In Old Holborn
Holborn Bars
Even before I knew Holborn, I knew Old Holborn from the drawing of half-timbered houses upon the tobacco tins in which my father used to store his rusty nails. These days, I walk through Holborn once a week on my way between Spitalfields and the West End, and I always cast my eyes up in wonder at this familiar fragment of old London.
Yet, apart from Leather Lane and the International Magic Shop on Clerkenwell Rd, I rarely have reason to pause in Holborn. It is a mysterious, implacable district of offices, administrative headquarters and professional institutions that you might never visit, unless you have business with a lawyer, or seek a magic trick or a diamond ring. So this week I resolved to wander in Holborn with my camera and present you with some of the under-appreciated sights to be discovered there.
Crossing the bed of the Fleet River at Holborn Viaduct, I took a detour into Shoe Lane. A curious ravine of a street traversed by a bridge and overshadowed between tall edifices, where the cycle-taxis have their garage in the cavernous vaults receding deep into the brick wall. John Stow attributed the name of Holborn to the ‘Old Bourne’ or stream that ran through this narrow valley into the Fleet here and, even today, it is not hard to envisage Shoe Lane with a river flowing through.
Up above sits Christopher Wren’s St Andrew’s, Holborn, that was founded upon the bank of the Fleet and stood opposite the entrance to the Bishop of Ely’s London residence, latterly refashioned as Christopher Hatton’s mansion. A stone mitre upon the front of the Mitre Tavern in Hatton Garden, dated 1546, is the most visible reminder of the former medieval palace that existed here, of which the thirteenth century Church of St Etheldreda’s in Ely Place was formerly the chapel. It presents a modest frontage to the street, but you enter through a stone passage way and climb a staircase to discover an unexpectedly large church where richly-coloured stained glass glows in the liturgical gloom.
Outside in Ely Place, inebriate lawyers in well-cut suits knocked upon a wooden door in a blank wall at the end of the street and brayed in delight to be admitted by this secret entrance to Bleeding Heart Yard, where they might discreetly pass the afternoon in further indulgence. Barely a hundred yards away across Hatton Garden where wistful loners eyed engagement rings, Leather Lane Market was winding down. The line at Boom Burger was petering out and the shoe seller was resting his feet, while the cheap dresses and imported fancy goods were packed away for another day.
Just across the road, both Staple Inn and Gray’s Inn offer a respite from the clamour of Holborn, with magnificent tranquil squares and well-kept gardens, where they were already raking autumn leaves from immaculate lawns yesterday. But the casual visitor may not relax within these precincts and, when the Gray’s Inn Garden shuts at two-thirty precisely, you are reminded that your presence is that of an interloper, at the gracious discretion of the residents of these grand old buildings.
Beyond lies Red Lion Sq, laid out in 1684 by the notorious Nicholas Barbon who, at the same time, was putting up cheap speculative housing in Spitalfields and outpaced the rapacious developers of our own day by commencing construction in disregard of any restriction. Quiet benches and a tea stall in this leafy yet amiably scruffy square offer an ideal place to contemplate the afternoon’s stroll.
Then you join the crowds milling outside Holborn tube station, which is situated at the centre of a such a chaotic series of junctions, it prompted Virginia Woolf to suggest that only the condition of marriage has more turnings than are to be found in Holborn.
The One Tun in Saffron Hill. reputed to be the origin of the Three Tuns in ‘Oliver Twist’
In Shoe Lane
St Andrew Holborn seen from Shoe Lane
On Holborn Viaduct
Christopher Wren’s St Andrew Holborn
In St Etheldreda’s, Ely Place
Staircase at St Etheldreda’s
The Mitre, Hatton Garden
Charity School of 1696 In Hatton Garden by Christopher Wren
Choosing a ring in Hatton Garden
In Leather Lane
Seeking sustenance in Leather Lane
Shoe Seller, Leather Lane
Barber in Lamb’s Conduit Passage
Staple Inn, 1900
In Staple Inn
In Staple Inn
In Gray’s Inn
In Gray’s Inn Gardens
In Gray’s Inn
John Bunyan died in Holborn in 1688
Chaos at Holborn Station
Rush hour at Holborn Station
Fusiliers memorial in High Holborn
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Phil Maxwell’s Whitechapel Market
“Whitechapel Market is the heart of the East End,” Contributing Photographer Phil Maxwell assured me recently,” I walk down there every day of my life and it gives me the energy that keeps me going. Stallholders work hard to sell their goods and make a living, and the customers are working hard to keep themselves together, because the food is cheaper there than in supermarket so it is very important resource for those on low incomes. It thasn’t been gentrified like Brick Lane, it’s people struggling to survive and it’s something I need to photograph – it’s the quintessential East End.”
