At The Mile End Assembly Room
Today’s post is by Dr Heather Blasdale Clarke, a dance teacher and historian who is an authority on early Australian colonial dance
Music of the Mile End Assembly, 1748
In 1764, Captain James Cook moved with his young family to a new terraced house at 7 Assembly Row, Mile End. This area on the outskirts of London was developing as a respectable and convenient location for those with an interest in maritime affairs. Nearby were the fine houses of prosperous members of the East India Company, and along Mile End Rd stood the Trinity Almshouses, built in 1695 to house the “decayed Masters and Commanders of ships or ye widows of such.”
Situated behind Assembly Row terrace was the Mile End Assembly Room. In the eighteenth century, assembly rooms were important venues at a time when dancing was a noteworthy social activity. They also provided for meetings, concerts and other entertainments. This particular venue was celebrated in the dance Mile End Assembly, which was first published in 1748 and was reprinted four times over the next nine years, reflecting its popularity.
Very little is known about Cook’s personal or family life and it is entirely possible that he took advantage of the proximity to the Assembly Rooms for dancing, tea-drinking and socialising on his days of leisure. It would have been a central meeting place for the owners and captains of ships in the East India Company, as well as officers in the Royal Navy who lived in the area. It may have provided Cook with the opportunity to meet people who could help advance his career.
Another place nearby where dancing was popular was the Bell Tavern. Just a short walk from the wharves, shops and warehouses which lined the bustling waterfront, the Bell Tavern on the Ratliff Highway was one of the few reputable establishments in Shadwell, offering food and lodgings to visiting seamen.
It seems Cook stayed at the Tavern on occasions in the years from 1746 to 1755, on his trips from Whitby to London, delivering cargos of coal, wood, and other produce. It could take a week to unload a collier, during which time the crew was billeted in the wharf side taverns. He would have been aware that music and dance were key amusements for sailors, and conducive to their well-being and good humour, a factor he recognised when encouraging his crew to dance on the long voyages in the Pacific.
It was at the Tavern that Cook first encountered Elizabeth Batts, daughter of the well-respected proprietors, Mary and John. On 21st December 1762, James, aged thirty-four, and Elizabeth, aged twenty, married at St Margaret’s Church, Barking. After the wedding they lived for a time with her parents in Upper St, Shadwell. Cook had returned to sea to survey the coast of Newfoundland but raced home when he learnt of the arrival of their first child, James. This addition to the family sparked the move to their own house at Mile End, where they enjoyed family life together whenever Cook was home from sea.
Although Elizabeth knew about the lives of seafaring men and the long separations which were the lot of sailors’ wives, little could she have anticipated the protracted voyages her husband undertook to the far side of the world. Of their seventeen years of marriage, approximately four were spent together, before they were parted by his death in 1779. Elizabeth lived for another fifty-six years, surviving all six of their children. George, Joseph and Elizabeth died in infancy, Nathaniel, aged fifteen died eight months after his father, Hugh died, aged seventeen in 1793, from scarlet fever and James, thirty-one, drowned in 1794. Throughout her life Elizabeth maintained the greatest respect for her husband and regarded her memories as sacred. Prior to her death in 1835, she destroyed all their private records and correspondence. Little is known of their life together, but perhaps one of her happy reminiscences was dancing at the Mile End Assembly.
Nothing remains of Cook’s home in Mile End. Despite the house being recognised as a significant historical building, it was demolished in 1958 to widen access to a car park. Now a plaque on a brick wall designates the site of his family home. The location of the once famous Assembly Room is still recalled by a thoroughfare named Assembly Passage.
Assembly Passage
Advertisement for the Mile End Assembly, Public Advertiser, October 18th 1769
Captain Cook’s house, c.1936
Captain Cook’s house, c.1940
Wall constructed after demolition of Captain Cook’s house, 1968
Civic dignitaries unveil a plaque to Captain Cook in 1970
Elizabeth Cook (1742–1835) by William Henderson, 1830
Captain James Cook (1728-79) by Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, c. 1775
Captain James Cook’s signature
Archive images courtesy Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives
Read more about Dr Heather Clarke’s studies at Australian Colonial Dance
The Fate Of The Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of bell casting to the east of the City of London when he lived above the gatehouse in Aldgate and the earliest record of bell founding in Whitechapel is 1360. Yet last night a decision was made by Tower Hamlets Council which could draw this noble foundry history to an end after seven centuries in this place.
