Me new book – A Dictionary of Lost East London

Excuse the blatant self-promotion for a moment, but I’ve just published another book. As the cover blurb says, “An absolute must for anyone interested in the history of East London or who is exploring their East London ancestry – a comprehensive dictionary of the lost streets, roads, alleys, lanes, public houses, blocks of flats, places of worship, schools, hospitals, docks, wharves and other places of note. Find out where it was and/or how it was renamed, with more than seven thousand entries covering centuries of East London’s past.” It’s available from Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1547105003/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_T-.pzbHKER3X9

This is the introduction….

In terms of the long history of London, the East End is a relatively new place. Take a look at a map of London in, say, 1600, and the area to east of the City walls is mostly farmland, punctuated with the odd village, such as Stepney, Poplar or Bow, connected by country lanes. In 1700, the area immediately outside of the walls had seen some development (Spitalfields, Goodmans Yard, for example) as had a strip of land along the river, but still there was nothing that could be described as East London.

By the end of the 1700s, however, the Industrial Revolution had caused an explosive growth in industry and house building, London spilled out of its old borders (from a population of 1 million in 1800 to more than 6 million in 1900), and East London was a fact.

Until the 19^th century there were few rules regarding how places and streets should be named or spelled; the names developed organically and according to popular, local convention. The Metropolitan Board of Works, established in the mid-19^th century sought to bring order to this situation. Not only did they take official responsibility for new names, they also carried out an extensive renaming, in order to facilitate their administration of London and to support accurate delivery of post by the General Post Office.

Fifty years later, much of the administration was delegated to newly-formed borough councils who mostly endeavoured to make sure that ‘their’ street names were unique and easily located. When, for example, a council was confronted with four of five separate Cross Streets within its area, it would likely rename four of them. When widening roads, or creating major new routes, it made sense to amalgamate multiple, differently-named road sections into one (take The Highway as an example, whose original names are mentioned later in this chapter).

A further, major influence on London street names was World War II, which caused the obliteration of many streets, with large numbers being buried under new council estates during the post-war rebuilding.

The frequent name-changing is a challenge to an avid family tree researcher and amateur historian like myself, and I am always interested in (old) documents which allow me to better identify the location of old addresses or buildings. Among the useful publications I have come across is “Lockie’s Topography of London” by John Lockie, published in 1810. Lockie spent seven years preparing the book, which he created for the insurers Phoenix Fire-Office off Lombard Street, for whom he was the Inspector of Buildings.

The topography accurately describes itself as providing “a concise local description of, and accurate direction to, every square, street, lane, court, dock, wharf, inn, public-office, &c. in the metropolis and its environs, including the new buildings to the present time, upon a plan never hitherto attempted.” The descriptions are short, clear, and indeed accurate; it takes little effort to identify the present-day location.

In the decades that followed its publication, books in a similar vein were published, including “A Topographical Dictionary of London and its Environs” by James Elmes, published in 1831. Elmes was born in Greenwich and was an architect of some note, as is apparent from his ample architectural descriptions of many of the buildings. Although not as comprehensive as Lockie’s Topography (nor did it claim to be), it was a welcome addition to my reference “library”. Both works are abundantly quoted in this book.

After finding other books of the same ilk, I started to think about combining them all, along with the readily-available street name change information on the internet, to provide myself with a handy list of everything in one place. I wasn’t planning to publish a book, it was meant to be for just my own use. The idea of making a book from it grew gradually, along with my realisation that it could be of use to other people too. I also thought I’d be finished in a few weeks.

That was 18 months ago! Once I had started, there seemed no end to it, apart from the obvious geographical boundaries. Mind you, the earliest drafts also included what is now Newham and Stratford and the north half of Hackney, before I decided that it was just too much (and also because these areas have seen nothing like the extent of the changes by areas clser to the City).

I would not dare to state that the end result is complete and comprehensive, there is always new research and information cropping up from somewhere, but in the same way that I drew geographical lines as a practical necessity, the law of diminishing returns meant calling an end to the research after much longer than the ‘few weeks’ I had in mind. Oh to have had Lockie’s seven years’ research time.

And here are some extracts….

There’s even an entry for ‘X’ 🙂

The Poplar Gut

I must admit to a childish, inner smirk whenever I see mention of the Poplar Gut, inspiring – as it does – images of beer bellies in the Waterman’s Arms on the Island.  Or is it just me who thinks that?

In medieval times, the marshland that was the Isle of Dogs was reclaimed by means of a wall, or bank, along the riverfront and by drainage of the interior land (see The Mill Wall for more information). There are records of the wall being breached by the Thames on occasion, most seriously at Limehouse Hole in the north west of the Island on 20th March 1660, which led to an area of the Island remaining flooded for many years after. This lake was known as the Poplar Gut (‘gut’ is an Anglo-Saxon word, meaning a narrow waterway or small creek, applied also to intestinal channels).

In this early 1700s map, Poplar Gut is visible, as well as an area of marsh to its west. It was here that the wall was breached.

The extent of the breach made it impractical to restore the wall at its original location – after all, the area was now underwater most of the time. Instead, a wall was built around the breach, slightly inland and – crucially – above the high tide level. This meant that the wall had a distinct bulge to the east, as is clear in the following map.

Survey of London:

The Poplar Commissioners of Sewers repaired the damage and rebuilt other sections of defective wall, at a cost of more than £16,000, raised by the imposition on landowners of very high rates of about £24 per acre. The work was done by William Ham, Orton Brooker and George Salmon, and presumably consisted of timber piling and planking, with chalk and clay fill and buttressing. The new section of wall was set well back from the river behind unprotected foreland that came to be known simply as the Breach. Most of the floodwater was drained, but approximately five acres of water remained, stretching eastwards from the Breach. This came to be called the Great Gut, or Poplar Gut.

This deviation of the wall and the marshland to its west became very significant to the further development of this area of the Island, with evidence visible even to this day, as we will see later.

This 1700s drawing shows the expanse of the breach on the right. The three ships in the centre are moored at what was known as the Breach Dockyard.

Survey of London:

In the early 1730s William Atterbury, a butcher, built a house at the south-west corner of the Gut; this became a public house which by 1750 was known as the Gut House, although it may originally have been the Shipwright’s Arms. In the 1790s a row of eight houses and William and John Godsell’s ropeyard were built south of the Gut House.

The houses didn’t stand for long, because in 1800 they were demolished to make way for the City Canal, built across the Island by the Corporation of London. The canal also took advantage of, and absorbed all of, Poplar Gut.

Survey of London:

Preliminary excavation of the canal started in 1800, by John Clark and Thomas Thatcher, from Wiltshire, and some direct labour. The main excavation and embankment work was contracted to John Dyson, of Bawtry, Yorkshire. He was not able to begin until 1801, because of delays with the installation, supervised by John Rennie, of a Boulton & Watt steam pumping-engine on the site that later became the Canal Dockyard.

The main excavation was completed in 1804, and the locks were approaching completion in July 1805 when the coffer-dam and preventer dam at the east end failed, causing a great wave to rush through the canal. Extensive repairs were needed and the opening had to be postponed until 9 December 1805. The canal was 3,711ft long between the lock gates, 176ft wide at the surface of the water and 23ft deep at its centre, dug only 17ft down, with the spoil used to build up the banks.

The City Canal was not a success, for it was not adopted as a worthwhile short cut. Its potential had probably been overestimated, and London’s growing number of wet docks and the arrival of steamers in the river further reduced its usefulness. From 1811 it became primarily a ‘receptacle for dismantled ships’.

Work started on the West India Docks well before the City Canal opened. One consequence of their construction was that the Gut House also had to be demolished. The owner at the time, James Oughton, then moved slightly further south to build the City Arms public house.

The West India Docks expanded further south, and eventually the City Canal became the South Dock.

By 1875 the transformation was almost complete.

I have to go back to the eastwards bulge in the mill wall. The curving road eventually became known as The Walls.

Drove round that road a million times in my Ford Escort, or on the top floor of a 277. I never imagined the curve of the road was defined by a 17th century flood.

And today, it’s still a bit of an odd place, south of Westferry Circus and still not built up. Only a matter of time, though.

The Barn Fields

A late 18th century map which depicted plans for the new West India Docks also showed the boundaries of the fields on the Island at the time, including the three Barn Fields.

The fields are also clearly shown in this map, an early 19th century copy of a 1745 land ownership map showing (or ‘shewing’) the land owned by the Ironmongers Company on the ‘Ilsle’ of Dogs.

The map is more more than 250 years old, before even the the Westferry Road was constructed, and it contains some familiar names: Byng, Mellish, Cotton, Ferguson, Barn Field. Here’s the same map with modern roads superimposed:

The Ironmongers Company, formally known as The Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, was one of the livery companies of the City of London. Originally known as the Ferroners, they were incorporated under a Royal Charter in 1463.

Survey of London:

The Barnfield Estate was one of several marshland properties, most of them in Essex, bought by the Ironmongers’ Company in 1730 from Sir Gregory Page, bart, of Wricklemarsh near Blackheath. Barnfield, Great Barnfield and Little Barnfield together formed an irregularly shaped strip of about 33 acres, running south-west from near the Chapel House to the inlet called Drunken Dock or the Great Barnfield Basin.

The company built houses on its estate, the first in the mid-19th century.

1862

They also built three pubs, each with a name related to ironmongery or fire: Vulcan, Ironmonger’s Arms and Magnet & Dewdrop (I must admit, I have never managed to figure out the meaning of magnet and dewdrop).

1895

1900

The Vulcan

Ironmongers’ Arms

Magnet & Dewdrop (where I had my first pint)

The Ironmongers planned to fully build on their estate, with new streets, housing and factories extending to East Ferry Road in the north east. The long north-south street was going to be named Ironmongers’ Street, but in the end only a short terrace was constructed, named Ingelheim Place.

1840s plans

Unfortunately for them, the northern part of their land was subject to compulsory purchase, and absorbed into the to-be-built Millwall Docks. Additionally, a section in the west was similarly acquired by the London and Blackwall Railway Company for a future southern section of the Millwall Extension Railway; a section that never materialised – part of the land became St. Edmund’s school playground, while the rest remained pasture until almost 1900.

Survey of London:

The completion of Ingelheim Terrace by Weitzel and Knight in 1862 marked the end of the main development of the estate. These last (Nos 337–365, odd, Westferry Road) were inferior houses to the rest of the terrace, having only two floors and smaller back additions than the other houses in Westferry Road, but were otherwise similar — plain, old-fashioned houses of stock brick with slate roofs.

