The Worst Street in London: Foreword by Peter Ackroyd (19 page)

If Spitalfields had been a vile place to live before the Ripper murders in 1888, afterwards it descended even further into disrepair and destitution. Despite a huge amount of press interest in the deplorable living conditions endured by the residents, nothing was done to make things better for the very poor. An increasing number of people found themselves out of work and so were forced to share accommodation with others in order to pay the rent.

The East London Advertiser reported
the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of a four-month-old baby. At the inquest, it transpired that the parents and seven children lived in one room approximately 12-feet square. One night, when the pitiful family were asleep, one of them accidentally rolled over onto the baby and suffocated the child. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death and recommended that the authorities address the overcrowding issued without further ado. As usual, nothing was achieved.

Of course, the chronic overcrowding in Spitalfields was good news for the landlords. Despite the stigma attached to properties in and around the now notorious Miller’s Court, there were enough desperate people on the streets to ensure that any rooms vacated after the murder were quickly filled.

As residents attempted to recover from the terrible events that had overtaken Dorset Street during 1888, further trouble was brewing in the East End that would have a profound effect on the already traumatised and poverty-stricken community of Spitalfields.

Due to its proximity to the River Thames, many residents of Dorset Street and the surrounding roads regularly sought work in the Docks. Employment for these people was of a casual nature and involved walking to the Docks and then queuing with hundreds of other men hoping to be chosen to help unload one of the ships. There was absolutely no guarantee that work would be available and the majority of men were sent home each day with no money. Those that were lucky enough to secure work were usually only employed for a couple of hours.

The men that suffered the daily indignity of the ‘call-on’ really resented the way they were treated by the dock owners, who often abused their power and strode up and down the queues ‘with the air of a dealer in a cattlemarket’ picking out only the healthiest and strongest for work.

By the summer of 1889, a trade depression had led to fierce competition between the rival dock companies, each of which tried to offer the cheapest rates in a bid to attract more ships. Of course, the losers in this plan were the casual labourers, who quickly saw their bonuses for unloading ships considerably reduced. Things came to a head when the
Lady Armstrong
docked in the West India Docks in August 1889. The East and West India Dock Company decided to cut the casuals’ bonus down to the bone, but still insisted that the ship was unloaded with great speed. This proved to be the final straw for the labourers and led by a man named Ben Tillet, the men walked out of the dockyard on 14 August, refusing to unload any more ships until management agreed to pay them a fair wage.

The mass walkout at the West India Docks caused a sensation as until that point, the dock owners had wielded complete control over their workforce, safe in the knowledge that if the men didn’t work, they would starve to death. However, they began to feel a little uneasy as the Amalgamated Stevedore’s Union (which included the highly skilled men that loaded the ships) joined the strike in support of the casual labourers.

By 27 August, the Docks were at a standstill as the stevedores and labourers were joined by many other trades such as firemen, lightermen, carmen, ropemakers and fish porters. In total around 130,000 men refused to work. The dockers formed a strike committee and demanded that they be paid the now famous ‘dockers’ tanner’, which was 6d per hour instead of the previous 5d. In addition, they also demanded that the bonus system be abolished, that the inhuman ‘call-ons’ be restricted to only two per day and that the men chosen be employed for at least four hours.

The dockers’ plight courted a great deal of sympathy from the press and public alike. However, the dock owners held their ground, banking on the fact that starvation would drive the men back to work before too long. In the meantime, the striking men became seriously concerned about how to feed themselves and their families. As the days without work turned into weeks, the men came under increasing pressure to find money for food and rent. Their landlords still demanded money each week, despite any sympathy they may have felt for the men’s situation and, of course, the common lodging houses refused entry to anyone unable to pay in advance. Banners were hung along the Commercial Road, one of which summed up the moment perfectly. It read:

‘Our husbands are on strike; for the wives it is not honey, And we think it is right not to pay the landlord’s money, Everyone is on strike, so landlords do not be offended; The rent that’s due we’ll pay to you when the strike is ended.’

By the beginning of September things were, in the words of the Strike Committee’s press officer, ‘very black indeed.’ Despite huge public support, insufficient funds had been raised to maintain the strike for much longer and it looked increasingly likely that the dock owners would win the fight. However, news of the dockers’ plight had now spread worldwide and their fellow workers in Australia began to raise money for the striking men. Before long money began pouring in, leaving the dockers free to concentrate on picket lines rather than scratching around for food.

The help from Australia caused great concern for the dock owners who realised that the strike could now go on indefinitely. Also, they were coming under increasing pressure from the ship-owners and wharfingers to resolve the dispute. The ship companies began discussing alternative ways for their ships to be unloaded and some wharfingers held separate talks with the strike committee in an attempt to get their wharves working. In a bid to resolve matters, the Lord Mayor of London formed a Mansion House Committee, which included representatives from both sides of the dispute. The Committee proved to be a success and eventually the dock owners conceded to virtually all the strike committee’s demands. The dockers got their ‘tanner’ and returned to work on 16 September, five weeks after the first labourers had walked out of the West India Docks.

The Great Dock Strike of 1889 proved to be a turning point in the history of trade unions. Prior to the dockers’ walkout, unskilled labourers had not possessed the confidence to join together in defiance of their employers. As more men and women saw the differences a united front could make to their lives, membership of trade unions soared. In 1888, 750,000 workers were members of a union. By 1899, that figure had reached two million.