Photographs copyright © Phil Maxwell
CLICK HERE TO GET A COPY OF PHIL MAXWELL’S ‘BRICK LANE ‘FOR £10
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Phil Maxwell’s Kids On The Street
Printers’ Terminology
In little over a year, I have become the publisher of five books and so I thought it was high time I acquainted myself with all the correct language that I may have a better grasp of what the printers are talking about. To this end, Charles Pertwee of Baddeley Brothers, the longest established engravers in the City of London & the East End, lent me his copy of John Southward’s ‘Dictionary of Typography’ from 1875, which lists all the relevant terminology. Today, I have selected some of my favourite entries – as much for their arcane poetry as for the education of my readers.
ABRIDGEMENT – An epitome of a book, made by omitting the less important matter.
ADVERSARIA – Commonplace books: a miscellaneous collection of notes remarks and extracts.
APPRENTICE – An apprentice is a person described in law books as a species of servant, and so called from the French verb apprendre – to learn – because he is bound by indenture to serve a master for a certain term, receiving in return for his services instruction in his masters’s trade, profession or art.
BASTARD TITLE – The short or condensed title preceding full title of the work.
BATTER – Any injury to the face of the type sufficient to prevent it showing clearly in printing.
BEARD OF A LETTER – The outer-angle of the square shoulder of the shank, which reaches almost to the face of the letter, and is commonly scraped off by the Founders, serving to leave a white square between the lower face of the type and the top part of any ascending letter which happen to come in the line following.
BIENVENUE – An obsolete term by which was meant formerly the fee paid on admittance to a ‘Chapel.’
BODKIN – A pointing steel instrument used in correcting, to pick wrong or imperfect letters out of a page.
BOTCHED – Carelessly or badly-done work.
BOTTLE-ARSED – Type that is wider at the bottom than the top.
BOTTLE-NECKED – Type that is thicker at the top than the bottom.
CANDLESTICK – In former times, when Compositors worked at night by the light of candles, they used a candlestick loaded at the base to keep it steady. A few offices use candlesticks at the present day.
CASSIE-PAPER – Imperfect paper, the outside quires of a ream.
CHAFF – Too frequently heard in the printing office, when one Compositor teases another, as regards his work, habits, disposition etc
CHOKED – Type filled up with dirt.
COVENTRY – When a workman does not conform to the rules of the ‘Chapel,’ he is sent to Coventry. That is, on no consideration, is any person allowed to speak with him, apart from business matters, until he pays his dues.
DEAD HORSE – When a Compositor has drawn more money on account than he has actually earned, he is said to be ‘horsing it’ and until he has done enough work in the next week to cover the amount withdrawn, he is said to be working a ‘dead horse.’
DEVIL – is the term applied to the printer’s boy who does the drudgery work of a print office.
DONKEY – Compositors were at one period thus styled by Pressmen in retaliation for being called pigs by them.
EIGHTEENMO – A sheet of paper folded into eighteen leaves, making thirty-six pages.
FAT-FACE LETTER – Letter with a broad face and thick stem.
FLOOR PIE – Type that has been dropped upon the floor during the operations of composition or distribution.
FLY – The man or boy who takes off the sheet from the tympan as the Pressman turns it up.
FORTY-EIGHTMO – A sheet of paper folded into forty-eight leaves or ninety-six pages.
FUDGE – To execute work without the proper materials, or finish it in a bungling or unworkmanlike manner.
GOOD COLOUR – When a sheet is printed neither too dark or too light.
