Ratcliff Highway

Ratcliff Highway (later St George's Street, now The Highway)

The Highway today, from the church tower - Tobacco Dock on the left, with News International to its right

In the 18th century merchandise was brought to and from the City mainly on the river - Commercial Road was still fields, and the lane that led east from the Tower of London through Shadwell was narrow, though it bore the name Ratcliff Highway [part of it was later renamed St George's Street, and now it is known simply as The Highway]. By the turn of the 19th century it had acquired a mythological status across London - almost certainly exaggerated - as a centre of all kinds of criminal activity, drunkenness and wild behaviour. A BBC2 programme The Violent Highway (Blast Films, first screened on 16 May 2009) chronicles its past and present, with contributions filmed in and around the church by Baroness P.D. James [see below], the Rector and others. Its thesis was that, despite public perceptions, the local area is less violent now than in any period in its history. The Highway itself is today principally a traffic artery - allegedly the fourth busiest road in London. Here are some historic accounts, from various periods.

The Ratcliff Highway Murders

The reputation was fuelled by the widely-reported Ratcliff Highway murders, which struck particular fear because of their domestic setting. Theft was common; murder was not. At Christmas 1811 a young draper and ex-sailor Timothy Marr, his wife Celia, their young son Timothy, and their shop boy James Gowan were brutally killed at 29 The Highway while their maidservant had been sent out to pay a baker's bill and buy a dozen oysters. Twelve days later the publican of the Kings Arms in New Gravel Lane [now Wapping Lane] John Williamson, his wife Elizabeth and a servant Bridget Harrington were also killed at home. Following a perfunctory inquest, the Marr family were buried at St George-in-the East, on the south side of the churchyard; the others were buried elsewhere. The headstone no longer exists, but it read

Sacred to the memory of Mr Timothy Marr, aged twenty-four years,
also Mrs Celia Marr his wife, aged twenty-four years,
and their son Timothy Marr, aged three months,
all of whom were most inhumanely murdered in their dwelling house,
No. 29 Ratcliffe Highway, Dec.8, 1811.

Stop, mortal, stop as you pass by,

And view the grave wherein doth lie
A Father, Mother and a Son,
Whose earthly course was shortly run.
For lo, all in one fateful hour,
O'er came were they with ruthless power;
And murdered in a cruel state -
Yea, far too horrid to relate!
They spared not one to tell the tale:
One for the other could not wail
The other's fate in anguish sighed:
Loving they lived, together died.
Reflect, O Reader, o'er their fate,
And turn from sin before too late;
Life is uncertain in this world.
Oft in a moment we are hurled
To endless bliss or endless pain;
So let not sin within you reign.

There was no co-ordinated system of investigation or detection. Each parish vestry employed nightwatchmen (generally elderly and certainly poorly-paid) - Wellclose Square watch house (pictured c1925). The local magistrates were often corrupt. The Bow Street Runners had been established in the City, but their writ did not run elsewhere. Many people were detained and questioned, on the flimsiest of pretexts (foreigners particularly), but no proper searches, or scrutiny of the alleged murder weapons (a maul and a ripping chisel) were conducted. The most energetic investigator was the head of the Marine Police Force, established in 1798 in Wapping High Street (now the Marine Support Unit), but he was discouraged. Various rewards were offered [see poster above, from St George-in-the-East Vestry] but did not produce clear evidence - though large sums were eventually paid out.

John Williams, a sailor lodging at the Pear Tree, somehow emerged as the prime suspect, though others were more implicated. Though he claimed to be a Scot, he was alleged to be Irish, and dubbed Murphy. It was said that he had a grudge against Marr from their time together at sea. In the event, he was found hanging in his prison cell the night before the trial (suicide or murder?) and this was taken to be proof of his guilt and investigations petered out (even though it had been assumed that there must have been two people involved in each killing). To allay public anxiety, the Home Secretary ordered his body to be drawn through the streets on a cart, for a suicide's burial - see the details HERE.

