Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative center of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) east of Charing Cross. It was part of the ancient parish of Stepney, Middlesex. It was split off as a separate parish in the 14th century. It became part of the County of London in 1889 and Greater London in 1965. Because the area is close to the London Docklands and east of the City of London, it has been a popular place for immigrants and the working class.
The area was the center of the London Jewish community in the 19th and early 20th century and the location of the infamous 11 Whitechapel murders (1888–91), some of which were attributed to the mysterious serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. In the latter half of the 20th century, Whitechapel became a significant settlement for the British Bangladeshi community and has the Royal London Hospital and East London Mosque.
History
Before the 19th century
Whitechapel High Street and Whitechapel Road are now part of the A11 road, anciently the initial part of the Roman road between the City of London and Colchester, exiting the city at Aldgate. In later times, travellers to and from London on this route were accommodated at the many coaching inns which lined Whitechapel High Street.
By the late 16th century, the suburb of Whitechapel and the surrounding area had started becoming "the other half" of London. Located east of Aldgate, outside the City Walls and beyond official controls, it attracted the less fragrant activities of the city, particularly tanneries, breweries, foundries (including the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which later cast Philadelphia's Liberty Bell and London's Big Ben) and slaughterhouses.
In 1680, the Rector of Whitechapel, Ralph Davenant, of the parish of St Mary Matfelon, bequeathed a legacy for the education of forty boys and thirty girls of the parish; the Davenant Centre is still in existence although the Davenant Foundation School moved from Whitechapel to Loughton in 1966.
Population shifts from rural areas to London from the 17th century to the mid-19th century resulted in great numbers of more or less destitute people taking up residence amidst the industries and mercantile interests that had attracted them.
In 1797, the body of the sailor Richard Parker, hanged for his leading role in the Nore mutiny, was given a Christian burial at Whitechapel after his wife exhumed it from the unconsecrated burial ground to which it was originally consigned. Crowds gathered to see the body before it was buried.
19th century
By the 1840s, Whitechapel, along with the enclaves of Wapping, Aldgate, Bethnal Green, Mile End, Limehouse, Bow, Bromley-by-Bow, Poplar, Shadwell, and Stepney (collectively known today as "the East End"), had evolved into classic "Dickensian" London, with problems of poverty and overcrowding. Whitechapel Road itself was not particularly squalid through most of this period; it was the warrens of small dark streets branching from it that contained the greatest suffering, filth, and danger, such as Dorset Street (once described as "the worst street in London"), Thrawl Street, Berners Street (renamed Henriques Street), Wentworth Street, and others.
William Booth began his Christian Revival Society, preaching the gospel in a tent erected in the Friends Burial Ground, Thomas Street, Whitechapel, in 1865. Others joined his Christian Mission, and on 7 August 1878 the Salvation Army was formed at a meeting held at 272 Whitechapel Road. A statue commemorates both his mission and his work in helping the poor.
In the Victorian era the basal population of poor English country stock was swelled by immigrants from all over, particularly Irish and Jewish. Writing of the period 1883–1884, Yiddish theatre actor Jacob Adler wrote, "The further we penetrated into this Whitechapel, the more our hearts sank. Was this London? Never in Russia, never later in the worst slums of New York, were we to see such poverty as in the London of the 1880s."
This endemic poverty drove many women to prostitution. In October 1888, the Metropolitan Police estimated that there were 1,200 prostitutes "of very low class" resident in Whitechapel and about 62 brothels. Reference is specifically made to them in Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the People in London, specially to dwellings called Blackwall Buildings belonging to Blackwall Railway. Such prostitutes were numbered amongst the 11 Whitechapel murders (1888–91), some of which were committed by the legendary serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper". These attacks caused widespread terror in the district and throughout the country and drew the attention of social reformers to the squalor and vice of the area, even though these crimes remain unsolved today.
The "Elephant Man" Joseph Merrick (1862–1890) became well known in Whitechapel – he was exhibited in a shop on the Whitechapel Road before being helped by Frederick Treves (1853–1923) at the Royal London Hospital, opposite the actual shop. There is a museum in the hospital about his life.
20th century
In 1902, American author Jack London, looking to write a counterpart to Jacob Riis's seminal book How the Other Half Lives, donned ragged clothes and boarded in Whitechapel, detailing his experiences in The People of the Abyss. Riis had recently documented the astoundingly bad conditions in large swathes of the leading city of the United States.
The Siege of Sidney Street in January 1911 was a gunfight between police and military forces, and Latvian revolutionaries. Then Home Secretary Winston Churchill took over the operation, and his presence caused a political row over the level of his involvement during the time. His biographers disagreed and claimed that he gave no operational commands to the police, but a Metropolitan Police account states that the events of Sidney Street were "a very rare case of a Home Secretary taking police operational command decisions".
The Freedom Press, a socialist publishing house, thought it worthwhile to explore conditions in the leading city of the nation that had invented modern capitalism. He concluded that English poverty was far rougher than the American variety. The juxtaposition of the poverty, homelessness, exploitative work conditions, prostitution, and infant mortality of Whitechapel and other East End locales with some of the greatest personal wealth the world has ever seen made it a focal point for leftist reformers and revolutionaries of all kinds, from George Bernard Shaw, whose Fabian Society met regularly in Whitechapel, to Vladimir Lenin, led rallies in Whitechapel during his exile from Russia. The area is still home to "Freedom Press", the anarchist publishing house founded by Charlotte Wilson.
In Sunday 4 October 1936, the British Union of Fascists led by Oswald Mosley clashed in the East End including a part of southern Whitechapel on Cable Street with various anti-fascist demonstrators, including local Jewish, Irish, socialist, anarchist and communist groups during the Battle of Cable Street where Mosley planned to send thousands of marchers dressed in uniforms styled on those of Blackshirts through the East End, which then had a large Jewish population.
Whitechapel remained poor (and colorful) through the first half of the 20th century, though somewhat less desperately so. It suffered great damage in the Blitz, including the destruction of the parish church, St Mary Matfelon on 29 December 1940, and from the subsequent German V-weapon attacks. Since the war, Whitechapel has lost most of its notoriety.
Altab Ali was murdered by three teenagers on 4 May 1978 in a racist attack at St Mary's Gardens by St Mary's Churchyard as he walked home after work. The reaction to his murder provoked the mass mobilization of the Bengali community locally and came to represent the self-organization of the community. The gardens of the churchyard were later renamed Altab Ali Park in his memory.
The Metropolitan line between Hammersmith and Whitechapel was withdrawn in 1990 and shown separately as a new line called the Hammersmith & City line.
21st century
Crossrail will call at Whitechapel station on the Elizabeth line. Eastbound services will be split into two branches after leaving the historic station which is undergoing a massive redevelopment that started in 2010.
In order to prepare for Crossrail, in January 2016, the old Whitechapel station was closed for refurbishment and modernization work in order to improve services and increase capacity in the station.
The Royal London Hospital was closed and re-opened behind the original site in 2012 in a brand new building costing £650m. The old site was then repurchased by the local council to open a new town hall replacing the existing Town Hall at Mulberry Place.
In March 2022, Whitechapel station signs had "হোয়াইটচ্যাপেল" in Bengali installed everywhere. The British-Pakistani Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was "delighted" that the signage was installed ahead of Bangladesh Independence Day on 26 March. The installation was applauded by not only Bangladeshi diplomats, but also Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal.
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Whitechapel ]
Chat rooms • What links here • Copyright info • Contact information • Category:Root