GULL – To tear the point holes in a sheet of paper while printing.
HELL – The place where the broken and battered type goes to.
JERRY – A peculiar noise rendered by Compositors and Pressmen when one of their companions renders themselves ridiculous in any way.
LAYING-ON-BOY – The boy who feeds the sheets into the machine.
LEAN-FACE – A letter of slender proportions, compared with its height.
LIGHT-FACES – Varieties of face in which the lines are unusually thin.
LUG – When the roller adheres closely to the inking table and the type, through its being green and soft, it is said to ‘lug.’
MACKLE – An imperfection in the printed sheets, part of the impression appears double.
MONK – A botch of ink on a printed sheet, arising from insufficient distribution of the ink over the rollers.
MULLER – A sort of pestle, used for spreading ink on the ink table.
NEWS-HOUSE – A printing office in which newspapers only are printed. This term is used to distinguish from book and job houses.
OCTAVO – A sheet of paper folded so as to make eight leaves or sixteen pages.
ON ITS FEET – When a letter stands perfectly upright, it is said to be ‘on its feet.’
PEEL – A wooden instrument shaped like a letter ‘T’ used for hanging up sheets on the poles.
PENNY-A-LINER – A reporter for the Press who is not engaged on the staff, but sends in his matter upon approbation.
PIE – A mass of letters disarranged and in confusion.
PIG – A Pressman was formerly called so by Compositors.
PIGEON HOLES – Unusually wide spaces between words, caused by the carelessness or want of taste of the workman.
PRESS GOES EASY – When the run of the press is light and the pull is easy.
QUIRE – A quire of paper for all usual purposes consists of twenty-four sheets.
RAT-HOUSE – A printing office where the rules of the printers’ trade unions are not conformed to.
SCORPERS – Instruments used by Engravers to clear away the larger portions of wood not drawn upon.
SHEEP’S FOOT – An iron hammer with a claw end, used by Pressmen.
‘SHIP – A colloquial abbreviation of companionship.
SHOE – An old slipper is hung at the end of the frame so that the Compositor, when he comes across a broken or battered letter, may put it there.
SLUG – An American name for what we call a ‘clump.’
SQUABBLE – Lines of matter twisted out of their proper positions with letters running into wrong lines etc.
STIGMATYPY – Printing with points, the arrangement of points of various thicknesses to create a picture.
WAYZGOOSE – An annual festivity celebrated in most large offices.
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At Herne Bay
I spent all of my week away from Spitalfields Life in August working on the Spitalfields Nippers book but, now it has gone to the printers, I was able to make up for this yesterday and take advantage of the Indian Summer with a day trip to Herne Bay.
Reculver Towers
Several years ago, I grew fascinated with a ruin upon the seashore in the background of a photograph of members of the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club taken by Harry Tichener in 1938 . When Maxie Lea, who is featured in the picture, told me that it was taken at Herne Bay, I knew that one day I must go and seek this location for myself.
Yet, when I arrived yesterday and walked from the railway station to the deserted seafront, I discovered there were many other attractions that make this secluded corner of the Kent coast worthy of a visit. Set back fifty yards from the shingle beach, sits a magnificent line of grand hotels and seafront villas. Some are whimsical Victorian fripperies and others are elegant bow-fronted Georgian, and it makes an appealing backdrop to the well-kept and newly-renovated municipal gardens, basking in the September sunlight beneath an azure sky flecked with feathery trails.
A proud white stucco gatehouse guards a poignant remnant of what was Britain’s second longest pier in 1896, now just a stub attached to the shore with the far end marooned out at sea, unreachable and distant since the storm of 1978. You can take a stroll past the huts, adorned with saucy paintings in the style of Donald McGill, to reach the end of what remains and join a sparse line of fishermen and senior local residents, casting their eyes wistfully towards the horizon and awaiting a miraculous reconstruction.
Turning my gaze to the east, I could already recognise the towers at Reculver shining white in the far distance and encouraging me to take my leave of the town and seek the coastal path. The outskirts of Herne Bay present a curious mixture of dereliction and some cherished Regency villas, culminating in Marckari’s ice cream parlour where I had my first taste of an authentic Turkish delight ice cream. Thus fortified, I strolled onward upon the broad featureless concrete promenade with the towers reassuringly present, constantly in my vision.