I arrived at the Town Hall for the meeting to decide the fate of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry with a sense of foreboding and unfortunately this was not dispelled. It was obvious something was amiss when the international petition of over 20,000 people to save the foundry, another of over 2000 residents of the borough and 780 letters of objection to the hotel proposal were passed over by the planning officer in the blink of an eye. Instead, careful attention was paid to the points raised in the five letters of support received for the bell-themed boutique hotel proposal for the foundry.
The emphasis throughout was on how the hotel scheme guaranteed the preservation of the listed eighteenth-century buildings, while the most significant heritage asset – that of the foundry usage itself – was dismissed as having being extinguished when it shut two years ago. As if a theatre is no longer a theatre when a play is not being performed.
Bippy Siegel, the New York plutocrat who bought the foundry to redevelop it as a hotel, sat in the council chamber presiding as his silver-tongued minions played their roles to deliver his desired outcome. Bippy recently bought a stake in the Soho House chain and this Whitechapel development with its rooftop swimming pool has all the characteristics of a Soho House property.
In Bippy’s first proposal, the foundry buildings were to become restaurants and bars. But when this attracted public objections and UK Historic Building Preservation Trust published their alternative proposal for a revitalised foundry, he amended his scheme to include some of the elements of the UKHBPT scheme. His second application deliberately played down the boutique hotel and played up ‘re-instating the foundry.’ In this version, the new hotel is separate at the back of the site and the front buildings become creative workshops with a coffee shop overlooking a small foundry.
Yet Councillor Leema Qureshi spoke for many when she said, ‘I am not convinced by the benefits of the Raycliff scheme. The history is going to be wiped out.’
Bearing in mind UKHBPT’s award-winning track record at Middleport Pottery which has led the regeneration of Stoke, she asked if Bippy’s company, Raycliff, had undertaken any projects of this nature before. The council adviser informed her that this question was not relevant to the application in front of them, but I believe the answer is that Raycliff are solely in the hotel, restaurant and hospitality business.
It would not be hard for Raycliff – once their hotel tower is built – to revert to their original plan of absorbing the foundry buildings into the hotel, using these spaces for bars, restaurants and a private members’ club. And by then, it will be too late for anyone to object and the opportunity of continuation of real foundry usage in Whitechapel will be gone forever.
Some attention was paid by the councillors to the UKHBPT/Factum Foundation scheme to continue a proper working foundry and it was queried why they had not submitted their own planning application if there were really serious. Yet UKHBPT/FF want to continue the previous use and therefore require no planning permission.
The debate over the issue of Optimum Viable Use grew rather convoluted, starting from the unproven position that the previous use was no longer viable because the foundry shut in 2017 and concluding that Raycliff’s proposal is the Optimum Viable Use because it is ready to go and it protects the building.
Yet Councillor Dan Tomlinson made the most important statement of the evening when he said, ‘If we approve this now and we don’t give attention to the people who are proposing an alternative scheme, then we have missed that opportunity forever.’
It was like watching the execution of an innocent man where everyone agreed that – bearing in mind the lack of evidence – the most prudent option was to execute him anyway because the noose was ready and it ensured there could be no future harm.
They voted three against and three in favour, with the chairman using his casting vote to approve it. Then the council chamber broke up in disorder.
In fact, while the Planning Consent had been voted on and approved, the Listed Building Consent had not been voted on by the committee. In the uproar, Chairman Abdul Mukit had a brief discussion with the council advisor about whether they should assume the result was the same for both the Planning Consent and the Listed Building Consent. Astonishingly, they agreed to do so without this vote even taking place.
I walked to the station with Nigel Taylor who worked at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry for forty years. ‘It does not end here,’ he declared to me in exasperation, before running for his train.
Campaigners at the Town Hall photographed by Sarah Ainslie
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D Day For The Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Schrodinger says, bring a bell and gather at 6pm tonight outside the Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, E14 2BG prior to the public Planning Committee Meeting which will decide upon the developers’ application for change of use from bell foundry to bell-themed boutique hotel
Planning reasons why Tower Hamlets Council should reject the application for change of use from bell foundry to boutique hotel
1. The developer Raycliff is proposing constructing a hotel on land at the rear of the foundry and using the listed foundry buildings as a café and workspaces. This change of use of the foundry buildings causes ‘substantial harm’ as defined by the National Planning Policy Framework.
2. The benefits that the developer claims the hotel will bring cannot be used to justify the harm done to the foundry itself.