So far the development had turned out well. As French boasted, the leases were shorter, the rents higher and the houses bigger than on neighbouring estates, and a site had been let for industrial purposes.

When the Rev. Richard Free came to take charge of St Cuthbert’s, Westferry Road, in 1897, he and his wife had to live south of the river because of the housing shortage, and he commuted by ferry, but after a few months they obtained rooms at No. 1 Ingelheim Cottages (St Cuthbert’s Lodge). It was ‘a terrible old shanty, lacking every convenience’, and crawling with lice. Built as a corner-house on the intended Ironmongers’ Street, it had eight rooms on two floors, with an attic and box-room, and was distinguished by a clumsy bellshaped gable on the street front which gave it a quaint look, reminiscent of ‘a lifeboat station or ark of refuge’. Free had the use of five rooms, two of which he opened as reading-rooms.

He was told that the house had been a school and a beershop, and that 40 years before it had housed eight families, one in each room, while in recent years it had accommodated seven adults and 27 children. At the time of the 1861 census it held three families, a total of ten people, which was no higher than the average level of occupancy on the estate at that time, considering the larger than usual size of the house. The families, typical of others in Millwall, were headed by a gas fitter, labourer and ship-joiner, and included one working wife (a glover) and one single adult lodger (a cordwainer). By 1871 the house was uninhabited, and in 1876 the Ironmongers found it ‘ruinous’, worse than any other property on the estate. It was demolished after c1926.

Someone else concerned with the welfare of locals was a philanthropist called Miss Price, who moved into 333 Westferry Road (diagonally opposite the Magnet & Dewdrop) and opened it as The Welcome Institute – Coffee, Tavern & Club Rooms for Factory Girls. Staffed by well-to-do women volunteers, the institute provided hot meals at affordable prices to factory girls, evening classes in dressmaking and needlework, Bible classes for boys and club-rooms for local football teams.

Totnes Cottages c1930 (Island History Trust)

Like the Isle of Dogs generally, Barnfield suffered badly from the slump of the late 1860s, and it was probably this phase which was most responsible for reducing the houses to slums. By 1868 many of the inhabitants were destitute, their last possessions pawned. In Laura Cottages, for instance, an investigator found a pregnant woman and her five children, all of them suffering from malnutrition. Her husband was away stone-breaking at the workhouse, and to supplement the money he got for this the family spent all week picking a quarter of a hundredweight of oakum from a local ropeworks, for which they received only a shilling, yet the rent of their cottage was five shillings a week. Upstairs was their lodger, his wife and their five children. The man had had only six weeks continuous work in two years and was now too ill to do casual dock labour Unable even to pay their 1s 9d a week rent, they were kept alive by hand-outs from the family downstairs.

In addition to the problem of poverty, the aborted development of the estate left it with inadequate drainage and unmade roads and paths. The ground floors of many of the houses were well below street level, making the buildings permanently damp and prone to flooding. The road to the fibre factory was only a cinder track, often waterlogged. Standing water saturated the front walls of Elizabeth Cottages where, in 1900, there was an outbreak of typhoid fever. The road was finally paved by Poplar Borough Council in 1905.

By the riverside, the proximity of industry caused inconvenience and danger. At Totnes Cottages the bowsprits of ships berthed at Britannia Dry Dock overhung the gardens, while the roadway leading past the cottages to St Andrew’s Wharf was ‘constantly full of vans loading oil’. There was severe vibration from the pounding of machinery at Napier Yard.

Totnes Cottages, Britannia Dry Dock on the right

Deptford Ferry Road

Ingelheim Place (left) from West Ferry Road (Island History Trust)

Ingelheim Place, with Ingelheim Cottages in the background (Island History Trust)

In 1905, the institute moved to much larger, purpose built premises in East Ferry Road – premises that it would later sell to the Dockland Settlement Movement. 333 Westferry Road was demolished in 1919.

353 Westferry Road (Island History Trust)

In 1855 Messrs Tindall of Tindall’s Dock took a 63-year lease of a site at the back of Elizabeth Cottages for a cooperage, at an annual rent of £50. They built a range of sheds and workshops, together with a house for the foreman joiner and his family (No. 5 Elizabeth Cottages).

The cooperage was occupied for a few years from the mid-1860s by the Millwall Iron Works, Ship Building & Graving Docks Company Ltd. In the 1870s and 1880s it was a coconut fibre factory, later becoming a waterproofer’s works and then a soap factory. Its last industrial occupier was the Murex Magnetic Company Ltd, set up to exploit patents relating to ore and oil refining, taken out by two of the soap manufacturers. In 1915–16 the premises were also used for storing copra and coconut oil by George Davis & Son, whose desiccating works were nearby.

Chubb, Round & Co. “Cocoa Nut Manufactory”, Elizabeth Place, 365 Westferry Road, 1885

William Roberts of Millwall self-propelling fire engine, with two firefighters. Roberts’ Jupiter Iron Works later became Samuel Cutler’s yard on the north side of Westferry Road.

Disrepair on the estate was widespread from the mid 1870s, if not earlier, and dilapidations notices were frequently ignored. The good ground rents and comparatively short building leases, which had seemed so attractive, combined with chronic local poverty to offer little incentive to the lessees to make repairs or improvements.

In 1889 John Hollway, the new proprietor of St Andrew’s Wharf, who wanted to build on the remaining open ground, offered to buy the whole estate. But although the £15,000 deal was approved by the Charity Commissioners, it fell through. In 1895 the vacant ground, which now hardly justified the description ‘pasture’, was let on a 21-year lease to Messrs Cutler of Providence Iron Works.

Catholic procession in Westferry Road, showing St. Edmunds and the entrance to Samuel Cutlers. (Island History Trust)

The houses were now squeezed between industrial sites and were at the end of their useful life. They were shabby, insanitary and structurally unsound. Totnes Cottages had already been subject to a Closure Order from the Borough Council. It was becoming obvious that the estate would have to be redeveloped on reversion. Only the public house and the beerhouses seemed of much value. A new lease of the Magnet and Dewdrop was granted in 1899 and new leases of the Vulcan and the Ironmongers’ Arms were sold to brewers in 1916.

Plans for redevelopment drawn up in 1916 by George Hubbard, the Ironmongers’ surveyor, were set aside because of the war, and as the leases fell in the company took over direct management of the houses, which were now falling to bits. Several were subject to closing and demolition orders. Despite the wartime shortage of labour and materials, a gang of builders worked continually on urgent repairs, but the estate remained in ‘deplorable’ condition.

The former Welcome Institute and the house next door had already been pulled down when, in May 1919, the freeholds of the estate were put up for auction. Of eight lots, only two, the Ironmongers’ Arms and the Magnet and Dewdrop, made more than the reserve. Most of the houses failed to sell, and the old pasture failed even to draw a bid.

355–363 (odd) Westferry Road

(Island History Trust)

(Island History Trust)

Nos 311–331 Westferry Road and Ingelheim Cottages were leased to Messrs Cutler soon afterwards for an extension to their works, but because of the housing shortage the Borough Council refused to allow Ingelheim Cottages to be pulled down, even though they had long been unfit to live in. They remained inhabited until c1934, when they were finally demolished. Cutlers’ works remained until the mid-1970s.

The rest of the ground north of Westferry Road was sold in 1920 to Burrell & Company Ltd, who built the Barnfield Works there for the production of organic reds. The factory closed in 1979.

1934

1950

1950

Elizabeth Cottages, Laura Cottages and Ingelheim Place were occupied until c1933. The remaining houses north of Westferry Road (Nos 337–365) were demolished c1936. The sites of Elizabeth Cottages and Nos 357–365 Westferry Road are now covered by part of the West Ferry Estate.

Barnfield Works site (after demolition)

South of Westferry Road, the Vulcan and the former Magnet and Dewdrop were the only reminders of the original development. Both have been rebuilt, the Vulcan in 1937 and the Magnet and Dewdrop in 1939. Totnes Cottages were demolished c1936. Totnes Terrace (by then renamed Mast House Terrace) was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War. Several of the remaining houses in Westferry Road were badly damaged by bombing and subsequently demolished or left derelict. Nos 212–224 (even) remained in use until the early 1950s, when they were pulled down.

The sites of Cutlers’ works and the Barnfield Works were developed in 1988–9 by Wimpey Homes as Quay West, an estate of houses and mews built around courts, squares and a ‘pedestrian boulevard’.

c 2012

Looking towards Westferry Rd, c 2012

 

Millwall Flyers. Guest article by Con Maloney

‘SKID KIDS’

 THE MILLWALL FLYERS CYCLE SPEEDWAY TEAM

by Con Maloney

It’s hard to believe now but, between the late 1920’s and the second world war, motorcycle speedway was one of the most popular sports in the UK, second only to football.  Over 80,000 cheering spectators watched the World Final held at Wembley and the stands were usually packed at local league matches too. Just as budding footballers played matches in the street back then, young speedway fans were inspired by their heroes to race each other on their bicycles on waste ground.

Cycle Speedway took off on the bomb sites of post-war British cities. The young riders raced each other on outdoor dirt tracks, on modified bikes without brakes or multiple gears. London, being covered in bomb sites, was the first city to hold organized races in 1945 and the very first recorded leagues were formed a year later in both East London and Glasgow.

By 1950 there were more than 200 clubs in East London alone and this exciting sport soon spread across the country. The National Amateur Cycle Speedway Association was formed and consistent rules were laid down, which opened the way to national competitions, championships and international tournaments.

Local and national newspapers began to cover the sport and a magazine was produced called Cycle Speedway Gazette. The ‘Skid Kids’ had well and truly arrived!

click for full-sized version

If you’re curious about the history of cycle speedway, take a look here: http://www.cyclespeedwayhistory.org.uk/

Islander Arthur Ayres, who raced for the Millwall Flyers Cycle Speedway team, takes up the story:

The team was started in 1949 by Ernie Longhurst, who lived in Tooke Street. We were a bunch of teenagers who were keen Motorcycle Speedway supporters mostly at West Ham on Tuesday evenings. I used to go there with my schoolmate Ronnie Hook, who lived in a prefab in Plevna Street. We knew that kids had started to build speedway tracks on waste ground; the earliest one I knew was in the old playground of the bombed Millwall Central School in Janet Street. The place was derelict, it had been used as a fire station during the war and the cycle racing was done on concrete. After the war there were so many sites like that all over London and local kids built dirt tracks with the track boundaries marked by bricks (usually loose bricks just put down).