Climbing a winding stairway takes you to the cliff path, lined with sloes and hawthorn, and giving way to meadows that descend towards Reculver. Soon, the towers are no longer an image on the horizon but looming above you. You ascend the path beneath them as a colony of swifts swoop and dive over your head, filling the air with their cries before returning to roosting places high in the turrets. You have arrived upon a raised platform of green, overlooking the sea, where the sweet fragrance of nectar hangs in the air. This was where the Romans built a fort in 42AD, when this was the end of the land and the marshes to the east were open water, known as the Wantsum, a channel that isolated the Isle Of Thanet from the mainland.
St Augustine brought Christianity to Kent at the end of the sixth century and, by AD 669, King Ecgbert gave this land for the foundation of a monastery. A tall church was built upon the Roman ruins, creating a landmark that signalled the spiritual significance of this favoured spot, visible from such a great distance. In 1810, the ruins of this church were reconstructed by Trinity House to create a stable structure that could function as a navigational aid. Once there was a thriving village of Reculver, yet the encroachment of the sea and regular flooding led to its decline until only a couple of houses are left today. Yet it retains a distinctive atmosphere and, after all this time, the imposing sea-battered towers are like natural excrescences of rock.
Setting out across the marshes as the afternoon sun declined, I was entranced by the naturally occurring gardens upon the shingle, where grey-green sea kale grew in star shapes complimenting the pink leaves of sorrel spreading close to the ground and interspersed with curious bushes of yellow poppies that seeded themselves all along the beech. Glancing over my shoulder, the towers of Reculver seemed to get no further away, watching over me now as they had beckoned me earlier.
Nine miles to the east of Herne Bay, I arrived at Birchington – a suburban resort with art deco villas, some dignified austere brick farmhouses and an unexpected half-timbered medieval cottage. My feet were sore and my face was burned from wind and sunshine, and I fell asleep upon the train – only waking again as we drew into London to wonder if the whole excursion had been a dream.
Herne Bay pier was once the second longest in Britain
Bow-fronted Georgian terrace on the seafront
Regency villas in a side street
The path to Reculver
At Reculver
Harry Tichner’s photograph of Maxie Lea (standing right) at Herne Bay in 1938
1685 Map of the lost village of Reculver
At Minnis Bay
Cottage at Birchington-on-Sea
You may like to read about my previous trips beyond Spitalfields at this time of year
A Walk from Shoeburyness to Chalkwell 2013
A Stepney Remembrance
Jimmy Paige at St Dunstan’s
St Dunstan’s Stepney is the oldest church in the East End and was once the parish church for the entire area that we know as Tower Hamlets. Within living memory, it was surrounded by streets of modest nineteenth-century terraces which were home to a long-established community of inter-related families. Today, although many of those streets are gone, the old church stands as a sentinel of this vanished world and the receptacle of its history, providing a focus for those whose familial traditions are closely woven with this place – such as Jimmy Page whose ancestors have been resident here for generations.
When you step into St Dunstan’s Church, you enter a space that has altered little in the last century, as if time had stopped. For parishioner Jimmy Page, an ex-soldier with the Royal Green Jackets, the side chapel has particular meaning because it is home to the memorial for those of his parish who died in World War One. The long columns of names inscribed upon five wooden panels confronted Jimmy with the scale of the loss that was suffered here in Stepney a century ago, inspiring him to learn more about these former parishioners and rekindle their memory.
Searching these names in the records, Jimmy sought to find out their regiments, the date of their deaths and their home addresses. At once, it became apparent that families in every street surrounding St Dunstan’s Church suffered losses of young men and, soon, as Jimmy grew aware of the former homes of those who were killed, the map of the neighbourhood was redrawn in his perception. The presence of the loss became immediate when Jimmy discovered that one of the parishioners he was researching had lived in a house that is inhabited today by a friend of his.
