Stepney Areas |
The Streets of Bethnal Green in 1848 In the mid 19th century Bethnal Green was suffering from considerable neglect by the authorities and suffered from epidemics and unusual causes of mortality. There was virtually no drainage or sewerage neither was there any clean water. Unbelievably Spitalfields, Mile-end New Town, Whitechapel, and Mile-end Old Town were even worse. In the eastern districts of London the mortality had been more than doubled by the prevalence of influenza. The following is taken from Victorian London - Sanitary Ramblings, Being Sketches and Illustrations of Bethnal Green, by Hector Gavin, 1848. (One should remember that the people who lived here in the conditions described did so, not by choice but out of necessity. They could not afford to move away and in any case no other parish would allow them in not wishing to have them as a burden. The people who lived in these areas truly knew what the word 'poverty' meant. They would endure almost anything rather than go into the workhouse and the workh9use would only accept them if they were completely destitute. BETHNAL GREEN: The parish of Bethnal Green was divided into four districts. To the east was The Green, the Church, the Town, and the Hackney-road districts. The Green, the largest of these areas, was open and uncovered by buildings and contained the workhouse, Dr. Warburton's lunatic asylum, Globe Town, and Cambridge-road. To the north-east was a portion of the Victoria Park. Forming the outskirt of London it was referred to, towards the east, as suburban. There were two cemeteries, the privately owned North-east London Cemetery and Victoria Park Cemetery. The Church district was considerably smaller and contained no open spaces apart from those on either side of the railway where many houses had been torn down. The houses in the area were not densely packed. There were no public building apart from churches and there were two large Jewish grave-yards. The Town District was still smaller than the Church district and had been closely built on and was densely crowdedand there were no open spaces. The Hackney-road district was roughly the same size as the Church district. It was mostly composed of better class of buildings. The parish was divided into medical relief districts. One contained the Green, another the greater part of the Church district, a third part of the Town district and a small part of the Church district, a fourthwas bounded on the east by Shoreditch and consisted of the worst part of the Hackney-road division, and a part of the Town and the fifth the Hackney-road district excluding that covered by 4. In the area known as the Green Lord Morpeth had Victoria Park laid out. Within its grounds he provided the the local people to take various gymnastic exercises. He had an artificial lake built for bathing. Sewers were built to drain the area and the building which took place soon afterto the west of the park. There were other open areas including Bethnal Green and a large open area to the south which was bounded by the railway. The workhouse and Dr. Warburton's lunatic asylum had a high mortality rate and the houses towards Old Ford had no drainage. Not all the roads had been Macadamized and while Cambridge- road had virtually no drainage or sewerage and was always filthy, Palestine-place was always clean. Cambridge Road extended from Hackney-turnpike to Mile-end-gate and included Bethnal-green and the Dog-row. The road from Hackney was kept clean until it approached Mile-end- gate, whereupon it became extremely dirty, and refuse and garbage were to be found on its surface. The gutters were full, and mud- heaps occurred every few yards. The footpath however was well paved. The road took a lot of traffic and needed efficient sewerage but there was no sewer from the north side of Bethnal-green to Three Colt- lane, and for much of the Dog-row. The streets branching off were clean where there was proper sewerage and filthy when there was none. On one side of Cambridge-road, north of Bethnal-green, there was a filthy, stinking yard which contained dung-heaps and pig-styes. In GEORGE STREET the gutters here are loaded with foetid filth, which accumulated from the surface-drains of the houses. This filth passed by an open ditch into the neighbouring brick-field, first receiving the contents of a small ditch which ran at the back of the houses. PEACOCK-ALLEY - Is a duster of miserable houses; the gutter fronting them is full of most foetid, muddy filth; dust, and garbage-heaps are common. Two stand-pipes supply eleven houses with water, but there is no receptacle to receive, and preserve it; the want of such a receptable is grievously complained of. 3s. 3d. are the rent of each house, consisting of two rooms, one on the ground floor (which is very damp), and a garret. The row of houses in PARADISE-ROW front Bethnal-green and at the north end is an alley. - These houses present all the external characters of decency and comfort; nevertheless, the