Meanwhile ‘Hooky’ had found a hole in the fence in the old St John’s Churchyard, which was just off Plevna Street and no longer used for services. Hooky and his mates had built a little dirt track there. I went to watch but didn’t have a bike and someone asked if I wanted to have a go. I did and was hooked! A little while after that, I spotted an advert in Crane’s newsagent’s shop window ‘Cycle Speedway Riders Wanted’ with an emblem similar to the Matchless Motorcycle one, an M with a pair of wings.

I went along to 21 Tooke Street, the address on the advert, and met Ernie Longhurst and his wife Cis. Ernie told me he was trying to start a team. There was only me and Ronnie Hook, Eddie Wilson and a few others at that stage. Ernie arranged for us to visit the Beckton Aces track at Ellesmere Street. Their track was much larger than most and, like most tracks, the surface varied between dirt brick dust with a couple of paving stones which happened to be there. We borrowed bikes from the ‘Aces’ and had a go. My first race ended on the first corner when I encountered a paving stone covered with a thin layer of dirt and the next thing I knew I was on the deck. Everyone was helpful there and we learned about gear ratios, starting techniques and all kinds of useful things. We were also taught some rules, such as never to race in short sleeves or with bare arms, you always wore long sleeves and gloves. Other than that, you were free as a bird. So if you wanted to race in bare feet or fall off and bash your brains out, that was down to you!

Arthur Ayres (left) and Tommy Calvo

My bike was assembled by myself from bits and pieces which had been dumped. The frame was a ladies Raleigh on which Alf Smith (who worked at Bellamy’s) welded an extra crossbar for added strength. No brakes, gears, lights or mudguards were allowed. Most handlebars were home-made from pieces of gas pipe bent in a drainhole but they couldn’t be more than 2’6” wide. If you borrowed a bike it was on the ‘DP’ system – any damages must be paid for!

A few more riders joined us, including Tommy Calvo who’d we met Beckton Aces, he lived in a prefab in Leven Road in Poplar. At first we took part in challenge matches at Ellesmere Street as we didn’t have our own track and were hopelessly outclassed as we were still learning. Eventually we built a home-made track in East Ferry Road near the junction of Launch Street, not far from the George pub, it used to be a timber yard at one time.

Millwall Flyers’ cycle speedway track (click on image for full-sized version)

It was a small piece of land so we had to do a bit of back-filling and the surface varied a lot. When you left the starting gate, the width at the first bend was only about a foot; if you went further out than that, you were up to your wheel in dirt and got bogged down.  As you left the bend you had to make sure you were straight, because you went on to a patch of cinder and if you tried to turn you’d soon be base over apex. Other tracks held their own perils. Walthamstow’s track had a deep hole down one side and although New Cross’s surface was like a billiard table you had to watch out for an open manhole with no cover!

We cleared the track up ourselves and no-one gave us permission to use it, basically it was squatter’s rights. There were four riders in each race and we did three laps of our track, you were knackered after that. After a while things developed and grown-ups came along to help. Bill Kilgour got involved, he drove lorries for the Burgoyne’s firm and was a great supporter of youth and community work on the Island.

We competed in the East London Cycle Speedway League Division 1. Although our bikes had no brakes, lights, mudguards or anything other than wheels and pedals, we rode them to away matches in convoy, with an escort of ‘road legal’ bikes. The matches at East Ferry Road always attracted a large and noisy crowd of supporters, which created a really exciting atmosphere. We would pass the hat round afterwards and the money collected would help with club expenses.

My career lasted for a couple of years. The team organised a ‘Match Race Championship’, where two riders race ‘head to head’ for the best of three races. They started with the bottom half of the team and I raced Tommy Calvo and won 2-0. At practice for my first defence, my front wheel fell apart and I went over the handlebars. I needed a new rear sprocket and the only spare gave an impossible high gear ratio. Practice continued and, having worked up speed over a couple of laps, I passed four riders in the length of the back straight. As I entered the bend, my front wheel hit a tyre and I came off in front of the pack. Alf Smith passed me as I was falling, I attempted to break my fall with my left arm but Bill Shears rode over it and broke both bones. My arm is still slightly bent. When they took the cast off later I still had the greasy chain mark from Bill’s bike on my arm.

So in 1950 I was obliged to succumb to parental pressure and give up. I had to give the cup back as I was unable to defend it. Islanders in the team were Alf Smith (lived in Roffey House), his brother Peter Smith, Eddie Wilson (Alpha Grove), Ronnie Hook (Plevna Street), Roy Martin (Launch Street) and Bill Shears (Mellish Street). There were other riders who came from Poplar, Stepney and elsewhere in what is now Tower Hamlets. When I broke my arm I was 16 years old, some riders were younger and some older. National Service interfered with things at age 18 and eventually redevelopment led to the destruction of many tracks, although in some boroughs the council constructed tracks’.

Meet The Millwall Flyers

The Club Chairman was Cubitt Town-born and bred Ted Davison. Ted ran his own sign-writing business, was a professional cartoonist for several local and national newspapers and also a Poplar Borough Councillor. This gave him good connections in local politics, newspaper journalism and show business. Ted drew a series of lighthearted cartoons of the Millwall Flyers for the East London Advertiser in 1949/50, featuring the riders and officials and also publicised the social events organized to raise funds both for the club and the local St Luke’s Pensioner’s Club.  He also used his contacts in show business to bring stars of the day along to the social club events at St Luke’s Church Hall.

Alf is commonly known as ‘The Whippet’ for his speed out of the trap – sorry – gate. He is 17 and a plater’s mate by trade. Has been with the Flyers since November 1949. Since then he has been a great bolster to the team and is now considered one of Millwall’s best riders. Smithy has beaten some of London’s best cycle speedway riders and can congratulate himself on his prowess in this respect. We are looking forward to seeing him in some championship matches if he continues at his present progress rate.

Eddie is a lank angular chap of 17 ½ years and lives in Alpha Grove, Millwall. He is a plater’s mate at Lovell’s and decided to join the Flyers six months ago. His riding soon earned him the captaincy of the team. Eddies hobbies are playing the drums and generally making himself heard wherever jazz music is concerned. Is courting a very charming girl, although when they dance together, it is a mystery how she escapes damage from his huge feet. To see Eddie on the track, one wonders how he finds the strength to lift his great boots – they seem to dominate the whole landscape. However, Eddie is a very popular chap and a good skipper, besides being a consistent rider. He takes all the jokes thrown at him with that wry grin peculiar only to Eddie Wilson. Here’s hoping that he will skipper the Flyers for a long time to come. The cinder track will miss Eddie when he forsakes cycle speedway, at least, it will miss his boots.

Ron can be safely classed as the pioneer of the club, although he is the youngest member – 15½ years. I can remember when he and other small boys – girls too – built their own track in a blitzed churchyard and rode like fury. Since then Ron has developed into a fine rider and can always be relied upon to turn up trumps in a tight situation. He is heat leader and the cheers of ‘Come on, Ron’ can be heard from all the Hook fans. His favourite hobby is reading but he can’t have much time for that, what with cycle speedway and his paper round. Although the youngest, he is by no means the smallest – quite the reverse – in fact he is one of the tallest. If a chap buckles his wheel or wants repairs or adjustments, it’s ‘Give it to Ron’ or ‘Hooky will fix it’ and Hook wastes no time but gets down to the job without any arguments. He is on the track whenever he has a spare moment, mastering those bends, and has made up his mind to be one of the top-liners. He’ll do it too, if I know Ronnie Hook. Has a slight advantage over other riders by getting his nose over the finishing line just a fraction in front, but, although chipped about his facial characteristics, he joins in the jokes like a true sportsman, realising that all the team have some prominent features themselves, much to a cartoonist’s delight.

Ted Fisher is another angular youth of 17 years and by profession is a coal heaver, working for Albert Coe, coal merchants. Has been with the Flyers for over four months and joined when they badly needed riders. He is a very useful rider and a jolly good trier. Usually comes into the pits after a race with a wide grin spread over his face whether he has won or lost. Ted is rather fussy over his machine and, as his hobby is cycling, it is quite understandable that next to Ted comes Ted’s bike. One outstanding feature about him is his ears – they compare with Wilson’s feet in proportion. It is noticeable that when a stiff wind is blowing, his ears knock a few knots off his speed, but when the wind is behind him – out spread those ears and it sends him along at a spanking pace. However, joking apart, he is firm in the belief that a rider cannot experiment on the track and insists on riding with a partner with whom he can give and take, and Fisher can always take it.

One of the two ‘Arts’ of the Flyers. Redman, a fresh-complexioned blonde, is another of Millwall’s top-line riders. Can always be heard singing ‘one of the latest’ as he rounds a bend and raises his front wheel. He first rode in 1945 for the Forest Gate Tigers and boasts that he was their only rider that could stay on their machine but he cannot compete with Calvo in this respect. Rode in the first ever test match and reached double figures. Was unfortunate in the East London Championships and later joined the Forces. He considers that he has smashed more Army bikes than he has had Army meals. Signed on for Beckton Aces in 1949 but now races for Millwall Flyers and is keen to see them do well in 1950. He has won several cups, all of which are now broken. Has since confessed that all these cups were won at fairs on Wanstead Flats. However, Arthur will have his little joke and it is a wonder how his fiancée, a very charming girl, can tell when he is really joking. The Flyers are looking forward to Arthur making some tip-top scores this season for them.

‘There was a boy, A very strange enchanted boy, And his name was Tommy Calvo’ This ‘Mighty Joe Young’ is 16 years of age and is by trade a metal polisher. Is the smallest rider in the team and one of the most popular. He has had a bike specially made to suit his small stature – a bit smaller and it would be a fairy cycle. Tommy is the gamest little rider it has ever been my pleasure to watch and he has knocked up a great many points since he joined the Flyers. His hobbies are cycle speedway and films, and ‘Nature Boy’ should be on the films himself, so funny are his antics. A tousle-haired blond, he is on the track at every opportunity much to the joy of the younger supporters, who delight to watch his brilliant green machine flash around with the name ‘Nature Boy’ emblazoned on the frame in bright red and gold letters. Good luck to you Tommy Boy and may you grow a few more inches in the coming year.