Today I am publishing the names and addresses from Jimmy Page’s book of remembrance, so that those who know Stepney may be able to place the former homes of those who left a century ago and never returned. The list is far from complete, as I have only included those for whom we have addresses, but the scale of the loss in this small neighbourhood alone may be extrapolated across the East End to give a sense of how many died in the relentless accumulation of fatalities of World War One.
23rd October 1914. Robert Elder, 59 Beaumont Sq
9th May 1915, Stephen Freshney, 35 Ben Jonson Rd
23rd May 1915, Robert Frehney, 35 Ben Jonson Rd
10th August 1915, Norman Winterbourne, 9 Portland St
10th August 1915, William Wittey, 278 Oxford St
10th September 1915, William Fox, 97 Grosvenor St, Commercial Rd
27th September 1915, Percy Stewart, 38 Belgrave St
13th October 1915, Richard Vicat, 7 Lufton Place, Halley St
3rd July 1916, Edgar Watts, 89 Belgrave St
24th August 1916, Thomas Pocock, 127 White Horse St
15th September 1916, Alfred Knowden, 22 Durham Rd
15th September 1916, Sidney Squires, 6 Chaseley St
23rd September 1916, Harry May, 59 White Horse Lane
21st October 1916, George Legon, 32 Copley St
13th October 1916, Richard Bull, 6 Market St
13th November 1916, Henry Turner, 30 Portland St
21st December 1916, George Palmer, 13 Bromley St
2nd February 1917, Frederick Page, 17 King John St
4th February 1917, William Wotten, 5 Wakeling St
9th February 1917, Joseph Ellis, 3 Oley Place
27th March 1917, William Page, Flat 4, 45 Jubilee St
14th May 1917, John Jenkins, 27 Commercial Rd
9th May 1917, Herbert Graves, 78 Diggon St
10th May 1917, Henry Middleton, 82 Old Church Rd
16th June 1917, John Moonie, 85 White Horse Lane
6th July 1917, Thomas Crouch, 21 White Horse Lane
9th July 1917, Walter Page, 63 White Horse Lane
11th July 1917, Robert Kirby, 73 Ernest St
16th July 1917, William Long, Pole St
26th July 1917, William Lynch, 41 Belgrave St
30th July 1917, George Reid, 38 Diggon St
3rd September 1917, Sidney Biggs, 12 Matlock St
20th September 1917, Edward Webber, 16 Dean St
24th September 1917, William Grainger, 49 Diggon St
26th October 1917, Alfred Walmer, 12 White Horse Lane
26th October 1917, Ruchard Tyndall, 3 Rectory Sq
2nd November 1917, John Fox, 3 Oley Place
10th November 1917, Henry Nicholas, 38 Latimer St
25th November 1917, Albert Clarke, Salmon Lane
8th December 1917, Albert Stokes, 9 Louisa Gardens
21st March 1918, Harry Gray, St Thomas St
21st March 1918. Arthur Hallett, 52 Bromley St
3rd April 1918, Horace Vincent, 21 Copley St
1st May 1918, Robert Parlett, 51 Belgrave St
27th May 1918, Albert Mitchell, Grosvenor St
15th July 1918, Henry Smith, 169 Stepney Green
1st September 1918, Walter McMinn, 635 Commercial Rd
19th September 1918, Arthur Murphy, 23 Rhodeswell Rd
17th October 1918, Raymond Smith, 10 Latimer St
18th October 1918, Arthur Reids, 38 Diggon St
2nd November 1918, Charles Legon, 107 Rhodeswell Rd
& 106 more from the parish for whom we have no addresses
St Dunstan’s, Stepney
Portrait of Jimmy Page copyright © Sarah Ainslie
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A Brief History Of Bishopsgate Goodsyard
Mesolithic tranchet adze discovered at Bishopsgate Goodsyard
Bishopsgate Goodsyard c.1910
There are many continuities that run through time in Spitalfields, yet the most disturbing is the history of brutal change which has been wreaked upon the neighbourhood over centuries.
The Hospital of the Priory of St Mary – from which the name Spitalfields is derived – was established in the eleventh century as a refuge for the homeless, conveniently one mile north from the City of London which sought to expel vagabond and beggars. Then Henry VIII destroyed this Priory in the sixteenth century and seized the ‘Spital fields which he turned over to usage as his Artillery Ground.