A series of government reports in 1812, 1818 and 1822 recommended no major change in policing arrangements, but finally a co-ordinated approach emerged with the establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829. Ten years later, the Vestry of St George-in-the-East was complaining about the expense, and the fact that it had done nothing to reduce criminality in the area - indeed, they believed it had made matters worse, and reduced the sense of local control.

The Ratcliff Highway murders were carefully analysed in a 1971 book by P.D. James and T.A. Critchley,The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders 1811 - who conclude that Williams was almost certainly not the murderer - and much more speculatively by Peter Ackroyd in Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem.

The Tigresses of Ratcliff Highway

The Highway, particularly around Betts Street, became known as Tiger Bay not because of Jamrach's animal emporium, on which see HERE, but because of its feisty prostitutes, with their startling clothes and colourful boots. This was a long-established trade; a picaresque tale of 1665 by 'Meriton Latroon', The English Rogue, includes this reference to his search for his wife in the haunts of her former profession:

While I was thus hammering out some new design on the Anvil of experience, I bethought my self where probabiy I might find my Wife: First, I went to Ratcliff high-way, and made enquiry of Dammaris, &c., the Metropolitan Bawd of those parts, for a Gentlewoman of such a complexion, stature, and age, ('twas but a folly to mention her name, for those that follow that trade change their names as often as they do their places of abode) but that cart-load of flesh could give me no information, neither was it possible for me to have staid to hear it, she so stunk of Strong-waters, stronger then that Cask that never contained any thing else; I went down all along to the Cross, in my way I saw many Whores standing at their doors, giving me invitation; but being poor, they could not afford the charge of Fucus, so that their faces lookt much like a piece of rumbled Parchment, and by their continual traffick with Seamens Breeches, I could not come near them, they smelt so strongly of Tarpawlin and stinking Cod; yet still no tidings of her I sought for.

from Charles Dickens Jnr's Dictionary of London (1879) pictures are: undated; 1885; 1928

ratcliffhighway This, which until within the last few years was one of the sights of the metropolis, and almost unique in Europe as a scene of coarse riot and debauchery, is now chiefly noteworthy as an example of what may be done by effective police supervision thoroughly carried out. The dancing-rooms arid foreign cafés of the Highway — now rechristened St. George’s-street — are still well worthy a visit from the student of human nature, and are each, for the most part, devoted almost exclusively to the accommodation of a single nationality.

Thus at the Rose and Crown, near the western end of the Highway, the company will be principally Spanish and Maltese. At the Preussische Adler, just by the entrance into Wellclose-square, you will meet, as might be anticipated, German sailors; whilst Lawson’s, a little farther east, though kept by a German, finds its clientele among the Norwegian and Swedish sailors, who form no inconsiderable or despicable portion of the motley crews of our modem mercantile fleet. Over the way, a little farther down, is the Italian house, a quaint and quiet place, full of models and “curios” of every conceivable and inconceivable description, and nearly opposite the large and strikingly clean caravanserai, where a pretty, but anxious-looking Maid of Athens receives daily, with a hospitality whose cordiality hardly seems to smack of fear, any number of gift-bearing Greeks. These two latter, by-the-way, are not dancing-rooms, but boarding-houses pure and simple ; whilst farther still to the eastward is yet another variety in the shape of a music hall, where Dolly Dripping, the cook, in a draggled old print gown and a huge (natural) moustache; and Corporal Coldmutton, of the Guards, in a cast militia tunic, and a tattered pair of mufti inexpressibles; and Pleeseman X 999, in the general get up of a Guy Fawkes in a bankrupt pantomime, make simple fun for the edification of Quashie and Sambo, whose shining ebony faces stand jovially out even against the grimy blackness of the wails.

