Introducing the East End of London
July 16, 2008
Of course most people know of London because of the Queen, who lives at Buckingham Palace and has a number of other properties around the city. There is much more to London than the Queen and the usual tourist attractions of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the likes. As the largest city in Europe the city is one of the most cosmopolitan in England and each sector of the city has it’s own uniqueness. To experience the quintessential London it is best to spend some time in the area known as the East End.
To some people the location of the East End is obvious, but the average tourist is often confused, expecting only a small area. In actual fact the East End encompasses all those districts which are to be found east of the centre. Of course such a large area contains a number of highly interesting places to visit and a number of top class tourist attractions. One thing that you really should make the effort to see is the fascinating collection of dolls houses at Bethnal Green Museum. The collection contains numerous antique houses dating back to the 17th century.
When you mention the East End of London, a great many people automatically think of the word “Cockney” or “Cockneys”. A Cockney is a person who was born in the East End of London within hearing distance of the bells at Bow Church (Bow Bells). You may wonder about the origins of such a strange word and you may be surprised to learn that it came from an old middle English word for a misshapen egg (or cock’s egg) - “cokeney”.
In the grim years of 1348 - 1350 London suffered the effects of the Black Death (Plague), because of the vast number of people inflicted it became necessary for the dead bodies to be piled into huge pits (this was mainly because the number who died was so huge, and the number of fit folk so few). Excavations, near to Tower Bridge, have unearthed over 700 skeletons in one of these pits (known as plague pits).
The very first dock to be built in the East End was called the West India Dock (built 1800-1802) closely followed by the building of the East India Dock (1806). Servicing the city of London the port continued to expand and until the 1960’s it was the busiest port in the world. With such a large amount of goods being handled, around 35 million tons at it’s peak in the 1930’s, the port had an extremely large workforce of around one hundred thousand souls.
Joseph Merrick, or the “Elephant Man” as he is better known, was, for some time, one of the attractions of an East End freak show. Another famous East Ender is the seafaring explorer Captain Cook. He lived in the Wapping area, and in 1762 married his wife who was also from the East End. She was first introduced to her future husband when she was only a child.
The East End has an even darker side to its history; steeped with murder, mystery and other crimes. Two names that spring to mind when talking of the East End are those of the infamous, gangster twins, Ronnie and Reggie Kray around whom a number of modern myths and legends have developed. The most famous criminal associated with the East End will, most probably, always be Jack the Ripper, because of the brutality of his crimes. In 1888 he butchered five women in Whitechapel then disappeared, to this day nobody can be sure of his true identity though there are many theories.
Many assumed that the Ripper was a Jewish person because, at that time, Whitechapel was almost entirely Jewish. The East End had always been where most new incomers first set up home when arriving in Britain. Even today the East End has a massively diverse multi-cultural populous and this is likely to continue for a great many years yet.
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