Bethnal Green
To the south of Old Ford
Road a wide green was formed about which the hamlet of
Bethnal Green was formed.
Bethnal is said to be a
contraction of Bathon Hall, Bathon being the name of the
family who lived there in the time of Edward I. Or did
the name originate from 'Blida's Corne' or even
'Blithehale' meaning 'happy retreat'?
Bishops Hall, the country
home of the Bishops of London was built to the north east
on land which is now part of Victoria Park.
Both Chancellor Baldock
(1313) and Bishop Roger Niger (1241) died in Bethnal
Green.
Bethnall House or Kirby
Castle had been built by John Kirby, a wealthy citizen of London, during
Elizabeth's reign (1558-1603). It was also known as
'Kirby's Folly'. It later became a lunatic asylum and
remained so until about 1900.
Gascoigne's map, dated
1703, still shows Bethnal Green as a spacious village
with open country all around. Silk weaving was by then
well established in the area but was still a cottage
industry. The map gives no hint of the overcrowding to
follow for by 1742 the population had reached 15,000.
In the area there were
also several large houses in their own grounds. In 1725 a
two and a half acre site had been purchased at Hare
Fields from Charles White by the Church Commissioners for building
Fifty New Churches for 200 pounds.
Most of the hamlet's
residents lived in the south east of the area and wanted
a church to be built nearer on Mile End Green. In 1742 a
petition was presented to Parliament for the forming of a
parish and the building of a church. The following year
Bethnal Green became a parish with its own parish church
of St Matthew which was consecrated on 15 July 1746. John
Wesley preached from the church on several occasions. It
was completely destroyed on 7 September 1940 during an
air raid. Bethnal Green was one of only two parishes (the
other in Liverpool) to have churches dedicated to all of
the twelve apostles.
By 1740 the population had
grown to 15,000 and the inhabitants lived 'three or four
families to a house'. It was said that due to the lack of
a place to worship there had been a decline in morals and
a disregard for religion. Many decent families moved
away.
The area still retained
some of its country like character despite the
overcrowding reported in 1740 but the open fields,
particularly in the district adjoining Spitalfields, had
become built up.
There was a farm in
Bethnal Green called Coate's Farm. Hector Bolitho & Derek Peel in Without the City Walls (John Murray
1952) say that in History of East London by Sir Hubert
Llewellyn Smith there is 'a reproduction of a water
colour drawing of 'Coate's Farm and the Old George Inn,
Bethnal Green' It shows a pleasant farmhouse, with a man
working the water pump, a farm wagon, and a shepherd with
his dog.. '
In 1777 John Wesley said that the Bethnal Green
streets were filled with weavers' houses with their large
windows in the upper rooms to allow plenty of daylight
for the workers. A few of the silk weavers houses built
in the 19th century with their large windowed attics
remain.
By 1787 the population of
Bethnal Green had risen to 20,000 and by 1840 30,000
people were living in its half mile square.
Comment was made of
Bethnal Green in 1848 regarding the 'enormous number of
dwellings which have been constructed in defiance of
every law and principle on which the health and lives of
the occupants depend.' Water was only supplied at low
pressure for 2 hours three times a week.
1850: Anybody whose acquaintance with Bethnal
Green commenced more than a quarter of a century ago,
will remember that some of those names of streets and
rows which now seem to have such a grimly sarcastic
meaning expressed, not inaptly, the places to which they
originally referred. Holly Bush Place, Green Street,
Pleasant Place, and other neighbourhoods, which now
consist of ruinous tenements, reeking with abominations,
were outlying, decent cottages, standing on or near plots
of garden ground, where the inmates reared prize tulips
and rare dahlias in their scanty leisure, and where some
of the last of the old French refugees dozed away the
evenings of their lives in pretty summer-houses, amidst
flower-beds gay with virginia stocks and creeping plants.
At this time, and before the
present main road was formed to supersede the Old Bethnal
Green Road, which lies nearer to Cambridge heath, this
district was but a sort of country extension of
Spitalfields; for Spitalfields had begun to assume the
appearance that it exhibits now that its worst features
have been exceeded by the wretched maze of streets and
alleys which have built all greenness, except that
belonging to rottenness, out of Bethnal. It may be
remarked that the worst parts of Bethnal Green are not
those inhabited by weavers, and that wherever the weaver
is found, his general appearance, and the tidiness of his
poor room, offer a striking contrast to those of many of
his neighbours. Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London,
1850
1868: The Illustrated
London News reported on Bethnal Green 'A large part of
the population, at the best of times, is on the verge of
pauperism.'
St Matthew, Bethnal Green achieved a record peal of bells
by ringing for 9 hours continuously. (I wonder what the
local inhabitants thought of this.)
Forester's Music Hall once
stood in Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green.
In 1894 Meath Gardens, to
the south of Green Street, bethnal Green, opened as a
public garden.
Bethnal Green Gardens: a
memorial fountain stands in the gardens to commemorate
the gallantry of Alice Maud Denman and Peter Regelous 'who lost their lives in attempting to save
others at a fire at 429 Hackney Road, 20th April 1902.'
See The
Streets of Bethnal
Green in 1848.
|