Whitechapel Lads
Seen for the first time in over a century, these are a series of portraits taken around 1900 at the Working Lads Institute, known today as the Whitechapel Mission. After my first visit with Colin O’Brien to take portraits at the Mission on Easter Tuesday, I returned this week to select these glass plates from the archive.
Founded in 1876, the Institute offered a home to young men who had been involved in petty criminal activity, rehabilitating them through working at the Mission which tended to the poor and needy in Whitechapel. Once a lad had proved himself, he was able to seek independent employment with the support and recommendation of the Institute.
The Working Lads Institute was the first of its kind in London to admit black people and Rev Thomas Jackson, the founder, is pictured here with five soldiers at the time of World War I
Stained glass window with a figure embodying ‘Industry’ as an inspiration to the lads
In the dormitory
Rev Thomas Jackson & the lads collect for the Red Cross outside the Mission
Click here to learn more about The Whitechapel Mission
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Andrew Tuer’s Old London Cries
Andrew White Tuer (1838–1900) was a bookseller, writer and publisher who set up the Leadenhall Press in the City of London, and had a passion for the centuries-old culture of chapbooks and pamphlets that preceded him.
In 1885, within ten year of John Thomson publishing Street Life in London, the first photographic survey of street traders in 1876, Tuer published Old London Cries – a self-consciously arcane production in the form of a chapbook from an earlier age.
It was an affectionate anecdotal history of the popular print tradition of the Cries of London, put together just as it was coming to an end, and I am proud to have acquired a first edition this week for a mere pittance, as the latest in my ever-growing collection that I have been amassing in recent years.
“Three rows a penny, pins!”
“Buy a fine singing bird!”
“Fine writing ink!”
“Buy a fork or fire shovel!”
“Troope every one!”
“Hot spice gingerbread!”
“Knives to grind!”
“Cabbages O! Turnips!”
“Cherries O! Ripe cherries O!”
“All a blowin’ !”
“Fresh oysters! Penny a lot!”
“Sand O!”
“Fine large cucumbers!”
“Large silver eels!”
“Buy my fine myrtles and roses!”
“Tiddy diddy doll!”
“Young lambs to sell!”
“Chairs to mend!”
You may also like to take a look at these other sets of the Cries of London
More John Player’s Cries of London
More Samuel Pepys’ Cries of London
Geoffrey Fletcher’s Pavement Pounders
William Craig Marshall’s Itinerant Traders
H.W.Petherick’s London Characters
John Thomson’s Street Life in London
Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries
Marcellus Laroon’s Cries of London
William Nicholson’s London Types
Francis Wheatley’s Cries of London
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana of 1817
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana II
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana III
Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders
More East End Soldiers Of World War I
Approaching the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, we remember some of those from the East End who served in the conflict. These photographs are a second selection from those already collected by Tower Hamlets Community Homes for an exhibition and booklet to come in August. Readers are invited to contribute their family pictures and stories by emailing andy.coleborn@thch.org.uk
George Joseph Dubock was descended from a Huguenot family that arrived in the East End in 1706. He was born on 5th December 1878 in 109 Eastfield St, Limehouse, and his family moved shortly after to Mile End Old Town. George worked as a Dock Labourer and a Road Sweeper/Scavenger for the Council. Serving as Private #14373 in the Sixth Dorset Regiment, George was a victim of a gas attack and suffered post-traumatic stress after the War. Later, George became a Master Cabinet Maker and ended his days working in Newbury, restoring old furniture until he died in 1951.
Cards sent home from the Front by George Joseph Dubock
Alfred William Blanford was born in Poplar in 1894 and lived in Whitethorn St, Bow. At eighteen, in April 1912, he married Florence Jenkins and, in the December of the same year, they had their first child – also called Alfred. In February 2014, Alfred & Florence’s second son, Fredrick, was born and their third child, Edith, in December 1916.
Alfred joined the Army before his twentieth birthday and, in December 1914, by the time of Fredrick’s birth, he was in training in Aldershot. He served as a Driver in the Royal Field Artillery and was killed in action in May 1916, before the birth of his daughter Edith.
