T 0 Rast- NEWSLETTER cyido Volume 2 Issue 1 Summer 2001 C Chinese children in Pennyfields, Limehouse 1932 (see page 2) CONTENTS: Programme 3 A Bad Night on Bow Common 8 Notes and News 4 The "Island" - 1 9 The Brown Bread of Bethnal Green 5 Memories of the "Island — 2 11 Letters 6 Coach Trip 16 Index of articles from. Newsletters Volume 1 issues 1-20 published from 1992 — 2001 is included in this newsletter. All illustrations used in the newsletter are from Tower Hamlets Local History Library, Bancroft Road, El. ELHS Newsletter Summer 2001 Editorial Note: The Chinese Community in Limehouse The East London History Society Les Hearson and Hsiao Hung have set up a Newsletter is published twice yearly and is history project to record the experiences of free to members of the Society. Chinese immigrants to Britain in the early to mid-twentieth century. They are hoping to The Newsletter is edited, typeset and produced interview people with first-hand knowledge of by Rosemary Taylor with the assistance of an the Chinese community in Limehouse, editorial team comprising John Harris, Doreen whether immigrants themselves or their Kendall, David Behr, Philip Mernick and descendants, or people who lived in Doreen Osborne. Limehouse Chinatown and remember what it was like. Letters and articles on East End history and reminiscences are always welcome and we If you have any memories you would like to make every effort to publish suitable material. share, please get in touch with Les Hearson, Whilst hand-written articles are acceptable, tele: 020 8586 7821 or write to him at 224 items of interest that are typewritten or even Caledon Road, London E6 2EX, or email him better still, on disk will get priority!! at chineseineastlondonAhotmail.com. Enquiries to Doreen Kendall, 20 Puteaux Les Hearson or Hsiao Hung would be House, Cranbrook Estate, Bethnal Green, E2 delighted to hear from you. ORF, Tel: 0208 981 7680, or Philip Mernick, email: [email protected]. The War Years All queries regarding membership should be In October 1940, the 4th battalion Grenadier addressed to John Harris, 13 Three Crowns Guards camped on Wanstead Flats. They were Road, Colchester CO4 5AD. there to assist the police in the event of large scale rioting and looting which the Check out the History Society's website at government assumed would take place during www.eastlondonhistory.org.uk. air raids. All police stations in the east end also stocked large amounts of weapons ready The present committee are: Philip Mernick, for issue to the police. Chairman, Doreen Kendall, Secretary, John Harris, Membership, David Behr, Programme, When war was declared in September 1939, Ann Sansom, Doreen Osborne, Bob Dunn, the RSPCA was overwhelmed by people who Howard Penberg and Rosemary Taylor. were being evacuated from London, and wanted to have their pets put down. No livestock were allowed in public bomb shelters and there were no measures taken to protect animals against gas attacks. 60,000 pets, mostly cats and dogs were put down and buried in a secret mass grave somewhere in East London. John Harris 2 ELHS Newsletter Summer 2001 EAST LONDON HISTORY SOCIETY PROGRAMME 2001-2002 Thursday 20th September Thursday 31st January Southwark and the Archaeology of Collecting Tower Hamlets the Jubilee Line Speaker: Philip Merrick Speaker: James Drummond-Murray Thursday 28th February Saturday 30th September So Your Ancestor Worked in the Coach Trip to the Royal Gunpowder Docks? Mills and the town of Waltham Speaker: Bob Aspinall Abbey See back page of newsletter for details and booking form. March and April To Be Arranged Thursday 18th October Pearl Binder, an artist in the East Thursday 23rd May End 1925-35 (Illustrated) Open Evening Speaker: Dan Jones Memories and Photos Thursday 22"d November Note: The Spirit of Spitalfields The lectures are held on Thursday evenings Speaker: Anne J Kershen at 7.30 pm in the Latimer Congregational Church Hall, Ernest Street, El. Ernest Street is between Harford Street and Thursday 6th December Whitehorse Lane, off Mile End Road Mudchute Farm (Opposite Queen Mary and Westfield Speaker: Maggie Lipscombe College). The nearest Underground Stations are Mile End and Stepney Green. Bus No. 25. 