Cable Street

cablestreetsign Cable Street

see also ROSEMARY LANE (the western end of Cable Street, now Royal Mint Street - the site of Rag Fair) and DISSENTERS & NONCONFORMISTS (3) for the Methodist Church.

cyclehighway Cable Street, running from the Tower of London in the west to Ratcliff in the east, was originally exactly one mile long - the length of hemp rope, twisted into cables, needed for ships' sails (there were other 'rope walks' in the area). Until the 19th century, each part bore different names: from west to East, Cable Street, Knockfergus (because of the many Irish residents), New Road, Back Lane, Bluegate Fields, Sun Tavern Fields and Brook Street. It was a busier road than The Highway, until the latter was widened in recent times; it is now a one-way street and the route of 'CS3', one of the network of Cycle Super Highways created for the Olympics, and painted a lurid blue (even brighter than those in Holland) because they are sponsored by Barclay's Bank: with luck the colour will fade. See HERE for more details about public transport in and about the parish.

wiltonsinterior2 wiltonsdetail Wilton's Music Hall, Grace's Alley

The oldest surviving music hall in the country, it was built by John Wilton in 1858 behind his pub The Prince of Denmark Tavern with its famous mahogany bar. Used for a wide variety of musical and dramatic events, it could seat up to 1,800 people, with its barley-sugar pillared galleries, and had been very successful, competing for a time with West End theatres, but finally failed in the 1870s. It is a Grade 2* listed building, and features on several websites, including this one.

gracesalley One innovation of the London Wesleyan Methodist Mission was to hire premises as new-style mission centres. In 1891 ST GEORGE'S WESLEYAN CHAPEL, in Cable Street, took over Wilton's, with leadership from lay church members. It was known popularly as the 'Old Mahogany Mission' after the bar! Peter Thompson, the minister (who faced a libel action during his time) was challenged for allowing the Hall to be used for a dock labourers' meeting to protest against the 'contracting out' clauses of the Employers Liability Bill. Interestingly, he did not regard this as a breach of the Wesleyan 'no politics' rule, despite the dock strike of 1889; the Independent Labour Party had only just been founded, and links between unions and political parties were yet to develop.

It was very different in the 1930s, when Wilton's was a rallying point for the Battle of Cable Street - see below! Here is Grace's Alley, with its clubs and cafés, in the 1960s.

wiltonsinterior wiltondoor The Mission closed in 1956, and the building was used to store rags. In its dilapidated state, it was used for film shoots, including Karel Reisz’s Isadora with Vanessa Redgrave, Douglas McGrath’s 2002 film of Nicholas Nickleby, Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream, and the scene in the Chaplin biography where the young Charlie saves the day when his mother's stage act flounders, as well as music videos. Opera groups use it regularly, and it is hired for private functions. It was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2003 tv series 'Restoration', but determined efforts to save and restore it continue.

harrods The birth of Harrods

4cablestreet 4 Cable Street is an unlikely setting for the origins of the famous West End emporium, but in 1834 Charles Henry Harrod (aged 35) set up a wholesale grocery and tea merchant's store here, living nearby in Rosemary Lane. It remained here probably until 1855, by which time he had another branch at Eastcheap, and began the move to Knightsbridge in 1863. Most department stores began as drapers' shops. It was his son Charles Digby Harrod who began the expansion in the 1860s, and the rest is history!

The site is now a noodle bar and grill. From the 1830s until the end of the 19th century, Harrod's Court was a small alley running from the south-west corner of Wellclose Square into Well Street [now Ensign Street], though Weller's map of 1868 lists it as Hard's Place, and another source as Harrald's Place, so the connection with the family is uncertain.

library St George's Town Hall

When the 1855 Metropolis Management Act created a new system of local government for London, with an elected Vestry for each parish, a Vestry Hall was built in 1861 to serve the parish of St George-in-the-East. It was built of Portland stone, with an Italianate façade, at a cost of £6,000, and had a handsome interior.

Further local government reform came with the 1899 London Government Act which replaced all the Vestries across London with 28 Borough Councils. The new Stepney Borough Council took over the building as a local Town Hall until a new one could be built.

It was repaired after damage in the Second World War and the chamber [pictured here in the 1950s] was used for Borough Council and committee meetings. In recent years, since the creation of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. it has been used for various offices and activities. It is somewhat dilapidated, but is a Grade 2 listed building.