Henry George Crooney, also known as Harry, was born in Poplar in 1897 and served in the Royal Artillery from 1914-1918. Lying about his age, Henry enlisted in the Army before he was legally eligible. He joined the Royal Artillery because of his experience with horses, having worked since a child with his father who ran horses and carts from the docks.
Henry’s grand-daughter, Cheryl Loughnane, recalls the wartime stories Henry would tell – including his hatred of bully beef and of the time he stole a pig from French farm.
After the war, Henry married Annie and worked as a haulier. When he retired, he could not stop driving around the East End and became a volunteer for ‘Meals on Wheels,’ delivering dinners to pensioners.
Alfred James Barwell was a Private in the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). He lived with his parents, Alfred & Alice Barwell, at 27 Museum Buildings, Chester St, Bethnal Green. Aged just nineteen, Alfred was killed in action on 21st March 1918. His is listed on the Pozieres Memorial (Panel Ref 58 and 59) in the Somme.
James Polston, Rifleman 5059 in the Eighteenth Battallion London Regiment – London Irish Rifles. James was born on 20th September 1884, the eldest son of James & Elizabeth Polston who lived at Warner Place, Bethnal Green, and Lauriston Rd in Bow. He was killed in action on 8th December 1916 and is commemorated at the Railway Dugouts Burial Ground in Flanders.
(Photo of Water Tull courtesy of Doug Banks)
Second Lieutenant Walter Tull was the first black British Army Infantry Officer. The son of a joiner, Walter was born in Folkestone on 28th April 1888. His father, the son of a slave, had arrived from Barbados in 1876. In 1895, when Walter was seven, his mother died and his father remarried only to die two years later. The stepmother was unable to cope with all six children and so Walter and his brother Edward were sent to a Methodist -run orphanage in Bethnal Green.
Walter was a keen footballer and played for a team in Clapton. In 1908, his talents were discovered by a scout from Tottenham Hotspur and the club decided to sign the promising young footballer. He played for Tottenham until 1910, when he was transferred for a large fee to Northampton Town. Walter became the first black outfield player to play professional football in Britain.
When World War I broke out, Walter abandoned his football career to join the Seventeenth (First Football) Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and, during his military training, he was promoted three times. In November 1914, as Lance Sergeant, he was sent to Les Ciseaux but, in May 1915, he was sent home with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Returning to France in September 1916, Walter fought in the Battle of the Somme between October and November. His courage and abilities encouraged his superior officers to recommend him as an Officer and, on 26th December, 1916, Walter went back to England to train as an Officer.
There were military laws forbidding ‘any negro or person of colour’ being commissioned as an Officer. Despite this, Walter was promoted to Lieutenant in 1917 and became the first ever black Officer in the British Army, and the first black Officer to lead white men into battle.
Walter was sent to the Italian Front where he twice led his Company across the River Piave on a raid and both times brought all of his troops back safely. He was mentioned in Despatches for his ‘gallantry and coolness’ under fire by his commanding officer and he was recommended for the Military Cross, but never received it.
After their time in Italy, Walter’s Battalion was transferred to the Somme and, on 25th March 1918, he was killed by machine gun fire while trying to help his men withdraw.
Walter was such a popular man that several of his men risked their own lives in an attempt to retrieve his body under heavy fire, but they were unsuccessful due to the enemy soldiers’ advance. His body was never found and he is one of the many thousands from World War I who has no known grave.
(Story & photo of John Arthur Tribe courtesy of East London Advertiser)
John Arthur Tribe was part of a large, close-knit family from Kirby St, Poplar. John lied about his age and joined the Army in 1911, serving in the Fourth Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, at first in India and then at the Battle of Loos in 1915, where he was killed in action. John is commemorated at the Loos Memorial but has no known grave.
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In Mile End Old Town
Much of the streetscape of the East End was broken in the last century, with fine squares lost in Stepney, Spitalfields and Haggerston, yet in Mile End an entire quarter of early-nineetenth century construction still exists surrounding Tredegar Sq (1823-9) and is cherished to this day. Taking advantage of the dramatic lighting afforded by the April weather, I spent an afternoon in these streets with my camera this week. Within a stone’s throw of St Clement’s Hospital, formerly the City of London Union Workhouse, I discovered a stuccoed terrace worthy of Belgravia – while the intervening streets were filled by houses which manifested all the degrees of social and economic distinctions that lay between the two.
