Bethnal Green

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="040d4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id55.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TessasTwigs"><U>Tessa's Twigs</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#003333" FACE="Arial" ><B>TOUCHARD: One Name Study</B></FONT>     |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TOUCHARD: One Name Study"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About Us"><U>About Us</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U>Contact Me</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Huguenots"><U>Huguenots</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id27.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="England"><U>England</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="France"><U>France</U></A>   |   <B>Bethnal Green</B>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BethnalGreen1851"><U>BethnalGreen1851</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BriansBranches"><U>Brian'sBranches</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Canada"><U>Canada</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="LondonChurches"><U>LondonChurches</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="EnglishTouchards"><U>EnglishTouchards</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Fiction"><U>Fiction</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id41.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ireland"><U>Ireland</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lace"><U>Lace</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id43.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="London"><U>London</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id44.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="LondonHuguenots"><U>LondonHuguenots</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id45.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tours"><U>Tours</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id56.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tushaws"><U>Tushaws</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id57.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="UKTouchards"><U>UKTouchards</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Me"><U>Me</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="NorthAmerica"><U>NorthAmerica</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id48.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Olives Tree"><U>Olive's Tree</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id49.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PamsPods"><U>Pam'sPods</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id50.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Paris"><U>Paris</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id51.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PrintTrade"><U>PrintTrade</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id52.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Rhine"><U>Rhine</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shoreditch"><U>Shoreditch</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Silkweaving"><U>Silkweaving</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id55.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TessasTwigs"><U>Tessa'sTwigs</U></A></div> <div> Bethnal Green</div> <div> BETHNAL-GREEN, a parish in the Tower division of the hundred of OSSULSTONE, county of MIDDLESEX, 2½ miles (N.E. by E.) from St. Paul's, containing 45,676 inhabitants. This very extensive parish, which was severed by act of parliament, in 1743, from the parish of Stepney, to which it was formerly a hamlet, is divided into four districts, called Church division, Green division, Hackney-road division, and Town division. It is supposed to have derived its name from Bathon Hall the residence of a family of that name, who had considerable possessions here in the reign of Edward I., and from an extensive green, to the east of which is the site of an episcopal palace called Bishop's Hall, which is said to have been the residence of Bonner, Bishop of London. The popular legendary ballad of the blind beggar of Bethnal-Green, the hero of which is said to have been Henry de Montfort,a son of the Earl of Leicester, has reference to an ancient castellated mansion in this parish, built in th reign of Elizabeth, by John Kirby, a citizen of London, and now converted into a private lunatic asylum. The houses, in general, are meanly built of brick, and consist of large ranges of dwellings, inhabited chiefly by journeymen silk-weavers, who work at home for the master weavers in Spitalfields, in each of which two or three families live, and exercise their sedentary occupation. The parish is watched, and lighted with gas; the streets are partially paved, and the inhabitants supplied with water by [p.136] the East London Company's works. There is a yery extensive cotton factory, besides a large manufactory for water-proof hose, made of flax, without seam, and of any length and diameter, chicfly for the use ofbrewers and for fire-men. A grcat quantity of land in the parish is in the occupation of market gardeners, who raise fruit and vegetables for the London markets; and there are extensive beds of clay, which is much used for the making of bricks. The fair formerly held here, has been suppressed in consequence of the riotous proceedings inseparable from holding it. The Regent's canal passes through the parish. The police is under the direction of the magistrates acting for that division, and the district is within the jurisdiction of a court of requests for the Tower-hamlets, for the recovery of debts under 40s. </div> <div> LUKE'S (ST.), a parish in the Finsbury division of the hundred of OSSULSTONE, county of MIDDLESEX, comprising the liberties of the City-road, East Finsbury, West Finsbury, Golden-lane,Old-street, and Whitecross-street, and containing 40,876 inhabitants. The earliest notice of this district occurs in its connexion with the “Eald,” or Old street, by which the Saxons designated the Roman military way from the western extremity of the metropolis, without the great fen, which is stated to havegiven name to Fensbury, now Finsbury, and to Moorfields: this road is said to have extended from London Wall to Hoxton, and to have been continued through the churchyard of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, and through the parish of Bethnal Green, to the Old Ford near Hackney. The southern part of the fen was gradually raised by various deposits, and particularly by many hundred cart-loads of bones removed from the charnel-house of St. Paul's, by order of the Duke of Somerset, when Protector; whence it obtained the name of Bonehill (now Bunhill) Fields: a portion of the site was appropriated by the city as a cemetery during the plague in 1665, and is now a burial-ground. Another portion of the same fields, was formed into a place of exercise for the practice of archery, by the corporation of the City of London, in 1498: it was subsequently let in trust to Sir Paul Pindar, and appropriated in 1641 as a place of exercise for the City train bands, it is now enclosed by buildings, and is the property of the Hon. the Artillery Company, who, during the late war, formed a very efficient regiment, equipped at their own expense: they continue to muster occasionally; and have an armoury, a mess-room, and other apartments, forming a handsome and substantial building, in front of which is a spacious plot of ground for field exercise, from which circumstance it has obtained the name of the “Artillery Ground.” In Golden-lane was the original play-house of Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College, of which the front, [p.180] bearing the royal arms, is still remaining. This district was anciently part of the parish of Cripplegate, the church of which being found inadequate to the accommodation of the parishioners, a new church, dedicated to St. Luke, was erected in Old-street by the commissioners for building new churches in the reign of Queen Anne, who assigned to it the present district, which, after the completion of the church, was laid out in numerous streets and squares, covered with buildings in every direction, and has become one of the most extensive and populous parishes in the suburbs of the metropolis. Peerless Pool, called by Stowe “Perilous” Pool, and in 1743 converted into one of the largest swimming-baths in the kingdom, surrounded with spacious gardens, and fitted up with every accommodation, is now used for bathing alone; the site of the gardens is occupied by ranges of modern buildings. Bath-street has been erected on the site of the ancient Pesthouse-row, where was one of the lazarettos in the time of the plague. To the west of Bunhill-row was the lord mayor's “Dog house,” or kennel for the city hounds, the site of which is occupied by part of Featherstone-street; and at Mount Mill, near the upper end of Goswell-street, now levelled and covered with buildings, was one of the bastions erected by the parliamentarians, in 1643, for the greater security of the metropolis. </div> <bR> <div> BETHNAL GREEN-1863 </div> <div> Anybody whose acquaintance with Bethnal-green commenced more than a quarter of a century ago will remember that some of these names of streets and rows which </div> <div> now seem to have such a grimly sarcastic meaning expressed not inaptly the places to which they originally referred. Hollybush-place, Green-street, Pleasant-place, and other neighbourhoods, which now consist of ruinous tenements reeking with abominations, were outlying, decent cottages, standing on or near plots of garden ground, where the inmates reared prize tulips and rare dahlias in their scanty leisure, and where some of the last of the old French refugees dozed away the evenings of their lives in pretty summer-houses, amidst flower-beds gay with virginia stocks and creeping plants. </div> <div> Back Alley, in Back Street in Old Street Square, L. Not far from hence is the Pest-house, so called from the Burying Ground thereto belonging, wherein those </div> <div> who died of the dreadful Pestilence in 1665, were buried: but now it is granted by the Cit of London to the French Refugees, who use it for an Hospital for the </div> <div> Relief of their sick. STANGER’S GUIDE TO LONDON 1722 </div> <div> Bethnal Green and Shoreditch Teal Street improvement Joint Committee 1907-1911 (see Shoreditch Metropolitan Borough Records). </div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>