of maintaining the river walls and sewers under the supervision of two wall-reeves railways, chiefly between Commercial Road and the G.E.R., 2½ miles E of St Paul's, London, and included prior to 1669 Limehouse, Shadwell, St George-in-the-East, Spitalfields, Bethnal Green, Bow, Poplar, and Blackwall. This free content was digitised by double rekeying. out for drainage. [52], Stepney is connected to the London Underground at Stepney Green tube station on the Hammersmith & City and District lines. [3] 18) Along the Thames an [30], Stepney is in the constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party.[31]. St Dunstan's has a long association with the sea, with the parish of Stepney being responsible for registration of British maritime births, marriages and deaths until the 19th century. The world can ill afford to lose men of such deep thought and energetic action. alluvial belt, joining the alluvium of the Lea valley, includes the whole of the Isle of were also born in Stepney. ), Middlesex, in E. of London and in parl. Early History of Stepney Green Stepney Green was previously known as Mile End Old Town, beside the ancient route East from the City along Mile End Road. (fn. a. with banks and ditches; when they had fallen into disrepair he had granted [3], Stepney Green railway station was opened in 1902 by the Whitechapel and Bow Railway, a joint venture between the District Railway and the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. 22) the only place on the north bank below London [3][4], The first surviving record of the place name is from around 1000 AD as Stybbanhyð, "Stybba's hyð"; hyð developed into hithe (meaning landing-place) in modern English, so "Stybba's landing-place". [49], Stepney Green Maths, Computing and Science College is a community school for boys, the curriculum is broad, there is a wide range of extra-curricular activities offered before, during and after school. Such parish divisions were unusual and required acts of Parliament. da. wards of Bishopsgate Without and Portsoken formed the parishes of St. Botolph followed in 1729, St. Mary, Stratford Bow (565 a. area of meadow on the east side of the Lea lay in Stepney. The ancient name of this place was Stibenhede, Stebenhythe, or Stebunhethe. When Morris and Esther got married in 1904 they were living at 4 Ship Alley. In the thirteenth century "Stepney" referred to "almost all the area between the suburbs of the City of London and the river Lea, the eastern boundary of Middlesex". occasionally well into Essex. The measure had worked well, except when bad There is currently a Stepney episcopal area in the Anglican Diocese of London, which covers the London boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets, and has its own suffragan bishop.[7]. Brief History of Stepney, England. 8) By 1320 it had lost c. 211 a. to form the parish [8] Edward VI passed the land to the Wentworth family, and thence to their descendants, the Earls of Cleveland. The name "Stepney" is thought to derive from "Stepping Stone" or "Stepstone", from the presence of a mounting block near the place. Stepney has local councillors from three wards, St Dunstan's, Bethnal Green and Stepney Green. Actors Bernard Bresslaw, Jeff Shankley, John Lyons, Ben Onwukwe and Roy Marsden were born in Stepney, as was EastEnders actress Anita Dobson. Say the bells of Stepney". unassarted, probably woodland, and before any man-made features were available. The edge of the gravel formed a steep bank Ironically, when the Communists of Stepney enjoyed their finest moment, at the 1945 election, the borough’s most notable local politician, Clement Atlee, entered No.10 as the country’s new Prime Minister. answerable to the manor court. , and those settlements formed new independent parishes, leaving a residual parish of 830 acres (340 ha) comprising Mile End Old Town, Mile End New Town and Ratcliff.[15]. the low-water mark and known as Wapping-Whitechapel; it almost completely cut Stepney gave its name to the vill it is assumed it was a Saxon parochia, (fn. and by the late 18th century, when it was known as the Black Ditch, was clearly Details and photographs have been collected and are presented in an effort to help raise awareness about Stepney’s origins. supervision and spread the financial burden more widely. Cross, where Butcher Row meets Ratcliff Highway, and in the 1st century A.D. the Part of the boundary distinguished only between Rhodeswell Road and the Thames. [40], Jewish Care was created in 1990 by the merger of two previous charities to care for the community needs cost-effectively. The 13th-century Cropats ditch near Cropats well, south of Hachestreet The station passed to London Underground in 1950. ), in 1817. [50], Stepney F.C. The proto-parish of Stepney will therefore have covered the same area as the manor. As with most of the East End of London, the contracted area now known as Stepney was sparsely populated until the 19th century, with a population focussed on scattered farms and small hamlets. ), in 1730, and St. Matthew, Bethnal Green (755 a.) 9) whose boundaries seem to have followed (fn. The Stepney family name was found in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Scotland between 1840 and 1920. Whilst at Balliol he became a friend of Oscar Wilde, who after Montefiore's death allegedly proposed to his sister Charlotte.[21]. 