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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.)

Victoria Park may have started life as a much-needed amenity for the poorest of London, yet it owes its existence to the bankruptcy of one of the grandest in the land. When the Duke of York died in 1827 he left debts of £2million, a legacy of a life of excess, but he also left York House, in St James’s. Just as the Duke was squandering his fortune the East End of London was experiencing a huge population explosion. Poplar, Stepney and Wapping were being changed beyond recognition. The old market gardens were being built over with thousands of acres needed for new docks, railways – and arterial roads like Commercial Road and Commercial Street which were driven through the old areas. And landowners were throwing up cheap housing to cater for the thousands moving into the area, attracted by work on the docks and in the new factories. By the 1830s around 400,000 were living in the area, in cramped housing and cheek by jowl with sweat shops and factories – pouring pollution into the air and spoil into the waterways.

It was an unhealthy mix, and the middle classes feared that the combination of overcrowding, lack of drains, lavatories and poor water would not only spark epidemics of cholera, typhoid and tuberculosis but – much more worrying – the diseases would be spread into the ‘better’ parts of London. In 1839, William Farr, the famed sanitary reformer said that: “A park in the East End would diminish the annual deaths by several thousands, and add several years to the lives of the entire population.” Good, fresh air was the answer then, and it would also stop the unwelcome cockneys coming up West to take the air in Regents and Hyde Park. A petition drawn up the MP, George Frederick Young, swiftly got more than 30,000 signatures and was presented to Queen Victoria, who gave the go-ahead.

There was only one problem, how to pay for the new park, and that was where the Duke of York came in. On 26 April, 1841, the Earl of Wicklow announced that the funds from the sale of York House, some £72,000, would be used to construct the new park. The strange source of funding is just one of the fascinating tales thrown up by A Pictorial History of Victoria Park, London E3.* The latest publication from the East London History Society is a superb, and exhaustive history of one of the greatest Victorian municipal projects. Philip Mernick and Doreen Kendall have put together a book that will not only reawaken long-buried memories but will also throw up some surprises for local readers. It includes a detailed map, not just of the the park today, but detailing long-gone features like the pagoda, the Moorish arcade shelter, and the Bronze Boy Fountain. There is a detailed history of the moves and manoeuvres leading up to the building of the park, including dodgy deals by the then speaker of the House of Commons, who sold land to the new park and received twice as much for his land as anyone else did for theirs.

There is a section of quotes down the years on the park, from newspapers and magazines of the time, including the memories of renowned local politician George Lansbury. “We did not understand what was on the island, which had, then as now, a Chinese pagoda,” Lansbury wrote in 1928. “The LCC has destroyed all mystery now by throwing open the island by means of a bridge, but 60 years ago, we children thought that Chinese lived in the pagoda and at night came out to take care of the ducks, swans and waterfowl.” There are chapters on individual features of the park, some still around, others long gone – the boating lake, the bridges, the old bandstand. And there are the people and events that make the park special – royal visits, bathing, the sporting activities of the Victoria Park Harriers, and there is a look at the other developments that grew up around the park – the hospitals, railways and roads. And, with painstaking detail, there is a calendar of dates, listing all the important events in 150-plus years in the life of the park – the constant battles to raise cash to build memorials, the fights to protect the park against development. Best of all though are the pictures. They show the changes the park has undergone. But what jumps out of the pictures is something that never changes – the people. Whether it is a postcard from the 1860s or a photo from the 1960s, the image is of East Enders having a great time in their very own park.

* A Pictorial History of Victoria Park, London E3. Published by the East London History Society, ISBN 0 950 6258 1 7, price £6.99 it is available from local bookshops or direct by post (£6,99 plus £1.50 post and packing, from Doreen Kendall, 20 Puteaux House, Cranbrook Estate, London E2 0RF.

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When Coutts moved into Canary Wharf Tower recently, the posh people’s bank was simply renewing its aquaintance with the East End of London. For, a century ago, long before the Queen’s bankers had to worry about the size of Fergie’s overdraft, one of their number was spreading the family cash in a different fashion – by helping the Tower Hamlets poor. Angela Burdett-Coutts had everything going for her and no need to lift a finger. In 1837, at the age of just 23 she inherited a vast fortune from grandfather Thomas Coutts, the banker, and promptly became one of the world’s richest women and the object of many keen suitors. The Victorian era is infamous for the obscene gap between the hugely wealthy and the desperately poor. But for every exploitative factory owner or businessman there was a philanthropist, desperately trying to improve the lot of the working man, woman and child.Coutts Bank and charity
Angela ignored the offers of marriage and the comfortable life that awaited her and threw herself into her religious faith and using her cash to fight for social reform and education for the poor. She didn’t turn her back on the family firm though. With amazing energy she not only threw herself into setting up charities, projects for housing the poor, childcare schemes, fighting for work for women – she also took a keen interest in the running of Coutts Bank, becoming a sharp businesswoman and a key part of the family firm.