Passmore Edwards Public Library (St George-in-the-East Free Library)

The Vestry was keen to build a public library, but only had power to raise 1d. on the rates, yielding £600 for the running costs. Public donations were sought, and John Passmore Edwards, the 'Cornish Carnegie', made a major contribution. It was built, in Portland stone and brick, to the right of the Town Hall [drawing of 1898], running down the side of Prospect [now Library] Place. The foundation stone was laid on 28 September 1897, and Lord Russell, the Lord Chief Justice, opened it in October 1898. A children's library was added in 1929.

internationalbrigade

It was destroyed in the Blitz in 1941. In due course a temporary building in St George's Gardens was provided, until a new library was constructed in Watney Street in the 1960s.

On the front of the Library a small plaque had been affixed to commemorate those who fought and died in the International Brigade, supporting the anti-fascist forces in the Spanish Civil Wat against General Franco, who was supported by Hitler and Mussolini. The rallying-cry was no pasaran - 'they shall not pass'. Their action inspired Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, and the bombing of villages by Nazi aircraft prompted Picasso's Guernica.

The Battle of Cable Street

'They shall not pass' became the slogan of those who resisted the legal but provocative march of Sir Oswald Mosley and the 'Blackshirts' - the British Union of Fascists - through the Jewish East End on 4 October 1936. Attempts to ban the march had failed, and the police were there in force to escort the marchers. They were opposed by a coalition of Jewish, socialist, communist, anarchist and Irish protesters, despite the appeals of religious and political leaders to stay away. Many on both sides came from outside the area, but some were local.

The 1936 Public Order Act was passed as a result, requiring police permission for marches and banning the wearing of political uniforms in public.

Although the barricades were further west (hence the plaque, above, is affixed to a building in Dock Street), the mural was painted on the west wall of St George's Town Hall. Dave Binnington began the work in 1976, in the Town Hall basement. He studied the murals of Siquieros and Rivera, and researched films and photographs and conducted interviews to provide authentic details. When the work was well under way, it was vandalised and defaced by fascists; Binnington was demoralised, and retired. The work was completed by Paul Buffer, Desmond Rochford and Ray Walker, in October 1982. In 1985 and 1993 it suffered further damage, and restored after a public appeal. It has since been treated with a protective coating.

Hannah Billig

hannahbillig2

At 198 Cable Street there is a plaque to Dr Hannah Billig, 'the Angel of Cable Street', who lived and worked here from 1935-64. Four of the six children of Barnet and Millie Billig, Russian Jewish emigrés, qualified as doctors. Hannah has worked at the Jewish Maternity Hospital before setting up her practice, and in the days before the NHS turned no-one away because they couldn't pay.

She tended casualties during the Blitz, often at great personal risk. Her ankle was broken in an explosion in Wapping in 1941, but she continued treating the injured for several hours - for which she was awarded the George Medal, the civilian equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

In 1942 she signed up for the Indian Army Medical Corps as a Captain and tended the sick and wounded soldiers in Assam, retreating from the terrible battles in the jungles of Burma, suffering from malaria and typhus, and in 1944 cared for the starving who fled to Calcutta in search of food. She was awared the MBE in 1945 for this work (it was posted to her, as she was too busy to collect it).

She returned to continue her work in Cable Street - many older people remember her as their GP - until she 'retired' to Israel in 1964, working from Caesarea in both Jewish villages and Arab settlements for a further 20 years until her death in 1987 at the age of 86. Her gravestone in Hadera Cemetery reads In loving memory of Hannah, who devoted her life to healing the sick in England and in Israel.

Here are some views of Cable Street: in1908 (from outside the Town Hall), in 1938, in 1956, and in 1962 with Fr Joe Williamson of ST PAUL DOCK STREET in the foreground. The row of Georgian houses between the Town Hall and Cannon Street Road were restored in 1978.

A suicide's grave

The notorious Ratcliff Highway murders of 1811 are described HERE.

The day before the trail, the prime suspect John Williams was found hanging in his prison cell. To allay the public mood, the Home Secretary ordered his body to be drawn through the streets on a cart; it was then given a suicide's burial, at the crossroads of Cannon Street [Road] and Cable Street, outside the Crown and Dolphin [now a private house], in a shallow grave with a stake driven through the heart.

His skeleton was uncovered in 1886 by a gas company digging a trench, the stake intact. Allegedly the landlord kept the skull on the bar.

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