At Victoria's accession
tradesmen's houses lined all the main roads in the
west: Cambridge, Bethnal Green, and Hackney
roads, Brick Lane, and Sclater Street. Similar
houses occupied the Nag's Head Field settlement off Hackney Road and the eastern part of
the green, Patriot Square, Jews' Walk, and
Victoria Park Square. All other housing was
classified as occupied by weavers and labourers. (fn. 2)

During the next 40 years building overwhelmed
all the empty land and intensified on existing
estates. Rebuilding was usually to a greater
density. Between 1851 and 1859, for example,
James Latham constructed 12 houses on the site
of one at the corner of Swan and Great Bacon
streets. (fn. 3) Railways, built in 1840 and 1872, (fn. 4)
formed barriers between districts, helped to
spread industry, and displaced people into already
crowded streets and courts. Density rose from 6.3
persons a house in 1841 to 7.5 in 1871. (fn. 5) Life
expectancy was low. Of 1,632 deaths in 1839, 1,258
(77 per cent) were of 'mechanics, servants, and
labourers', who had an expectancy of 16 years,
273 of tradesmen, with an expectancy of 26, and
101 of gentry and professional people, with an
expectancy of 45. (fn. 6) Huguenot influence was
diluted by outsiders from other parts of London.
Over 80 per cent of Bethnal Green's population
in 1851 and 1861 had been born in London. (fn. 7)
Although Bethnal Green was still the main
silkweaving parish, the industry was in decline
and weavers were under-employed. Occupations
such as tailoring, furniture making, and costermongering replaced it but none was prosperous,
sweated labour was prevalent, and the population
was caught in a downward spiral of poverty. A
modern analysis has placed Bethnal Green as the
second poorest London parish in 1841, the
poorest by 1871. (fn. 8)

From 1837 to 1842 inclusive 548 houses were
built, the great majority classed as fourth-rate. (fn. 9)
There were 11,983 houses in 1838, (fn. 10) 12,358 in 1841,
13,819 in 1851, 15,358 in 1861 and 16,430 in 1871. (fn. 11)

In 1837-8 waste was being covered by
houses, (fn. 12) many of them in 1842 'more huts than
houses, built in swamps, at a cheap rent', to be
let for as much as possible to weekly tenants. (fn. 13)
In the worst areas garden sheds became dwellings
and gardens (recte allotments) became Gardens;
George and Gale's Gardens west of Cambridge
Road, where at least 21 houses were built between 1846 and 1854, were 'lamentable' in 1848.
A similar process took place in Punderson's and
Hollybush places and gardens and was beginning in Whisker's gardens near Bonner Lane.
On Markhams north of Lamb Street (later part
of Three Colts Lane), Lamb Gardens, Place,
and Row consisted of narrow lanes and converted garden sheds. (fn. 14)

Buildings encroached on the grounds of larger,
usually older, houses around the green. On its
east side William South built Falcon Place
between 1836 and 1842 (fn. 15) and White Hart Place
was built near Sugar Loaf Walk by 1844. (fn. 16) South
of Sugar Loaf Walk building continued in the
existing places and squares and in Chester
Street, which ran through the centre of the area
by 1850 when James Catling of James Street was
building there. (fn. 17) At the northern end of the
green Peel Grove ran north from Old Ford Road
by 1842, when one house was 'lately built' by
Edward Blacktop, carpenter of Felix Street. (fn. 18)

The green continued to decline socially. In
1858 the incumbent of St. John's commented
that soon there would be no residents of easy
means left. (fn. 19) Institutions increasingly replaced
them. In 1853 Henry Merceron leased out no.
21 Victoria Park Square as a store for the
Queen's Own Light Infantry Regiment of the
Tower Hamlets militia. The site stretched to
Globe Street (fn. 20) and by the 1860s included a
barracks. (fn. 21) Of Anthony Natt's houses on the
north side of Old Ford Road, no. 12 (after 1875
no. 21) became a home for reformed prostitutes,
run by the Guardian Society for the Preservation
of Public Morals, in 1840 and no. 10 (after 1875
no. 17) housed the Maritime Penitent Female
Refuge in 1842-3. (fn. 22)

