eastlondonhistory.com

For the past few years, Tower Hamlets has been a movie-free zone, but it wasn’t always that way.
When the Mile End Coronet closed in 1988 it brought an end to nearly a century of film-going in the East End. Now, twin exhibitions at Bancroft Road Library mark not just a century of cinema, but the part East End picture houses played in that history. The British Film Institute (BFI) promotes films and film-making in Britain – the BFI runs the National Film Theatre, the Museum of the Moving Image and the National Film and TV archive. And its touring exhibition, Cinema Memories, takes you through 100 years of British cinema, decade by decade. Posters, books and magazines lead you from the flickering world of the silent movies through to the high-tech world of British film in the 90s. And running side by side with Cinema Memories is Going To The Pictures In Tower Hamlets.

As you see the development of the British cinema you can also trace the history of cinema-going in the borough, as the old music halls transformed themselves into picture houses and the movies became the big night out for East Enders.The Wonderland in Whitechapel Road had opened in 1880 as a music hall, followed by the Mile End Road Paragon in 1885, the Foresters Music Hall in Cambridge Heath Road in 1891 and the Marlow Palace of Varieties in 1892.All became cinemas, the Wonderland as the Rivoli (1921-41), the Paragon as the Empire, ABC and then the Coronet (between 1939 and 1988). The Foresters Cinema ran from 1925 to 1960, and the Marlow opened as the Bow Regal between 1935 and 1958. As well as the converted theatres, numerous new venues – often converted shops, warehouses or assembly halls – sprung up to tap the massive demand for films by East Enders. Commercial Road alone boasted the Kings Hall Electric Theatre, the new Electric Theatre, the Imperial Picture Palace and the Grand Eastern Central.

By the late 1930s, these makeshift movie-houses with grand names had given way to modern, purpose-built cinemas – and they were huge. The Whitechapel Rivoli seated 2268, the Mile End Odeon 2304. But the king of them all was the Commercial Road Troxy, with an amazing 3250 seats. As film-goer John Hector well remembers, the Troxy was the place to go. “If you wanted somewhere special to go it was the Troxy,” remembers John.“It was luxurious, it had the best films and a super floodlit organ which rose from the orchestra pit during the interval, playing all the latest tunes. People loved the atmosphere.” The management even sprayed the cinema with perfume to make the punters feel good!

Less flashy was The Ideal, in Kings Street, off Poplar High Street, with a corrugated tin roof and long benches bolted to the floor. Whether you wanted your night out be luxurious or cheap and cheerful, the East End had a cinema for you. Of course it didn’t last. By the 50s and 60s, the advent of TV was closing movie-theatres by the score – the closure of the Coronet sounded the end of an era.

It’s never easy being jobless, but for unemployed East Enders in Victorian times there was another insult to add to the injury of poverty. Victorian politicians - preaching the doctrines of philosopher Bentham and his creeds of utilitarianism and political economy decided that charity degraded the poor and that every person should help his or herself. With the institution of the Poor Law, the destitute would henceforth work for their daily crust - and so the cruel and hated workhouses were born. Of course, the wealthy didn’t just have the welfare of the poor at heart. In 1888 the East End News, a local paper of the time, wrote that there were an astonishing 108,000 paupers in London. To the toffs, thousands of destitutes on the streets of the capital were an eyesore and a nuisance, something had to be done - and the workhouse, which kept them out of sight and kept their hands busy, was the ideal solution.

East End docks and casual labour

The East End had more than its share of the poor. Much of the local work was seasonal or casual, such as dockwork. Much was poorly paid, such as the grinding piecework of sweatshop garment makers or matchsellers - and many ended up on the streets. Workhouses were set up all over Tower Hamlets - Poplar, Whitechapel, Mile End, Bethnal Green, Spitalfields and Ratcliff (Limehouse/Highway). All had their institutions and the poor were set to work – and hard work it was. After a breakfast of cheese and bread, the inmates would break rocks - large chunks of granite with a small hammer, or pick oakum - stripping down old rope to make new. After a long day’s labour they would be rewarded with bread and gruel. The idea, of course, was to make it as unpleasant as possible and so deter the poor from falling on the charity - and the pockets of the parish.

