The illusion of sepia

I recently came across these engaging photos of Victorian Spitalfields. They have bundles of charm and interest. What struck me in particular (apart from the newshoarding announcing the sinking of the Titanic in the final one) was the number of children on the streets and how smartly dressed they seemed (though any dirt and grime would probably hardly show up). Perhaps they were following the camera or had been asked to pose. In any event, it looked like what we might call nowadays a child-friendly environment.

They’re from the Bishopsgate Institute (©), whose library and archives are a fascinating resource. At their site I found an unpublished manuscript, a memoir, My Apprenticeship to Crime, by an East End criminal, Arthur Harding, (thumbnail photo) who was…

…one of the most familiar figures in the East End underworld, giving evidence before the Royal Commission on the Metropolitan Police in 1908 where he was described as the ‘king’ or ‘captain’ of the Brick Lane van-draggers – ‘ a most slippery and dangerous criminal..the leader of a numerous band of thieves’. He graduated from pick-pocketing in his early days to armed hold-ups and ‘protection’. He was a know local ‘terror’, ‘looking after’ the market stall holders and street bookies, and taking part in the race-course wars and struggles for territorial supremacy. In 1911 he served a five year prison sentence for his part in the ‘Vendetta Affair’ and was sentenced to a further five years in 1915.

His memories of childhood – he grew up around Bethnal Green, Shoreditch and Spitalfields – proved a corrective to an idyllic reading of the pictures of child-filled Spitalfields streets.

He was born into horrible poverty – his descriptions are unemotional but pungent. After a hungry, dirty and cramped beginning to life, he was eventually crowded out of his parents’ Brick Lane home, becoming at the age of ten a ‘street arab’. Stints at Dr Barnardo’s and in the army intervened before the streets called again. At the age of fourteen he based himself around the Spitalfields streets pictured above:

The streets had always been our playground – where else could we go? The homes we lived in were not large enough to have friends in to play cards. There were the pubs which we could patronise, but they had no attraction for us. We had all seen the misery caused by drink.

Brick Lane, where we lived, was a hotbed of vice, every kind of villainy could be found in the district. Men’s doss-houses, women’s doubles. In Spitalfields, women paraded up and down in hundreds. They sold themselves for a few pence. Under the railway arches, down-and-outs slept covered with sheets of newspaper. Dr Barnardo went out nightly to rescue waifs and strays; small children of both sexes wandered in the streets without parents or relatives to care for them.

Can it be wondered at, that boys of my age who lived in this cesspool of evil were contaminated by their environment and became, in their turn, members of the criminal classes beyond the pale, to be punished by the utmost severity of the law?

I wouldn’t say life was entirely grim as a poor inhabitant of this part of the East End. But those photos hardly tell the whole story.

(I posted on a related theme here).

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19 thoughts on “The illusion of sepia

  1. finalcurtain@gmail.com'
    mahlerman
    February 15, 2011 at 08:02

    This is one of the great things about blogs Gaw. I was born in London and, this time around, I’ve lived here for the past 25 years. I probably pass The Bishopsgate Institute a couple of times a week, via Brick Lane as it happens, and I knew nothing of it – until half an hour ago. Today at lunchtime, for instance, there is a duo-concert, and tonight a (free) tour of the Grade 2 listed library. By the cringe, I might pop over for that!

  2. Gaw
    February 15, 2011 at 10:23

    I was surprised as you to discover the place, Mahlerman. Despite an interest in London’s history and living just a couple of miles away, I’d never come across it. I must get over there myself some time.

  3. Worm
    February 15, 2011 at 10:23

    terrific photos Gaw – I’ve always found this to be the most interesting part of London, and there’s still plenty of victorian ‘gotham by gaslight’ atmospherics to be found by wandering the cobbled streets on your way to the 24 bagel bakery on Brick Lane late at night! Happily the scary prostitutes who used to ply their trade on commercial road have all gone now but it’s a shame that the market and the area as a whole has become so sterilized as the trendies take over

  4. Gaw
    February 15, 2011 at 10:28

    Last time I was down Brick Lane the place was full of no-budget film makers making films which presumably mostly featured other no-budget film makers.

