Prefab Town

The northern half of Cubitt Town is the area bounded by East Ferry Road, Glengall Grove (formerly Glengall Road) and West India Docks. It was developed from the 1850s and consisted primarily of terraced housing with industry along the riverfront.

Circa 1900.

1921 (click for larger image)

William Cubitt’s original intention with his Cubitt Town was to build houses that would attract the middle classes. However, the industrial environment, the damp, the poorly built houses and a period of financial crisis and poverty (see The Distress) combined to create a working-class area consisting almost entirely of houses with multiple occupancy. Not middle class, but also not poor. And the area’s relative isolation on the already-isolated Isle of Dogs created a close-knit community.

Click for larger image

However, the proximity of West India Docks to the north and Millwall Docks to the west meant that the area was to suffer greatly during WWII. The first serious damage occurred during the early evening of the first day of The Blitz, 7th September 1940 (for more information see my book, The Isle of Dogs During World War II) and by the end of the war tens of residents had been killed and almost all buildings had been destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair.

Areas of buildings destroyed (or damaged beyond economic repair) during WWII

Some cleared areas were initially put to use as allotments. The following photo shows a damaged Glengall School and Glengall Grove houses in the background on the occasion of a ceremony celebrating the receipt of seeds from the United States.

1942, Glengall Grove area

The following photo is of the same occasion, but this time looking from Glengall Grove towards Manchester Road. On the left is Marshfield Street.

1942, rear of houses in Manchester Road

The allotments did not last for long. Anticipating a housing crisis after the war, the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act of 1944 authorised the Government to spend up to £150 million on temporary houses. Poplar Borough Council, responsible for administering one of the most bomb-damaged parts of the country, applied for grants to build prefabricated houses (see article, Island Prefabs for more details).

Construction of the first Island prefab, Glengall Grove, 1944

The first family to move into one of the demonstration “Uni-Seco” prefabs in Glengall Grove were the Greens. The council started laying concrete bases for others before the end of the year.

The Green Family, 16 Glengall Grove

The prefabs attracted Royal interest too.

1945

In 1946 the Lincolnshire Echo – along with other newspapers – printed a syndicated article which referred to the area as being a ‘pre-fabricated town’,

The photo in the newspaper article was taken from an upper floor of Glengall School, looking north over Glengall Grove towards the West India Docks in the background. St John’s Church is visible on the right.

1946 (click for full-size image)

1947

In this 1950 R.A.F. reconnaissance photo of north Cubitt Town, I have shaded the prefabs in the area at the time. Glengall School is bottom right in the photo.

1950

The prefabs were for most people popular places to live. Residents picked up the pieces and life continued…

Galbraith Street

Atworth Street (foreground) and Strattondale Street (background). The shelter-like building on the right was the first-aid post during WWII, recognizable by its tower in other photos of the area. Photo: George Warren

Galbraith Street. Photo: George Warren

Martha Fitsearle in the garden of her Plevna Street prefab. Photo: Island History Trust

Galbraith Street in background, Photo: George Warren

Glengall Grove. Photo: Tina Edmonds Moore

Island History Trust comment on the photo that follows it:

Jasmine Taylor (b.1944) in her pram outside a Seco hut, one of the hutments erected towards the end of the Second World War in East Ferry Road (approximately where the shops in Castalia Square back on to the road now. These huts were intended as a temporary measure to relieve housing shortage caused by the Blitz – minimum accommodation – living room, two beds and kitchenette. No bathroom. Fireplace in the living room very plain; electric stove for cooking. Rent was about twelve shillings a week. Mrs Taylor and family stayed here just over two years; then complained about the unfairness of letting people, who were returning from evacuation, to go straight into modern prefabs. These huts were damp and cold. Tenants formed a committee to pressure the council and the family eventually moved to a prefab in Harrop Road, Poplar.

East Ferry Road. Photo: Island History Trust / Anne Taylor

Stewart Street. Photo: Christopher Dunchow

The following photo shows the view over Launch Street and East Ferry Road towards Roffey House, Cubitt House and the docks. By this time, work had begun in earnest on the construction of permanent housing in Cubitt Town. Within a decade the last prefab in the area would be demolished.

1950s. Photo: John Willoughby