following fact will explain how much the health of the inhabitants is dependent on external circumstances :-A gentleman, named Knight, rashly, and in ignorance of the locality, purchased the lease of No. 1, which forms the eastern end of Bethnal-green-road. Immediately after taking up his residence there he became ill, and, shortly after, died of typhus, in an aggravated form. On inspection of the neighbouring premises, I discovered Paradise Dairy immediately behind his house. In this dairy sixteen cows and twenty swine are usually kept. The animal remains and decomposing vegetable refuse were piled up a considerable height above a hollow adapted to receive them. This conservation of the refuse takes place in order that a sufficiently large quantity may accumulate. Moreover, the soakage from the neighbouring privies found its way into this receptacle for manure and filth. The surface of the yard was dirty and covered with refuse. Even in the street, the offensiveness of this nuisance was obviously apparent to every passer-by. The occupiers of this dairy nevertheless asserted the place to be perfectly clean and wholesome." MOCKFORD BUILDINGS - Is a blind court or alley containing five houses. The houses are two-roomed, and let for 3s. a week. In one room seven persons slept, and six now sleep; the seventh died of pneumonia. The four children of the parties who reside in this wretchedly damp place have all been ill with low fever. The room in which they sleep is 9 feet by 7 in width and 7½ feet high. SUFFOLK-ST - The roadway of this street is in the most deplorably filthy condition; north of the railway it is a perfect quagmire. Garbage and refuse of all sorts are deposited by the side of the wall. By the side of the arch, No. 100, is a low yard, from which the most offensive smells arise. The place is excessively filthy, and abominably dirty." In BARNSLEY-ALLEY there is an open space in front of this alley, covered with garbage. NEW SOMERFORD-ST - The road is broken up, and excessively dirty. NORFOLK-ST, CAMBRIDGE-ROAD - This street is in a very dirty condition, with mud-heaps scattered over it every yard or two. CROSS-ST, CAMBRIDGE-ROAD - This street is similarly covered with mud- heaps. NORTHAMPTON-ST, CAMBRIDGE-ROAD - This street likewise is covered with mud-heaps. There is a cow-yard in it. DARLING-ROW, CAMBRIDGE-ROAD - Similar mud-heaps encumber this street. ESSEX-ST, NOTHAMPTON-ST - Mud-heaps and scattered garbage, and collections of dung and refuse encumber this street. JOHN-ST - On entering one of the houses in this dirty street, I found four persons sleeping in a room six feet high, and seven feet by eight in width, Nearly the whole space was taken up with the bed and a few articles of furniture. JOHN'S COURT, JOHN-ST - There is but one stand tap to the four houses, which are very damp. They are two-roomed, and the rent is 2s. 6d. a week. GARDEN-PLACE, JAMES-ST - Is entered by a narrow alley, three or four houses are stuck on the damp clay, with small yards in front, on which every kind of refuse is thrown. No dust heaps are accumulated, but the refuse is left to lie where it is thrown. Fever has been very prevalent in this place, in one house nearly every inmate has been attacked. In the alley leading to these horrid and neglected spots is a large pig-stye; it is close to the houses, and emits the most disgusting and sickening odours. I could not remain to make notes of this place, so overpowering was the abominable stench. JAMES-ST - In this street there is a very large yard, in which stores of waste tin, zinc, &c., are preserved and sorted. Although the place cannot be termed an offensive nuisance, nevertheless the gradual accumulation of refuse, which necessarily takes places, causes the surface of the ground in wet weather to emit unwholesome effluvia. There is likewise in this street, a small yard for the collection of ashes, and dust, and dirt of various kinds. These are preserved and sorted. There is also in this yard garbage and manure-heaps. At the end of the street there is another tin yard, not quite so large as the one just mentioned. This street though very dirty, and with the gutters full of offensive black slime and mud, is not now in the impassable state described by Dr. Southwood Smith nine years and a-half ago. This I attribute to an excellent sewer which passes from the south-east of Bethnal-green, the whole length of Green-street. Neither do I find there the nightman's-yard which he describes, and which I therefore presume, has been done away with. ELY-PLACE, DIGBY-PLACE - This place is in a most dilapidated state; most of the houses are in a wretched condition. Two of the houses are considerably below the level of the alley. Even now, on a dry frosty day, the soil in front of them is very wet, but after rains the hollow becomes a swamp. Much sickness and disease always prevail here. In one room I found five persons residing, two were ill with fever. DIGBY-ST, GLOBE-ROAD - In this most dirty