34) Statutory commissions [34], The Stepney Community Trust, a community-led charity with a long history of local action, was set up in 1982 as the St Mary's Centre to respond to the severe housing and social deprivation in the area. The building footprints, their use (commercial, residential, educational, etc. for sewers in the 16th and 17th centuries for all the areas around London provided closer It is based at the Brenner Centre in Raine House. which may have been the medieval Chapel Street. Although a 16th-century plan shows it running from East Smithfield, it was more Colchester road and the waste on either side as far as Mile End, probably to share The first contemporary record of the Manor is around the year 1000, it covered an area equivalent to the modern borough of Tower Hamlets, as well as the district of Hackney (in the wider modern borough of the same name). Stepney’s bells A History of Stepney’s bells goes back at least 625 years and as might be expected, some of the detail has been lost (if it had ever been fully recorded). summoned to repair their stretches of wall. 13) in the parish of St. Dunstan, Stepney: Mile End Many bishops lived in the manor and Dunstan may have done the same. The urbanisation of the area was driven by the maritime trades along the river, as well as ribbon development along the Mile End Road. 17) In the south part of the parish the gravel side of Stepney extending from the property and waste lining the north side of the [36], Stepney City Farm is a city farm which provides a number of community services, such as guided tours, workshops and other activities. Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a large Conservation Area with an irregular shape that encloses buildings around Mile End Road, Assembly Passage, Louisa Street and Stepney Green itself. 6), Stepney's land boundaries were not natural: that with Bromley followed the [32], Stepney Green developed as a street of residential housing off the Mile End Road in the 15th century, and now refers to the area in north Stepney. end of the Isle of Dogs. Though most of the ancient parish lies on River Terrace high flood plain gravel on last new civil parish was All Saints, Poplar (1,158 a. Old Town (677 a. (fn. [18], Malplaquet House is named after the Battle of Malplaquet, one of the main battles of the War of the Spanish Succession, which took place in France in 1709. A portrait of his wife, Ann Stepney was painted by the famous artist George Romney and is in the Heckscher Museum in Huntington, Long Island, New York. to obtain labourers and make quick repairs. Stepney covered almost all the area between the suburbs of the City of London and the river Lea, the eastern boundary of Middlesex, until the early 14th century when the first of several daughter parishes was created. A similar commission was appointed The first boroughs to the EAST were. St Dunstan's church is recorded as being founded (or more likely rebuilt[9]) by Dunstan himself in 952, and as the first church in the manor, will have served the whole of that landholding. ; (2) 1559/60, Isabella (d. 20 May 1579), da. 7), At its greatest extent Stepney parish covered c. 4,150 a. 3) The 2) Brokestreet, near the church, by the 14th century. Whitechapel, but floods in 1448 led to an inquiry into the cause. 33), More permanent solutions were found in the 16th century: after the whole of Mile End. Stepney was an ancient civil and ecclesiastical parish in the historic county of Middlesex to … The vicar of St Paul’s then was Fr Joe Williamson, who had achieved considerable local fame as a reformer and crusader against vice, prevalent in the area because of the proximity of the docks. The urbanisation of the area was driven by the maritime trades along the river, as well as ribbon development along the Mile End Road. The most Stepney families were found in the UK in 1891. bank may even have been farther north, possibly as far as Cable Street. STEPNEY (St Dunstan) A parish, and the head of a union, in the Tower division of the hundred of Ossulstone, county of Middlesex, 2½ miles E from St. Paul's.There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, the Connexion of the Countess of Huntingdon, Calvinistic Methodists, and Roman Catholics, and three meeting-houses for Independents. those areas were known as marshes, the most important being Walmarsh or Wapping [3] It was severely damaged during the Blitz, with over a third of housing totally destroyed; and then, in the 1960s, slum clearance and development replaced most residential streets with tower blocks and modern housing estates. The termination is a well known Saxon word, signifying a haven or wharf. It was usual for one or more manors to form a parish, but the manor of Stepney's great size meant that this was reversed with two parishes (Stepney and Hackney) serving the single manor of Stepney. It is based in the London Dockers Athletic and Social Club[39] and has installed a series of plaques on sites of historic interest. Please note that these units are listed here because their boundaries covered the point location we hold for Stepney. The parish lies on the North London and the G.E. [13], St Dunstan's Church was founded (or rebuilt) around 952, by St Dunstan himself when he was Bishop of London, and therefore also Lord of the Manor of Stepney. was distinguished as Wapping-Stepney. of St. Mary Matfelon or Whitechapel, (fn. Stepney's additional responsibility for those born at sea was something of a burden.[17]. (fn. [38], The Stepney Historical Trust was set up in 1989 to advance the public's education on the history of Stepney and the surrounding areas. A tenement near Limehouse called the Mote had a similar obligation to repair river found that an unknown lord of Stepney in 'ancient time' had recovered about 100 The Domesday Book survey of 1086 gives the name as Stibanhede and says that the land was held by the Bishop of London and was 32 hides large, mainly used for ploughing, meadows, woodland for 500 pigs, and 4 mills. Montefiore was chief assistant to Samuel Barnett in his work regarding the extension of Oxford University to London, and was secretary of the Tower Hamlets branch of the Society for the Extension of University Teaching. (fn. (fn. Other factors included the development of London's docks and railways, combined with slum clearance, which pushed the displaced poor and various immigrants looking for wo… Stepney - the liberty of the Tower, by the river, Holy Trinity (formerly the (fn. Col. Richard Mansergh St. George fought in the American War of Independence and suffered severe head injuries, which required him to wear a black silk cap for the rest of his life. the bishop, of 7 tenements and 9 cottages to his tenants, and of land on other date at which the three achieved separate parochial status is not known: since bounds of an estate given with the foundation of St. Leonard's priory, and a small History of Ship Alley and Princes Square, Stepney, East London. The Trinity Green Almshouses were built in 1695 to provide housing for retired sailors. [19] It was home to a variety of small businesses including a bookmaker and a printer, before being occupied in 1910 by the Union of Stepney Ratepayers.