A Brief History Of Coborn Street
Andrew Sargent sent me his account of Coborn St in Bow. If anyone else would like to submit a history of their street, please drop me line.
Every street London has a story to tell and Coborn St is no exception. It is a short thoroughfare leading north from Bow Rd, mid-way between Mile End and Bow Rd underground stations. On the west side are pairs of handsome Georgian houses and, on the east side, school buildings and a former sorting office.
Coborn St and the adjoining Coborn Rd were constructed in the eighteen-twenties by the trustees of the Coborn Estate. Prisca Coborn, the widow of a rich seventeenth century brewer, had left a large sum for the education of local boys and girls. A school was built and, in 1813, larger premises were opened where the former Bryant & May factory now stands. But the Trustees had overreached themselves and the money ran out, so an Act of Parliament was passed to allow them to sell and lease land from the Coborn Estate for building purposes. Thus by 1830, Coborn St and Coborn Rd (once Cut Throat Lane) had been developed.
What made Coborn St distinctive was the decision to build pairs of houses rather than terraces, like those along Bow Rd and ubiquitous throughout London for the previous hundred and fifty years. We presume the developers wanted the street to look and feel a bit special, and attract a respectable class of resident. The 1851 census reveals they were successful. Several of the residents had connections with the docks and in particular – to judge from their places of birth – with the North East collier trade. Every house had at least one live-in servant, many of whom were young girls were from the Home Counties. A reminder that rural poverty in the South East was one of the social problems of the age.
In 1871, the most common occupation in the census was “clerk.” We know from Dickens that many clerks were woefully paid yet those living in Coborn St appear to have been several rungs above that. There were also merchants, insurance and estate agents, auctioneers, teachers and an engineer with the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Several residents were famous in their day. On the east side lived William Gibbs Rogers, “formerly sculptor to the late Duke of Sussex and subsequently the Queen,” whose finest work drew comparisons with Grinling Gibbons. James Meadows, who died at 12 Coborn St in 1863, had been one of London’s top stage set designers who took to maritime painting in later life. 30 Coborn St was once the home of the formidable James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission. Renamed the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in 1964, the mission today claims 1,400 missionary workers in forty nations. And it was because of Hudson Taylor and the CIM that the young Dr Barnardo came to lodge in Coborn St in 1866, though whether at No 30 or No 33 remains unknown.
One of Music Hall’s biggest stars, Colin Whitton McCallum, that is to say Charlie Coborn, adopted his stage name after passing Coborn Street on a tram. His most famous song was The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo which he reckoned to have sung a quarter if a million times and could perform in forty languages.
By 1880, almost all of north Bow had been filled with streets of houses. Near Coborn St, there was now Holy Trinity, a new Anglican church, as well as a Methodist chapel and, rather wonderfully, a railway station in Coborn Rd. Built in 1865, this was given the name “Coborn Rd for Old Ford” in 1883 and was finally closed in 1946.
Almost directly opposite Coborn St stood a remarkably grand workhouse now redeveloped into housing, originally built in 1849 at the huge cost of £55,000. How could the local Poor Law guardians afford such expenditure? The answer is the workhouse was built by the City of London Poor Law Union for the destitute from the Square Mile. In 1909, the workhouse became a hospital, later christened St Clement’s prior to its current identity as a luxury residential quarter.
A rapidly expanding population meant that more schools were needed and it would be heartening to record that, when the London School Board wanted to build a new school in Coborn St, the residents were supportive. Not a bit of it. The matter even reached the House of Commons where, in June 1883, the Minister was asked whether consent had been given to build the new school.
“…notwithstanding the remonstrances made by a large number of inhabitants, whether he was aware that the district consisted almost entirely of private houses inhabited by people in a good position in life, and such as was likely to be seriously depreciated in value by the erection of the proposed school”
Despite objections, the school was built and the street did not suffer unduly. Certainly when Charles Booth and his team came to map the incidence of poverty, Coborn St was coloured red, “fairly comfortable, good ordinary earnings”. Only yellow streets were better – indicating “upper middle and upper classes” – and there were none of these in the whole East End.