Terrace in Mile End Rd erected by Ratcliffe builder, William Marshall ,in 1822-4
Formerly the City of London Union Workhouse, 1849
Tredegar Sq, 1828-9
Stucco was applied upon the north side of Tredegar Sq in the eighteen-thirties
Tredegar Square was re-landscaped in 1951
40 Tredegar Sq was formerly home to brush-maker Henry Wainwright who murdered his mistress and buried her dismembered body under the floor of his Whitechapel warehouse in 1875
Litchfield Rd – Sir Charles Morgan, Lord Tredegar sold this land for development
In Coborn Rd
Coborn Rd
Coborn Rd
Central Foundation School for Girls, Morgan St
School Entrance, College Terrace
Holy Trinity Church, Morgan St
Eighteen-thirties villa, Rhondda Grove
Cottage Grove of 1823, now Rhondda Grove
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Return Of The East London Group
In 2012, David Buckman published From Bow to Biennale which recovered the lost history of The East London Group, one of the major artistic movements to come out of the East End in the last century yet – extraordinarily – almost forgotten until recently.
Today, we preview some of the works – several of which have not been seen publicly in generations – from the major retrospective of nearly seventy paintings by members of the Group, accompanied by archive material, which opens at the Nunnery in Bow on May 9th and runs through into the summer.
Columbia Market, Bethnal Green by Albert Turpin
Canal at Mile End by Walter Steggles
St Clements Hospital Bow by Grace Oscroft
Bryant & May Factory, Bow by Grace Oscroft
Old Houses in the East End by Grace Oscroft, dated 1934
Hackney Empire by Albert Turpin
Pavilion in Grove Hall Park, Bow, by Harold Steggles
The Lumber Yard by Harold Steggles, dated 1929
The Scullery by Walter Steggles
The Stable by Walter Steggles, exhibited at the Tate 1929
Brymay Wharf by Walter Steggles
Bow Backwater by Walter Steggles
Brymay Wharf by Walter Steggles
Old Ford Rd by Harold Steggles
The Chapel by Walter Steggles, dated 1932
Railway siding by Walter Steggles, dated 1929
Bow Bridge by Walter Steggles
Blackwall by Harold Steggles
Warner St, Clerkenwell, by Harold Steggles
Canonbury Tower by Harold Steggles, dated 1938
Canonbury Grove by Elwin Hawthorne
Canvey Island by Walter Steggles
The Chair by the Bed by Henry Silk
You can read more about the East London Group
Albert Turpin, Artist & Mayor of Bethnal Green
Henry Silk, Artist & Basketmaker
From Bow to Biennale: Artists of the East London Group by David Buckman can be ordered direct from the publisher Francis Boutle and copies are on sale in bookshops including Brick Lane Bookshop, Broadway Books, Newham Bookshop, Stoke Newington Bookshop, London Review Bookshop, Town House, Daunt Books, Foyles, Hatchards and Tate Bookshop.
At The Whitechapel Mission
At dawn on Easter Tuesday, while most of the world was still sleeping, Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien & I paid a visit to the Whitechapel Mission which has been caring for the homeless and needy since 1876. The original building, constructed as the “Working Lads Institute” in 1885, still stands next to Whitechapel Underground Station, but these days the Mission operates from a seventies brick and concrete edifice east of the Royal London Hospital.
Whitechapel Rd was desolate at that hour but inside the Mission we encountered a warm community and were touched by the generous welcome we received there. Many of these people had been out on the street all night, yet they immediately included us within the particular camaraderie which exists among those who share comparable experiences of life and attend the day centre here regularly. Between six and eleven each morning, the door is open. Breakfast is served, showers are available, clothes are distributed, there is the opportunity to make phone calls and collect mail, and to seek the necessary advice which could lead to life off the street.
Our guide was Tony Miller, Director of the Mission, who has lived, worked and brought up his family in this building for the last thirty-five years. Charismatic and remarkably fresh-faced for one who opens up his door to the capital’s homeless every day of the year, he explained that if the temperature drops below freezing they offer a refuge for those sleeping rough. In the winter before last, Tony had around one hundred and fifty people sleeping upon every available inch of floor space and, while the other staff were off-duty, he sat watch through the long hours of the night. As a consequence, he contracted a rare and virulent strain of Tuberculosis from which he has only just recovered.