Tall, blonde, wavy-haired Roy Martin is the assistant team manager and is married with a baby daughter. He is a carpenter and joiner by trade. Is very popular among the supporters and his riding is definitely in the championship class and improving every week. If Roy’s riding continues as it is at present, I can foresee him being one of cycle speedway’s top-liners in the near future. Usually rides best when partnering George Stephens and the pair are a pleasure to watch. Roy’s neck scarf and hair flying never fails to raise a cheer from the girls. He ‘chips’ Calvo unmercifully at times and calls him ‘the horizontal champ’ due to Tommy’s numerous spills, but Roy’s brand of humour is very dry, and his drawling voice is rarely heard at meetings unless it’s something very important. Roy is a stickler for clean and fair riding and sometimes an unfair decision irritates him for the rest of the match. He should have been a cowboy – he looks like one.

Here is an household name in cycle speedway. George, who has a fine record, is an employee of Taylor Walkers and his hobby is the motor-cycle speedway. He was the first on the cycle speedway in 1946 when he was noticed by Poplar Eagles’ talent spotter and, after the Eagles disbanded, was chosen by Terry Brown to occupy reserve position in Beckton Aces. George points in his first races, then went on to win the East London match-race championship in 1948. He was capped for England against Scotland in 1949 and scored the highest points in that match of 15 points. Is now Millwall Flyers’ star rider and has expressed his wish to ride only for Millwall, who promptly elected him captain after the resignation of that position by Eddie Wilson. George is a very pleasant and popular chap on and off the track and takes a disqualification with silent wince. He has one peculiarity – he has his own personal mascot to wheel his bike to the starting gate, and that ritual is strictly observed. Usually paired with Roy Martin, and these two can always give the supporters their money’s worth. He was the inventor of telescopic forks for speedway cycles. Millwall is as proud of George’s record as he is himself, and all look forward to seeing him riding as a motor-cycle speedway rider.

Millwall’s first reserve is aged 16 and a junior clerk at a local ironworks. A tall rawboned youth, Arthur is notorious as a ‘leg trailer’ and will shortly be taking his place in the team. His jet black hair lopping over bushy eyebrows gives him a rather fierce appearance but actually his nature belies his looks as he has never yet been seen in a bad temper. Quite the reverse in fact, for he is somewhat of a comedian in his way. Arthur has often been disappointed when the team is short and a rider has turned up at the last minute, but he just grins and steps down in a sporting manner. Has recently tied a rabbit’s foot to his bike for good luck but it has yet to be tested. Is in and out of the workshop at all hours improving his machine but will leave spanners and tools lying about. However the Flyers would not like to lose Arthur and his present efforts on the track show a good standard of riding. Hobby – Aeromodelling and cycle speedway. We leave Arthur and his low-framed bike with – threepen’orth of bike and five bobs worth of Arthur.

Bill Shears has been with the Flyers from the very beginning and can always put up a good show. He is a baker’s assistant by trade and ‘dabbles in the dough’, the edible variety of course. Bill’s heart is as soft as the commodity he works with and he has a tendency to take things to heart too much. However, he is the first to sympathise with others in trouble. His hobby is cycle speedway and the accompanying cariacature was drawn while he was dreaming, maybe, that he was going round the track. His head certainly appeared in a whirl. I think he has made a New Year’s resolution to attend every Wednesday night’s meetings of the Flyers and I’m sure that he is going to keep to that promise.

click for full-sized version

click for full-sized version

click for full-sized version

click for full-sized version

A new insignia has been designed for the Millwall Flyers by their chairman, who has also designed a summer outfit for the lady supporters. The insignia is a humorous Pegasus flying horse and the accompanying sketch shows this attractive rig-out. It comprises white beret with detachable Pegasus Flyers badge, white jumper with a flying horse motif across the front, navy pleated skirt or slacks, according to taste, and shoes to match. This neat outfit may be worn on or off the track and already many of the girls are at work making and knitting this rig-out ready for the summer. Patterns of the flying horse jumper can be obtained at any newsagent or wool shop, Weldons no. A795. Get busy, girls!

The East London Advertiser reports on the Millwall Flyers ended in the summer of 1950. The local Council redeveloped the land in East Ferry Road and the sport declined right across the country as bomb sites were cleared and potential riders were drafted into the armed forces for National Service. Cycle Speedway once more became a local enthusiasm and many of the clubs closed. Although 40 clubs survive in the UK today, the golden era of the ‘Skid Kids’ had run its course.

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to our very own ‘Millwall Flyer’, Arthur Ayres, for sharing his precious memories. Nothing beats hearing a story from someone who was part of it. Thanks also to George Warren, Brian Grover and Debbie Levett of Friends of Island History Trust, for first raising the idea of bringing this almost-forgotten story back to life. George and Brian spent hours at the Tower Hamlets Borough Archives patiently wading through old copies of the East London Advertiser to unearth Ted Davison’s wonderful cartoons and articles, without which this piece would not have been possible. The excellent ‘Cycle Speedway Teams Down The Ages’ website provides invaluable historical material and it was only thanks to their page on the Millwall Flyers that I realised Arthur Ayres had been involved. As always, Mick Lemmerman’s help and advice in putting this online is greatly valued and appreciated.

‘Millwall Flyer’, Arthur Ayres

The Bridges of the Isle of Dogs

Ask most people to name the old road bridges on the Island, and they will probably mention Kingsbridge, the Blue Bridge (or its predecessor), the Glass Bridge (or its predecessor) and the swing-bridge in Preston’s Rd. There were however, two more: both between Limehouse and the City Arms, along the Walls. You’d be forgiven for not knowing about them, though, as they were removed a very long time ago.

North Limehouse Entrance Lock Bridge

If you were travelling around the Island from Limehouse in the late 1800s, the first bridge you would encounter was a swing-bridge which spanned the Limehouse Entrance Lock (the entrance to Limehouse Basin). Not to be confused with the Regent’s Canal Dock north of Narrow Street, which is often incorrectly-named Limehouse Basin, the actual Limehouse Basin was formerly at the west end of the West India Docks.

Originally constructed from timber, the first bridge was not reliable, and it was replaced by an iron bridge in 1810.

1890

Limehouse Lock was closed in 1894 on completion of the Blackwall Entrance Lock in Preston’s Rd. The lock and basin were filled in at the end of the 1920s, but the bridge was not dismantled and removed until 1949.

Almost complete filling of Limehouse Basin – looking west towards the Walls – bridge centre background.

1937

Dismantling of bridge, Providence House visible in the background.  Photo: London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)

Site of the bridge in the 1980s.

Difficult to show a contemporary view as Westferry Circus is on the spot, but it is possible to mix up the maps.

South Limehouse Entrance Lock Bridge (aka City Arms Bridge)

Continuing south along the Walls, the next bridge spanned the South Limehouse Entrance Lock, providing ship access to the West India South Dock immediately north of the City Arms. Its vicinity to the pub led to it becoming known locally as the City Arms Bridge.

As with the bridge a little further north along the Walls (and built at the same time), this was originally a timber swing-bridge which was later replaced by an iron bridge; a bridge which was itself replaced in 1896.

In 1929, the PLA erected an impounding station – which is still functional – across the entrance lock, making the swing-bridge redundant. It was replaced by a fixed bridge in 1939.

Millwall Dock Entrance Lock Bridge (aka Kingsbridge)

Everybody I knew referred to it as Kingsbridge but that was never its formal name. Formally, it never even had a name. It was just the iron swing bridge over the Millwall Dock entrance lock. People like to have a name for everything, though, and it and the area around it became known as Kingsbridge, named after the Kingsbridge Arms public house

When it was opened, this was the largest dock entrance lock in London, being 80 ft wide and nearly 200 ft long. This photo shows the construction of the inner lock gates (the outer gates were far more substantial, designed to better deal with collisions by ships).

1867

The dock entrance was originally designed to be shorter, but during construction it became apparent that rapidly-increasing ship sizes required the building of a larger entrance. This meant building a lock that extended further east, which in turn led to a slight rerouting of Westferry Rd. I have added the original route of West Ferry Rd in this 1895 map; it was clearly a much gentler curve.

The map also shows a footbridge (“F.B.”) passing over the middle lock gates. This was to allow pedestrians to cross the dock entrance even if there was a ship in the lock. It was a double swing bridge which appears in a couple of old post cards.

c1910

1921

A bridger in 1926. This photo was taken looking south. On the left is a glimpse of the Sailor’s Home that used to be next to the dock road entrance.

1930s

1936

Ships continued to grow in size and by the 1930s the middle lock gates (and, thus, the foot bridge) were becoming obsolete. The PLA had plans to alter the lock, but these plans were deferred due to the outbreak of WWII. During the war, in September 1940, bombing destroyed the middle gates and much of the surrounding machnery and lock structure. Directly after the war, financial restrictions prevented any reconstruction and the lock remained unused. By 1955, the cost of reconstruction could no longer be justified and the dock was dammed at its inner gate (on the dockside).

The building of a dam at the inner gate meant that the road bridge (aka “Kingsbridge”) had to remain in place, never opening, and crossing a lock that would never be used. The structural solution would have been to completely fill in the locks, but this would have been much costlier , something unthinkable in the austere 1950s. Instead, the lock was allowed to silt up on the river side until the bridge wasn’t even crossing water.

1970s

This 1981 photo taken by Dave Chapman from the roof of McDougall’s shows the situation perfectly.

1981

It would be 1990 before the lock was properly filled-in and the bridge removed; work carried out by Mowlem for the LDDC. The following photo was taken by Kathy Duggan not long afterwards, with Michigan House on the right, and the Kingsbridge Arms in the distance.

1990s

Today there is a slipway on the river side of the bridge and a watersports club on the dock side (which is now under threat by people who want to build more towers). You don’t have to look too hard, though, to see where the outer and middle lock gates were mounted, and the remains of lock machinery.

South West India Dock East Entrance (aka Blue Bridge)

The ‘Blue Bridge’ (never its official name) opened on 1st June 1969, and is the fifth bridge since 1806 to cross the east entrance to West India South Dock. Its design is based on traditional Dutch drawbridges, and at the time of its opening it was the largest single-leaf bascule bridge in Britain. Its hydraulic machinery is based on that used by the former ‘Glass Bridge’ (the high-level footbridge over the Millwall Inner Dock). Although built for economy and efficiency – it can raise or lower in one minute – it is an attractive bridge that was immediately liked by Islanders.