Another contemporary mapping exercise was undertaken to establish the extent of the Jewish East End. It is fascinating to see that, although two miles or so from Whitechapel, the streets around Tredegar Square were shown as having a majority of Jewish inhabitants. Although the mapping did not reach Coborn St, we may assume that it was a similar demographic. It is certainly possibly to name many Jewish inhabitants of Coborn Street from public records.
In the twentieth century, most of the houses on the east side of Coborn St were demolished as Malmesbury Primary School expanded southwards, a new building for Coborn Girls School was opened at the corner of Bow Rd and a postal sorting office was built in between. Light industry arrived in the buildings on the east side, and in some of the Georgian houses opposite. Spiro Naphtali manufactured waterproof clothing for a time, and Sophie Cockerton’s sausage factory lasted, in various incarnations, for a hundred years. By then, owners and landlords of the remaining houses were renting rooms to short-term tenants, skilled artisans rather than the white-collar workers who had once lived there.
Coborn St is different today. After the demolition of the depot at the junction with Bow Road, a blocks of flats in the style of the Georgian houses was built. In 1995, “Delenco Meat Products” moved to Leyton and a century of sausage making in the street came to an end. Then the last old buildings on the east side of the street were lost to the expansion of what had now become Central Foundation School.
One by one, the Georgian houses in the street have been modernised, often expensively so. Built originally with a view to attracting professional residents, Coborn St gradually became more socially mixed and light industry arrived but, over time, many of the properties fell into disrepair. In a sense, the street has gone full circle in two hundred years.
At the south end of Coborn St
At the north end of Coborn St
Malmesbury School built in 1883 despite residents’ objections
Pairs of Regency villas in Coborn Rd
Terrace in Coborn Rd
Coborn Street is shown almost fully developed in this map of 1829
Ecclesiastical Sculptor William Gibbs Rogers lived in Coborn St (Image courtesy British Museum)
Kentish Harbour painted by James Meadows of 12 Coborn St in 1865
James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, lived at 30 Coborn St
Dr Barnado lodged in Coborn St in 1866
Coborn Rd Station
Only the entrance of Coborn Rd Station has survived
On this map of the Jewish East End from 1899, blue shading indicates that between 50% and 75% of the residents were Jewish
Harold Steggles’ 1931 painting of Coborn St (courtesy Estate of Harold Steggles)
House on the east side of Coborn St before demolition
Coborn St in the eighties
The last days of Delenco Meat Products
Coborn Motors (established 1960), Coborn Rd
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Alf Rubinstein, The Purse King
Ghost signs expert Sam Roberts tells the forgotten story of Alf Rubinstein, The Purse King, drawing upon the research of Faith Carpenter
It is easy to miss this ghost sign on Stoke Newington Church St, fading up high on a Georgian terrace. Yet – once noticed – it is hard to forget, not least for the faint proclamation of ‘Alf, the Purse King’ under the top two windows on the left. Although he was only present in this building for a few years in the middle of the twenties, Alf Rubinstein enjoyed a successful life in the leather trade with an East End empire that stretched as far afield as Great Yarmouth.
Alf’s story may have been lost to history had he not commissioned this painted sign. He was born around 1876 to Marks and Sarah Rubinstein who had arrived from Poland in the early eighteen-seventies. His birth name was Abraham but he later adopted Alf, a common transition among the Jewish community at that time. In fact, his second wife’s family took a step further, adopting the surname King in honour of the business Alf built.
Marks and Sarah’s young family lived first at Goodmans Fields in Aldgate and then Commercial Rd where, in 1891, Marks was working as a ‘money purse manufacturer.’ He was assisted in this endeavour by a sixteen-year-old Alf and a lodger, the ‘fancy purse cutter,’ Wolf Lipperlitz. By the turn of the century, this cottage industry had expanded and Alf was selling their wares on a stall at Petticoat Lane Market which continued until long after his death in 1941.
