Did you know…?

Captain James Cook first met Elizabeth Batts when she was a young child living in a Wapping pub. They married on 16th December 1762 and set up their first home together on the Highway and later moved to Mile End.

Captain Bligh of the mutiny on The Bounty had lodgings in Wapping.

Zachariah Hicks, the second lieutenant on The Endeavour, was the first to sight Australia. He came from Wapping.

The first ship to be built and launched in Limehouse was The Greyhound, in 1586.

Sir Walter Raleigh set sail for Guyana from Limehouse in 1546.

In the C19th Limehouse was London’s Chinatown (as many Chinese sailors settled there, and worked in the docks).

Lenin spoke at two public meetings in Whitechapel, the second on 21st March 1903 at the Alexander Hall, Jubilee Street. Apparently Stalin and Trotsky also visited the borough.

Mohandas Karamchand (‘Mahatma’) Gandhi came to London in 1931 for the Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform. Whilst here he stayed at Kingsley Hall, Powis Road, E3. It is possible to visit the room he stayed in.

In 1720 the largest ox sold in England was sold at Leadenhall Market. It weighed 236 tonnes and had been reared on the Isle of Dogs.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s father, John, owned 24 shops in Whitechapel. Geoffrey himself lived in Aldgate from 1374 for about twelve years, although he didn’t write his Canterbury Tales until later.

The Lansbury Estate (named to commemorate George Lansbury) was built in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain. It was seen as a model example of low-rise development, which was practical but also aesthetically designed.

Jack (or Joseph) Sheppard was a famous robber and highwayman, born in Stepney in 1702. He became the subject of songs and stories, because he managed to escape from Newgate Prison four times! In 1724 he was finally captured and hung at Tyburn – although many spectators expected him to make a last minute escape from the noose.

In the 14th century, people from Flanders (now part of Belgium) introduced hops into Britain. These are one of the key ingredients in brewing beer. Many Flemings settled in the area around St Katherine’s from the Middle Ages onwards, and in later centuries their links with brewing were put to good use in areas like Mile End and Brick Lane.

The East End has always been home to immigrants, and the changes that have taken place in the inhabitants are reflected in some of the East End’s buildings. For example, the Jamme Masjid mosque on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street used to be a Jewish synagogue, and before that, a Weslyan chapel, and before that a Huguenot church.

C. & E. Morton’s was a food processing factory that used to be on West Ferry Road, on the Isle of Dogs. It made a range of products including jams, pickles and tinned fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. They also made sweets, and their peppermints were of such a high quality that at one time they were actually used as a form of money in Madagascar.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first British female to qualify as a doctor in 1876, was born at 1 Commercial Road, E1 in 1836. She had to complete her medical studies in Paris, as British universities refused to allow women to study medicine at this time.

When slavery was finally abolished in 1833, most of the15,000 people freed were found to be living in East London. However, no help was given to them to find housing or work, so many lived in abject poverty.