3. The foundry site and the foundry business within it comprise the listed building and the heritage asset. Raycliff, Historic England and Tower Hamlets Council, ALL recognise that the conversion from a working foundry is harmful to this heritage asset.
There is NO justification for this substantial harm.
BECAUSE:
A. The hotel can happen anyway.
B. The foundry can continue as a working foundry.
C. There is no evidence that this cannot happen since no marketing to find a company to continue the foundry use has been done.
The planning argument put forward by Tower Hamlets Planning Officers, recommending approval of Raycliff’s application, is flawed and this is set out in detail in the legal statement by Litchfields, UK Historic Building Preservation Trust’s planning advisors, which is attached below.
The Trust’s scheme for the listed foundry buildings delivers highly skilled artisan and contemporary jobs for the youth of the borough AND apprenticeships, JUST as they have done in Stoke, one of the most deprived communities in this country. This scheme does not preclude the construction of a hotel on the land at the rear of the foundry.
There is overwhelming international and local support for the retention of a proper working foundry at Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
STOP THIS HERITAGE VANDALISM and throw out this application.
TELL THE APPLICANT to come back with a planning application for the land at the rear of the foundry only, AND sell the foundry to someone who will run this country’s oldest business for the benefit of everyone.
Click on the legal statement below by Litchfields, (UK Historic Building Preservation Trust’s planning advisors) to enlarge and read
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Nigel Taylor, Tower Bell Manager
Four Hundred Years at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
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Hope for The Whitechapel Bell Foundry
A Petition to Save the Bell Foundry
Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
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An Old Whitechapel Bell
This Thursday 14th November Tower Hamlets Planning Committee meet to decide the fate of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Bring a bell and join the protest before the meeting at 6pm outside the Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, E14 2BG
‘Robert Mot made me’
This is one of the oldest Whitechapel Bells still in use, cast by Robert Mot in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada and also the year William Shakespeare arrived in London. Yet, even though Robert Mot is remembered as the founder of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1570, he did not begin the industry of founding in this location since bells are recorded as having been cast in Whitechapel as early as 1360.
Adorned with the sparse text of ‘Robertus Mot me fecit,’ this bell declares its birth date of 1588 in delicate gothic numerals and indicates its origin through use of the symbol of three bells upon a disc – at the sign of the three bells – the Whitechapel maker’s mark.
I climbed the tower of St Clement Danes in the Strand to photograph this bell for you this week and discovered it shares a common ancestry with its fellows in the belfry which were also cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, but by Mears & Stainbank in 1958 – nearly four centuries later. Close examination reveals they also carry the symbol of the three bells.
With a diameter of two feet and a weight of just over two hundredweight, Robert Mot’s bell is relatively modest in scale yet a dignified specimen nonetheless with its broken canons (the hoops that used to be attached to all bells to attach them to a beam) emphasising the exotic vulnerability of its age – as if it were a rare metal flower plucked roughly from a mythological tree, long extinct.
Today, the old Whitechapel bell rings the Angelus and may be heard by passersby in the Strand at 7:55am, 11:55am and 17:55pm. Its earlier function as the clock bell may be the reason the old bell has survived, since the other bells were removed by Rector William Pennington-Bickford during World War II for safe keeping at the base of the tower.
St Clement Danes was established in 886 when Alfred the Great expelled the Danes from the City of London and they settled along the Strand. Escaping the Great Fire, the church was in a decayed state and considerably rebuilt by Christopher Wren in the sixteen-eighties, with a spire added by James Gibbs on top of the old bell tower in 1719. During the eighteenth century, St Clement’s acquired a literary congregation including local residents Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick but, by the nineteenth century, fashionable society had moved to the churches of the West End.
Septimus Pennington, Rector from 1889, set out to minister to the flower girls and street traders of Clare Market and Drury Lane, work continued by his successor and son-in-law, Rector William Pennington-Bickford in the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, Pennington-Bickford’s worst expectations were realised when St Clement’s was hit by more than twenty fire bombs on the night of 12th May 1941, reducing the church to a shell.
Fearful that looters might steal the fire-damaged bells and melt them down, Pennington-Bickford had them bricked up in the Rector’s parlour and died from grief three months later, only to be followed by his wife who threw herself from a window shortly after. Yet through all this, Robert Mot’s bell was safe, hanging up in the bell tower. Postwar, St Clement’s was rebuilt again to Wren’s designs and the damaged bells recovered from the Rector’s parlour, recast in Whitechapel and rehung in the tower in 1958. Today, it is the church of the Royal Air Force.