In the eighteen-thirties, the Eastern Counties Railway, cut across the north of Spitalfields to construct Bishopsgate Station on Shoreditch High St, pushing families from their homes to seek new accommodation in the surrounding streets. The overcrowded area to the north became known as the Nichol, notorious for criminality. While to the south, in the courtyards beyond Quaker St, old houses built when the silk industry thrived in Spitalfields were rented out at one family per room. Clusters of black streets on Charles Booth’s Descriptive Map of London Poverty vividly illustrate the social consequences of this drastic redevelopment.
The situation was exacerbated in Spitalfields when the City of London objected to traffic from the London Docks congesting their streets and hundreds more homes were demolished when Commercial St was cut through to carry goods directly to the terminus in Shoreditch High St. Finally, in the eighteen-seventies when the railway was extended south to Liverpool St, an entire residential neighbourhood area to the west of Spitalfields was also obliterated.
It was only at the very end of the nineteenth century, when the Boundary Estate was constructed as Britain’s first social housing, that any attempt was made to ameliorate the human damage of this unbridled series of large-scale developments. Upon the cusp of the next imminent wave of violent change, in which tall towers threaten to put the Boundary Estate into permanent shadow, it is sobering to contemplate the earlier history of the area that is now known as the Bishopsgate Goodsyard.
The paradox of redevelopment is that it confronts us with our past, when excavations for new buildings uncover evidence of history – such as the Bishop’s Sq development that resurrected thousands of plague victims in Spitalfields. In Shoreditch, exploratory work for a proposed forty storey tower has uncovered the Shakespearian theatre where Henry V was first performed and, at the Bishopsgate Goodsyard, preparatory demolition drew attention to John Braithwaite’s elegant viaduct constructed in the eighteen-thirties. In both cases, the outcome is an unholy yoking of conservation and shopping, with Shakespeare’s theatre due to become a heritage feature in a mall and the Braithwaite’s arches set to provide retail units for brands, and both serving as undercrofts to gargantuan towers.
Recent excavations by Museum of London Archaeology Service discovered more than seventy pieces of Mesolithic struck flint, mostly to the west of the Bishopsgate Goodsyard site, suggesting early human occupation towards the banks of the River Walbrook. Ermine St, the Roman road north from the City of London followed the line of Bishopsgate and Shoreditch High St, and burials of this era have been uncovered upon either side of the roadway, just as along the Appian Way in Rome. While a medieval settlement grew up along Shoreditch High St and around Holywell Priory, the land further to the east lay open until the mid-seventeenth century. Yet prior to this, the brick quarries that gave the name to Brick Lane existed there as early as the fourteenth century.
Between 1652 and 1682, the Bishopsgate Goodsyard site was quickly built over a with a mixture of dwellings and small trades as the city expanded. The brick quarries that created the materials for development were eventually filled in with debris from the Fire of London, as streets were laid out and prosperous middle class suburban dwellings were constructed – coinciding with the rise of the lucrative silk industry locally. Discovery of delft tiles, marbles, wine bottles and clay pipes testify to the domestic life of the residents of this newly-built neighbourhood, while analysis of cesspits tells us they ate duck, chicken, mutton, herring, plaice, flounder and cod. Evidence of small-scale industry reveals the presence of sugar processing, glass and iron working, pottery, distillation and the textile trade.
Thus a whole world grew up with streets and yards, taverns, shops, warehouses and workshops – one that was wiped away nearly two centuries later. Today, it is too easy to look at the empty site of the former Bishopsgate Goodsyard and assume that there was never anything before the railway came through. Yet, as we contemplate the next wave of redevelopment, we should do well to contemplate the society that once flourished in this place and how the previous development erased it, that we may draw lessons from the long-term destructive outcomes of these great impositions upon Spitalfields.
