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A Guide to the East End of London |
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by BillyJones
The capital city of England is London. When visitors come to London, they are awe struck at the sheer size of the place. There are so many different places to visit and things to do. There is a plethora of world-class museums and galleries to visit, including "Tate Modern" and the "British Museum". One of the best views of the city is from the "London Eye". One area of the city which visitors often neglect is the East End. To many people this is where real Londoner's or Cockney's live.
The East End of London is, really, most of the area found east of the city centre. Although most of the most famous tourist attractions of London are found in the centre the, often overlooked, East End has a number of incredibly popular attractions and places of interest. One place that is well worth a visit is the fantastic Bethnal Green Museum which has one of the finest collections of antique dolls houses to be seen anywhere with examples dating as far back as 1673.
Londoner's who live in the East End are generally known, and commonly referred to, as "Cockneys". However, to be a true Cockney the person has to have been born within the sound of "Bow Bells" (the "Bow Bells" are the bells from Bow Church). Strangely the word "Cockney" is derived from the middle English word "cokeney" which is the name given to misshaped eggs or cock's eggs.
Sadly, during the dark times of the plague (1348-50), there were so many men, women and children killed that the dead had to be disposed of in large pits rather than individual graves. Archaeologists, digging in the area around Tower Bridge, found the remains of more than 700 bodies.
Between the years 1788 and 1960 London's East End port was, by far, the largest in the world. At one time (in the 1930's) the were about one hundred thousand men working in the port and the amount of cargo handled was incredible, around thirty five million tons. London had a number of important docks, the earliest being the West India Dock completed in 1802 (the East India Dock was built in 1806).
Joseph Merrick, or the "Elephant Man" as he is better known, was, for some time, one of the attractions of an East End freak show. Another famous East Ender is the seafaring explorer Captain Cook. He lived in the Wapping area, and in 1762 married his wife who was also from the East End. She was first introduced to her future husband when she was only a child.
The East End has an even darker side to its history; steeped with murder, mystery and other crimes. Two names that spring to mind when talking of the East End are those of the infamous, gangster twins, Ronnie and Reggie Kray around whom a number of modern myths and legends have developed. The most famous criminal associated with the East End will, most probably, always be Jack the Ripper, because of the brutality of his crimes. In 1888 he butchered five women in Whitechapel then disappeared, to this day nobody can be sure of his true identity though there are many theories.
At the time of the Ripper murders the population of Whitechapel was about ninety percent Jewish and this led to many assuming that the Ripper must, almost certainly, have been a Jew. The East End has always been one of the areas in which new cultures settle when first arriving in England. Even today this is the case and the East End is all the richer for it.
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