The Great Dock Strike had an uneasy effect on anyone who exploited the poor and, of course, this included the Spitalfields landlords. Mindful of what could be achieved when men and women joined together with a common goal, the landlords adopted a policy of divide and rule. Tenants of lodging houses were encouraged to inform on their fellow lodgers and any disturbances were swiftly reported to the police. The following incident reported by
The Times
in June 1890, shows that their divide and rule policy was working well:

On the evening of 5 June, one of the Dorset Street lodging houses was the scene of a heated argument that broke out between Annie Chapman (obviously not the Ripper victim) and fellow lodger, Elinor French. The lodging house deputy made no attempt to nip the argument in the bud and soon the women were screaming at one another. Finally, unable to contain herself any longer, Chapman grabbed a broken pair of scissors and rushed at French, stabbing her in the face, just below her right eye. The police were summoned and French was encouraged to prosecute her attacker. Consequently, the two women appeared in court on 11 June. French appeared in the witness box with her head swathed in bandages, thus making Chapman look very much the villain of the piece. Annie Chapman was committed for trial and most likely enjoyed a spell in penal servitude as a result.

Chapter 19

A Lighter Side of Life

Although life in Dorset Street was tough, there were distractions and diversions available to even the poorest of inhabitants: drinking dens had been a feature of the area ever since it had been built. By the mid-1600s, local demand was such that William Bucknall opened a brewery in Brick Lane. In 1697, one Joseph Truman became manager and his family subsequently founded what was to become The Black Eagle Brewery – the largest brewery in London.

Back in the 17th century, pubs as we know them today did not exist. Instead, Spitalfields locals frequented alehouses and taverns. Alehouses were originally private properties belonging to individual brewers in which locals could purchase and consume the brewers’ ale. Mention is made of their existence in England as early as the 7th century and it is highly likely that they were extant long before this. Over the following centuries, the population increased, the natural water supply became contaminated by industry and ale gained a reputation as a drink that was both safe to consume and had a pleasant effect on the imbiber’s state of mind. The subsequent increase in demand led to ale houses evolving from informal, sometimes part-time affairs into profitable and efficiently-run businesses.

By the mid-16th century, improved transport and communication networks meant that foreign wines became increasingly accessible to the general public, particularly those with a reasonable amount of disposable income. As a result, taverns (a contemporary version of Roman ‘tabernae’) began to spring up in London and other major cities. Unlike the ale houses, which were very basic affairs designed purely for the consumption of alcohol, the taverns provided comfortable seating and tasty food alongside their selection of wines.

By the late 1600s, these forerunners of the modern public house catered for two, distinct types of customer. The ale houses tended to attract the labouring classes as although the surroundings were basic, prices were cheap. The taverns appealed to business-owners and the professional classes as they were an ideal venue in which to entertain clients, meet friends or simply relax after a hard day’s work. The taverns were also a popular destination for the area’s first prostitutes who found the drunk inhabitants a great source of income. As Spitalfields’ population grew, the taverns and ale houses enjoyed a healthy trade and their owners sought ever-larger and more impressive edifices. However, their profits were soon to be severely affected by the arrival of the most pretentious of all watering-holes – the Gin Palace.

During the reign of William III (1689-1702), tensions between Britain and France led to a ban on French brandy and wine. The Huguenot silk weavers had traditionally drunk wine and brandies from their homeland and so sought illegal means of obtaining the drinks via smugglers. Illegal imports of French liquor were not just sought after in Spitalfields; throughout London and beyond, smugglers began to reap huge dividends by supplying the forbidden wines. Obviously, taverns could not serve French wines for fear of having their licence revoked and their trade inevitably went into decline. Realising that the ban was severely affecting the British alcohol industry, the authorities lifted all restrictions on distilling gin and soon the streets of every town and city in England were awash with gin shops. These shops replaced the older ale houses as places in which the poor sought shelter and temporary oblivion. They were designed purely for the consumption of drink and unlike the taverns, did not serve food or have any comfortable seating areas.

The cheapness and availability of gin made the spirit extremely popular with the poorer classes and by the 1720s, London was awash with the stuff. Londoners didn’t necessarily have to sit in a gin shop in order to obtain their daily fix. Bottles of the spirit could be purchased virtually anywhere. Street vendors sold it from barrows along the city’s major thoroughfares and there were even reports of employers giving gin to their workforce in order to keep them in a compliant state of mind.

Setting up as a gin vendor in the early 18th century was a relatively easy task. No licence was required and there were virtually no restrictions on where or how the commodity could be sold. In 1734, Joseph Forward stood trial at the Old Bailey accused of theft. He was found not guilty of the crime, but the report of the trial demonstrates just how simple it was to set up as a gin seller. Forward’s accuser (his landlady, Mrs Ann Chapman) stated in court that a sheet, two candlesticks and a pair of tongs had gone missing from her house after the defendant and his wife took lodgings with her while working at the annual Bartholomew’s Fair – a huge, annual extravaganza held in Smithfield over four days in August.

Chapman testified ‘the Prisoner and his Wife hired a Room from me by the Week on the last Day of April. They staid till Bartholomew-tide, and then he set his Wife up in Bartholomew-Fair to sell Gin and Black-puddings.’ Regrettably the Forwards’ moneymaking scheme did not go according to plan. Mrs Chapman explained, ‘some body stole (Mrs Forward’s) Bottle of Gin, and then she was broke’. It was this misfortune that had apparently forced the Forwards into stealing Mrs Chapman’s goods however, the jury did not believe her story and found in favour of the defendant.