eastlondonhistory.com

In the 19th century the East End brought in goods from around the world via the docks. But in another business the East End supplied the world itself — as the home of factories which furnished the homes of Britain and the Empire. Before the 1830s most London furniture makers were based in the centre of London turning out posh pieces for the big houses of the West End. But new houses were shooting up in the East End, needing plentiful furniture and quick – a new business was about to be born.

In 1801 there was just one furniture firm in Shoreditch’s Curtain Road, 50 years later it was the hub of an East End business employing tens of thousands and producing the majority of the capital’s output. The boom started with the opening of the East India and West India Docks and a new, plentiful supply of cheap timber. The building of the canals brought the timber inland, with sawmills setting up business alongside, and hundreds of small workshops sprung up in Bethnal Green, Shoreditch and Hoxton to produce cheap furniture. It was cheap and easy to set up on your own, the workers needed only enough cash to buy wood to work on one piece at a time. The ‘small master’ system took root, with craftsmen working from tiny rooms or garrets, and so they became known as garret masters.

While the skilled West End masters put off marriage and children to dedicate themselves to their trade, the garret masters planned to have as many as possible. Families of six or more were not unusual, with all taking up an unpaid duty with the master, maybe as young as six. The great Victorian chronicler of East End life, Henry Mayhew, recorded the tale of a Spitalfields garret master in 1850. The man started his 16-hour day at 6am, put his children to the same work six days a week, then sent his wife out to walk miles to sell their wares. For all that work, the family would earn just 16 shillings, and they often went to bed unfed. As the master said: “Unless a man has children to help him he can’t live at all.”

Soon, many of the Jewish immigrants were flooding into the trade and by the turn of the century owned many of the firms. Lobovitch, Hyman, Galinsky and Dolnisky around the Whitechapel Road became famous names. Customers could try Caplins or Percy Young on the Commercial Road or Wickhams – the “Harrods of East London” – on the Mile End Road. The biggest of them all was Lebus of Tabernacle Street, by the end of the 19th century the major furniture-maker in Britain. By the time the firm moved out to Tottenham Hale in 1903, it employed more than 1,000 people. The industry was at its peak as the new century drew on, but World War Two brought disaster. Shortages of materials forced the Government to introduce Utility Furniture, using wood sparingly and produced in limited runs.

Many big factories were turned over to aircraft manufacture, small firms simply went under. Big names like Lebus and Beautility simply disappeared. An East End industry, which had led the world, vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. For more information read Furnishing The World by Kirkham, Mace and Porter, Journeyman Books.

Wedgewood, Meissen, Delft – all are world famous names in the world of pottery. But 250 years ago it was Bow pottery that was drawing the eyes of the world, and all thanks to a young Irish painter who settled in the East End. Thomas Frye had been born in Dublin in 1710 and, having won acclaim in his native Ireland as a painter,came to London in 1734. One of his first coups as a portraitist was his commission to paint the Prince of Wales, for the Saddlers’ Company. Among the other specialities of the multi-talented artist were miniature painting, mezzotint, engraving and enamel work.

But Frye was also a keen inventor and his love of art and love of discovery came together when he devised a method of producing porcelain, the beautiful translucent china pottery as popular in the eighteenth century as it is today. Porcelain may have been popular at the time but there were two big problems. First it was very fragile and second, with all the pieces coming from abroad, it was very expensive. Frye had a solution. As a result of his experiments with china clay he discovered a method of making porcelain out of bone ash. This not only produced a porcelain of brilliant whiteness and luminescence but one of extraordinary durability. The second solution was obvious – he would set up a factory in London to manufacture his new china.

In 1744, Frye and his partner, Edward Heylen took out a patent for the production of artificial soft-paste porcelain. The inventors and manufacturers of porcelain in England called their product “New Canton”, a nod to the pottery from the Far East with which they hoped to compete. The next step was to set up a factory. Frye had attracted the interest of the rich and powerful Peers family. They owned huge tracts of land across Bromley, Bow and Stratford. They were also directors of the all-powerful East India Company, mainstay of Britain’s overseas trade at the time, and whose great ships unloaded their imported wares on the Isle of Dogs, near the mouth of Bow Creek. The Court Book of 1744 shows that Edward Heylen acquired a property on the London side of the River Lea, at Bow. On 7 July 1749, an insurance policy was taken out for the new works. And, with the backing of the Peers family, the china factory was set up near Bow Bridge in 1749, with Fry running the operation. The Bow Porcelain Manufactory of New Canton was ready to start work.

Business was good. By 1750, Frye and Heylen were in partnership with John Wetherby and John Crowther, who owned a wholesale pottery business at St Katherine by the Tower. Frye’s work was down to earth from the word go, concentrating on “the more ordinary sorts of ware for common use”. That didn’t please the purists. One expert has described Bow porcelain as “a peasant art which appeals to an unacademic sense of beauty rather than taste.” Still, what do experts know. Very soon the demand was so great that another factory was opened, this time on the Stratford side of the River Lea. But despite his success Frye was still toiling long hours in the factory furnaces as well as designing new lines. Eventually the long hours and gruelling work took their toll. Frye died in 1762, at the age of just 52, and is buried in Hornsey Churchyard. The work went on, but without his driving force and energy, quality slipped. Their was another 13 years of production at Bow, but towards the end products were underfired and lacked their earlier translucence and in 1776 the works closed. Frye’s legacy remains. His processes changed pottery forever and one of his daughters went on to work for Wedgewood. And the fact you will still find Bow porcelain today – tough enough to last 250 years – is testament to Frye’s vision.

Further reading: Bow Porcelain, Adams and Redstone (Faber and Faber.)