In 1872 Bethnal Green Museum opened at the
northern part of the green on part of the Poor's
Lands. An iron structure nicknamed 'the
Brompton Boilers', it had been built by C. D.
Young & Co. in 1855-6 as the original museum
in South Kensington. When replaced by
permanent buildings in 1867 the iron structure
was re-erected in Bethnal Green behind a brick
facade with terracotta panels by James William
Wild. The site had been purchased with the
intention of diffusing 'a knowledge of science
and art among the poorer classes' and for its first
three years the museum housed the Wallace
Collection. Later it specialized as a museum of
childhood. (fn. 23)

At the southern end of the green there were
additions to Bethnal House, the asylum; the Red
House was extended in 1841, and the White
House was rebuilt in 1843-4. (fn. 24) Factories existed
by 1838 east of the asylum and west of the green,
behind Paradise Row. (fn. 25) J.& J. Colman of
Norwich acquired no. 7 Old Ford Road for a
starch factory in 1860 (fn. 26) and later took over the
neighbouring houses, building warehouses by
the mid 1870s. (fn. 27) Other warehouses were built
between 1871 and 1874 behind Victoria Park
Square, Sugar Loaf Walk, Patriot Square, and
Peel Grove.

Burgoyn's estate, 8½ a. fronting Old Bethnal
Green Road west of the green, was nursery land
in 1842, when the Church acquired the eastern
3½ a., primarily for St. Jude's church and school
but with the roads later named St. Jude's Street
and Place and Treadway Street already planned. (fn. 28)
Houses were built from 1849 by Hallett of
Abbey Street, J. Tully of Kingsland Road, and
R. Borton of 103 Bethnal Green Road. (fn. 29) In 1845
the western portion was leased to Islip Odell,
a building promoter, (fn. 30) but it was George
Clarkson, a Pentonville surveyor and lessee from
1857, who developed it, employing William
Riley of Hoxton to build Canrobert, Clarkson,
and probably Middleton streets, (fn. 31) all completed
by the mid 1860s. (fn. 32)

Another area empty in 1838 lay west of Dog
Row. On Fullmore Close, Essex (later Buckhurst) and Bedford (by 1858 Newport) (fn. 33) streets
existed by 1841. (fn. 34) Oxford Street joined Dog Row
(Cambridge Road) to Essex Street by 1851. (fn. 35)
Nearly 70 houses were built in Essex, Suffolk,
and Norfolk streets between 1845 and 1854,
mostly by James Lucas for Samuel Emsley.
Lucas and Emsley were also involved in developing
Jarvis's, the neighbouring estate to the west.
Somerford Street was extended eastward as New
Somerford Street by 1841, when a plot to the
north was leased to Emsley, (fn. 36) and Cudworth and
Barnsley streets were built there by 1851. (fn. 37)
Between 1845 and 1855 well over 100 houses
were added to the estate, 37 in Tapp Street and
the rest in the new streets. Other builders were
Hugh O'Donnell, Thomas Hatchell, and Flick,
who was also active in 1855 in Lamb's Fields,
notorious for its filthy ditch. There was smallscale building on neighbouring estates. Tolly,
who worked on several, in 1845 was building in
St. Andrew's Street on Sebrights, where by 1864
building was complete and South Conduit Street
was renamed Viaduct Street. (fn. 38)

William Henry Teale, a Shoreditch auctioneer
whose father had developed much of Sebrights,
subleased the portion north of Hackney Road to
Thomas Holland, an Essex builder, in 1842. (fn. 39)
To the east John Preedy, William Simpson, and
Henry Bradbury, all local builders, and Charles
Southby Shaw, of Hackney, (fn. 40) were active on the
Pritchards' estate, Bullocks, where between 1845
and 1855 some 15 houses were built in the
existing Pritchard's Road (formerly Ann's Place)
and the Oval, and over 100 in the new Emma
Street, Marian Street and Square, Ada Place,
and Wharf Road. The gasholders of the Imperial
Gas Co. replaced the large pond in the centre of
the estate, probably by 1856. (fn. 41)