The first bridge was made of timber. It spanned the 45 feet wide entrance of what was in 1806 the City Canal, a canal that crossed the Island and met the river in the west at the location of the later City Arms. In subsequent years, the canal would be enlarged to become the West India South Dock. The timber bridge survived until 1842, when it was replaced by an iron swing bridge.

Due to the increasing sizes of ships it was decided to widen the dock entrance from 45 ft to 55 ft. Construction took place from 1866 to 1870, along with the construction of bridge no. 3, another iron swing bridge.

Manchester Rd looking north. Glen Terrace is on the left and the Canal Dockyard graving docks are on the right. The 3rd bridge over the West India South Dock entrance lock is visible in the distance.

The Blue Bridge predecessor, was a so-called double-rolling bascule bridge, of a type invented by William Scherzer in Chicago. It was placed in 1929 and was known for being incredibly noisy, with a ‘groaning’ sound that could be heard many hundreds of yards away.

I remember this old bridge very well…we used to live in Rugless House, East Ferry Rd, and you could actually hear the bridge when it was raised up – John Tarff

Still from the early 1960s film ‘Portrait of Queenie’. Queenie Watts watches the bridge open from the river side.

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The bridge was slow and unreliable, and was frequently breaking down. For the Port of London Authority (PLA), this was an incredibly important bridge as it crossed the south dock entrance, the only way for ships to get in and out of the West India and Millwall Docks – the iron swing bridges at Kingsbridge and in Preston’s Rd having ceased operations a few years before (the Preston’s Rd bridge did still open on occasion but the lock there was capable of handling barges only).

When the PLA was faced with its latest repair and maintenance bill of close to £200,000, they decided in 1967 that it would make more sense to build a new bridge. This would not only be more cost-effective, a new bridge would also be faster and more reliable, thus increasing the speed at which ships could clear the lock. This was also of benefit to Islanders as they would spend less time waiting for bridges to open and close (known as ‘bridgers’, one of the most effective excuses for being late for school or work).

The Blue Bridge

The bridge parts were manufactured in Glasgow (ironic, considering the number of steel and bridge construction firms of Scottish origin that were operating on the Island until a few years before) and the bridge was assembled in a yard next to the entrance lock.

The old bridge had to be removed in order for the new bridge to be put in place. This meant that, for many months, no road traffic was possible over the only exit/entrance in the east of the Island. Bus passengers would disembark on one side of the lock, and then walk over the lock gates before catching another bus on the other side.

I remember…forever having to cross the lock to get a bus to Poplar scary at 12 years old – Becky Hobson

I am sure I lost property as we walked over those locks – Jill Leftwich

I was terrified of walking over that bridge. You could see the water through the wooden slats. Urgh! – Joan Reading

I remember when I was young we had to walk across the lock to the other side to pick up the bus to Poplar always thought I was going to fall in the water – Shelia Doe

Bridge Construction

My dad was lock foreman at the bridge, some times if I was there he would get me a lift on a tug through the docks and drop me off at the wooden bridge. I always wanted to work on the river, my dad said in the late 60’s don’t bother it’ll all be gone, how right he was. – Keith Charnley.

Bridger

I can remember getting bridgers when I went to secondary school at poplar – Lorraine Waterson

I remember at Sir Humphrey Gilbert school the kids coming in late to school “Sorry Sir gotta bridger” – Ted Whiteman

In 1976 I was fortunate enough to sail from the docks to the Netherlands (a trip organized by George Green’s Youth Club). The Blue Bridge had to be raised to allow our sailing boat to leave the dock. For the first time I was, in part, the cause of a bridger instead being held up by one. A rare experience. Also coincidental: a bridge based on Dutch design being raised to allow a ship to sail to the Netherlands, where I am as I write this, 40 years later.

Departing for the Netherlands (Photo: Mick Lemmerman)

Blackwall Entrance Lock (Preston’s Road) Bridge

British History Online:

In 1800 Ralph Walker designed a horizontal swing-bridge, double-turning and arched, the plans for which William Jessop used in 1801, in preference to his own designs, for a bridge over the Blackwall entrance lock.

The Blackwall entrance was very busy, and so Rennie had a cast-iron footbridge, supplied by Aydon & Elwell, erected over the east side of the lock in 1813, to allow the road bridge to stay open, unless carriage passage was needed, without inconveniencing pedestrians. Based on a bridge at Ramsgate designed by Rennie, it was 54ft long and only 4ft 6in. wide at the centre. The increasing numbers of workmen passing to and from the Isle of Dogs over this bridge necessitated a second footbridge in 1865, supplied by Westwood & Baillie. This improvement was negated in 1871 when one of the footbridges was moved to a City warehouse. The other was removed when the lock was rebuilt in 1893–4.

1890

1950. Preston’s Rd bridge on the right.

1920s. Photo: London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)

1962. Screenshot from ‘Portrait of Queenie’, with Queenie Watts

Photo: London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)

Photo: London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)

Like other bridges, the Preston’s Rd swing-bridge served no purpose eventually, Preston’s Rd was also straightened and widened to such an extent that it is difficult to recognise it as the same road.

Glengall (Road) Bridge, later Glass Bridge

The construction of the Millwall Docks in the early 1860s, made it impossible to get from one side of the other without travelling a long way south. The dock company reluctantly agreed to a public road across their land, and the first bridge was mounted over the Millwall Inner Dock in 1868.

1870, The bridge is in place, but the western end of Glengall Rd has not been constructed yet.

c1930

Glengall Bridge from the east.

British History Online:

The Glengall Road bridge became a nuisance both to local people and to the dock company. Its opening was a slow manoeuvre, and it often malfunctioned. Use of the Inner Dock by commercial shipping meant heavy wear and tear for a bridge that had not been designed for frequent opening. Repairs were made on nine separate occasions before 1930, causing much public inconvenience.

Reconstruction was approved in 1938:

Poplar Borough Council meeting minutes 1938

The start of World War II meant the reconstruction was not carried out. When the bridge broke down again in 1945, it was removed, and a wooden pedestrian bridge was buit on a moored barge. If a ship needed to pass, one end of the barge would be released and the barge pulled to one side.

Photo: Sandra Brentnall

Photo: George Charnley

After the war, the PLA stated its intention to close the public right of way across the Millwall Inner Dock, but this led to strong local opposition. The Council, the LCC and Charles Key, the local MP, forced the PLA to reconsider and prepare schemes for adapting the pedestrian crossing. In 1960 the PLA suggested either high-level footways with a double bascule bridge which would cost over £100,000, a tunnel under the dock for about £400,000, or a 180ft-high aerial cable car for about £50,000. The bridge option emerged as favourite, the tunnel being too expensive for the PLA and the cable car unpopular with the Council. A high-level bridge would keep the public out of the docks and allow barges to pass, opening only for ships.

1964

1964

1964

1965

The Glengall Grove high-level bridge gave the public the dubious privilege of a walk high over the Millwall Docks in an enclosed glazed tube. It was immediately renamed by Islanders, ‘The Glass Bridge’.

c1965

The ‘glass bridge’ immediately became a prime target for vandals and pedestrians were so intimidated that few used it. The PLA had to spend about £20,000 on repairs. Severe damage to the glass and the lifts in 1975–6 caused the bridge to be closed.

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The bridge was closed and demolished by the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) in 1983.

Demolition

A temporary bridge was built across Millwall Inner Dock, allowing for road access across the dock for the first time since 1945.

The road access was short-lived, though: a new street – Pepper Street – was constructed through the former dockland, and this is closed to traffic. The eastern and western sections of Pepper Street are connected by the latest incarnation of Glengall Bridge.

 

The Mudchute Anti-Aircraft Gun Emplacement

In 1938, with war imminent, the War Office took over an area of land in the Mudchute west of Stebondale Street, paying compensation to the 37 allotment
holders whose plots were appropriated.

Mudchute Allotments in the 1920s. Photo: Island History Trust Collection

Four concrete ack-ack gun installations were built around a central control bunker, and accommodation and storage huts were built to the east.

Click for full-size version.

The installation was initially manned by the 154 Battery of the 52nd (London) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment – a volunteer air defence unit of Britain’s Territorial Army. While the accommodation and supply huts were still being built, the troops were billeted in Dockland Settlement. George Hames wrote in August 1939:

There was a heavy bang on the front door. A quick glance through the window showed a lorry pulling up outside. It was a battery of the Heavy Artillery (HA) just back from annual camp and as their battery site on the Mudchute was not ready, they just commandeered the club! The take-over was almost entire. The George Hall became the officers’ room, the library went to the sergeants; they took the gym, the main hall and the carpenters’ shop in the arches. The troops were with us until the following May, the HA being relieved by another battery who eventually took to their now finished quarters on the Mudchute.

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

The Blitz started in the late afternoon of 7th September 1940, when Bill Regan reported in his diary (see Heavy Rescue Squad Work on the Isle of Dogs: Bill Regan’s Diary from the Second World War ):

The Mudshoot [former popular spelling] gun site did its stuff, but was pretty futile. As we understood it, they were popping off with four 3.7’s, which sounded rather feeble to us. They were enthusiastic, and I suppose that was something to be thankful for.

That night, a parachute mine fell  on the site, and the explosion seriously damaged the command post and destroyed the canteen and stores. The guns could no longer be aimed with radar and fired by remote control; the access road to the gun sites was also badly damaged making it difficult to get in fresh supplies, and gunners were bringing in replacement ammunition by hand.

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

I came across a film of the mudchute anti-aircraft gun in action quite by accident while browsing through wartime information films on YouTube. In a 1940 film produced by the Shell Film Unit, “Transfer of Skill”, I spotted what was very obviously McDougall’s flour silo building in the background. Here is an extract:

Bill Regan in his diaries on 11th September 1940:

Met some of the gunners from the Mudshoot today. All very young, none of them regulars, gave them tea, and chatted away until dusk, when the sound of distant gun-fire from down river, then the sirens.

The lads were a bit edgy when the noise came closer and Vi’s mum asked them if they were on duty, and they said no. When their guns started firing, of course the house began vibrating, and each time this happened, they looked very uneasy, and Vi’s dad said he thought they should go back to camp. They went, quick.

They had been very nervous, and they did the sensible thing. Me and Vi said goodnight, and went to our own shelter in the back garden, and surprisingly, had a good night’s sleep, several near misses woke us, but were asleep again almost at once. I suppose the noise is becoming familiar, like the ships on the river, on a foggy night, blowing away on their whistles which we became used to, and regarded as normal background noise.