    BTW there’s an uber child-friendly branch of the Giraffe restaurant chain located on what was one of the most popular prostitute pitches. The world is going to heaven in a hand-cart.

  5. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    February 15, 2011 at 11:49

    Could be a promo for Dave’s biiiig society, you can find them Gaw and the Brick Lane van-draggers, one for Brit’s list of names of future boy bands.

  6. Gaw
    February 15, 2011 at 11:53

    I’d never come across it before, but van-dragging involved picking things off passing vans and trucks. A gang of ruffians would just help themselves, often in broad daylight.

    • johngjobling@googlemail.com'
      malty
      February 15, 2011 at 16:38

      Sounds like the Inland Revenue.

      • Gaw
        February 15, 2011 at 16:48

        Isn’t it more the VATman’s style? Mind you they would clear things rather than pick them.

  7. fchantree@yahoo.co.uk'
    Gadjo Dilo
    February 15, 2011 at 12:07

    Is that antiquated Kosher canteen still there? I do hope so. “Any dirt and grime would probably hardly show up…” – maybe that’s why they shot everything in sepia back in those days 🙂

  8. Gaw
    February 15, 2011 at 12:20

    I think the last kosher cafe around Brick Lane closed a few years ago. Nowadays, an echt salt beef sandwich and latke is most reliably found in the wilds of Golders Green and Hendon – though I think the Knosherie, off Hatton Garden, is still going.

    • jgslang@gmail.com'
      February 16, 2011 at 09:15

      No. Gone, very sadly. Now yet another dull jeweller’s.

      • Gaw
        February 16, 2011 at 09:19

        What a terrible shame. I wonder where the Jewish jewellers and diamond merchants of Hatton Garden get their lunch now?

  9. b.smedley@dsl.pipex.com'
    February 15, 2011 at 16:37

    Surely Brick Lane Beigel Bake is still where it ought to be, serving up amazing things more or less 24 hours a day, all at remarkable pre-gentrification prices? (Whether it’s properly kosher or not I leave to someone who knows what he / she is talking about, but I can promise – it’s well worth a visit.)

    • Gaw
      February 15, 2011 at 16:44

      Still there, a great place, very cheap and, yes, kosher. But not quite a caff (I’ve now got a tea-time craving for hot salt beef sandwich, with lots of strong mustard and a very sharp pickle).

    • jgslang@gmail.com'
      February 16, 2011 at 09:13

      A friend once told me that a rabbi came in and duly blessed the day’s baking at 4 a.m. every morning, but I had the feeling he was joking. The Spitalfields Life blog (see below) which has ‘A Night at the Beigel Bake’ certainly doesn’t mention such an appearance.

  10. b.smedley@dsl.pipex.com'
    February 15, 2011 at 17:17

    And now I’ve got a craving for a smoked salmon beigel – nothing fancy, just near-perfect salmon on a stratospherically perfect beigel – oh dear.

  11. tobyash@hotmail.com'
    Toby
    February 15, 2011 at 18:48

    Lovely pics. London looks so much better without traffic. No wonder all the kids were out and about. That and having nowhere to live of course. Would love a salt beef sandwich right now.

  12. jgslang@gmail.com'
    February 16, 2011 at 09:10

    For what seems to me an unrivalled Spitalfields blog, I recommend Spitalfields Life: http://spitalfieldslife.com/. Full of wonderful stuff, not to mention a couple of posts dedicated – with mouth-watering pictures – to the Beigel Bakery.

  13. info@shopcurious.com'
    February 18, 2011 at 19:34

    The streets and houses look much smarter in these photos, Gaw, as well as the children. And there’s no graffiti…

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