South of Hackney Road on the southern part
of Cambridge Heath estate, still open in 1838, (fn. 42)
at least 25 houses were built between 1846 and
1854 and all frontages had been filled by the early
1860s. (fn. 43) On Sickle Penfield 24 houses were built
in Warner Place, four in Adelphi Terrace in the
north, and eight in Wellington Place in the south
between 1845 and 1853. Around St. Peter's church,
in the centre from 1840 with an adjoining school
from 1851, 35 houses were built in St. Peter's
Street, Terrace, Square, and Place between 1852
and 1855. Nelson Street, replacing a large pond,
completed the development by 1865. (fn. 44) To the
west Ion Square existed by 1845 on the portion
of Milkhouse Bridge purchased by Pritchard, (fn. 45)
with 38 new houses by 1848, (fn. 46) and 63 houses
were built on the triangular plot between Ion
Square and Birdcage Walk which had been
conveyed in 1840 by Joel Emmanuel for almshouses. (fn. 47) On the rest of Milkhouse Bridge,
behind the curve of Hackney Road, 18 houses
were built in 1851-2 in Charles Street as it
extended south to Crabtree Row and Birdcage
Walk. Houses added to the Barnet Chancel
estate completed building there by the mid
1840s; some, as on the adjoining Jesus Hospital
estate, originated as summerhouses. (fn. 48) Barnet
Grove crossed the centre of the hospital estate
by 1845, with at least 31 houses by 1846. (fn. 49) The
long narrow Willow Walk existed in the north,
Bourne's or Baker's Arms Gardens in the east
by 1848, (fn. 50) and Cross Street by 1851. (fn. 51) To the
south over 80 houses were built, many by William
Palfrey of Kingsland and a few by George
Huxtable of Friar's Mount, on Turney estate
between 1845 and 1855. Most were in Gosset
Street, the new Daniel Street (fn. 52) running south
from it, and Montague Street, the northern
extension of Hope Town or Union Street (the
whole after 1864 called Turin Street). (fn. 53)

More than 50 houses were built between 1845
and 1855 on each of three estates in the west,
north of Church Street: Austens (mainly by
Thomas Gadbury), (fn. 54) Fitches, and Tyssens. The
only new road was Victoria Street on Austens
but many houses were listed under previously
built-up streets, like 36 in Virginia Row, denoting either replacements or courts behind. Later
rebuilding on Tyssens by Samuel James, a local
builder, produced nearly 150 houses between
1872 and 1875, mostly in Tyrrell, George, and
Charlotte streets and in the new Thorold Street,
constructed across Thorold Square in 1872. (fn. 55)

South of Church Street between 1845 and 1855
some 70 houses were built on Red Cow estate,
45 in Hare Marsh, and 56 in Willetts, mostly in
Abbey and White streets, which had been extended southward to Cheshire Street by 1838. (fn. 56)
By 1846 some 100 houses had been added to
Great Haresmarsh (fn. 57) which, after the eastward
extension of Weaver Street as a second Carter
Street by 1848, was separated from the built-up
Hare Marsh only by a goods shed. (fn. 58)

The most striking development was in the east
on the two largest estates, Bishop's Hall and
Broomfields. The Sotheby family in 1840 conveyed a site on the east side of the access lane to
Bishop's Hall (Bonner Lane, later St. James's
Road or Avenue) for a church, St. James the
Less, (fn. 59) and soon surrendered land on the northwest of the estate for a workhouse. (fn. 60)
Negotiations started in 1841 with the Commissioners of Woods, who were seeking land for a
public park. (fn. 61) An Act of 1842 enabled them to
purchase (fn. 62) and in 1844 the Sotheby family and
the trustees of Robinson's charity agreed to
sell. (fn. 63) Victoria Park, opened in 1845, consisted
of 53 a. of Sothebys, that part of Bishop's Hall
north of Old Ford Road and east of the Regent's
canal, the whole of the Cass and Goosefields
estates in Bethnal Green, and other estates in
Hackney and Bow. The commissioners also
purchased adjoining land south of Old Ford
Road and the whole of Robinson's charity land,
usually called Bonner's Fields, where they
planned access roads to the park and spacious
housing. Sotheby was left with some 12½ a. of
Bishop's Hall west of the canal, bordering Bonner's Fields on the east and north. (fn. 64)