Screenshot from Shell Film Unit film

And on 24th December:

At this stage of the Blitz, the anti-aircraft defences of London
were not up to the task of protecting the capital, but they did
what they could to put up a fight and had some occasional
successes.

Alert about mid-day, we saw a fighter plane going across
towards Essex, rather high and fast, but the Mudchute got off
one shot at it, and we watched the plane suddenly explode and
we were left with a clear sky.

We heard the gunners shouting their heads off. I went round
to the site entrance by the Wesleyan Chapel, and the two men
on guard were grinning like gargoyles, and all I could get off
them was ‘One shot, one bull’.

As I came away, one of them said to me ‘Wait till we get the
four—fives, we’ll show them’. I hope my guess is right, and
that it meant 4.5 AA guns. We could do with something a bit
bigger, if only to give our morale a lift. The last four nights
we have had a mobile gun on an army lorry, going round the
Island, and firing a few rounds in one place, then tearing up
the road, a few more rounds, then back again, ‘ditto repeato’,
to cheer us up, or confuse the enemy. Anyhow, it’s one of
Churchill’s better ideas.”

Just a few days after Bill’s diary entry, a 50 Kg bomb fell on the anti-aircraft battery. It fell outside one of the concrete gun emplacements, but managed to penetrate underneath the emplacement, wrecking its foundations and demolishing some of the 12-inch thick concrete wall. The gun, which was undergoing repairs and was not in use, was damaged.

Photo: Island History Trust Collection

Later, the site was fitted with more sophisticated, radar-controlled guns. Bill Regan wrote in March 1941:

Had a big share of the goodies last night. The Mudshoot has a new man in charge now. They have four big A.A, guns installed, and they used them last night, and what a lovely sound. They go off as one, we can hear the scream as they go up, and follow the sound, and they explode together, forming a square, and if the aim is right, it’s got to be curtains for the plane on the end of it.

Later in the war, in September 1944, Regan described a new type of enemy aircraft:

One machine passed over from S.E, to S.W, as I got out. Searchlight held it, flying very low and fast. Every type of gun, opened up, but it seemed unaffected. One pack of rockets from Rotherhithe surrounded it, but it just veered right as if from blast, and continued toward the city. Seconds later, the engine ceased, it dived, and immediately a terrific white flash was seen. After a lapse of about 6 seconds a big red flash, and a terrific explosion. We congratulated the Ack-Ack to each other, and counted one plane down.

Immediately, another came over, held by searchlights, and surrounded by shell-bursts; as before, right through it, over-head, and going towards Poplar, as I thought. Burdett Rd; as before, the engine cut out, it dived steeply, big white flash, pause, huge red flash, bang. We felt the blast distinctly. That’s two planes, we said. They seemed to be small fast fighters, with an apparently outsize bombload. Just about here, Martin who had varnished his tonsils with his usual double Scotches, got very talkative, and tried to bolster himself with loud talk. “I’m with you lads, first to go out. I’ll be there.” etc, etc. Before he could impress us, another one came over, passed, went silent, dropped, same white flash, pause – red flash, bang. I said to Alf Crawley, that the gunners were on form, three over, three down. Hardly credible.

We began to discuss the possibility of them being planes, as we could see flames coming from the tails of them, also a light in the nose. Some said rockets, as the flames did not seem to impede their progress.

It was Bill’s first sight of a V-1 rocket. Frequently referred to as the Doodlebug or Flying Bomb, the V-1 was an abbreviation of Vergeltungswaffe-1 (the German for Weapon of Revenge or Retribution), notable for the sound of its pulse jet engine and the eerie silence when that engine stopped and the rocket made its descent. Flying at 640 km/h (400 mph), it carried its 850 Kg explosive warhead from Dutch, Belgian and French launch sites to London and the South East. The first V-1 to fall on England was at 4.25 a.m. on 13th June 1944, hitting a railway bridge in Grove Road near Mile End Road. The bridge and railway track were badly damaged and a number of houses were destroyed. Six were killed, 30 injured, and more than 200 people made homeless. The few that fell on the Island are marked on this map (from The Isle of Dogs During World War II, by yours truly):

For perhaps as long as 5 years after the end of WWII, the guns remained in place, after which the land reverted to the PLA. They, obviously, were not so interested in the effort and expense of removing a concrete control centre and four gun emplacements with foot-thick concrete walls, on land they didn’t have any use for. And so they remained in place, a great place for kids to play (as long as the PLA police didn’t kick them out of the muddy, but they didn’t even bother with that after a while).

Photo: Gary O’Keefe

Photo: Gary O’Keefe

Photo: Gary O’Keefe

Photo: Gary O’Keefe

Photo: Gary O’Keefe

Photo: Gary O’Keefe

I still have a scar on my knee from falling off this one as a kid and landing on some broken concrete. Photo: Pat Jarvis

Gary’s photos show signs of the fledgling mudchute farm, as do my own, taken a few months later.

Photo: Mick Lemmerman

Photo: Mick Lemmerman

Photo: Mick Lemmerman

Photo: Mick Lemmerman

Photo: Mick Lemmerman

Photo: Mick Lemmerman

Photo: Mick Lemmerman

The control bunker has since been demolished, which I think is a shame – it might not have been practical, but it did have some historical value. On a positive note, there is now a renovated anti-aircraft gun on the site. Not an original Island gun, but a good addition all the same.

Photo: Mick Lemmerman

Dolly Fisher – ‘Tugboat Annie of the Thames’

[Thanks and apologies to isleofdogslife.wordpress.com for the inspiration and blatant ‘borrowing’ of some text and images. You know I’m always happy to return the compliment.]

Recently, a friend, Con Maloney shared with me a link to an online version the 1962 documentary, ‘Postscript to Empire, Britain in Transition’. Controversial and patronising in places, it compared the life and attitudes of inhabitants of Dockland with those who had recently moved to a New Town. The Dockland area in question was the Isle of Dogs; and the documentary contains some unique and magical images and sounds of a lost world and people (OK, I admit that sounds a bit dramatic – we’re talking about 1960s London, not the lost city of the Incas). You can find the link at the end of this article.

A couple who feature larger-than-lifely (I might have made up that expression) in the documentary are the husband and wife owners of a well known barge-building firm of the time, Dorathea (Dolly) and William (Bill) Woodward Fisher of 94 Narrow St, Limehouse.

Not Islanders, not even East Londoners, but still with close links to the Island; due not only to business dealings along the river, but also to their active support for a number of good causes, including that of the Poplar and Blackwall District Rowing Club, which at the time kept its boats (or sculls, or whatever their proper name is) in a wooden shed in Ferry St and used the Princess of Wales pub (‘Macs’) round the corner in Manchester Rd as club house.

1960s broadcaster, Dan Farson, knew Dolly and Bill well, for he rented a flat above their barge-building works for many years around 1960. Farson wrote in his autobiography, Limehouse Days:

Sometimes referred to as ‘the Tugboat Annie of the Thames’, she commanded a fleet of 200 barges from her control room in her handsome house in Blackheath [actually, Lewisham], cultivating a startling resemblance to George Arliss by wearing well-tailored suits, a stock, and sometimed a monocle. Everybody obeyed her, including her husband William, a born riverman.

I grew to know the Woodward Fishers over the next few years and though Mrs. Fisher….proved a splendidly vigorous octogenarian, one of the true characters of the river, I never lost my fear of her.

Tugboat Annie is a 1933 American comedy film starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery as a boisterous and argumentative middle-aged couple who operate a tugboat.

I’ve never seen the film myself, and have no idea if the comparison is fair or complimentary. There certainly seems to have been no physical similarity,

Dolly and Bill on the balcony of their firm. A screenshot from the 1962 documentary ‘Postscript to Empire, Britain in Transition’.

Farson again:

My first meeting was with her son Ken, a courteous young man, smooth and citified in contrast to the rough background of his parents, who started their fleet with £20 and a single barge, subsequently absorbing the wharf owned by W.N. Sparks and sons, builders of wooden sailing barges.

…he did his utmost to dissuade me, stressing that the place was unsuitable except for a hardened East Ender or impoverished students. This was followed by my first meeting with Dolly Fisher in Narrow St, where she led me to the balcony and pointed out the disadvantages  with scrupulous honesty: the excruciating scream of the electric scrapers as they removed the rust from the worn-out barges; the grime from the coal-loading wharf near by, settling a layer of black dust where we stood; the smell, or rather the stink, of the river at low tide.

Dolly in front of the coal wharf.

Beneath her gruff exterior, with that bark of a voice frequently mistaken for a man’s as she roused her workmen from their tea-breaks on the radio, Dolly Fisher was a kind if abrasive woman, and she sensed my passion – and indeed she shared my romance with the river.

Incidentally, it was while living in the flat above the barge building firm that Farson discovered it once served as a beerhouse, named Waterman’s Arms, a name he later re-used when he purchased the Newcastle Arms on the Island.

William wearing his Doggett’s coat and badge.

William was the winner of the coveted Doggett’s Coat and Badge, the annual rowing race of six young watermen on 1 August, started in 1716 by an actor called Doggett to commemorate the accession of George I. As a prize he offered an orange coat of antique cut with a silver badge on the right sleeve denoting the White Horse of Hannover, hence the name, though this had been replaced by a gift of money.

Narrow St in the late 1950s, with a Woodward Fisher van parked on the left. Photo: Dan Farson.

Woodward Fisher’s from the river.

Woodward Fisher’s from the river. The Grapes pub on the left. 1970s.

The tug, Billdora, which Bill and Dolly named after themselves.

The Woodward – Fishers of Limehouse

As well as her three London wharves. Mrs Fisher owned a wharf and a refreshment bar on the Isle of Wight. Her large Victorian mansion was home to a menagerie of five tortoises, nine cats, two dogs, a parrot and a budgerigar. When her husband died in the 1960s,  Mrs Woodward Fisher took over the business.

She also raised 66 thousand pounds to buy land and build a club house for the Poplar, Blackwall and District Rowing Club, of which her husband was a member. She was “inordinately proud of the spanking new clubhouse” – round which she was carried shoulder high at the opening. And of her “‘boys” at the club, aged between eight and 80. And of the club’s star sculler, Ken Dwan, who represented Great Britain at the Munich Olympics.

1960 launch of the new boat, Kenneth, in Ferry St. Dolly is peering into the boat, while Bill is standing to her left. North Greenwich railway station, on the right, made way for the new rowing club later; Manchester Rd is in the background. Photo: Island History Trust / Bill Smith.

