The Local Area

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Tower Hamlets is the heart of the East End of London. The names of its neighbourhoods – such as Whitechapel and the Isle of Dogs – have been made famous in history and in fiction. It remains one of the most fascinating boroughs of London. It is a multifaceted area, vibrant and full of contrasts, where tradition lives alongside the avant-garde, and deprivation alongside breathtaking growth.

History

Tower Hamlets is on the north bank of the river Thames just to the east of the City of London. Until about the 17th century the area was mostly marshland, farms and hunting grounds for English monarchs. The beginning of development in the area dates from the middle ages, when industries which were considered too noisome or dangerous to be contained within the limits of the City of London were established on its eastern fringes. A number of small, scattered industrial communities grew up - the 'hamlets' of the borough's name.

As the English nation began to develop lucrative trade routes around the world from the 17th to 19th centuries, Tower Hamlets provided the perfect site for new wharves and docks for the rapidly expanding shipping industries of London. Over this period the small hamlets grew and merged to become part of a continuous urban settlement, yet one which retained its strong local identities.

The concentration of industry in the east encouraged a divide in London's expansion during the industrial revolution, with most wealthier people settling in the western suburbs and the working classes moving east and north. Most of Tower Hamlets became a solid, working-class area with strong family ties, noted for its distinctive Cockney culture. However, some neighbourhoods also became notorious pockets of poverty, described vividly in some of the most famous English literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. The condition of these neighbourhoods provided much of the impetus for social reform in Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Because of its connections with the sea and its economic opportunities, Tower Hamlets has always been a stepping-stone for immigrants. Huguenots came in the 18th century, Jews, Irish and Chinese in the 19th century, and Bangladeshis, Somalis, Vietnamese and others in the 20th century.

The mid to late 20th century saw the decline of industry in the area and a period of economic hardship for most residents. Dramatic changes have occurred in recent decades. In the 1980s, the Canary Wharf business development led a massive regeneration of the old disused docklands on the Isle of Dogs and Wapping that continues today. In the north-eastern part of the borough in the 1990s, the creative industries which had already colonised neighbouring Hoxton and Shoreditch in Hackney began to spread to Bethnal Green and Whitechapel. Property prices soared as some neighbourhoods were 'gentrified' by urban professionals.

For all of these highly visible changes, and the influx of wealthy residents and businesses to the area, it can be argued that life has not changed much for most borough residents. Tower Hamlets still has one of the highest deprivation factors of any borough in England.

For more information, see the London Borough of Tower Hamlets website . Our thanks to them for making information available to us.