London’s East End
July 16, 2008
The capital city of England is London. When visitors come to London, they are awe struck at the sheer size of the place. There are so many different places to visit and things to do. There is a plethora of world-class museums and galleries to visit, including “Tate Modern” and the “British Museum”. One of the best views of the city is from the “London Eye”. One area of the city which visitors often neglect is the East End. To many people this is where real Londoner’s or Cockney’s live.
Anywhere east of the centre of London is known as the East End. When visiting London, the East End is not most peoples first port of call and it is often overlooked. However the area does have a number of popular tourist attractions, one of which is the incredible Bethnal Green Museum. Inside you will discover a massive selection of exhibits including the highly interesting collection of antique Doll Houses, including some that are several hundred years old.
Londoner’s who live in the East End are generally known, and commonly referred to, as “Cockneys”. However, to be a true Cockney the person has to have been born within the sound of “Bow Bells” (the “Bow Bells” are the bells from Bow Church). Strangely the word “Cockney” is derived from the middle English word “cokeney” which is the name given to misshaped eggs or cock’s eggs.
During the time of the plague (1348 and 1350), or “Black Death” as Londoner’s called it, there were so many victims that the corpses were thrown into huge pits known as plague pits. In excavations of a plague pit close to Tower Bridge over seven hundred skeletons were discovered in only a small space.
Between the years 1788 and 1960 London’s East End port was, by far, the largest in the world. At one time (in the 1930’s) the were about one hundred thousand men working in the port and the amount of cargo handled was incredible, around thirty five million tons. London had a number of important docks, the earliest being the West India Dock completed in 1802 (the East India Dock was built in 1806).
The East End of London has been home to many famous & infamous characters. The famous explorer Captain Cook married the daughter of the landlord of an East End public house in which Cook often visited. Another famous person closely associated with the East End is Joseph Merrick because he had been appearing in a freak show at the Mile End Road billed as “The Elephant Man”, sadly a name to which he remains most widely known as to this day.
The East End of London has had a number of “high profile” criminals. During the 1960’s the area was ruled by the infamous Krays, twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray. In 1888, the Whitechapel district of the East End was witness to the horrific murders of the infamous serial killer, “Jack the Ripper”. Although he murdered 5 women he was not caught and even today there are powerful arguements for and against him being one of many suspects.
At the time of the Ripper murders the population of Whitechapel was about ninety percent Jewish and this led to many assuming that the Ripper must, almost certainly, have been a Jew. The East End has always been one of the areas in which new cultures settle when first arriving in England. Even today this is the case and the East End is all the richer for it.
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