London poverty in 19th century
The East End of the nineteenth century may have been the hub of the British Empire’s trade but many of its people lived in terrible poverty. Coutts set about making things better. She supplied funds to build the church of St John’s in Vincent Street, Limehouse, later to become Halley Street. She set up a sewing school in Brown’s Lane, Spitalfields and women came to learn sewing skills. Many East End women were driven into prostitution by poverty. Charles Dickens became a firm friend of Angela and helped her to set up a house of rescue for young prostitutes. He later marked her philanthropic works for Londoners by dedicating his novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, to Coutts. Not all her work was so successful. A big problem for working people was getting affordable fresh food. London markets had to pay tolls, which racked up the price of the goods on sale.

Building of Columbia Market, 1886
£20,000 paid for the building of the Columbia Market, in Bethnal Green. It had room for 400 stalls but the market never made money. Various schemes were tried, including a go at running it as a fish market, but in 1886 the market shut. A revolutionary figure, Angela was recognised for her energy and works. She was the first female “freeman” of the City and the first woman made a peer in her own right. When Baroness Burdett-Coutts died in 1906 she left a lasting mark on the East End, with huge schemes like the building of model tenements in Columbia Square, Bethnal Green, and with her name – which lives on in Angela Street, Baroness Road and Burdett Road.

Further Reading: The Tower Hamlets Connection, Harold Finch, Tower Hamlets Libraries and Stepney Books; Made of Gold, D Orton, Hamish Hamilton; Lady Unknown, E Healey, Sidgwick and Jackson.

What’s the connection between Mahatma Gandhi, Dixon of Dock Green actor Jack Warner and Sir Walter Raleigh? Give up? They are just three of the characters who have played a part in building the rich and varied history of the East End. But now you needn’t wrack your brains anymore. All the names and faces from centuries of East End Life are gathered together in one book. The Tower Hamlets Connection, A biographical guide, has been years in the making. It all came about as the brainchild of Harold Finch. In his 27 years working for the old London County Council and ILEA, Harold not only took a keen interest in contemporary Londoners, but found himself digging further into the past.

“It was a great learning experience,” he says. “These characters became my companions over many months. In the book there is much poverty, hardship and struggle and the spirit in which this is overcome is remarkable. “While some did much to improve conditions of home and work, others made significant contributions elsewhere.” They certainly did. And alongside philanthropists such as the social reformer Annie Besant, and William Cotton, founder of the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, there is a rogues’ gallery of villains. Baron George Jeffreys, the infamous ‘Hanging Judge Jeffreys’ was one who should have been on the side of the good guys. He earned his grisly nickname at the ‘Bloody Assizes’ of 1685, when he tried the rebellious followers of the Duke of Monmouth. Jeffreys didn’t believe in half measures and hanged, transported, whipped and fined hundreds of the unfortunate accused. He got a taste of his own medicine in 1688 at the fall of his royal protector, James II. He tried to escape from London disguised as a sailor, but was recognised in Wapping. He escaped the noose he had prescribed for so many in his own courtroom, but was sent to the Tower of London, where he died.

Then there was George Smith, born in 1872 in Roman Road, hanged in 1915, protesting his innocence after all three of his wives died in the bath on the first night of their honeymoons! Many of the characters are cockneys born and bred, like Elizabeth Lansbury, the wife of the campaigning local MP, George Lansbury. The young Elizabeth Brine was born in the 1860s in Whitechapel, where her father owned a saw mill. Elizabeth, the mother of 12, came to fame as one of the East End suffragettes, who withstood intimidation and imprisonment to fight for the woman’s right to vote. Her struggle and her bravery are commemorated by the Elizabeth Lansbury Nursery School, in Cordelia Street, E14. Or there is Jeremy Bentham, the legal reformer, born in Red Lion Street, Spitalfields, now part of Commercial Street. The Poor Laws of 1834 and many of the legal reforms of the nineteenth century were based on Bentham’s philosophy of utilitarianism and he was instrumental in prison reform.

Many more came to make their home in the borough. Henry VIII’s Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, novelist Joseph Conrad and founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, to name just three. The Tower Hamlets Connection is an exhaustive and unputdownable book and essential reading for anyone interested in the names that made the East End great. You want to know the names of every East End mayor, MP or bishop? It’s here. Lavishly illustrated and with an exhaustive bibliography and suggested further reading after each entry, you’ll never be stuck for the information you need.

The Tower Hamlets Connection, by Harold Finch, is published by Tower Hamlets Library Services and Stepney Books, price £7.99 and is available now from all local libraries and good book shops.

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.

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.