Sotheby and the commissioners' architect
James Pennethorne drew up a joint plan for
building north of Old Ford Road and west of
the canal. Pennethorne was presumably responsible for the layout of four roads enclosing the
square of Bonner's Fields: the existing Old Ford
Road, Bishop's Road (from 1937 Bishop's Way),
an eastern extension of Russia Lane, the existing
Russia Lane, and in the east St. James's Road
(from 1937 St. James's Avenue) along the lane
to the manor house (which, with its attendant
buildings, was demolished). The fields were
quartered by Bonner Road, running north-west,
and Approach Road (originally called Victoria
Park Road), running north-east to enter the
park. Pennethorne planned Approach Road as a
grand way from the park across the green to join
Cambridge and Bethnal Green roads near St.
John's church but several submissions failed to
gain approval and the road stopped at Old Ford
Road. Sewardstone Road, wholly on Sotheby's
land, ran parallel with the canal from Old Ford
Road. (fn. 65) Additions by the mid 1850s included, in
the south-east, Bandon Road, and, on Sotheby's
land in the north-west, Waterloo and Albert
roads, and on the commissioners' land in the
south-west, Robinson Road. (fn. 66)

Sotheby leased plots at the north-west corner,
on each side of Bonner Road, to William Drew
and Edward Rayner in 1845, and adjoining plots
to the east to William Bayst, a local butcher, and
Walter Carson in 1846. (fn. 67) The Prince of Wales
public house had been built on Drew's portion
by 1848. (fn. 68) Much of Rayner's ground had passed
by 1847 to George Furby, a Whitechapel ironmonger, who with Bayst employed Higgs, a
builder from Bacon Street, in Bishop's and
Bonner roads in the 1840s. Houses had also been
built on Rayner's ground in Bonner Road and
Russia Lane by 1847. (fn. 69) Single plots were sometimes taken. (fn. 70) A larger area, probably all the land
east of St. James's Road, was taken by William
Hosford, whose architects W. G. & E. Habershon may have been connected with Matthew
Habershon, (fn. 71) a Bishop's Hall resident in 1842. (fn. 72)
In the early 1850s houses were built in St.
James's and Bandon roads; William Bowen,
William Walsham, and John Abbott were among
those who built Bedford Terrace in Old Ford
Road. (fn. 73) By 1857 building on Sothebys estate
consisted of the north side of Old Ford Road,
the east side of St. James's Road to Bandon
Road, a few houses north of the church, much
of the north side and some of the south-west of
Bishop's Road, and blocks in Russia Lane and
Bonner Road. (fn. 74) In 1858-9 Ezekiel Wadley, a
local builder, was working in Sewardstone
Road (fn. 75) and Thomas Fleming from Mile End and
Joseph Charles Morgan from Cambridge Heath
were building in Brighton Terrace on the south
side of Bishop's Road. (fn. 76) William Turner, a south
Hackney builder, built Park House at the
northern end of St. James's Road in 1858 (fn. 77) and
Charles Terrace on the north side of Bishop's
Road in 1861. (fn. 78) Building was complete on
Sotheby's Bishop's Hall by the mid 1860s. (fn. 79) In
1868 the family of George Lansbury (1859-
1940) came to live in Albert Road; the future
Labour leader attended St. James the Less
National school, the Primitive Methodist chapel
in Bonner Lane, and freethinkers' meetings in
Victoria Park. (fn. 80)

