| Stepney Areas |
Wapping The name Wapping appears to have derived from either an Old English word 'wapol', a marsh and Wose, meaning 'ooze' or mud or 'wap' to hit or thump. Stow refers to it as Wapping-on-the-Wose because it was frequently inundated. The area is now known as St George-in-the-East and Wapping only refers to a small riverside district. Wapping High Street was built on top of an 8 foot high wall which had been built to protect Wapping Marsh from flooding. Near the end of the 14th century the river was infested with pirates and those inhabitants on land in the Wapping area put chains and barriers across the river inlets to protect themselves. Stow told of the deaths of these pirates at Execution Dock, Wapping. The Captain Kidd is a historic Thames pub in Wapping. This particular pub was the favourite haunt of the notorious pirate named Captain Kidd. He and his men used this as the base of their smuggling operations over a couple of hundred years ago. On 14 May 1729, in the second year of the reign of George II, the Royal Assent was given to "An Act for making the Hamlet of Wapping Stepney in the Parish of St. Dunstan Stebonheath, a Distinct Parish, and for providing a Maintenance for the Minister of the New Church there." The church was called St. George’s-in-the-East. The following is by H V Morton and appears in 'Wonderful London', ed. by St John Adcock which was published by Amalgamated Press every alternate Tuesday at a cost of 1 shilling 5˝ d in the mid 1920's and could be bound in 3 volumes. 'If you want a gloomy thrill any night in London stand on Wapping stairs when the tide is low. Lamps shine in gruesome alleys; steps formed, so it would seem, for dead bodies to be dragged down, drop to black river ooze in which the moon shines.' 'We stand silenced by the grim sight of wharves with their rotten timbers in the mud, the queer shifting of the light over them, the ghostly arms of cranes projecting; and all the time the river lapping and the tide rising, the little waves alive with fish-scale patterns of moonlight.' 'Wapping! No wonder this law-abiding, early-to-bed region of London has given plots to the sensational novelist! Suddenly we hear the chug-chug of a motor-boat and the night patrol of the Thames river police noses its way to the pier like a swimming rat....'
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following people are just a few of the Wapping residents For fuller details see http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ 1. John Walker, William Walker of St John's, Wapping & Mary Ridly, Obadiah Leman, 04 Dec 1717 2. Margaret Morris of St. John Wapping, & John Moss, 16 Oct, 1717 3. Hannah Chalkworthy, of St. John Wapping, & Ann Ashton,16 Oct 1717 4. Mary Wise and Elizabeth Wise, of St. John Wapping & Thomas Redford, 10 Jan 1718 5. Mary Cunningham , of St. John Wapping, & George Bendelham, 23 Apr 1718 6. John Morris, (a Black) of St. John Wapping, 23 Apr 1718 7. Katherine Lackey, of St. John Wapping, & Jane Stead, 23 Apr 1718 8. Margaret Cox, of St. John Wapping, & Richard Miles, 23 Apr 1718 9. Thomas Bailiff , of St. John at Wapping, Samuel Batt, 25 Feb 1719 10. Jane Weeden of St. Paul's Shadwell, & George Goddard, 8 Apr 1719 11. Thomas Roberts, of St. John at Wapping, & Joseph Williams, 14 Oct 1719 12. John Atkins, of the Parish of St. John Wapping, & James Fromarty, 23 Feb 1715 13. Marmaduke Barfleur, of the Parish of St. John Wapping, & John Forster, 27 Apr 1714 14. Thomas Allen, of the Parish of St. John Wapping, & Richard Boutle, 27 Apr 1715 15. William Rice, of the Parish of St. John Wapping, & Richard Bourel, 27 Apr 1715 16. Christopher Bannister, of the Parish of St. John Wapping, & Jane Vaughan, 2 Jun 1715 17. Thomas Hall, of the Parish of St. John Wapping, & James Hamilton, 13 Jul 1715 18. Richard Ewers, of the Parish of St. John Wapping, & Henry Bowman, 12 Oct 1715 19. Margaret Anderson, William Cowley, and Sarah Fletcher, of the Parish of St. John Wapping, & Christopher Banister, 7 Dec 1715 20. Elizabeth Johnson, alias Wells, of the Parish of St. John in Wapping, & John Ennis, 13 Jan 1716.
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