beautiful black dominoes with big raised dots which blinded soldiers we given. My late father Louis Heren was the youngest and remembered opening a drawer and seeing a lot of guns – headed for the IRA? He kept his mouth shut. He started work as a messenger at The Times aged 15, and managed to get a job as a reporter after writing adverts for the paper. He said some people treated you like a piece of dirt on their shoe if you opened your mouth and they heard the Cockney accent. He volunteered for the army in 1939, got commissioned (there weren’t enough middle class officer material soldiers) and after the war became a foreign correspondent, ending up as Deputy Editor. The Shadwell he knew had mostly been destroyed in the bombing during the war. We lived in Hampstead, a world away. How I wish I’d known about Ray’s Local History group – dad would have been able to contribute so much and it would have been a link to his lost past.

By: Pauline Taylor

Pauline Taylor — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 10:25:54 +0000

I found this site GA through your article about Madge Darby which was a real stroke of good fortune!! I have so much family history in Wapping and the surrounding areas where my lot were mostly shipwrights, mariners and publicans so I am really interested in this story, it brings it all to life in a very vivid way. I think my friend may have met Ray when she was planning a Dickens walk around the area, she certainly met someone with a great deal of knowledge as he tried to help her to locate a ‘family’ pub in Wapping High Street for me.

Thank you GA and Ray for yet another fascinating story.

By: ROBERT GREEN

ROBERT GREEN — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 08:41:49 +0000

MYTH BUSTER, living proof that there are no barrier’s to being a decent person regardless of your background and personal circumstance’s, thoroughly heart warming story.