street, exists one of the most atrocious nuisances which it is possible to create. One cannot conceive the toleration of such an abomination by the law, without being overwhelmed with amazement and regret, I would almost say, despondency . A person named Baker, lately dead, here formed a receptacle for every kind of manure. The premises have a frontage of 450 feet, and are about 140 feet in depth. With the exception of a small space in front, and on either side, the whole of the area is filled with every variety of manure in every stage of offensive and disgusting decomposition; the manure is piled up to a considerable height, and is left to dry in the sun; but, besides this table mountain of manure, extensive and deep lakes of putrefying night soil are dammed up with the more solid dung, and refuse, forming together, mountain and lake, a scene of the most disgusting character; degrading alike to its late possessor and to the authorities who permit its existence. If foul privies, and overflowing cesspools are justly considered sources of disease and death, - if they are correctly termed insidious and fatal poisons,- if it be impossible as is stated by the Government Commissioners, that any people can be healthy who live on a soil permeated by cesspools-in what light must we consider this wholesale manufactory of a poison, at once most disgusting and most deadly, and how shall we regard those who supinely and apathetically submit their own fellow-beings to its lethal operation. The decomposing organic particles which are ever being set free from this putrescent mass, are wafted by each wind that blows, over a population to whom they bring disease and death, as surely as, though more insidiously than, the deadly simoom. DIGBY WALK, GLOBE ROAD - In fit character with the distressing and degrading scene last visited, is this alley, which is in a state of the most beastly dirt. More than half of this horrid alley is covered with a stagnant pool of most offensive and filthy slime, and mud, in some places, to the depth of a foot. Some of the houses, which abut on it, are unfinished, but the yards of the older houses present a character little dissimilar to the stagnant gutter, or ditch itself. The refuse from a pig-stye drains into this gutter, and adds pungency to its offensiveness. This place is private property, and the landlord of the new houses has built a cesspool, into which to drain his houses, but he will not permit the other houses in the alley to drain into this cesspool, unless the parish pay to him 1l., a sum which it will not pay. Verily, one case of typhus would cost much more than the small sum asked to keep this place clean. BAKER-STREET, GREEN-STREET - One of the yards in this street is in a filthy state, and contains a heap of manure. KNOTTISFORD-STREET - At the end of this street there is a cow-yard; pigs are likewise kept here. The place sends off most offensive smells. CHARLES~STREET - Garbage and refuse are freely distributed on the surface of this dirty street. CEMETERY-PLACE - Consists of a few wretched houses, near the Victoria Park Cemetery. WEST-STREET, GREEN-STREET - This street is most filthy. Many of the houses on the south side are below the level of the road, and are consequently very damp. VIOLET-ROW - This is an excessively dirty place. In front of the houses, in this row, there is a small space which is covered with muddy and slimy pools, with garbage, and with refuse heaps. HARROLD-STREET, GREEN-STREET - In No. 10 in this street I found eight persons, who live and sleep in one room. The room is 10 feet by 6 feet, and 9 feet high. The bed and furniture filled no inconsiderable portion of the room; the children had low fever. The house contains two rooms on the ground floor, and a work-room above; another family occupied the other room. For the one room, and the use of part of the work-room, 2s. 9d. a week are paid. At the corner of this place is a large open brick field. TYPE-STREET, GREEN-STREET - This street must have been intended as a type of the rest of the district which I had to visit. It was in the most filthy state possible, the stagnant pools of fetid, and putrid mud with their green scum, presented an aspect as offensive to the sight, as the smell was repulsive: pig-styes and dung-heaps heightened the foulness of the effluvia, and rendered the place horrible. Towards the end of this street is an opening for the commencement of a new street. A pool of foetid slime, twenty-three yards long, fills up part of the opening. A gutter, cut in the roadway, conducts the slimy refuse from the filthy street into this pond; two small gutters likewise lead into it from separate houses. SYDNEY-STREET, GREEN-STREET - The same kind of thickened, black, slimy, and putrescent mud, with the green scum of vegetable life sprouting on its surface, fills the gutters and hollows of this street; a pig-stye abutting on it increases the sum of nuisances. CROSS-STREET, GREEN-STREET - This street is utterly beastly, the