1960. Dolly helping the new tenant in the Princess of Wales, Mrs Pat Pearce, to celebrate her arrival. Photo: Island History Trust / Bill Smith

In 1961, Dolly was awarded an OBE.

She had become quite a celebrity in the conventional sense.

Life Magazine. 1966

In 1972, the BBC made a programme about Dolly, naming it ‘Mother Thames OBE’. Nancy Banks-Smith, reviewing the programme in the Guardian, wrote:

At 77, Mrs Dorathea Woodward Fisher has gladdened many a heart; and to everyone on the river she is known affectionately as ‘ Mother Thames.’ Meeting Mother Thames … is an illuminating experience. Inebriating even … She is a great swell, a rip, a nut. Her clothes, her caps, her cigarette, her silver, her style, her soul are dashingly individual …

She was often in demand for interviews; the following is an extract from one in Woman’s Weekly in 1973:

A voice, harsh and vibrant, crackled through the radio receiver: “Calling Duke shore, position please …”

“Barge Dog Fisher, loaded with molasses, moor up the Wash and stow ready for ten o’clock in the morning.”

Was it a man talking, newcomers to the Thames dockside invariably thought so. lt was, in fact. Mrs Dorathea Woodward Fisher, otherwise known as the Grand Old Lady of the Thames, or Lady Dorathea of the River, the only woman barge-owner actively in the business and its personality queen as well.
“People think I’ve got a gruff voice.” she said. “Well, so I have and I wouldn’t be without it. If I’d had a sweet girlish voice I wouldn’t have got anywhere.

“I’ve been called all kinds of things and done all sorts of business on the phone, when if they’d known I was a woman, they wouldn’t have talked to me.”

(One tug skipper always refers to her as “old cock.” He sends her the occasional box of cigars as well.)

Reluctantly, on her 79th birthday in 1973 (and by now long a widow), Dolly wound up her lighterage business. She should have done so four years previously, according to her businessman son Ken. But she didn’t have the heart. She paid off the lightermen who ran her barges – “Grand chaps all. though they do ask for too much money these days.” She took the remaining 88 barges out of commission. She kept, though, her last nine tugs and she surrendered none of her extensive property interests, which included three wharves on the Thames.

Women’s Weekly:

Mrs Fisher’s could easily be just another “tings ain’t what they used to be” sob-story. But it is lifted out of the ordinary by the amazing personality of the woman at its heart and by the accelerating decline of the Thames as an artery of commerce, which is a tragedy for London and Londoners.

Mrs Fisher is appalled and saddened by this. “I still like going out on the river, but each time now it breaks my heart a little bit. I come away with a lump in my throat.”

Still she acknowledges that progress must go on. ” I don’t blame containerisation. It is an efficient way of moving goods. But those huge lorries! They’ve really plumped for the beast and not the beauty, using those.”

She was closing, she said, because she could not stand the financial strain. For some time she had paid out three thousand pounds a week in salaries, while the business brought in just half that.

She had a ferocious sense of humour too. “Did you hear the one about the bishop and the lady learner driver who arrived simultaneously at the Pearly Gates?” she asks. “St. Peter came out and invited the lady driver in, in front of the bishop. ‘Oh no,’ said the bishop, you can’t let her in before me.’ ‘My good man.’ St. Peter replied, ‘she’s put the fear of God into many more people than you ever did’.”

She might have been talking about herself. Dolly died a few months later.

Link to film, which is well worth seeing: http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-postscript-to-empire-britain-in-transition-1962/

The Timber Transporter

By the end of the 19th century, so much wood was being imported via the Millwall Docks that the dock company was running out of room to store it all. The company owned a lot of land beyond the dock fences – including the whole of the mudchute – so they booted Millwall Athletic off their land just south of Glengall Road in order to construct new warehousing there (see this post for more the story of Millwall Athletic on the Island).

Pre-booting-off

The challenge for the dock company was: how to transport the timber from the docks, over East Ferry Rd, and into the newly-formed ‘Transporter Yard’? In 1900, Chief Millwall Dock Engineer, Duckham, travelled to Sweden for inspiration, where he inspected a timber transport system not yet known in England. On his return, he:

…proposed the adoption of an electrically motivated elevated timber transporter invented by the Stockholm engineers Adolf Julius Tenow and Johan Edward Flodstrom. The transporter was fixed to run …. from the south-east corner of the Inner Dock. Bolinders supplied a further 200 yards of transporter and Joseph Westwood & Company, of Millwall, supplied and erected steel bridges to carry the structure across the railway and road. The transporter was quickly assembled and a trial on 17 June 1901 was a success….  It was inaugurated with a Coronation Dinner for the poor of Cubitt Town…. In late 1901 it was extended 200 yards eastwards and a spur was added to serve C Yard. The whole cost was £7,798.

Post-booting-out of Millwall Athletic. Bolander’s conveyor in 1906.

The timber transporter consisted of a system of rollers, about 15ft above the ground, supported by a steel and wood trestle system. Above the rollers was a pitched roof to keep the timber and roller mechanism dry. This recently-uncovered, fascinating photo shows the transporter crossing East Ferry Rd from the docks (right) and into the Transport Yard in the mudchute (left).

Transporter crossing East Ferry Rd into the mudchute, 1906 (click on image for full version)

There was a remnant of the transporter still in place as late as 1970:

1970

The same view today (East Ferry Rd has been redirected at this point in recent times, and the bend in the road is no longer present):

An important feature of the transporter was its wood-housed system of claw lifts which carried deals up from the quay:

The previous photo shows the start of the transporter where it met Millwall Inner Dock, close to Glengall Bridge and parallel with Glengall Rd. The following photo shows the start from another angle, across Millwall Inner Dock. Glengall Bridge, a swingbridge, is open – the pedestrians are waiting for it to close.  Note the fence on both sides of Glengall Road to keep people out of the docks. The dock company, and later the PLA, were never happy with a public right of way going through their land; after the post-war closure of the last ‘bridge’ – which was actually a barge – the PLA tried to close off the cross-dock route altogether – the eventual construction of the raised glass bridge was a compromise.

Photo: Island History Trust / George Pye

The same view today:

The transporter also had an interesting system for offloading and stacking timber (the ‘lowering system’). This was a mobile construction which ran on tracks under the raised rollers, allowing dockers to offload at any point along the route of the transporter. In this photo, the steep mudchute embankments are visible in the background:

Although an innovative and impressive piece of engineering, the transporter did not save on costs – it proved cheaper to transport timber at street level on conventional (rail) trollies. Survey of London:

It did not save on labour, as porters had to sort the deals at the delivery end. The PLA stopped the use of the transporter in 1909 and, after a fire, it was dismantled in 1911.

Postscript: Some of the photos and information in this article were found in a 1905 publication, The Mechanical Handling of Materials. The relevant pages, with extra information for the mechanically minded, are reproduced here:

 

 

The Mill Wall

As mentioned in an earlier blog article (Wet, Wet, Wet), the Island was in pre-Roman times uninhabited marshland which flooded at high tide, as was the case with much of the land along the Thames. In the medieval period, an earth, chalk and timber bank (or wall, from the Old English weall, meaning ‘rampart, dyke, earthwork’) was constructed along the riverfront to protect the land from flooding.

Survey of London:

The earliest reference to the repair of the wall and ditches of the Isle of Dogs dates from the end of the thirteenth century, but a settlement existed well before this, so there must already have been a wall. Repeated drownings and reclamations probably involved its partial reconstruction or enlargement.

Made of earth, or earth and chalk, possibly with a timber core in places (faggots were used in the seventeenth century to stop up large gaps).

On the land side of the wall was a large ditch into which the water drained. At low tide, sluice gates were opened to empty the ditch into the river. By this method, the interior of the Island was drained, and pastureland was created from marshland.

The wall was a large construction: 15 ft high, with a flat top of about 18 ft across and a total width (including slope and ditches) of up to 150 ft. Such constructions are still commonly applied as sea or river defences.

The above photo shows a modern Dutch wall (trivia: Amsterdam’s red light district is more widely known amongst the Dutch as De Wallen (The Walls), built as the area is on the site of a former defensive earthern bank).

Old paintings and sketches give a good impression of the appearance of the Island wall then.

1793, looking north from Limehouse Hole (approximately the location Westferry Circus)

The following is an 1843 painting of the windmill and surrounding buildings on the wall at the west end of Claude St, close to St. Paul’s Church. An apparently rural scene, but with the masts of the docks in the background. The ramschackle collection of buildings included a beerhouse at the bottom left corner (The Windmill). The whole lot burned down in the 1880s.

Back to the Dutch again; many English words related to rivers and sailing are derived from the Dutch language: Deck, Sail, Dyke, Mast, Boat, Ship, Keel, Canal, Sailor, Skipper …

Another such word is Dock, from the Dutch Dok, the earliest incarnations of which were places to lay ships dry for repair.  The wall around the Island was perfect for this – a stable, gentle slope where ships and boats could be tethered at high tide to be left exposed when the tide went out. Even better were places with a small inlet, where the ships could be dragged (or drawn) even higher, places later known as drawdocks, such as Newcastle Drawdock opposite the Waterman’s Arms and Johnson’s Drawdock next to the rowing club.

Meanwhile, back to a long time ago, in 1700:

Observant readers will immediately spot the windmills down the west side of the Island, seven on this well known Gascoyne map. There were at other times more (up to 12) or less than seven mills, but the idea of seven mills has stuck, and is reflected in the name of the primary school on the Barkantine Estate. The west side of the Island was perfect for windmills, it being a very windy place, due to the westerly prevailing winds and the wide open space of the Thames.

Survey of London:

It was said in the 1850s that ‘when in other parts of London the wind is scarcely felt, it sweeps over this place with great strength’.

Initially, most of the mills were engaged in corn grinding, but, later, oilseed crushing became the norm. Usually, the owners lived over the water (there were few residents on the Island in the 1700s). The path along the wall was more usually referred to as Marsh Wall, but Mill Wall made its introduction. Survey of London:

The name Mill Wall came into use in the late eighteenth century (it is first used in the rate books in 1784), initially referring to the western marsh wall, where windmills stood. Later, the name was used for both the path on the wall and the district generally. By the 1840s, the one-word form was usual. As late as 1875, this part of the Isle of Dogs was listed in the streets section of the Post Office Directory under Millwall alone – although Westferry Road had existed for 60 years, and had long ago superseded the marsh wall path, parts of which had already been stopped up as development proceeded. The anachronism was no doubt perpetuated in deference to the occupiers of riverside wharves.