Alf married his first wife, Lena, in the last years of the nineteenth century and by 1901 they were living with their two children on Anthony St, near to his parents’ home on Commercial Rd. A year later they set up in an eight-bedroom house on Paradise Row in Bethnal Green where the family eventually grew to seven children. After Lena’s death Alf married again, this time to Ninka, a dancer with whom he had more children, the last of which was Samuel, born in 1934 when Alf was in his late-fifties.
The leather trade suited Alf and he made a great success of it with shops in Brighton, Luton, Sutton, Victoria and Wood Green, in addition to Petticoat Lane. The factory in Stoke Newington was a relatively short-lived affair but the ghost sign references a shop much further away in Great Yarmouth where Alf opened a kosher guesthouse and an outlet selling his leather goods. That shop was managed by his youngest son Samuel well into this century although the premises were destroyed by fire in 2016, four years after Samuel’s death.
Since this last outpost of the firm’s hundred-and-twenty-year history went up in flames five years ago, the faded sign Alf commissioned in the twenties is all that remains as testimony to the family business he built in his father’s footsteps. Alf Rubinstein is eternally the Purse King.
A close-up of the sign
A reconstruction by Roy Reed of how the sign once looked
Alf Rubinstein behind his stall c.1920
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Postcards From Petticoat Lane
Today I am sending you postcards from Petticoat Lane. Here are the eager crowds of a century ago, surging down Middlesex St and through Wentworth St, everyone hopeful for a bargain and hungry for wonders, dressed in their Sunday best and out to see the sights. Yet this parade of humanity is itself the spectacle, making its way from Spitalfields through Petticoat Lane Market and up to Aldgate, before disappearing into the hazy distance. There is an epic quality to these teeming processions which, a hundred years later, appear emblematic of the immigrants’ passage through this once densely populated neighbourhood, where so many came in search of a better life.
At a casual glance, these old postcards are so similar as to be indistinguishable – but it is the differences that are interesting. On closer examination, the landmarks and geography of the streets become apparent and then, as you scrutinise the details of these crowded compositions, individual faces and figures stand out from the multitude. Some are preoccupied with their Sunday morning, while others raise their gaze in vain curiosity – like those gentlemen above, comfortable at being snapped for perpetuity whilst all togged up in their finery.
When the rest of London was in church, these people congregated to assuage their Sunday yearning in a market instead, where all temporal requirements might be sought and a necessary sense of collective human presence appreciated within the excited throng. At the time these pictures were taken, there was nowhere else in London where Sunday trading was permitted and, since people got paid in cash on Friday, if you wanted to buy things cheap at the weekend, Petticoat Lane was the only place to go. It was a dramatic arena of infinite possibility where you could get anything you needed, and see life too.
Images copyright © Bishopsgate Institute
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Laurie Allen of Petticoat Lane
The Wax Sellers of Wentworth St
Lawrence Gowing’s Departure From Mare St
Mare St, 1937
“I set to work at once on the flat roof of a furniture shop facing the corner of Dalston Lane (to the right of the picture) where my father and his father before him had his drapery business, until it failed shortly before in competition with the multiple draper down the road,” wrote Lawrence Gowing (1918-91), “I had lately helped behind the cash desk, not all dependably, at the closing-down sale… The next tenants who had failed in their turn, covered the fascia, which was inscribed in gold on brown glass, R.H. Gowing & Son, The Busy Corner.”
Painted when Lawrence was just nineteen years old, this painting embodies the moment when his artistic career took off and carried him away from the East End forever. His grandfather Robert Henry Gowing had opened the drapers’ shop at 419 Mare Street (on the far right of the painting) in the nineteenth century and lived above the business, but Lawrence’s father, Horace Gowing bought a house in Stamford Hill where he brought up his family. Lawrence was sent away to a Quaker boarding school at Colwall in Herefordshire where art teacher Maurice Feild recognised his ability and encouraged the young artist to paint landscapes in the open air.