When I asked Alan Taylor, Bell Ringer at St Clement’s, his opinion of the sound of the old Whitechapel bell, he wrinkled up his nose in disapproval. ‘Bell founding was a bit hit-or-miss in those days,’ he informed me, shaking his head.
As the Sanctus Bell, Robert Mot’s bell was originally used to summon the congregation to prayer, but I imagine it could also have been rung at the time of the Spanish Armada. Ancient bells connect us to all those who heard them through the centuries and, given the date of 1588, this is one that William Shakespeare could have heard echoing down the street, when he walked the Strand as a newcomer to London, come to seek his destiny.
Cast in 1588 by Robert Mot, Founder of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Whitechapel bell cast in 1958 by Mears & Stainbank
Panel in the bell ringing chamber
Old church board, now in the crypt, indicating this was once the church for Clare Market & Drury Lane
Nineteenth century photograph of Clare Market (Courtesy Bishopsgate Institute)
Nineteenth century photograph of Drury Lane (Courtesy Bishopsgate Institute)
St Clement Danes – Robert Mot’s bell is in the belfry above the clock
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Nigel Taylor, Tower Bell Manager
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A Petition to Save the Bell Foundry
Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
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Gillian Tindall’s War Time Memories
Contributing Writer Gillian Tindall’s new book The Pulse Glass and the Beat of Other Hearts has just been published by Chatto & Windus and will be read as Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 in the last week of November
Gillian aged two with a Sunday guest who died a few months later when his plane disappeared on a clandestine mission
This year is the eightieth anniversary of the start of the Second World War but newspaper coverage has been muted. Yet anyone who was old enough to fight in that war is now over ninety and these valued survivors become fewer with every month that passes.
Is it perhaps that the Second War – compared with the First – had an uncertain beginning and a long-drawn-out ending? Let us remember the moment on 3rd September 1939, when poor Mr Chamberlain – forever unfairly remembered as a failure in a wing collar – was forced to admit on the BBC that his belief that Hitler would keep his word and not invade Poland had failed, ‘and that in consequence this country is now at war with Germany.’
We went into well-organised panic mode since it was believed that London would be instantly bombed flat. Huge numbers of coffins had been stock-piled. Enormous plans to rush all school children, mothers of smaller ones and pregnant women away to the supposedly safer countryside, were put into action. Everyone waited with indrawn breath. Only nothing happened.
There followed almost eight months of what became known as ‘the phoney war’ when daily life in Britain remained remarkably unchanged. Most people old enough to have wartime memories are inclined to date the true beginning of the war from the invasion of France in May 1940. My husband is among those. One of his earliest memories is of playing in the garden as a very small boy when his mother came out to say ‘France has fallen – we’re on our own now!’ His alarmed reaction was ‘What, me and my Mum against the Germans? What will we do!’
Fortunately the egocentricity of the young works protectively too and, when the bombs began to fall on London later in the year, he was reassured by his grandparents’ fatalistic belief that if a bomb had your name on it then it would kill you but if it did not you would be safe. Indeed, while the neighbours made for the shelter of the Underground when the siren sounded, his family sat out the Blitz of 1940-41 in their house. Only the cat was apprehensive enough to go under the table.
Such are memories of my generation, now respectfully collected by grandchildren, school pupils and students probing psychology. Yet, however willing the participants are to walk down memory lane, how difficult it is to convey the truth, especially the sheer ordinariness of war if you were too young to remember anything else.
I first opened by eyes and looked around at a world already heavily engaged in conflict. Most dads were absent – strangers in uniform who appeared rarely, if at all. All butter, sugar, meat, sweets, and tinned foods were rationed, and this seemed perfectly normal. Occasionally a grown-up would tell me ‘When the war’s over we’ll be able to have as much chocolate/jam/biscuits as we like!’ This sounded so improbable to me that I just assumed they were lying. Of course one could not have everything one wanted, that was the natural order of things. Perhaps it was useful lesson for life of which subsequent generations have not had the benefit?
Recently a bunch of students asked if I and several other seniors had been traumatised by the war. Although we were interviewed separately we all, both men and women, apparently said `No, no, we thought that was just the way things were.’
We knew we were the goodies fighting the baddies and that seemed logical and right. But what about the bombing? ‘Just part of the surroundings’, we said. None of us had been bombed out but we were all familiar with the sight of a ripped-open house with an interior wall, often complete with a fire-place and wall-paper, open to the elements. This was still the case for years after the war. We grew up with ruins which made splendid adventure playgrounds. The rebuilding of London and other cities took time. Even when I was virtually grown up, acres of small streets that had lain between St Paul’s and the Thames were still blossoming with yarrow and rosebay willow-herb.