[20]. Street, in Bromley, and ran erratically southward to cross Poplar High Street and then (fn. rents from submerged land and the manor paid expenses for attending the inquiries ), and St. George-in-the-East (formerly WappingStepney) (244 a.) well, by the site of St. Paul's Shadwell, and was still known to residents in 1684. enwharving on the river side helped to contain the tides. The Leonard Montefiore memorial fountain on Stepney Green is named for a young writer and philanthropist, Leonard Montefiore, who at the time of his death in 1879 was known for his philanthropic work in the East End of London. The Stepney Spare Wheel was invented by Thomas Morris Davies in Llanelli in 1904. The boundary with Hackney cut across fields in 1703, [8], The ecclesiastic system of copyhold, whereby land was leased to tenants for terms as short as seven years, prevailed throughout the manor. marsh, in the Isle of Dogs. In 1887, John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles described Stepney like this: Stepney .-- par. ", In 1883, Jacob P. Adler arrived in London with a troupe of refugee professional actors. The English physician Richard Mead, responsible for advances in understanding transmissible diseases, was born in Stepney. 23), The marshes provided sites for medieval tidal mills. where the Crash mills stood, but by the 16th century it included a narrow tongue [2], The area was built up rapidly in the 19th century, mainly to accommodate immigrant workers and displaced London poor, and developed a reputation for poverty, overcrowding, violence and political dissent. Commer­cial Road lived up to its name by filling with shops and other busi­nesses. 35), A watercourse, probably rising near Spitalfields, ran south-eastward through The church is known as "The Mother Church of the East End"[14] as the very large parish covered most of what would become inner East London, before population growth led to the creation of a large number of daughter parishes. Tower Hamlets London Borough Council is the local authority and also has a directly elected executive mayor, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs. stretches suggest that its course had already been modified. London overall has a directly elected executive Mayor of London, currently Sadiq Khan, and the City and East seat in the London Assembly is held by the Labour Party's Unmesh Desai. Poplar to enter the Thames at Limehouse dock. 42), In the 20th century a concealed stream arose at the junction of Devons Road and Weston The historic Stepney Baptist Church building was built in 1841 by the noted local joiner Hanford Hull. top of London Clay, the area north-west of a line from the north-west corner of Victoria river wall at Wapping that gave its name to Walmarsh. Long straight of one Digneley, 1da. The area of Stepney has had no local government definition since 1965, but is used to refer to the whole former parish and also to a relatively small area within it. Hackney appears to have been an early daughter parish of Stepney; a church at Hackney is first mentioned in 1275 but is likely to have been in place before then. Stepney and Walmarsh similar to the laws and customs of Romney marsh, in order Later parishes were formed from the hamlets whose boundaries had been settled by Local residents, schools, churches and community groups were consulted and wasteland left after a World War II bomb destroyed the Stepney Congregational Church in 1941 was secured for the farm's use. Under the London Government Act, 1899, the separate parishes were brought site of a Roman road and was later that of Ratcliff Highway. the southern end of West India Dock Road, along Poplar High Street, and then to the Version 5.0. manors. Further economy, especially in housing the latter's industries. with Shoreditch followed a highway from Shoreditch church to Cambridge Heath; According to the Women's rights activist Emily Faithfull in her book "Three Visits to America" published in 1884 Montefiore died "While he was visiting the United States, in order to see for himself what could be learned from the political and social condition of the people, must ever be deplored. (fn. This severely limited scope for improvement of the land and new building until the estate was broken up in the 19th century. 37) The stream was gradually culverted When Fay was born in 1905 and Rachel in 1907, the address given on their birth certificates was 11 Ship Alley. [51], The district's Senrab Street gave its name to Senrab F.C., a youth team now based in Wanstead Flats and notable for producing many future professional players. John Rocque’s 1746 Map – layersoflondon.org © Maptiler and OpenStreetMap contributors The Manors of Stepney and Hackney were linked, until they passed into separate ownership in the 1660s. The only other known 20th-century parishes, East Smithfield, and the small liberties along the western boundary of I know not how to complete the etymology, unless we suppose it to have been the timber wharf, from Steb, the trunk of a tree. 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