Gestor / Tramitador Procesal de Apoyo a la Investigación

The early history of East London centred around early Roman buildings remains as the marshy flat riverside of East London developed around the settlements of Hackney and the monastic Manor of Stepney in the fifteenth century. The

construction of the Roman Road to exit London to the East crossed the River Lea at the Old Ford site just outside the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and saw a sizeable settlement develop. Yet, Stepney was the chief centre of the population (Rose, 1951), developing amongst areas such as Whitechapel, which by the fourteenth century was a flourishing suburb outside of the city walls. The boundary of the city walls influenced the trades establishing themselves outside of the London Guildsmen (Ackroyd, 2001). This led to the ‘stink’ industries developing, not only outside of the city walls but also downwind of the wealthier residential areas, distinctly influencing future populations and discourses about East London.

These early fifteenth century settlers in the East of London were bakers, brewers and slaughterhouse owners, who had been forced out of the City of London as

‘foreigners’, together with non-members and those men who had been disgraced by the city authorities (Rose, 1951). Yet, it was not only the ‘stink’ industries that found their way out of the city into the hinterlands and suburbs (Palmer, 2000).

Increasingly, the noisy trades followed in their footsteps. This initial migration of the ‘undesirables’ out of the city followed the continued othering of the external city and influenced the ill reputation that has shaped the area’s past, present and future ever since (Cohen, 2013). Many of the unwanted trades outside of the walls, particularly in Stepney, survived only in the names of the districts. An example is provided by

Spitafields, the former site of a priory providing for the sick and the poor (Marriot, 2012).

Parallel to these developments, legislation affecting both the material and immaterial environs surrounding the city walls meant that an enforced three-mile strip of non- building and the formation of a historical green belt occurred in proximity to the city. As a result of this, the parishes of Stepney and Shoreditch outside this line were beyond the legal reach of the city and saw the development of both civil and nefarious leisure opportunities. The villages of Mile End, Bow, Hackney, Stratford and Leyton (amongst others) remained respectably bourgeois and were popular residential suburbs and weekend retreats offering sophisticated leisure from shuffleboard to ‘refreshment’ (Porter, 1994). This also included the building of the city’s first theatre houses that hosted the premieres of Shakespeare’s early work (Marriot, 2011). This alternate provision was vital to the ability of the local wealthy population to be seen to be exhibiting their wealth not just accumulating financial capital (Veblen, 1899).

These cleaner, bourgeois leisure opportunities are distinctly related to the

experiencing of leisure in the sixteenth century. The class-related aspect of being able to enjoy these offerings provided explicit opportunities to demonstrate wealth, but more subtly these were a means of accumulating cultural capital (Russell, 2013). Inevitably, the playing out of these class boundaries created the erection and

maintenance of class borders whether through the means of pricing, provision offered and attracting visitors (Walton, 1983). Increasingly, social zoning created nefarious, working class spaces that developed as separate spaces to those of the ‘leisure class,’ thereby creating exclusivity and segregation.

Despite the regulations, the East attracted migrant labourers, street sellers, illicit traders who survived on the ‘islands’ that built up around the wealthy enclaves

surrounding the parishes of Stepney and Whitechapel. Cressey (1970) suggests that these migrants travelled from a wide area and distance with the largest concentration being from Devonshire, which can be explained by ties to the maritime industry. These patterns were suggestive of those searching for work given the youth and predominantly unskilled nature of those arriving (Cressey, 1970). This youth-focused rural to urban migration was telling of the time and manifested itself in the needs of a shifting population (Maguire, 1999). Yet, concerns were already apparent that the rapid growth of the area would result in social problems. Ultimately, this growth was undeterred and attempts of exercising control by the bourgeois ruling classes spread problems further afield. This population growth in part was attributed to the arrival of communities from further afield than just the UK.

The more ‘repellent’ entertainment industries catering for transient seafarers, permanent working classes and the needs of the shipping industry contrasted with the ale and whorehouses that developed away from the more sophisticated

infrastructure (Ackroyd, 2001). To cater for these extensive needs, several brewers and distillers set up and have producing millions of barrels of beer since the

seventeenth century (Corran, 1975). This lifestyle was predominantly carried out on high streets of the larger settlements in bars and taverns where the unstructured layout of streets and industrial backyards made them ideal grounds for disreputable actions (Rose, 1951). Whilst not as extensively disorderly as the areas seen across the Thames in the bear baiting pits (Porter, 1994), these practices and behaviours created distinct spaces that excluded the bourgeoisie and were inclusive to the proletariat class. As a result of these shifts, the incoming migrating classes from, initially, the European mainland to the East of London found themselves drawn to the area.

The persecuted Huguenot populations formed the first wave of migration into the East End at the beginning of the eighteenth century, finding homes in Spitafield and Whitechapel. These French refugees formed the core of the East End’s silk-weaving population and thrived alongside the Jewish population that subsequently arrived to escape the pogroms and expulsions from both Eastern and Mediterranean Europe in

overcrowding and growing tensions in the area, they also brought highly skilled craft industries to the East End (Ackroyd, 2012). Over time, this created several other craft and creative industries such as the porcelain factories at Stratford High Street,

cabinetmaking, watchmaking, printers and dozens of precision crafts often tied to the needs of the shipping industry or more broadly catering for global trade exchanges (Porter, 1994).

Tending towards residing in proximity to or above workplaces, the new arrivals to the UK in the nineteenth century resided close to the Thames in areas consisting of narrow “masses of buildings, the wharves on both sides, especially from Woolwhich [sic] upwards, the countless ships along both shores, [and] crowding ever closer together” (Engels, 1945). Over many decades, these groups developed the area with a strong sense of community through new schools and charities (Porter, 1994). This sense of community continued throughout the development of the East End as highlighted by the families of Bethnal Green in the 1957 seminal work of Michael Young and Peter Wilmott. These two historical protagonists of flaneurism explored the emerging urban environment and established a narrative that shaped the identity of the East End. The area was seen socio-culturally as one of a mysterious

underworld filled with subversive ideas (Cohen, 2013). This lens continued to be the one through which all subsequent iterations and generations of East London were informed by narratives of the ‘other’ further embedded during and after the Industrial Revolution.