The commissioners' estate was developed
more slowly. Pennethorne in 1845 had proposed
ornamental gardens west of St. James's Road,
with detached houses around the entrance to the
park. (fn. 81) The whole of Bonner's Fields was divided
into 37 lots. (fn. 82) One, off Old Ford Road, was let
in 1851 for workshops (fn. 83) and in 1853 five, on
either side of Robinson Road, were to be leased
to James Thomas Stephenson. (fn. 84) In 1855 the area
conceived as gardens and later numbered lot 37 was
leased for the London Chest hospital. Pennethorne's
original plan was cancelled in early 1857. (fn. 85) His
Tudor lodge for the park's superintendent was
built by the main gate in 1845 (fn. 86) but terraces such
as Arran Terrace were substituted for the other
detached houses. Terraces by 1857 lined the
southern side of Bishop's Road (Gore Terrace),
Bonner Road (Denmark Terrace on the north and
Prince's, Church, and Buckingham terraces on the
south), the south side of Robinson Road (Barton
Terrace), and the north side of Old Ford Road
(Saunders and Albany terraces). (fn. 87) J. Saunders
agreed to build four houses a year from 1866 to
1868 on two lots fronting Approach Road. (fn. 88)
Wesleyans in 1867 acquired two lots at the
northern junction of Approach and Bonner
roads, where a chapel opened in 1868. (fn. 89) To the
west, a lot comprising nos. 1-6 Denmark Terrace
and workshops behind, which was leased with
the adjoining plot on Sotheby's land by George
Holgate in 1861-4 and 1868, was taken for the
Methodist orphanage, which opened in 1871. (fn. 90)
Congregationalists built a chapel at the south
corner of Approach and Bonner roads in 1869
and the adjoining Victoria hall in 1870. (fn. 91) Parmiter's
charity in 1871 bought plots to the south, and
rear for its school, opened in 1887. (fn. 92)

John Robson, builder of Antill Road, built 9
houses in Bishop's Road and 10 in Approach
Road between 1871 and 1874. As in other districts warehouses were built in the 1870s behind
older frontages. Although by the 1850s roads
(Gore Place or Road and Morpeth Road) were
planned by the commissioners north of the park,
linked to development in Hackney, (fn. 93) they were
not built on until the 1870s; 53 houses were built
in Gore Road between 1871 and 1875. The
historian J. R. Green (d. 1883) lived successively
in Approach Road and Bonner Road (Prince's
Terrace) in 1865, when he became incumbent of
St. Philip's, Stepney. (fn. 94)

South of the park, the commissioners had
building land between Old Ford Road and
Duckett's canal. Bisected by Grove Road, it
had been taken from Pyotts and Broomfields.
Pennethorne had planned an imposing entry to
the park along Grove Road, with plots of 70-ft.
frontage and mews to the east. Plots at the
entrance were granted on long leases between
1858 and 1860; (fn. 95) a few houses were detached but
most, built between c. 1865 and c. 1875, were
terraced, Lansmere in the west and Victoria in
the east. (fn. 96) Royal Victor Place ran behind the
houses, next to Duckett's canal, by 1871 and
houses and factories were soon built there.

Eastward, on the estate John Ridge inherited
from his father in 1839, (fn. 97) terraces were built
fronting northward on Old Ford Road from
1845: George's Place and Adelphi Terrace west
of the junction with Bonner Lane, and Park
Terrace to the east. (fn. 98) Abraham Keymer, landlord
of the City of Paris, the only old building in the
area, built some houses in 1850-1, (fn. 99) but
most were put up by professional builders like
Joseph Higgs, John Perry, John Litchfield, (fn. 100)
and especially Robert Wright, who lived in
Wharf Cottage, Park Terrace. (fn. 101) Building
spread south in 1850-1 to Wellington (after 1879
Cyprus) Street and Place, west of Bonner Lane,
to Cranbrook Street and Place by 1851, and
Alma Road (formerly Street and Place) in the
east from 1855. Wright was active in most
streets, building double-fronted houses with
windows running along the whole of the upper
floor for weavers (fn. 102) who predominated in 1851. (fn. 103)