highway1885 Perfectly well conducted is the performance at the Bell, without the smallest need to shrink from comparison in that respect with the first of our West-end music halls. The performance is not of a refined description, nor is the audience; but it is just possible that, from an exclusively moral point of view, the advantage may even be proved to be not altogether on the side of the higher refinement. Hard by Quashie’s music-hall is a narrow passage, dull and empty, even at the lively hour of 11 pm., through which, by devious ways, we penetrate at length to a squalid cul-de-sac, which seems indeed the very end of all things. Chaos and space are here at present almost at odds which is which, for improvement has at the present moment only reached the point of partial destruction, and some of the dismal dog-holes still swarm with squalid life, while others gape tenantless and ghastly with sightless windows and darksome doorways, waiting their turn to be swept away into the blank open space that yawns by their side.

stgeorgesstreet1928 At the bottom of this slough of grimy Despond is the little breathless garret where Johnny the Chinaman swelters night and day curled up on his gruesome couch, carefully toasting in the dim flame of a smoky lamp the tiny lumps of delight which shall transport the opium-smoker for awhile into his paradise. If you are only a casual visitor you will not care for much of Johnny’s company, and will speedily find your way down the filthy creaking stairs into the reeking outer air, which appears almost fresh by contrast. Then Johnny, whose head and stomach are seasoned by the unceasing opium pipes of forty years, shuts the grimy window down with a shudder as unaffected as that with which you just now opened it, and toasts another little dab of the thick brown drug in readiness for the next comer. But if you visit Johnny as a customer, you pay your shilling, and curl yourself up on another grisly couch, which almost fills the remainder of the apartment. Johnny hands you an instrument like a broken-down flageolet, and the long supple brown fingers cram into its microscopic bowl the little modicum of magic, and you suck hard through it at the smoky little flame, and—if your stomach be educated and strong — pass duly off into elysium.

frompenningtonstreet Then, when your blissful dream is over, you go your way, a wiser if not a sadder man. Perhaps the most appropriate visit you can next pay is to the casual ward of St. George’s Workhouse, hard by, at the bottom of Old Gravel-lane, and thence, if it be not too late in the evening, to the mission church of St. Peter’s, Dock-street, hard by, where you will find in full work an agency which, if the people of the neighbourhood are to be believed, has had in the marvellous transformation which has taken place a more potent influence oven than police and parliament combined.

Returning thence to Shadwell High-street, you may visit the White Swan, popularly known as “Paddy’s Goose,” once the uproarious rendezvous of half the tramps and thieves of London, now quiet, sedate, and, to confess the truth, dull—very dull*. Down to the right here, again, is the little waterside police-station, where the grim harvest of the “drag,” the weird flotsam and jetsam of the cruel river, lies awaiting the verdict that will— let us hope— “find it Christian burial.” And so back into the highway again, and up Cannon-street road, where stands St. George’s Church, the scene of the famous riots of 1858-59, which gave the first popular impulse to the “ritualistic” movement, and out into the wide Commercial-road, the boundary of “Jack’s” dominion, beyond which again lie the bustling ‘Yiddisher” quarter of Whitechapel and the swarming squalor of Spitalfields.

* it later housed a Wesleyan mission!

pictured is a view from Pennington Street towards The Highway

Back to History page

The Highway today, from the church tower - Tobacco Dock on the left, with News International to its right

Sacred to the memory of Mr Timothy Marr, aged twenty-four years, also Mrs Celia Marr his wife, aged twenty-four years, and their son Timothy Marr, aged three months, all of whom were most inhumanely murdered in their dwelling house, No. 29 Ratcliffe Highway, Dec.8, 1811.

Stop, mortal, stop as you pass by,

from Charles Dickens Jnr's Dictionary of London (1879) pictures are: undated; 1885; 1928

Sacred to the memory of Mr Timothy Marr, aged twenty-four years,
also Mrs Celia Marr his wife, aged twenty-four years,
and their son Timothy Marr, aged three months,
all of whom were most inhumanely murdered in their dwelling house,
No. 29 Ratcliffe Highway, Dec.8, 1811.