When Lawrence returned to London after failing his school certificates, his father arranged for him to become an insurance clerk but, through an introduction by Maurice Feild to William Coldstream, Kenneth Clarke, Director of the National Gallery bought one of Lawrence’s paintings and, fortunately, this was sufficient for Lawrence’s father to permit his son to pursue a career as a painter. A photograph of the time shows him as pale faced young man in a felt hat, nicely dressed in a well cut tweed jacket and trousers, wielding a paintbrush and poised behind an easel in the open air.
William Coldstream persuaded Lawrence that, “as the existence of painting depended on people wishing for it… it should represent subjects of interest to them,” and the result was this picture of Mare Street undertaken for an exhibition of views of London at the Storran Gallery in Albany Courtyard, Piccadilly in 1938. Lawrence adopted the broad perspective to which he had become accustomed in painting rural landscapes and employed the technique that Maurice Feild taught him, of cutting a rectangular frame from a cigarette packet and looking through it to establish a composition. Subsequently, when the work was shown three years later at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford as part of an exhibition of paintings by the Euston Road Group, Clive Bell acclaimed it as “the surprise of a surprising exhibition.”
In later years, Lawrence revealed an ambivalence about the picture. “My own purpose was not elegant,” he wrote, ”I privately thought of the subdued but respectful manner in which I painted as in some way identifying with people deprived of the fruits of their labour, among whom I should have counted the entire population of Hackney. I think a debonair, failed draper-master was regarded as more laudable than a successful one, but I took my father no more seriously, alas, than most sons.”
Irrespective of Lawrence’s questioning of his own artistic motives in retrospect, his choice of subject matter, painting a location that was familiar to him in childhood and of major significance for his father and grandfather, memorialised his own family history. The picture counterbalances a sense of departure with a private elegy for the lives of previous generations. Yet the irony is that it was the closure of the Gowing family drapery business which granted Lawrence the opportunity to leave and seek an artistic career instead.
Mare St today
419 Mare St, formerly R.H. Gowing & Son, The Busy Corner
Lawrence Gowing’s painting reproduced courtesy of Jonathan Clarke Fine Art
Take a look at some of the other artists featured in East End Vernacular
Harold & Walter Steggles, Artists
Jill Green, Designer & Maker
I met my old friend Jill Green in the street yesterday and she told me that she and her family had suffered from the Coronavirus at Christmas and now she is working to get her business going again. Please support Jill by visiting www.shopjill.com
My pockets were wearing out with all the coins until I bought this purse with foxes on it from Jill Green in the Sunday market. This modest little purse has served me well, it is a perfect piece of design and use has only improved its beauty.
All credit goes to Jill, who designs and manufactures them along with other screen-printed artefacts in her attic workshop high above the Brick Lane. Originally from Leeds, she studied graphics at Glasgow School of Art and expected no more than to end up working in Tesco, but spent a couple of years in various design jobs before starting out on her own eighteen years ago.
Jill has a technique of printing on leather whereby the soft suede pile is only exposed within the images – this is what gives the foxes on my purse such a convincingly rich colour and texture. Using this specialist technique, she makes an attractive range of small leather goods. Each piece is designed, printed and sewn together by Jill herself using leather from local suppliers. She loves making things and, as my purse illustrates, these are not mere novelty items, they are robust and functional too – desirable to own and a pleasure to use.
I want to celebrate Jill because she manifests the essence of what makes this place interesting to me. For centuries, Spitalfields has been celebrated for artisan culture and Jill embodies this tradition. Running her own business, she is a designer of real talent, who is also highly skilled and experienced in printing and sewing too. It is no small achievement that she makes a living doing this because she is a perfectionist and puts a lot of time into finishing every single piece to a high standard, which means the profit margin is low. But, justifiably, she has great pride in what she does and I think her work deserves wider recognition, so I was pleased when Jill was approached by Liberty. In fact, I know of people who buy her beautifully screen-printed cards for a few pounds and then frame them.
When I used to visit her workshop, Jill was always hard at work, busy and excited, making things. I love her leather pencil cases with black cats on them. Reflecting her own Northern character, there is a very personal droll humour to all Jill’s work that I find immensely appealing.