gutters are filled with the same kind of offensive putrifying mud. But PLEASANT-PLACE presents the ne plus ultra of street abomination. It is impossible to conceive how utterly filthy and abominable this street is; to be estimated it must be seen. The broken up road is filled in its hollows, and covered on its surface, so as to be nearly impassable (even this dry frosty day) with the putrescent muddy slime already referred to; and this is its state shortly after it has been cleansed, as it is absurdly termed, by the parish authorities. The street is nothing more or less than an elongated lake or canal; only, in place of water, we have a black, slimy, muddy compost of clay and putrescent animal and vegetable remains. Fever has visited this spot, and in one house has been very fatal. KING-STREET, OLD FORD-LANE - This street is little, if at all, better than the preceding, and the same discreditable observations apply to it. It is quite evident that such a condition of things, as is above referred to, must be destructive of all personal cleanliness and comfort, subversive of moral energy, and dangerous to health. OLD FORD-LANE - By the side of this lane there runs a black ditch. BONNER'S-LANE - There is also by the side of this narrow lane, and fronting the houses, a black gutter, which may almost be termed a ditch. As there is no drainage whatever to this place, whenever a shower of rain falls, the contents of this gutter are washed over, and cover, the pathway. At the present time it smells very offensive. Fever is generally very prevalent here. WHISKER'S GARDENS - This is a very extensive piece of ground, which is laid out, in neat plots, as gardens. The choicest flowers are frequently raised here, and great taste, and considerable refinement are evidently possessed by those who cultivate them. Now, among the cultivators are the poor-even the very poor-of Bethnal Green, for the few gentlemen who likewise have their gardens here are inconsiderable in number. I am confirmed, by the neatness and taste displayed in these gardens, in the justness of according to the poor a much higher sense of social comfort, and of the refinements of life, than is usually granted to them. The weary artisan and the toil-worn weaver here dedicate their spare hours, in the proper seasons, to what has always been considered a refined, as well as an innocent recreation, the cultivation of beautiful flowers. The love of the beautiful, and the sense of order which are readily accorded to the artisan, or weaver, in his neat garden, surrounded by the choicest dahlias or tulips carefully cultivated, are denied to him when visited in his filthy, dirty street. When seen in his damp and dirty home, he is generally accused of personal uncleanliness, and a disregard of the commonest appearances of decency and regularity; yet, in his garden, he displays evidences of a refined taste and a natural love of beauty and of order. The two are irreconcileable, and as the one sentiment is natural and spontaneous, we are irresistibly led to regard the personal uncleanness of the poor, and the impurities which surround their houses, as the results of agencies foreign to the individual. Attached to all these little plots of ground are summer-houses. In the generality of cases, they are mere wooden sheds, cabins, or huts; but a few are more solid erections. It is very greatly to be regretted that the proprietors of these gardens should permit the slight and fragile sheds in them to be converted into abodes for human beings. It is impossible to view the change of these summer-houses into permanent dwellings but as the commencement of the lamentable state of things which at present exists in George-gardens, and Gale's-gardens, and, in its worst forms, in Green-gate and Weatherhead-gardens; places which are yet to be described. Of the hundreds of summer-houses in Whisker's-gardens, some sixteen or twenty only have as yet been converted into human habitations; but the following facts regarding them sufficiently point out the deplorable consequences of the change. The "houses" in these gardens are partly wooden, partly brick sheds, altogether unadapted to any other purpose than the most temporary protection from the inclemency of the weather. Sometimes they are divided into rooms; they are planted on the damp, undrained ground. The privies are sheds, erected over holes in the ground; the soil, itself, is removed from these holes, and is dug into the ground to promote its fertility; thus carrying out an apparently scientific design to poison by fever the inmates of the neighbouring dwellings. The supply of water is derived from wells sunk in the ground, thus manured; sometimes one well supplies one, sometimes two dwellings. Holes are likewise dug in the ground into which to throw the foul water. I have been thus particular in my description of these gardens, as the description will serve to explain the existence of such places as George-gardens down to the infamous Weatherhead-gardens, now