Yet Tony’s passion for the Whitechapel Mission remains undimmed by this grim interlude. “I lost five stone and I still want to make a difference! They started this Mission in 1876 because they were angry that, in their day, there were people without homes and here we are today in 2014 and the problem is still with us,” he declared, filling with emotion, before distinguishing for me some of the strains of humanity who stream through his door daily. There are those who were once living in care – many have mental health problems and around a third grew up in orphanages. There are those who are have no skills and cannot support themselves. There are the angry ones who feel let down and maybe lost their homes – these, Tony says, are the easiest to help. Around a sixth are ex-servicemen without education or skills, and around a third are mentally ill. “The ones that get me the most are those young people who leave the care system without education or prospects and end up on the street within twelve months,” he confided. Last year, the Mission supported one hundred and thirty-four people off the street and into flats, and two hundred people into hostel accommodation.
“Most people want reconnection, but they can live on the streets for twenty years after a row,” Tony assured me, “So, if we can ring up mum and they can say ‘sorry,’ then we’ll happily sub them for a bus ticket home if it means one less person on the street.” As we walked through the cafeteria, diners came up to welcome and engage us in multiple extended conversations, telling their stories and trusting Colin O’Brien to take their pictures.
“These people have validated my life – giving me a purpose and a job, and that makes me guilty because, from other people’s suffering, I live,“ Tony revealed in regret, “It’s a disgrace that this place is still here and it’s still needed, it should have been closed down years ago.”
Tony Miller, resident Director of the Whitechapel Mission for the past thirty-five years
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
Click here to learn more about The Whitechapel Mission
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Zed Nelson’s Portrait Of Hackney
Today we preview the third in Hoxton Minipress‘ Photo Stories Zed Nelson’s Portrait Of Hackney – a personal vision of the contradictions and cultural clashes in his home borough.
GROWING UP IN HACKNEY
I was born in Uganda, East Africa, but from the age of three Hackney has been my home.
I went to a forward-thinking experimental primary school in East London that encouraged art and independent thought, until my parents, as seventies hippies, plucked me out of school and took me and my sister on a one-year road trip to India, travelling overland from Britain in a diesel truck.
When we returned, I had the misfortune of ending up at an extremely rough comprehensive school. I found out years later it had the worst academic record of any school in the capital and in subsequent years was closed down. It was set on a concrete landscape with not a blade of grass in sight. The school was encircled by housing estates and chain-link fences. It was not a place of learning, but more of survival.
Over the next few years I pierced my ears, shaved my head into a mohican, got a tattoo, was arrested for smoking dope, took acid in Abney Park Cemetery and buzzed around the streets in a motorbike gang. We were hardly Hells Angels though, we were so young we were restricted to 100cc motorcycles with L-plates. Most of the time it was harmless fun, but it turned dark. One friend became addicted to heroin and was murdered in a squat, another was badly injured in a motorbike accident, and another sent to jail for GBH after a fight got out of hand. Basically, I was the product of a bad inner city education, with the kind of friends that go with it.
At the age of eighteen, photography gave me a passport back to civilization, and the minute I started college I remembered there was so much more to do. I have since travelled widely through my photographic work, but remained living in Hackney and am watching with fascination as the area goes through a metamorphosis.
There’s a recurring motif in these images of Hackney, of cracked pavements and walls, melting tarmac, and weeds and roots bursting through concrete. It is as if nature is trying to reclaim the land, and Hackney – under-funded, neglected and poorly maintained – is constantly being sucked back into the earth. It amuses me to see this, as I find other, wealthier areas where nature has been conquered depressing and disconcerting – covered over in tarmac, cemented and de-weeded.
Zed Nelson 2014
Click here to buy ZED NELSON’S PORTRAIT OF HACKNEY direct from Hoxton Minipress
Photographs copyright © Zed Nelson
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Joseph Markovitch, I’ve Lived In East London For Eighty-Six & A Half Years