As if the work and pay wasn’t pitiful enough, families were torn apart, men housed separately from wives, children taken from their parents. William Vallance, who gave his name to Vallance Road, and was clerk of Whitechapel Workhouse, took his duties very seriously. Whitechapel was a model that would have delighted the self-help brigade. Vallance, a stickler for the rules, ran it with military precision, wasted not a pennny on the inmates and - as a little extra punishment - banned the men from smoking and the women from drinking tea. Even death was no release. For those who died in the workhouse there was the final indignity - a pauper’s grave and their very identity taken from them. And, amazingly, you don’t have to go back to Dickens’ time to see the horrors of the workhouse. They were not finally scrapped till 1929.

To her neighbours and patients she was the Angel of Cable Street. But the life of Hannah Billig was an extraordinary story that took her from Russia to Calcutta and Israel – while keeping a lifetime’s dedication to the people of the East End. The story started one October day in 1901 when Barnet and Millie Billig, Jewish refugees from persecution in Russia, had a child at their adopted home, 41 Hanbury Street. The Billigs were poor but, like so many who settled in the Jewish community around Brick Lane, immediately set to bettering themselves.

Jewish Maternity Hospital

Barnet worked all hours as a newsagent and then hand-making cigarettes and cigars, while Millie slaved over the cooking, cleaning and washing for her husband and six children.
And the kids had to work hard too. There was no playing in the streets like the other children of the neighbourhood, Hannah and her siblings were encouraged to sit and diligently study in their library-like front room.

The Billig parents got their reward when four of the youngsters became doctors - an especial achievement for Hannah in the 1920s when women were expected to marry and keep house. But her ambitions didn’t end with qualifying as a doctor, Hannah wanted to put something back into the community that had raised her. Her chance came with a job at the Jewish Maternity Hospital in Whitechapel’s Underwood Street.

Billig’s Watney Street practice

Hannah’s big step came with setting up her own practice in Watney Street. She still lived with her parents in Burdett Road and, by word of mouth, she soon had a flood of patients from all over Wapping and Stepney. With no NHS you had to pay for your treatment in those days. Many poor simply didn’t bother to see the doctor – but Hannah would never turn the sick away, following her father by working endless hours. And like her father too, Hannah would encourage the children she saw, telling them to bring along their books so she could read aloud to them.

Blitz hits Wapping & George Cross

As war drew on even the Blitz couldn’t stop Hannah and her work, as she darted around, tending the sick, even as the bombs were dropping around her. On 13 March 1941 she was helping the injured at a blast in Orient Wharf, Wapping. Suddenly there was an explosion and Hannah was blown down the shelter steps. Picking herself up and shaking off the dust she bandaged up her sore ankle and set about pulling others out of the rubble.

After four hours toil she finally took a break - to discover her own ankle was broken. For her bravery Billig won the George Medal, the civilian’s equivalent of the Victoria Cross - the Angel of Cable Street had been born.

In 1942 the Angel spread her wings, signing up for the Indian Army Medical Corps as a Captain and tending the sick and wounded soldiers in Assam, as they retreated from the terrible battles in the jungles of Burma. Malaria and typhus were two of the new diseases Hannah had to contend with and there was worse to come. In 1944 a grain shortage forced thousands of starving peasants into Calcutta in desperate search of food.

Her tireless work with the hundreds of thousands of sick and starving mothers and babies earned Captain Billig, GC another honour - the MBE in the 1945 New Year’s Honours List. True to form the down to earth Hannah asked them to post the gong to her - she was too busy to collect it!

Billig back in Cable Street

Back in Cable Street the good work continued until she decided to retire, in 1964, to Israel.
Parties and dinners were held all over the East End in her honour, testament to the deep impression she had made on her home. Hannah with a new life awaiting her took a sad leave of the people she called “the salt of the earth”, and headed for a well-earned rest.

It didn’t last long though. The restless Hannah soon started working again in the Arab villages and Jewish settlements around her new home in Caesarea and for 20 more years worked tirelessly for her new patients and friends.
In 1987, aged 86, the Angel died peacefully, having made almost as much of a mark in her new home as back in Cable Street.
The words on her grave in Hadera Cemetery sum up her life: In loving memory of Hannah, who devoted her life to healing the sick in England and in Israel.

If you would like to know more, read “Hannah Billig, the Angel of Cable Street”, price £3 inc p+p. Send cheques payable to Rosemary Taylor to R Taylor, 5 Pusey House, Saracen St, E14 6HG. An exhibition of Hannah’s life and work is currently running at the Ragged School Museum, 46 Copperfield Road, E3.