3 ELHS Newsletter Summer 2001 Notes and News yourself up to date on Diane's monumental database. Mile End Park St Matthias Old Church will also be open on that weekend, so please do put it on to your In June 2001 the second phase of the park tour. I know many of our members try to fit in opened with earth sheltered buildings, new as many places as possible, as this weekend is lakes and wind power electricity. Many events a rare opportunity to explore buildings that are are scheduled, including sculpture, art and often inaccessible to the public. walks. A great future beckons as the park follows the Regents Canal from Victoria Park Family History Society to the Ragged School Museum. The East of London Family History Society It has been an interesting three years watching plan to rent a room at Valentine's Park to the clearance of roads, buildings and trees house their research. This centre will be kept making way for huge diggers to create the open and run by volunteers from the society. lakes, and the green bridge, when traffic along the Mile End Road came to a halt for a day, to Doreen Kendall the recycling of road bricks to create paths, and the instant huge trees and wild plants planted in very wet weather, when the whole site looked as if it would never be finished for Strange But True mud. January 1900 Millennium Trail At Bethnal Green Coroners Court, three separate inquests were heard. All three Look out for the Millennium Trail map of concerned infants, one aged 2 days, and two Tower Hamlets Cemetery; it has been printed aged 3 months. All the deaths had taken place to celebrate the Borough's first Local Nature on a Saturday night, all had been accidentally Reserve by the Tower Hamlets Parks suffocated. Department and Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery. The 22 posts, bought with the The Coroner remarked that this type of infant £5000 grant for the Millennium will guide you death was becoming common in Bethnal around the cemetery park, where you will find Green when the infant shared a bed with three described on a map by Terry Lyle, outstanding other people, and always on a Saturday night. memorials, trees, flowers, animals, butterflies He advised mothers to buy a 2 shilling 'Moses and bird areas, all drawn by Andy Maguire. Basket' for use as a cradle, then these deaths English Heritage has listed 7 of the memorials could be avoided. He also advised mothers to this year. go to bed early. Open House Weekend A Verdict of accidental death was recorded on all three infants. While we're on the subject of the cemetery, you can come along on Open House Weekend, John Harris 22nd and 23rd September, when you can join in guided walks, or browse through the maps in search of that illusive ancestor, and bring 4 ELHS Newsletter Summer 2001 The Brown Bread of Bethnal Green in both the companies, and was a director. He allowed his name on a wide range of the A small mill run by the Cyclone Flour and manufactures. The brand loyalty concept Meal Company at 21a Patriot Square, Bethnal worked well for Dr. Allinson's Natural Food for Babies and Invalids, Prepared Barley, Oats, Green, behind a terrace of 18th century houses, was the embryo of the more highly capitalised Custards, Blancmange, N.F. Cocoa, Anti-Tea, Brunak (beverage), Power (breakfast food), Natural Food Company which took it over lunch biscuits, Petroleum Hair Restorer, Hair within the first five years. Tonic, Hair Dyes, Coal Tar Soap, Simple The mill was enlarged four times in its first Ointment, Depilatory, Tooth Powder, and Benzoin Toilet Cream. These were also sold twenty years up to 1915, and an imposing clock tower and offices fronting 210-214 through chain stores such as Boots, the cash chemists, and co-operative stores. The Cambridge Road, on the corner of Patriot products, including Allinson wholemeal bread Square, with a factory and mill behind it was and flour, were mentioned in the company's built. Bethnal Green had become the centre of publications, and several of Dr. Allinson's five the largest wholesale milling company in the lengthy 'Medical Essays' acquired a new lease country. of life this way, after initial popularity 15-20 After the third expansion, in 1911, the years before. production was doubled, and enabled ten to eleven million loaves to be made from their From the 1880s to the early 1900s, Dr. Allinson issued personal testimonial wholemeal flour. 1500 agents sold the certificates of wholemeal bread quality to company's flour and bread at the time. complying bakers. They found it advantageous This achievement within 16 years of operating to display the certificate in their shop windows was all the more remarkable because the to attract more customers into changing from method of milling wheat that it practised was white bread to wholemeal bread. The public by millstones, which had almost entirely been had read about, and heard of Dr. Allinson replaced elsewhere by the 1890s with the more being a successful dietician for ailments, economical roller mill for making flour whiter advocating vegetarian foods with wholemeal and quicker. The Natural Food Company kept bread at every meal. His patients and the traditional work alive, producing their supporters in the 1890s, at the most controversial part of his career, even called brown bread and wholemeal.