I only have two memories that contain an element of shock. One must date from the spring of 1945. Since the Allied landings in Normandy the previous summer, the grown-ups had been able to say ‘Yes, we are winning the war now!’ After a day in the West End, my mother took me to a newsreel cinema, where they specialised also in travelogues and cartoons – a treat for a child in a pre-television world.
When the Pathe News came on there appeared the first footage of Belsen concentration camp, which the British had just entered. I remember to this day the shocked words of the commentator and the images, but what impressed me most was the reaction of those around me me. Someone was hissing, someone else was saying aloud ‘Oh the poor, poor things.’ Several grown ups were crying. At this point my mother hastily bundled me out of the cinema, thereby inadvertently imprinting the whole thing on me for life.
The other memory from the same year must have been either VE or VJ Day. I was allowed to stay up into the middle of the night to see the celebratory bonfire lit on the green in the village where my grandparents lived. There was a torchlit procession with people dressed up. Mr Jones the laundryman was pointed out to me, arrayed as a devil. On the top of the bonfire was a stuffed effigy. Hitler, I suppose. I knew that it was just like a big doll – yet when Mr Jones climbed up the pile, stuck his pitchfork into it several times and then slid down and set the whole pyre alight, I felt of shiver of something like atavistic dread. I think I was in no doubt that, had the effigy been a living man, Mr Jones would have acted just the same. The realisation of the human desire for retribution has stayed with me, as has the heat of that fire.
You may like to read these other stories by Gillian Tindall
Memories of Ship Tavern Passage
At Captain Cook’s House in Mile End
Where The White Chapel Once Stood
Adam Dant’s Children’s Games
Click on this image to enlarge
If I admit that Breugel is my favourite artist, perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that I got up the middle of the night in January to fly to Vienna and walk through a blizzard in the dawn in order to stand in front of his painting Children’s Games on the last day of the exhibition of his paintings?
Adam Dant has created this magnificent homage to Breugel’s picture for an auction at Christies in aid of the Well Child charity. How many of the games listed below can you spot in his drawing?
Gun run
Kiss chase
Fox hunt
Keepy-Uppy
Boules
Twister
Pogo stick
Parachute
Swing ball
Stick and railings
Head through the railings
Dolls
Dog dress up
Space hoppers
Broom Jousting
Skipping
Skateboarding
Rollerskating
Scooters
Blind mans bluff
Tag
Duck duck goose
Trolley dash
Noughts and crosses
Leapfrog
Sardines
Hide and Seek
Stilt walking
Hanging upside down
Tightrope walking
Balancing
Paratroopers
Drones
Monopoly / Cluedo / Ludo / snakes and ladders / chess / board games / racing games
Nintendo / Games boy / X box / Fortnite / ‘console’ games
Grab the i-pad
Ice bucket challenge
Hoopla
Spinning top
Poking poo
Blow football
Tin can telephone
Rock, paper, scissors
Follow the leader
Bumps
Beanpole swords
Capture the flag
French cricket
Catapult
Burst the balloon
Pirates
Hot lava
Obstacle course
Musical statues
Kite flying
Shoe chimes
Pinata
Window stickers
Ghosts
Ring a ring a roses
London Bridge is falling down
Hopscotch
Wink murder
Marbles
Ball games
Hobby horse
Cowboys and Indians
Chasing games
What’s the time Mr Wolf
Conkers
Make the Ice Cream last longest
Brain Freeze
Hula hoop
Tug o War
Love hearts
Window smashing
Hangman
Builders and Destroyers
Falling over
Red Rover
Go carting
Pumpkin carving
Window licking
Texting / Snapchat / Instagram etc
Breugel’s Children’s Games, 1560
CLICK TO ORDER A COPY OF MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND BY ADAM DANT
Adam Dant’s MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND is a mighty monograph collecting together all your favourite works by Spitalfields Life‘s Contributing Cartographer in a beautiful big hardback book.
Including a map of London riots, the locations of early coffee houses and a colourful depiction of slang through the centuries, Adam Dant’s vision of city life and our prevailing obsessions with money, power and the pursuit of pleasure may genuinely be described as ‘Hogarthian.’