The path along the top of the wall – the Mill Wall – was the only way to get around the Island in 1700, apart from the north-south track from Poplar (the future East Ferry Rd, whose main use was to get to and from the Greenwich Ferry). The arrival of industry in the late 1700s, and especially the opening of the West India Docks in 1806, led to the development of a proper road and the West Ferry Road was opened in 1815 (then also known as, amongst other names, the New Rd, Deptford & Greenwich Rd or Greenwich Ferry Rd).

In this 1818 map, the new road is shown in the west of the Island, while in the east of the Island the marsh wall is shown. It would be more than 20 years after this map before the Manchester Rd was constructed.

During the 19th century industry spread along the river. For many business owners the marsh wall – a public right of way – was a hindrance, restricting access to or expansion towards the river, and sometimes meaning that workers had to cross the path during their normal work.

The following maps show the path of the Mill Wall in the 1890s (the name, Marsh Wall, was by then less used). It was no longer a continuous path, and a large section had already been lost to the Millwall Docks entrance (not the Millwall Dry Dock shown here).

Not only inconvenient to businesses, the wall was undoubtedly unpleasant for ‘pedestrians’ (who anyway preferred the newly-built road just a few yards away). The high walls and fences marking the boundaries of yards and factories meant that the path was gloomy and perhaps even dangerous place in places.

At the turn of the century, business owners applied for the abolition of the rights of way over the Mill Wall. Here are just two of those applications:

The East End News & Shipping Chronicle, 3rd August 1906

The East End News & Shipping Chronicle, 3rd August 1906

The applications met with little resistance. Only a short section south of the Millwall Dock entrance survived for a decade or two (on maps at least), probably because to its east were residential streets and not industry.

But otherwise, that was the end of the Marsh Wall until the London Docklands Development Corporation built their red road (in another location).

Gizza Job, I Can Do That.

If you look at a trade directory dated around 1900, you will not be surprised to see many firms on the Island engaged in activities to do with the docks, shipping, engineering and metal works. But, there is also mention of other trades and industries which are not familiar to me, and/or which have interesting- or amusing-sounding names (to my 21st century ears in any event).

Talking Machines

A profession in the latter category belonged to Henry Lunn of 85 Westferry Rd, who described himself in a 1914 trade directory as a Talking Machine Repairer. What was a talking machine? I had to Google that to find out, and according to Wikipedia:

 In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “Phonograph”, “Gramophone”, “Graphophone”, “Zonophone” and the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term “talking machine”.

Lunn’s (right)

Lunn’s shop would later be a bicycle shop, occupied in the 1950s by bicycle dealer Patrick Coleman. What is it that links audio systems with bicycles? It wasn’t the only example; at 161 Manchester Rd in the 1920s was Horace Clary’s Bicycle & Radio Repairs shop.

Photo: Tony Clary

Manure

Anybody living in Millennium Drive (behind the former Cubitt Arms) might be interested to hear that they are living on the site of a large 19th century manure works. I am not certain of its name, but it was either the Guaranteed Manure Company or the London Manure Company, both of whom were listed as Manure Merchants & Manufacturers operating on the Island in 1884.

I thought I knew what manure was, but the internet corrected me. In Victorian times, manure was a generic term for fertilizer (including that made from animal bones), and what they were producing by the Thames were nitro-phosphates, whose manufacturing process was based on sulphuric acid and which released hydrochloric acid particles into the atmosphere. Not only did the works stink, their emissions were highly toxic. This led in 1863 to the Alkali Act – the first incarnation of a ‘clean air act’ – but only after landowners and farmers downwind of such factories complained of dying plantlife in parks and pastures. Meanwhile, other Victorians claimed it was healthy to live in such an environment because the chemicals killed airborne diseases.

Beer

In Victorian times, it was permitted to sell beer – but not strong drinks – without requiring a license. If you had licensed premises, then you were known as a publican, but if you had no license then you were a beer retailer. One such beer retailer was Thomas Brunton who ran a beer house known as The Windmill on the river wall at the end of Claude Street in the 1880s.

The beer house was in a jumble of wooden structures built around the windmill (which was built in 1701). The windmill and all the buildings were burnt down in January 1884.

The Windmill beer house (left) on the river wall, looking north. 1843

Unfortunately for the authorities, because they had no license requirements, beer houses were never inspected, and thus became renowned as dens of vice and crime. The law was quickly changed to make sure that all premises were licensed, but most Island pubs were beer houses at one time. The exceptions were the grander establishments such as the Queen, Cubitt Arms or Lord Nelson. From the start, these were large, licensed premises aimed at the well-to-do (who were not actually to be found in any appreciable numbers on the Island); they were all to be found around Cubitt Town.

Coconuts

In 1890 there was a Cocoa Nut Fibre Manufactory off Westferry Rd near Cahir Street (Brownfield Place is now on the site).

1890

Coconut fibre, or coir, is a natural fibre extracted from the husk of coconut and used in products such as floor mats, doormats, brushes, and mattresses. Other uses are in upholstery padding, sacking, and the manufacture of string and rope.

Coconut fibre works, Millwall, 1885.

Coconut fibre works, Millwall, 1885.

Lime

Burning limestone produces a powder which is of use in building mortar and agriculture (it increases the pH of acidic soil). It is well known that Limehouse is so named because of the many lime kilns that were in the area in medieval times, but lime burners could be found all along the Thames – reliant as the business was on bulk transportation – as late as the 1880s, including Michael Pass who operated out of Plymouth Wharf (north of Cubitt Town Wharf at the top end of Seyssel Street).

The burner’s job also included removing the newly burnt ‘quick lime’ and general attention to kiln operation. Work on the lime kilns was arduous, hot and dusty. The gases leaving the top of a continuously operating kiln must have made manual charging an exhausting and unpleasant operation, although the top layer was cool. Gas leaving a coal fired kiln was not toxic but could induce nausea …

Removing the newly burnt lime from the base of the kiln had an element of danger, because it was both hot and caustic and in those days protective clothing was very primitive.

https://sites.google.com/site/ahistoryofmumbles/lime-kiln-operation

Oil Cakes

Nope, didn’t know that either, but that’s what the McDougall Brothers were also making in Millwall. In 1845, Alexander McDougall, previously a struggling Scottish shoe merchant from Dumfries and then a Manchester schoolmaster, finally achieved his ambition of setting up as a manufacturing chemist.

He recruited his sons into the business and, in 1864, the McDougall Brothers developed and produced a patent substitute for yeast. This was the starting point which was not only to revolutionise home baking, but firmly position McDougall’s as a household name, as pioneers of self-raising flour.

The first large mill to be built alongside any of the London docks was the Wheatsheaf Mill, at Millwall Docks, which stood on the southern quay of the Millwall Outer Dock. Its construction was started in 1869 by the Manchester-based brothers.

Millwall Inner Dock. McDougall’s Wheatsheaf Mill (right) and their newly-built silo (left). 1934.

Fancy Repository

A Fancy Repository, such as that owned by James Bulbick at 81 Westferry Rd in 1882 has an unclear meaning. Repository usually means a warehouse or storage place, but 81 Westferry Rd was a run-of-the-mill shop.

81 Westferry Rd (right) in the 1950s.

A fancy was more or less any article that you didn’t need, but which you wanted (or fancied). So, no foodstuffs, no clothing, but other items such as bird cages, croquet sets, toilet bottles, vases, etc. I’m not making this up, I’m quoting from a newspaper advert for a Fancy Repository. Basically…..it was……tat.

Chandler

There were LOADS of chandlers on the Island. In 1882:

Alexander Noall, 120 Stebondale St
Alfred Gibbs, 63 Glengall Rd (E)
Alfred Baldwin, 2 Manilla St
Augustus Mitchell, 363 Westferry Rd
Edgar Ellis, 82 Westferry Rd
Edward Brindley, 5 East Ferry Rd
Elizabeth Middleton, 33 Charles St
George Dixey, 73 Manchester Rd
George Meason, 97 Westferry Rd
Henry Suffolk, 29 Stebondale St
Henry Adcock, 62 Glengall Rd (E)
Herbert Davey, 237 Westferry Rd
James Marner, 153 Manchester Rd
James Hembrough, 32 Manilla St
James Collins, 9 Strattondale St
James Godden, 288 Westferry Rd
Jesse Burgoine, 212 Westferry Rd
John McCartney, 43 Glengall Rd (E)
John Blakebrough, 469 Manchester Rd
John Johnstone, 313 Manchester Rd
Mary Koch, 47 Stebondale St
Richard Freeman, 248 Manchester Rd
Sarah Dines, 519 Manchester Rd
Sarah Moull, 7 Manilla St
Sarah Terry, 7 Strafford St
Thomas Weaver, 294 Westferry Rd
Thomas Mulliner, 124 Manchester Rd
Thomas Miskin, 25 Glengall Rd (E)
William McCully, 12 Manilla St
William Bishop, 21 Samuda St

So, what’s a chandler? Wikipedia says:

Not to be confused with Chandelier.

They’re only right.

A chandler was the head of the chandlery in medieval households, responsible for wax, candles, and soap. More recently, a couple of hundred years ago, ship chandlers were dealers in special supplies or equipment for ships. Eventually, chandler became the name for the person who sold general provisions, later known as a grocer (does anybody use that word any more?). The term chandelier, at one time a ceiling fitting that held several candles together, is still used. Ah – the association is not that daft after all.

Globe Maker

John Calver, 80 Westferry Rd, Globe Maker

Why?

Encaustic Tile

Encaustic tiles are ceramic tiles in which the pattern or figure on the surface is not a product of the glaze but of different colours of clay. They are usually of two colors but a tile may be composed of as many as six. The pattern appears inlaid into the body of the tile, so that the design remains as the tile is worn down. Encaustic tiles may be glazed or unglazed and the inlay may be as shallow as an eighth of an inch, as is often the case with “printed” encaustic tile from the later medieval period, or as deep as a quarter inch. They are very pretty:

John Lewis James of Wharf Rd used to make them in the 1890s. Wharf Road used to run from the Ferry House to Seyssel St. In the 1930s, the west end of the street (from Johnson Dry Dock aka the slipway next to the rowing club) was renamed Ferry Street and the east end Saunders Ness Road.