Take a look at Jill’s leather purses and pencil cases here
Jill Green screen-printing pencil cases in her workshop high above Brick Lane
Grey suede pencil case with black cats by Jill
Jill’s 2021 Bird Calendar is still available
Blackbird screen print by Jill
Gold foxes purse by Jill
List Of Local Shops Open For Business
Crispin St, 1985
These are the essential shops that are open in Spitalfields and vicinity during the current lockdown. Readers are especially encouraged to support small independent businesses who offer an invaluable service to the community. This list confirms that it is possible to source all essential supplies locally without recourse to supermarkets.
Be advised many shops are operating limited opening hours at present, so I recommend you call in advance to avoid risking a wasted journey. Please send any additions or amendments for next week’s list to spitalfieldslife@gmail.com
This week’s illustrations are photographs by Philip Marriage.Click here to see more
Old Montague St, 1970
GROCERS & FOOD SHOPS
The Albion, 2/4 Boundary St
Ali’s Mini Superstore, 50d Greatorex St
AM2PM, 210 Brick Lane
Planet Organic, 132 Commercial St
Banglatown Cash & Carry, 67 Hanbury St
Breid Bakery, Arch 72, Dunbridge St
Brick Lane Minimarket, 100 Brick Lane
The Butchery Ltd, 6a Lamb St
City Supermarket, 10 Quaker St
Costprice Minimarket, 41 Brick Lane
Faizah Minimarket, 2 Old Montague St
JB Foodstore, 97 Brick Lane
Haajang’s Corner, 78 Wentworth St
Leila’s Shop, 17 Calvert Avenue
Nisa Local, 92 Whitechapel High St
Pavilion Bakery, 130 Columbia Rd
Rinkoff’s Bakery, 224 Jubilee Street & 79 Vallance Rd
Sylhet Sweet Shop, 109 Hanbury St
Taj Stores, 112 Brick Lane
Zaman Brothers, Fish & Meat Bazaar, 19 Brick Lane
E. Olive Ltd, Umbrella Manufacturers, Hanbury St, 1985
TAKE AWAY FOOD SHOPS
Before you order from a delivery app, why not call the take away or restaurant direct?
Absurd Bird Fried Chicken, 54 Commercial St
Al Badam Fried Chicken, 37 Brick Lane
Allpress Coffee, 58 Redchurch St
Band of Burgers, 22 Osborn St
Beef & Birds, Brick Lane
Beigel Bake, 159 Brick Lane
Beigel Shop, 155 Brick Lane
Bellboi Coffee, 104 Sclater St
Bengal Village, 75 Brick Lane
Big Moe’s Diner, 95 Whitechapel High St
Burro E Salvia Pastificio, 52 Redchurch St
Cafe 388, 388 Bethnal Green Rd
China Feng, 43 Commercial St
Circle & Slice Pizza, 11 Whitechapel Rd
Crosstown Doughnuts, 157 Brick Lane
Dark Sugars, 45a Hanbury St (Take away ice cream and deliveries of chocolate)
Donburi & Co, Korean & Japanese, 13 Artillery Passage
Eastern Eye Balti House, 63a Brick Lane
Enso Thai & Japanese, 94 Brick Lane
Exmouth Coffee Shop, 83 Whitechapel High St
Grounded Coffee Shop, 9 Whitechapel Rd
Holy Shot Coffee, 155 Bethnal Green Rd
Hotbox Smoked Meats, 46-48 Commercial St
Jack The Chipper, 74 Whitechapel High St
Jonestown Coffee, 215 Bethnal Green Rd
Laboratorio Pizza, 79 Brick Lane
La Cucina, 96 Brick Lane
Leon, 3 Crispin Place, Spitalfields Market
Madhubon Sweets, 42 Brick Lane
Mooshies Vegan Burgers, 104 Brick Lane
Nude Expresso, The Roastery, 25 Hanbury St
E. Pellicci, 332 Bethnal Green Rd
Pepe’s Peri Peri, 82 Brick Lane
Peter’s Cafe, 73 Aldgate High St
Picky Wops Vegan Pizza, 53 Brick Lane
Polo Bar, 176 Bishopsgate
Poppies, 6-8 Hanbury St
Quaker St Cafe, 10 Quaker St
Rajmahal Sweets, 57 Brick Lane
Rosa’s Thai Cafe, 12 Hanbury St
Shawarma Lebanese, 84 Brick Lane
