DARK SIDE OF EAST LONDON

Paying scrupulous attention to place, this volume features a wealth of specially-commissioned photographs, allowing the reader to locate these stories in the present-day London Borough of Tower Hamlets including the former Reflection Works, Cheshire Street, site of Bethnal Green parish workhouse 1734, the site of Boar's Head Yard next to Goulston Street where Joseph Lipman died of neglect in 1870, site of former Old Gravel Lane Bridge and former dock wall at Tobacco Dock where in 1883 James Williams tried to commit suicide and the entrance to George Yard (now Gunthorpe Street) through which Martha Tabram passed on her way to her violent death in 1888 . Just hearing the phrase 'the East End' summons up images of slums and dark alleyways, with Jack the Ripper appearing from the mist, or housing estates and pubs where you might find the Kray twins. This study features stories of crimes and misdeeds that show what life was like in this area before the 'East End' existed. They also reflect the changes caused as the settlements of the Tower Hamlets became absorbed by the new metropolis of London and bring to light the often forgotten past that underlies the present-day streets and lurks behind the façades of some of the area's older buildings. "I think my favourite chapter has to be 'Poison for the Asking', as in the days before the 1868 Pharmacy Act it was all too easy for people to get their hands on noxious substances which they used, either in ignorance, or malice, with devastating and often, catastrophic effect." Many clear photos of the sites mentioned of deaths, murders, workhouses, docks, police stations, and the Pavilion Theatre where James Elphinstone died after eating a jam tart laced with Spanish fly by Martha Sharp in 1850. 200 page paperback, 32 b/w illus.