East of Ridge's estate a 10-a. field, originally
Pyotts, from the 18th century was owned by
the Sotheby family. (fn. 104) It was broken up by the
Regent's and Duckett's canals and lost its northern part to the Commissioners of Woods. (fn. 105) The
portion east of the Regent's canal was leased to
the Gardner family which farmed it and built
barges to carry bricks. (fn. 106) Gardner's wharf was
built in 1854 and Gardner's Road by 1859, (fn. 107)
when Sotheby leased ground north of Bridge
(later Roman) Road to Samuel Charles Aubrey,
a Hackney surveyor who built some houses
before assigning the lease in 1860 to Joseph
Ashwell (d. 1876). (fn. 108) Land to the north was leased
to Henry Harrison, a Westminster contractor, in
1864 (fn. 109) and Ashwell and Wennington streets
existed there by the mid 1860s, as did Havelock
Hill and Nelson Place west of the canal. (fn. 110)

Broomfields covered the whole area east of
Grove Road and south of Duckett's canal, that
south of Roman Road between the Regent's
canal and Grove Road, and a strip west of the
canal. The only buildings before the creation of
Victoria Park were John Gardner's farmhouse
on the west side of Grove Road next Duckett's
canal, King's Arms Row in Old Ford Road, a
tollhouse, and the substantial Park House and
Grove House on the south-east side of Grove
Road, (fn. 111) occupied respectively in 1851 by a 'lady'
and a brick merchant. (fn. 112) King's Arms Row was
demolished when Old Ford Road was straightened in 1844. (fn. 113)

The owners of Broomfields, the Marsh family,
chose to sell rather than lease. In the early 1850s
the area west of Grove Road was divided into
plots, the purchasers including William Palmer
of Essex, Higgs, Tayler, and W. S. Bowen, who
from 1852 built in Bridge and Grove roads,
Totty, Lessada, and Palm streets. (fn. 114) Victoria
works had been built on the west side of the
Regent's canal by 1854 (fn. 115) and, south of Palm
Street, Hamilton Road by the early 1860s (fn. 116) and
Cordova Road in 1866. (fn. 117) Streets were laid out
on Sixteen Acre field, east of Grove Road between Old Ford Road and Roman (originally
Claremont and later Esmond) Road, by 1857,
when it was to be sold to the Revd. George
Townshend Driffield, rector of Bow, and others,
presumably as trustees. They found difficulty in
raising the money, the Marshes acting as mortgagees, and in 1865 conveyed the land to the
London & Suburban Land & Building Co. (fn. 118)
Thomas Rogers, a London solicitor, was involved
from 1857 in building in Esmond, Kenilworth,
Vivian (formerly Woodstock), Auckland (formerly
Blenheim, from 1937 Zealand), Ellesmere, and
Chisenhale roads. (fn. 119) Sydney Terrace on the east
side of Grove Road was leased in 1864 to Henry
Lawrence Hammack, surveyor, of Bow Road.
The builders were probably James and Josiah
Goodman. Adjoining side roads, Thoydon and
Gernon roads, existed in 1864 (fn. 120) and were soon
built up, as were Alma (later Maidhurst or
Medhurst Road) and Shaftesbury terraces to the
south. (fn. 121) By 1871 building had reached east to
Medway Road, which crossed into Bow, and
south to Antill Road, which had been driven
westward from Bow to Grove Road. West of
Grove Road the remaining space, north of
the railway, was covered with Belhaven and
Burnside streets. William Harris of Limehouse,
William Willis of Antill Road, William Bruty,
William Ward of Mile End, Noah Smith of
Ellesmere Road, and the Goodmans of Twig
Folly bridge between them built over 330 houses
on Broomfields between 1871 and 1875, mainly
in the new roads on the east and south borders
of the estate and parish.

