An illustrated history one of England’s finest cities - London and its famous East End.

From Jewish clothing merchants to Bangladeshi curry houses, ancient docks to the 2012 Olympics, the area east of the City has always played a crucial role in London's history. The East End, as it has been known, was the home to Shakespeare's first theater and to the early stirrings of a mass labor movement; it has also traditionally been seen as a place of darkness and despair, where Jack the Ripper committed his gruesome murders, and cholera and poverty stalked the Victorian streets.In this beautifully illustrated history of this iconic district, John Marriott draws on twenty-five years of research into the subject to present an authoritative and endlessly fascinating account. With the aid of copious maps, archive prints and photographs, and the words of East Londoners from seventeenth-century silk weavers to Cockneys during the Blitz, he explores the relationship between the East End and the rest of London, and challenges many of the myths that surround the area.

East End I888 documents in minute detail the social, political, and economic life in the notorious slums of East London during the reign of Queen Victoria. The setting for Jack the Ripper's atrocities, East End was synonymous with crime, filth, disease, and the dregs of humanity. W. J. Fishman focuses on a single year, one century ago and one century after the storming of the Bastille. Poignant accounts of homeless families choosing starvation rather than submitting to the inhumanity and separation of the workhouse are contrasted with lively reports of entertainment in music halls and "penny gaffs" or freak shows, where Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man, was discovered. Providing numerous excerpts from contemporary newspapers, police records, workhouse journals, novels, medical reports, church sermons, and political debates, Fishman illuminates a slice of life in Victorian England. Author note: William J. Fishman is Professor of Political Studies at Queen Mary College, University of London.

The East End as an idea is known to every Londoner, and to many others, though its boundaries are vague. Alan Palmer's historical overview of the area (first published in 1989 and revised in 2000) takes its extent to be the traditional limits of Hackney and Tower Hamlets, Hoxton and Shoreditch, the docklands and their overflow into West Ham and East Ham. And at the heart of the East End lies Spitalfields, home to a transient, often radical and hard-working population. Though it is often seen as London's centre of industry and poverty, in comparison to the well-to-do West End, the East End has always been a diverse place: in the seventeenth century, Hackney was a pleasant country retreat; Stepney and the docklands a bustling world of sailors and merchants. The book traces the development of the area from these roots, through the nineteenth century - when the East End became notorious as the home of radicals, exiled revolutionaries and the very poor, its crowded streets the scene of murder, riot and cholera -to the bombing of the first and second world war; and the subsequent decline and regeneration of the twentieth century.

A guided tour of London's East End, showing how this famous port has changed over the past century and more.

The East End is an iconic area of London, from the transient street art of Banksy and Pablo Delgado to the exhibitions of Doreen Fletcher and Gilbert and George. Located east of the Tower of London and north of the River Thames, it has experienced a number of developmental stages in its four-hundred-year history. Originating as a series of scattered villages, the area has been home to Europe's worst slums and served as an affluent nodal point of the British Empire. Through its evolution, the East End has been the birthplace of radical political and social movements and the social center for a variety of diasporic communities. This reference work, with its alphabetically organized cross-referenced entries and its original and historical photography, serves as a comprehensive guide to the social and cultural history of this global hub.

The East End is one of the most famous parts of London and it has had its own distinctive identity since the district was first settled in medieval times. It is best known for extremes of poverty and deprivation, for strong political and social movements, and for the extraordinary mix of immigrants who have shaped its history. Jonathan Oatess handbook is the ideal guide to its complex, rich and varied story and it is an essential source for anyone who wants to find out about an East End ancestor or carry out their own research into the area.He outlines in vivid detail the development of the neighbourhoods that constitute the East End. In a series of information-filled chapters, he explores East End industries and employment the docks, warehouses, factories, markets and shops. He looks at its historic poverty and describes how it gained a reputation for criminality, partly because of notorious criminals like Jack the Ripper and the Krays. This dark side to the history contrasts with the liveliness of the East End entertainments and the strong social bonds of the immigrants who made their home there Huguenots, Jews, Bangladeshis and many others.Throughout the book details are given of the records that researchers can consult in order to delve into the history for themselves online sites, archives, libraries, books and museums.