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The story of Issy Smith is straight out of the ‘Boys’ Own’ adventures of the 1920s, though any writer of the day might have thought twice about constructing such an over the top tale. An 11-year-old boy who stowed away across Europe, to become a boy soldier, champion boxer and footballer, and went on to win the highest military honours from a trio of European nations - Issy’s tale was too remarkable to be true.

Most boys enrolling for their first day at Berner Street School in Whitechapel could be forgiven for feeling a little nervous. But when Ishroulch Shmeilowitz rolled up at the school gate in 1901 he had already come a long way. East End Jews had travelled from Poland, Germany and Russia to settle in Whitechapel, but the young Ishroulch’s journey surely unique. He had been born in Alexandria to Moses and Eva Shmeilowitz, French Jews of Polish extraction who were working in the Egyptian city for the French Consulate. Who knows what motivated the boy to stow away aboard a ship sailing out of the port for London, but a few weeks later he landed at Wapping. And days after that he was a pupil at Berner Street (now Henriques Street) just south of the Commercial Road.

In one way, Issy could be at home, though in a completely new country. Whitechapel and Stepney had become a huge Jewish ghetto, where Yiddish was the language of choice, so the youngster was hardly cast adrift in an alien culture. He left school just a year or two later and found work as a delivery boy around the East End, but by age 14 he had enlisted in the army, becoming a private in the Manchester Regiment (later amalgamated into The King’s Regiment and subsequently the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment).

The recruiting sergeant didn’t struggle for long with ‘Ishroulch Shmeilowitz’ before simply enlisting the new boy as plain ‘Issy Smith’. But whatever they called him, Issy was a credit to his regiment, serving in India and South Africa, becoming a keen footballer and becoming the British Army’s Middleweight boxing champion. While in India he won his first decoration, the Delhi Durbar Medal.

Discharged from the Army in 1912, Issy emigrated to Australia but was called up again at the outbreak of war in August 1914. The Manchesters suffered badly in World War I’s trench warfare. They lost hundreds of men in the battles of Neuve Chapelle and Givenchy, were depleted further at Ypres, and Smith would be gassed on the Western Front. It was in 1915 that Issy would commit the act of extraordinary heroism that would see him as the first living Jewish recipient of a Victoria Cross.

The London Gazette of 20 August 1915 takes up the tale:

“No. 168 Acting Corporal Issy Smith, 1st Battalion, The Manchester Regiment. For most conspicuous bravery on 26th April, 1915, near Ypres, when he left his Company on his own initiative and went well forward towards the enemy’s position to assist a severely wounded man, whom he carried a distance of 250 yards into safety, whilst exposed the whole time to heavy machine-gun and rifle fire. Subsequently Corporal Smith displayed great gallantry, when the casualties were very heavy, in voluntarily assisting to bring in many more wounded men throughout the day, and attending to them with the greatest devotion to duty regardless of personal risk.”

In September that year, Issy was invited back to Berner Street School to receive a gold watch from former classmates. It was just one leg of a tour, as the hero was used as the spearhead of a recruitment drive, travelling the length and breadth of the country. It wasn’t always a happy experience. Anti-semitism never ran far below the surface, and on one occasion in Yorkshire, a restaurant proprietor refused to serve Issy. Come to think of it, the writers of those ‘Boys Own’ adventures probably wouldn’t have made a boy called Ishroulch Shmeilowitz their hero either. Most people had more sense. Back in the East End Issy unveiled the Hackney War Memorial in 1921, and we was welcomed to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party for holders of the VC.

The 1920s were harder on the returning hero. He suffered ill health, partly as a result of his being gassed, and wasn’t always able to work. He was forced to pawn his medals for £20 (the Chief Rabbi led a campaign to buy them back, and Smith was presented with them anew). After a brief career as an actor, Issy emigrated to Australia in 1925 with wife Elsie, who bore him two children, Olive and Maurice. Issy would die in Melbourne of a coronary thrombosis, aged just 50, in September 1940, and was buried with full military honours. In 1990, his Victoria Cross would be sold again … though for £30,000 this time.

Sir Walter Raleigh travelled the world in search of fame and fortune. But it was at opposite ends of what is now Tower Hamlets that the great adventurer had his two ‘homes’ – though one was his choice and the other the King’s. He was born in Hayes Burton, Devon, probably in 1552. After studying at Oriel College Oxford, the young Raleigh went to fight in the French civil wars between 1569 and 1572. Returning to England, the young adventurer found his first home in the East End. He reputedly lived in Blackwall, in a manor house that was finally demolished in 1890 to make way for the Blackwall Tunnel approach.Raleigh was a hero and became a prominent figure at Queen Elizabeth’s court. He became a firm favourite of the Virgin Queen but, despite her insistence that Raleigh stay at court, adventure was in his blood.

Overseas voyages and colonial ventures followed and he fought in Ireland in 1580-1. Raleigh’s sights were set farther afield and on greater fortunes, though. Humphrey Gilbert, a fellow Devonian, had long had dreams of getting one over on the Spaniards and settling America. His first expedition there in 1578 got no further than the Cape Verde islands. Gilbert returned home to raise funds for another attempt, and found an eager backer in Raleigh. He set off again in 1583 and annexed St John’s in Newfoundland. The expedition left no settlers, though, and Gilbert went down with his ship on the way back to England. Raleigh was ambitious to found a permanent colony and in 1585 led an expedition which established 600 settlers on Roanoke Island in Carolina. But a year later the colonists had to be evacuated.

At home, things for Raleigh were no better. The Third Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, was jealous of the adventurer’s position of court and of his special place in the affections of the Queen. He set about undermining Raleigh’s position, and his secret marriage to royal maid-of-honour Bess Throckmorton – in 1591 – leaked out. The Queen was furious. In 1595 Raleigh had another attempt at making his fortune, leading an expedition to Guyana in search of Eldorado, the legendary hoard of gold that the Spaniards had long sought. Raleigh was unusually popular with the native population, but the Queen was not so pleased. But on his return from yet another, fruitless adventure, he cut his losses by launching a career as a writer, with a hugely successful account of his exploits.

n 1603 the protection the controversial Raleigh enjoyed at court ended with the death of Queen Elizabeth. Raleigh’s attacks on the Spanish fleet had made him popular with the Queen, but the new king, James I, was determined to make peace with the Spaniards and crushed his Spanish adventures.In the same year it seemed Raleigh had at last outplayed his luck. He was convicted as part of the Main Plot, the scheme to replace the new king with his cousin Arabella Stewart. Sentenced to death, Raleigh found his second home in Tower Hamlets – the Tower of London.

For 13 years Raleigh lived under the threat of the executioner’s blade. Never a man to lack ambition, the condemned man busied himself by writing the History of the World. He hadn’t finished his magnum opus when his fortunes took an upturn. King James released Raleigh for another attempt at finding Eldorado. But Raleigh’s skills as an explorer hadn’t improved. All he found was Spaniards, and the Englishman was involved in a series of bloody clashes. It sealed his fate. He returned in 1618 to England and the executioner’s axe. He hadn’t found gold but the adopted East Ender will go down in history as the man who (probably) brought tobacco and the potato to Europe.