become the abodes of the scum of society. Two cases of typhus occurred to the parochial medical officer in these gardens, one presenting a malignant character which died. PARK-STREET - This street is covered with mud-heaps, garbage, and refuse, and is very dirty. NORTH-PLACE, GREEN-STREET - This street is likewise covered with refuse, dung, and garbage. Pig-styes add to the filthiness of the place and the foulness of the effluvia. Whooping-cough and measles abound here. BERNHAM-SQUARE - This square consists of scattered buildings in gardens, and forms a remarkable exception to the foulness of the places last visited, in being tolerably clean. GROSVENOR-PLACE, GLOBE-STREET - In this street the black slimy filth has been cleansed out from the gutters, and carefully spread over the surface of the road, which is broken up, and in a most beastly condition, covered with decaying refuse and garbage. At the end of it is a pig-stye, and a stable. PROVIDENCE-PLACE, BLUE ANCHOR-LANE - In front of this place is a space where every kind of refuse and filth is swept, and where the water stagnates and causes the more rapid decomposition of the garbage. PRUSSIA OR BLUE ANCHOR-LANE - This lane is nearly in an impassable state for carts; it is quite broken up, and is most filthy. There is a cow-yard in it, with seven or eight dung-heaps. Twenty-two houses have been recently built, but the roadway before them is passable. MARTHA-COURT, MARTHA-STREET - A wretched court leading out of Martha-street. There are thirteen houses in it, in a most dilapidated condition; they are two-roomed, and are very damp, as is shown by the walls. One tap with a cock serves to supply the whole thirteen houses; but there are three privies in an offensive state. There is one dust corner. 3s. and 2s. 6d. a week are the rents of these houses. CHESTER-STREET also termed Behind Chester-place - This short street is in a most lamentable state, from the want of efficient drainage, a state which is the more discreditable, as the main sewer passes along Chester-place for 156 feet. The gutter is flooded with filth and slimy mud; the gutter gradually widens out till the whole breadth of this street, eight yards, is covered with stagnant water and foetid mud; but not only does it cover the whole roadway, but it also extends some distance down a roadway at right angles to it (improperly termed Chester- place). The gutter is deepened at the extremity of the street, and into it a house drain pours its supply of fluid refuse. Between this gutter, and the stagnant pool all kinds of vegetable refuse are profusely scattered, and are gradually passing into decomposition-garbage, dung, potato-peelings, cabbage-leaves, shoes, and dust and dirt of all descriptions. HELEN'S-PLACE, CHESTER-PLACE - In this place there is a large tin- yard, similar to that referred to in James-street. Fronting a narrow footpath is a filthy black ditch, 45 feet long. On the other side are three very small yards; these are connected with four houses. These houses, better termed sheds, consist of one room; they are barely seven feet high in the roof, and are eight feet deep by twelve feet in length. They are completely undrained; the footpath is the wet clay. There is no supply of water, and the occupants "get it from their neighbours," or "where they can." There is one privy, which has a cesspool in common with a separate privy attached to another house. The cesspool is nearly full; the wood-work of the privy can scarcely hold together, and it is dangerous to use it. Not long ago the landlady of some houses in Armstrong- buildings fell into a cesspool and was suffocated. Such an event is extremely probable here from the dilapidated condition of the place. There is no dust- heap in this place; a sad mark of wretchedness, inasmuch as where there is no dust-heap to be found, it is to be concluded that it is the practice to spread the refuse over the neighbouring soil. The vegetable matter, being mixed with the dust, forms a fresh layer of soil, well adapted for the growth of plants and the destruction of human beings. The occupants of these houses are likewise destitute of slop-holes, but throw their foul water into the ditch fronting their houses. It scarcely needs to be remarked that these houses are very damp. They are respectively occupied by two persons, by four persons (a man, two women, and a child), by six persons (a man, woman, and four children), and by one person. Is. a week is paid as rent for each of these most wretched abodes. JAMES-PLACE, JAMES-STREET - Consists of two huts in a filthy yard, with dung and refuse heaped against the wall. The privy is perfectly filthy. NORTH-PASSAGE - In this alley garbage and refuse heaps are piled against the wall, and the gutter in the centre is choked with black slime and mud. HAMDEN'S-PLACE a continuation of Braemar-street - The road is excessively dirty. BRAEMAR-STREET - The road is broken up, and very dirty.
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