Meanwhile the state of London's East End,
and of Bethnal Green in particular, had caught
the national attention. In 1837 James Phillips
Kay, the assistant Poor Law Commissioner,
commented on the distress of the Spitalfields
weavers, most of whom lived in Bethnal Green,
and on their feeble physical condition. (fn. 122) In 1838
Dr. Southwood Smith, Benthamite and friend
of Edwin Chadwick, reported on the link
between the environment and disease, especially
'typhus' (probably typhoid or paratyphoid
fever) allegedly caused by stagnant water, refuse,
and leaking privies in Lamb's Fields and around
Virginia Row. (fn. 123) A survey of the weaving districts
in 1838 and published in 1840 (fn. 124) remarked that
nowhere else in London were there so many
low-rented houses, 93 per cent of Bethnal
Green's total of 11,983 being rated at under £20;
only 15 houses were rated at over £50 and 18 at
£40-50. Most houses built since 1800 were twostoreyed with no foundations, small and damp,
of the cheapest timber and half-burnt bricks
with badly pitched roofs, 'erected by speculative
builders of the most scampy class'. Landlords
negotiated with the builders, 'frequently men of
no property', and advanced materials in return
for an exorbitant ground rent. Property was sold
in summer, when defects were less visible, to
purchasers or mortgagees who, when they found
that ground rent, repairs, and taxes were greater
than the rent obtained, abandoned it to the
ground landlord. Unmade roads turned to mud
or dust by builders' carts, lack of sewerage, and
overcrowding, together with the unhealthy
effects of the weaving industry, produced a
stunted and sickly population.

Bishop Blomfield of London, who had served
with Chadwick on the Poor Law Commission in
the 1830s, (fn. 125) decided to concentrate new churches
in Bethnal Green and in his appeal in 1839
alluded to the misery of its population, which
included many driven out of other parts of
London by 'improvements'. (fn. 126) According to one
of the new incumbents, before the appeal as little
was known in London's West End of 'this most
destitute parish as the wilds of Australia or the
islands of the South Seas'. (fn. 127) As a result of the
bishop's sermons before the lord mayor and in
wealthier parishes, Bethnal Green's problems
were reported from 1839 in The Times, (fn. 128) the
London City Mission Magazine, and other publications. Chadwick's report in 1842 reaffirmed
the link between the environment and disease. (fn. 129)
The incumbent of St. Philip's, the church
serving the Nichol, quoted by Engels, in 1844
had found that conditions were far worse than
in a northern industrial parish, that population
density was 8.6 people to a (small) house, and
that there were 1,400 houses in an area less than
400 yards square. (fn. 130)

The most detailed report on Bethnal Green
was published in 1848 by Dr. Hector Gavin, (fn. 131)
health inspector and lecturer at Charing Cross
hospital, who hoped to enlist the rich in 'the
great work of sanitary improvement and social
amelioration'. He wrote before development
around Victoria Park, when the 'most respectable' area was Hackney Road. The rest of the
parish, including the area on either side of Green
Street, was 'filthy', 'appalling', and 'disgusting'.
The older districts bordering Spitalfields contained paved streets and larger houses but the
former were broken up and the latter overcrowded. Elsewhere roads were unmade, often
mere alleys, houses small and without foundations, subdivided and often around unpaved
courts. An almost total lack of drainage and
sewerage was made worse by the ponds formed
by the excavation of brickearth. Pigs and cows
in back yards, noxious trades like boiling tripe,
melting tallow, or preparing cat's meat, and
slaughter houses, dustheaps, and 'lakes of putrefying night soil' added to the filth. Henry
Mayhew was then visiting Bethnal Green for the
articles first published in the Morning Chronicle
in 1851, which later became his great work. (fn. 132) He
added descriptions of tailors, costermongers,
shoemakers, dustmen, sawyers, carpenters, and
cabinet makers to the already prolific literature
on silkweavers. In 1861 John Hollingshead,
special correspondent of the Morning Post, published Ragged London with detailed desriptions
of Shoreditch Side and the Nichol, which had
grown even more squalid in the last 20 years as
old houses decayed and traditional trades became
masks for thieves and prostitutes.