Unparalleled in his draughtsmanship and inventiveness, Adam Dant explores the byways of London’s cultural history in his ingenious drawings, annotated with erudite commentary and offering hours of fascination for the curious.
The book includes an extensive interview with Adam Dant by The Gentle Author.
Adam Dant’s limited edition prints including CHILDREN’S GAMES are available to purchase through TAG Fine Arts
Save Our Bell Foundry
Raising the NOT FOR SALE sign on the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Bells are a universal symbol of hope and freedom. Our Whitechapel Bell Foundry is the most famous bell foundry in the world. This is where they cast the Liberty Bell which became the symbol of American independence in the eighteenth century, of the anti-slavery campaigners in the nineteenth century and the civil rights movement in the twentieth century. This is where they cast the Bow Bells which were broadcast by the BBC to occupied Europe during World War II as a symbol of freedom and resistance to fascism. This is where they cast Big Ben, the voice of Britain.
The list of bells cast here over the centuries and exported around the world is endless. Bells are still in demand and will always be in demand. Consequently, it would be an unthinkable act of vandalism if the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, its traditions and skills should be sacrificed for a bell-themed boutique hotel and private members club as developers Raycliff Capital are threatening to do.
Photographer Andrew Baker was there yesterday as protestors rallied at the East London Mosque before marching out in the rain, ringing handbells, to pin a NOT FOR SALE sign on the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
Next Thursday 14th November, Tower Hamlets Development Committee meet to consider the planning application by the developers for Change of Use from bell foundry to boutique hotel.
The planning regulations for Change of Use for industrial premises are precise. Firstly, the owner must prove that the previous use is no longer viable. There is no evidence of this with the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Secondly, the owner must prove that no-one wanted to buy the premises and continue the previous use. In this case, UK Historic Building Preservation Trust offered to buy the foundry to run it as a working foundry before the sale went through to Raycliff. Thirdly, the owner must market the property for a year seeking a company to continue the previous use. Raycliff have not done this.
Tower Hamlets Planning Committee’s legal responsibility is to decide the Optimum Viable Use for the foundry. By its nature, there can be only one Optimum Viable Use. So, while a boutique hotel might be viable, it is obvious that the Optimum Viable Use for the Whitechapel Bell Foundry is as a foundry.
It is disappointing that Historic England have chosen to support the boutique hotel proposal on the basis that a working foundry is no longer viable, without evidence to back this up. Even more disappointing is that Tower Hamlets Councillor Puru Miah’s Freedom of Information request, seeking all correspondence between Historic England and the developers, cannot be fulfilled before the planning meeting when the councillors will make their decision based upon Historic England’s flawed judgement.
Readers will recall how we collected more than two thousand signatures from residents of the borough back in August to trigger a debate at full council on the motion that Tower Hamlets Council adopt it as their policy to save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a working foundry. How unfortunate that the council ignored the wishes of those residents by refusing to have that debate.
Saturday’s protest was to have been held in Altab Ali Park in Whitechapel where rallies are frequently held. How unfortunate that the council which owns the park refused permission for the rally.
Mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs, said in council in September that he was open to meet with UK Historic Building Preservation Trust to hear the full details of their business plan for their scheme to buy the foundry, re-equip it for the twenty-first century and re-open it – as they did with such success at Middleport Pottery in Stoke. How unfortunate that he has been unable to find any space in his schedule for this in recent weeks.
Are these the actions of a council which seeks to preserve the living heritage of the borough that the Whitechapel Bell Foundry represents?
More than 21,000 people have signed an international petition to Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. 780 letters of objection to the boutique hotel proposal have been submitted to the council, with only 6 in favour of it.
Within Tower Hamlets, people have met in mosques and churches, in a campaign that has brought together diverse communities for the first time in a shared desire to save our collective cultural heritage. As someone said to me at one of these campaign meetings, ‘If they can take the Whitechapel Bell Foundry from us, they can take anything.’
I hope that all those who rang bells at yesterday’s protest will ring them again from 6pm on Thursday 14th November outside Tower Hamlets Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, E14 2BG to demonstrate the strength of feeling on this subject prior to the council meeting. The more who can attend this public meeting the better.
Robert Oliver, holding the bell made by his father, the Oliver family worked at the foundry for 250 years
Photographs copyright © Andrew Baker
You may also like to read about
Nigel Taylor, Tower Bell Manager
Four Hundred Years at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Pearl Binder at Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Dorothy Rendell at Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Hope for The Whitechapel Bell Foundry
A Petition to Save the Bell Foundry
Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