Shoreditch Fish & Chips, 117 Redchurch St
Sichuan Folk, 32 Hanbury St
String Ray Globe Cafe, 109 Columbia Road
Sushi Show, 136 Bethnal Green Rd
Vegan Yes, Italian & Thai Fusion, 64 Brick Lane
The Watch House, 139 Commercial St
White Horse Kebab, 336 Bethnal Green Rd
Yuriko Sushi & Bento, 48 Brick Lane
Brushfield St, 1985
OTHER SHOPS & SERVICES
Brick Lane Bookshop, 166 Brick Lane (Books ordered by phone or email are delivered free locally)
Brick Lane Bikes, 118 Bethnal Green Rd
Day Lewis Pharmacy, 14 Old Montague St
E1 Cycles, 4 Commercial St
Eden Floral Designs, 10 Wentworth St (Order fresh flowers online for free delivery)
Flashback Records, 131 Bethnal Green Rd (Order records online for delivery)
GH Cityprint, 58-60 Middlesex St
Harry Brand, 122 Columbia Road (Order gifts online for delivery)
Leyland Hardware, 2-4 Great Eastern St
Newman’s Stationery, 324 Bethnal Green Rd (Call for local delivery)
Post Office, 160a Brick Lane
Rose Locksmith & DIY, 149 Bethnal Green Rd
Sid’s DIY, 2 Commercial St
Toynbee St, 1970
ELSEWHERE
E1 Dry Cleaners, Cannon Street Rd, E1 2LY
E5 Bakehouse, Arch 395, Mentmore Terrace, London Fields (Customers are encouraged to order online and collect in person)
Gold Star Dry Cleaning & Laundry, 330 Burdett Rd
Hackney Essentials, 235 Victoria Park Rd
Quality Dry Cleaners, 16a White Church Lane
Newham Books, 747 Barking Rd (Books ordered by phone or email are posted out)
Rajboy, 564 Commercial Rd, E14 7JD (Take away service available)
Region Choice Chemist, 68 Cambridge Heath Rd
Symposium Italian Restaurant, 363 Roman Road (Take away service available)
Thompsons DIY, 442-444 Roman Rd
On the corner of Gun St & Brushfield St, 1967
Photographs copyright © Philip Marriage
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Happy Days At The Golden Heart
In three days, we have surpassed our initial target of £10,000, raising £11,630 to fund the Judicial Review of the Bethnal Green Mulberry Tree case at the High Court. Thankyou to the more than two hundred readers who have contributed. We believe the hearing may come in March and we will publish a link for readers to watch it live online. The funding page stays open so please spread the word to your family, friends and workmates. CLICK HERE TO SAVE THE BETHNAL GREEN MULBERRY
Contributing Photographer Phil Maxwell knows that the centre of the universe in Spitalfields is The Golden Heart on the corner of Hanbury St and Commercial St where publican Sandra Esqulant, hula-hoop champion and spiritual mother of our community, has presided for more than forty years.
“I cannot count the number of times I have said over recent weeks, “Wouldn’t it be great to go for a pint at The Golden Heart?” Relaxing with a drink and snatching a few moments with my friend Sandra has always been one of life’s great pleasures. Some of these photographs were taken as I drank a pint of real ale outside the ‘Heart’ in August 2018 with my partner Hazuan Hashim. If you enjoy people watching, then there was nowhere better in Spitalfields than the pavement outside The Golden Heart.”
Phil Maxwell
Photographs copyright © Phil Maxwell
Follow Phil Maxwell’s blog Playground of an East End Photographer
See more of Phil Maxwell’s work here
Phil Maxwell’s Kids on the Street
Phil Maxwell & Sandra Esqulant, Photographer & Muse
More of Phil Maxwell’s Old Ladies
Phil Maxwell’s Old Ladies in Colour