Saxon antler and bone comb discovered at Holywell
Excavation of a brick quarry at the Bishopsgate Goods Yard, close to Brick Lane
On Faithorne & Newcourt’s map of 1658, the site of the Bishopsgate Goodsyard is open fields
By Morgan’s map of 1682, suburban development has filled the site
Pipe bowl depicting Admiral Vernon, who introduced the daily ration of grog to the navy
Pipe bowl depicting Don Blas de Leso, Portuguese governor of Panama kneeling in surrender to Admiral Vernon
Eighteenth century marbles from the Goodsyard
Eighteenth century tin-glazed tile made in London
Mid-seventeenth century Dutch tin-glazed tiles from Bishopsgate Goodsyard, showing a mounted military figure and a man with a cockerel
Eighteenth century tin-glazed tile made in London
Eighteenth century Dutch tile of crucifixion scene
Witch box – animal bones in a wooden box concealed in an eighteenth-century fireplace upon the Bishopsgate Goodsyard site
Unusual post-medieval bone crucifix with sun above, discovered at Bishopsgate Goodsyard, possibly the work of a Napoleonic prisoner of war
Copper plate inscribed ‘Thos Juchau Shoreditch’ – Juchau was a celebrated bare-knuckle boxer born in 1739, said to have been the ‘hero of a hundred fights,’ who became British champion until defeated by William ‘the dyer’ Darts of Spitalfields in the first ever outdoor heavyweight boxing match in 1777. He died in Bateman’s Row in 1806.
Bishopsgate Station, photograph courtesy of National Rail Museum
Charles Booth’s Descriptive Map of London Poverty 1889 courtesy of LSE Library
“The Arches – a long street under a railway which carried the mainline to Liverpool St Station and ran from Commercial St to Club Row … there the pros would practise to mouth-organ acompaniment, night after night, until they had copied the Yanks most intricate steps.” Bud Flanagan, My Crazy Life 1961
Archaeological photographs copyright © MOLA
‘Tracks Through Time, Archaeology and History from the London Overground East London Line’ is available from Museum of London Shop
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The Spitalfields Nippers Are Coming!
Although the publication of SPITALFIELDS NIPPERS – the book of portraits by Horace Warner taken in Spitalfields around 1900 – is not until the beginning of November, today I am announcing the launch on Tuesday 4th November at 7:30pm in the Great Hall at Bishopsgate Institute, so that readers may have first chance to reserve their tickets for this free event which are now available by clicking here.
This will be the first reveal of many of Horace Warner’s pictures taken in Spitalfields over a century ago and, in an illustrated lecture, I shall be introducing the photographs, explaining the circumstances of their creation and giving the biographies of those children we have been able to trace in public records.
It has been my privilege to be entrusted by Horace Warner’s grandson, Ian Warner McGilvray, to publish the definitive book of Spitalfields Nippers which has been funded by you, the readers of Spitalfields Life. Accompanied by an extensive introduction and an index of biographies, this volume reunites those photos sold to the Bedford Institute in 1913 with those in the Spitalfields Albums that remain in the possession of the family and have never been seen publicly before.
This unique collection of pictures revolutionises our view of Londoners of the turn of the nineteenth century, by bringing us startlingly close and permitting us to look them in the eye. Horace Warner photographed some of the poorest people in the East End, creating compassionate images that gave human dignity to his subjects and producing great photography that is without parallel in his era.
I hope you will join me on such a memorable evening to celebrate the work of Horace Warner.
Walter Seabrook was born on 23rd May 1890 to William and Elizabeth Seabrook of Custance St, Hoxton. In 1901, when Walter’s portrait was taken by Horace Warner, the family were living at 24 & 1/2 Great Pearl St, Spitalfields, and Walter’s father worked as a printer’s labourer. At twenty-four years old, Walter was conscripted and fought in World War One but survived to marry Alice Noon on Christmas Day 1918 at St Matthew’s, Bethnal Green. By occupation, Walter was an electrician and lived at 2 Princes Court, Gibraltar Walk. He and Alice had three children – Walter born in 1919, Alice born in 1922 and Gladys born in 1924. Walter senior died in Ware, Hertfordshire, in 1971, aged eighty-one.
All Publication Rights in these Photographs Reserved
Click here to pre-order a copy of SPITALFIELDS NIPPERS by Horace Warner
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