The Marquis of Lansdowne (the ‘pub of my birth’ rather than
the aristocrat) regularly appears in this blog.
The area is now seeing a slow process of gentrification but its past is
resolutely one of poverty.
At the very beginning of the twentieth century the Shoreditch
and Bethnal Green districts saw a
significant rise in crime and violence – to the extent that concerns were frequently raised in the national
press. We tend to think of that the problems of gangs
and knife crime in London is of more recent date but in the early Edwardian
period the streets around the Marquis of Lansdowne saw many instances of
violent crime. Some of the victims were
members of rival gangs but also innocent members of the public. The scourge of domestic violence was also
ever present.
Street names change.
Cremer Street London E2 was, in this period, called Harwar Street and in
earlier times it has been Thomas Street.
Geffrye Street was Maria Street.
Harwar Street linked the Kingland Road to the Hackney Road and although
something of a back street it became associated with street crime.
In 1900 the Eastern Argus and Borough of Hackney Times
reported that “pedestrians walking along the side streets at night are being
ruthlessly shot at in some cases and in other cases the knife is resorted to”
(1) A mile up the road a man walking down Brick Lane was shot by a stranger. A nearby police constable chased the suspect
who escaped after dropping a revolver.
Another victim was stabbed from behind in Bethnal Green and in Vallance
Road a large gang fight took place which caused injury and damage as well as
much alarm to local residents.
One evening in October 1900 a 16 year old carman was
undertaking an errand for his employer when he was seen to be talking to two or
three youths in Harwar Street, near the junction with Maria Street and the
railway bridge, and not far from Wilson’s Iron Yard (another family connection).
Witnesses stated that he walked away
from the group. A firearm was possibly discharged
(missing the victim) and one of the men rushed up to him and stabbed him. They made off and local residents went to the
assistance of Charles HISCOKE, who was bleeding badly. The police were on scene within minutes but
by the time the divisional surgeon arrived (which was within 20 minutes) the
youth was dead. A 13 year old witness
said he recognised the attackers as having been involved in recent street
fighting in Hoxton. An Inquest a couple
of days later delivered a verdict of Wilful Murder by persons unknown. The victim was not thought to have been
involved in any instances of gang activity. (2)
There is no record of anybody being prosecuted for the murder.
Two weeks after the attack on HISCOKE, another man was assaulted
by a group in a nearby coffee shop and slashed in the face. The gang had been trying to provoke a sailor
into a fight and the victim had gone to his assistance. A 17 year old suspect, described as “a dirty
lad of 17” was arrested and charged with wounding and was committed for trial
from the police court. In the same week
the Coroner, Dr Wynn Westcott, told a jury that “There seems to be an outbreak of crimes of
violence in the streets at the present time.
I have three cases on hand where persons have been fatally assaulted in
the streets” (3)
Despite the efforts of the Metropolitan Police (who were quickly
scene within minutes of every incident) it remained a violent area. A few years later a woman stabbed her partner
to death in Maria Street, the latest instalment in a violent relationship. (4) A women was stabbed by her lodger in Hawar
Street in 1906. In 1905 a group of
ratepayers petitioned the council asking
for something to be done:
“We beg
to make a complaint against a gang of boys who make night after night in Harwar
Street, a nuisance and a terror to passersbys and an annoyance to shopkeepers;
one of the gang went to the extent of stabbing a shopkeeper in the head” (5)
One of the ratepayers may have been the landlord of the
Marquis of Lansdowne.
As late as 1913 a woman was stabbed by her former boyfriend
and his new partner as she was talking to friends in Harwar Street. (6)
Notably in this period only one case is mentioned that directly
involved the pub and that was a simple case of damage caused during a dispute
between a man and wife. It was a busy
pub with no fewer the 13 residents (7) in 1901 – perhaps the landlord ran a
strict house. By the outbreak of war in
1914 the street gang issue seemed to disappear – never to fully return.
Booth's Poverty Map shows the area as being a mix of 'very poor, casual, chronic want' and 'fairly comfortable'
In the years after the Great War the area calmed down – it became
more respectable and the shops that lined Cremer Street (as Harwar Street had
become) became a little more up market.
The link between poverty and crime is a well established one
but the outbreak of ‘hooliganism’, as the newspapers called it, in the area was
the cause of a mini moral panic. The next time I sit and have a £5.00 coffee in
the refreshment house that now occupies the former pub I will reflect on some
of the goings on in the area in the first decade of the 20th century
and remind myself how lucky I was to be born half a century later.
Philip Trendall
May 2025
NOTES
(1)
Eastern Argus and Borough of Hackney Gazette 13
Oct 1900 p3
(2)
Hackney and Kingland Gazette 15 Oct 1900 p3
(3)
Ibid
(4)
Illustrated Police News 06 Feb 1909 p11
(5)
Shoreditch Observer 11 Feb 1905 p3
(6)
Morning Advertiser – 02 June 1913 p6
(7)
The 1901 Census, 32 Harwar Street: Head of the Household: William PEAD, Publican’s
Manager. Downloaded from Find My Past –
26 May 2025
(A)
The stabbing of F R James FRIEND by his partner in
Maria Street resulted in Emily DOLAN being sentenced at the Old Bailey for 12
years penal servitude for Manslaughter, a charge of Murder being withdrawn – See
The Proceeding of the Old Bailey 1909
.JPG)
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