Reaction varied. Anglican and nonconformist
clergy, with London City missioners active in
Bethnal Green since 1838, were shocked chiefly
by immorality, even if they did not assert as
bluntly as the rector that it was the main cause
of the prevailing misery. Many, especially in the
1840s, agreed with the bishop on the need for
religion and education. The ten churches with
their National schools, mostly Gothic buildings
standing out among the wretched houses, offered
both, while the clergy's articulate leadership
compensated for the flight of the middle class.
By 1858, however, it was clear that they had not
found the panacea: the inhabitants of all districts
were overwhelmingly 'labouring poor', and
churchmen were pessimistic. (fn. 133)

Despite failing to move the landlords and
parish authorities, Chadwick and Gavin
stimulated individual philanthropy. It provided
soup kitchens, orphanages, medical and other
needs, co-ordinated after 1869 by the Charity
Organisation Society, (fn. 134) and began to address the
housing problem with plans to replace slums by
model housing.

When Baroness Burdett-Coutts accepted
Charles Dickens's suggestion of rebuilding an
area of the East End, (fn. 135) he advised her in
January 1852 to consult Southwood Smith. By
March a site had been prepared at Nova Scotia
Gardens, (fn. 136) north of Crabtree Row, described
by Gavin as a space formed by the 'erasement'
(probably to make room for St. Thomas's
church) of a vast number of vile dwellings. (fn. 137)
Dickens made Bethnal Green the home of
Nancy in Oliver Twist (1838). Nova Scotia
Gardens was probably the dust heap described
in Our Mutual Friend (1864-5); when bought
by the baroness in 1857, it was a 'huge mountain
of refuse' with a row of small houses on one
side and the new church and schools on the
other. The total lack of drainage, the stench,
and disease were vividly portrayed. (fn. 138) Dickens
advised the building of large houses, to which
services could be supplied. (fn. 139) Henry Darbishire,
later architect to the Peabody Trust, designed the
model dwellings which were called Columbia
Square after the bishopric of British Columbia,
founded by the baroness in 1857. The first
of the four five-storeyed blocks set around a
square opened in 1859 and the last in 1862. (fn. 140)
In a vaguely Gothic but rather 'flat and
monotonous' style, they provided some 180
sets of rooms, which housed more than 1,000
people by 1869, and a top storey with reading
rooms and washing facilities. (fn. 141) In 1864
Darbishire began the magnificent Columbia
Market buildings in the style of a French Gothic
cathedral on 2 a. to the west. Opened in 1869,
they included dwellings for shopkeepers. (fn. 142) The
scheme involved Crabtree Row being widened
and the new Westminster Street (later Baroness
Road) driven from Queen's Place through
Greengate Gardens to Hackney Road. (fn. 143) Alfred
Ewin, a local builder, applied to build 18 houses
there in 1871 and W. H. Hall erected Charlotte
Buildings, between Nichol Row and Turville
Street, for 140 people by 1872. (fn. 144)

Nova Scotia Gardens in 1857

Companies, partly philanthropic and partly
commercial, began building in the 1860s. (fn. 145)
The Improved Industrial Dwellings Co., which
had been founded by Sydney Waterlow in
1863, purchased the 9 a. of Markhams south of
Bethnal Green Road in 1868. It replaced the old
property with five-storeyed blocks in Wilmot
Street and new streets, (fn. 146) Corfield (replacing the
narrow Camden Gardens), Ainsley, and Finnis
streets. The first blocks, in the north, opened
in 1869. Homes for 72 families had been completed
by 1871 and for another 130 by 1873 and 90 by
1875. The School Board for London purchased
½ a. between Wilmot and Finnis streets in 1873
and work began on 21 blocks (for 210 families)
in the rest of Finnis Street in 1875 and on 12
blocks for 295 families in Corfield Road in 1878.
The estate, later called Waterlow, complete by
1890 and the largest built by the company, was
grim and canyon-like in appearance.

In 1868 the company acquired the 9-a. estate
of the Barnet Jesus Hospital charity, where the
alleys made way for terraces of 'breakfast-parlour
houses', mostly two- but some four-storeyed,
with back gardens, in streets named after visitors
to the hospital: Baxendale, Wimbolt, Elwin,
Durant, and Quilter. (fn. 147) In 1871 the company
built five blocks called Leopold Buildings on the
south side of Crabtree Row (later Columbia
Road) for 112 families. (fn. 148)