|
Welcome to the Island History Trust Web-site This page gives you some basic information about Trust activities. See other pages for more detail |
|
|
You can visit the Isle of Dogs Photograph Collection by appointment. See Visiting Us
We have moved to a new home in St. John's Community Centre, 37-43 Glengall Grove, London E14 3NE, with easy access for public transport, and parking. We are planning an Island Re-Union Day here on October 5th 2013 - make a note! |
|
|
You can subscribe to The Island History Newsletter |
|
The March/April edition of Island History News came out early in April and includes a feature on the Mudchute. This extraordinary piece of land was farmland over 200 years ago and it is still a farm and a community park today. It was preserved in its present form because in the 1880s an artificial lake or basin was built on what was by then waste land belonging to the Millwall Dock Company. Clinker from local foundries was used to build the high banks and silt from the docks was dredged up and "shot" through a pipe across East Ferry Road into the lake. Since then it has been the adventure playground of innumerable small boys and girls., who sneaked through the broken fences and past the keen eyes of dock company policemen, to fish in the ponds, gather flowers, play hide and seek and slide down the banks on bits of old corrugated iron. In the First World War it was given over to allotments and in the Second World War it housed an army base to defend London against German bombers. In the midst of an industrial town, and with a superstore built on the edge, it still retained its wild and magical character into the 1980s. Even today, because so many trees have been planted, it is a place to get away from it all - the Island's very own green lung. Subscriptions to this Newsletter cost £10 a year if you live in the UK, more if you live abroad, see subscription form for details. Picture: The Mudchute Gunsite, World War Two. There were four gunsites and one of them has recently been restored, complete with ack-ack gun and exhibition about the defence of the Island. go to mudchute.org for more information about this valuable community space |
 |
|
Book Review
London’s Dock Railways, Part I, The Isle of Dogs and Tilbury by Dave Marden, published 2012 by Kestrel Railway Books at £15.95. 110 pages illustrated. ISBN 9781905505272 You do not have to be passionate about railways to enjoy this new publication but you might find yourself addicted before you’ve finished reading it. Dave Marden has been collecting material about the railways in London’s Docks for many years and this is the first of his two-volume saga. The companion volume, about the Royal Group of Docks,is already written and will be out early in 2013. Today, when road transport dominates the movement of freight in Britain (in spite of worthy attempts to get containers on the tracks) we can easily forget the part played by railways in the development and prosperity of the Port of London. The passenger liner terminals within the London dock system were also served by the railways, bringing people directly to the quaysides ready to board. Cheap fares on workmen’s trains also helped to keep the port workforce mobile,bringing it where it was most needed. The West India Docks, opened in 1802 long before the onset of the railway age, were served by purpose-built roads; horse-drawn carts andtramcars connectedthem to the offices and warehouses of the City. This was in addition, of course, to river transport. However, fifty years later these docks were being brought into the new railway network across the UK. The railway dock at Poplar was connected to the North London line so that thousands of tons of coal could be brought into London from mines in the north. When the Millwall and Tilbury Docks were opened in 1868 and 1884 respectively, they were equipped with modern rail connections for bulk carriage of timber, grain, phosphates and other heavy goods. In 1909 the Port of London Authority was formed and took over all the original dock companies, with more than four thousands acres of land and water, miles of quays and railway sidings and dozens of steam locomotives. The life stories of these steam locomotives, many of them highly individual, is a dominant theme in the book. You can get acquainted with Swift, one of three built in 1880 for the Khedive of Egypt, but never sent because of his bankruptcy. It ended up with the PLA and was sold for scrap to George Cohen in 1914. Or there is Manning Wardle No.1008, fitted with a special ashpan and spark arrestor when it was built in 1887. It became PLA loco 34, transferred to the Royals in 1917, was sold to a dealer in Newport in 1927, resold to Thurrock Chalk and Whiting Company in 1937, renamed Albert, and finally scrapped in 1956. From this time onwards there was a good deal of “scrapping” of steam locomotives, first because of the arrival of diesel engines, then because the use of the railways declined and finally ended altogether, as freight took to the roads and then, the docks closed. Anyone who has worked on the railways, anywhere, or in the docks on the Island and at Tilbury, will enjoy this book for the photographs of dock railway scenes and in particular, the detailed maps. The book retails at £15.95 but you can get it direct from the author at £13.50 including postage. Contact him, Dave Marden, on dave.marden@tiscali.co.uk or write to him via Island History, cheques payable to him, and we will pass on your order |
 |
What's Going on At Island History?
Having settled into our new home it's time to start serious work on archiving and cataloguing the Mike Seaborne 1980s Collection of Isle of Dogs Photographs.
Between 1983 and 1986, London photographer Mike Seaborne, working closely with Island History, created this photographic record of life on the Isle of Dogs, just as it was on the point of transition from an industrial and trading community into the finance and banking centre it is today. The work was funded by a small grant from local government arts money, supplemented by voluntary input from Mike and Island History staff. Mike photographed the streets, pubs, small shops, new ASDA superstore, community meetings and action; he spent hours with established Island companies Burrell's, Tate and Lyle, and Lenanton's, recording everyday working life; he captured phases in the construction of the Dockland's Light Railway from Limehouse to Island Gardens as it carved a route across the old Canary Wharf and over the docks. He pictured small businesses at work - car-repair and cafes; he took his camera into Cubitt Town School and George Green's Centre.
Using some of the prints, we made an exhibition called "East Enders - The Final Episode?", which was often displayed at Open Days. Apart from that, Mike then went on to other things, Island History got on with being Island History and for many years the black and white prints Mike had made lay stored away. Like fine wine, they matured as they lay and now they have been brought out into the light of day and found to be of enduring interest.
They are now to be catalogued, captioned, archived and brought into the public domain. Staff at ASDA Superstore are already excited to find that there are over 80 prints about their place of work as it was - with their 30th anniversary coming up, there could be a great way to celebrate! We hope to have workshops there as part of the process of captioning the prints with names and other information.
Mike and Island History curator Eve Hostettler are working on a application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for help with financing the process of bringing the photographs into the public domain, which will include creating albums for the hard copy prints and a website for the digital version. There will also be a Place to View the digital version at Island History, and we have already raised, through donations, the money to pay for the new computer equipment which will provide this facility. Watch this space for updates! In the meantime, if you or someone you know worked at Burrell's or at Tate & Lyle's, you might be able to identify the people and the work processes in the photographs , so please get in touch.
What Else are We Up To?
Newsletter Renewals come in thick and fast at this time of year and volunteers Pam Beresford and Albert Blackall help Eve to process them, while Brian Smith takes care of all the local deliveries. We're delighted with the response this year, both in terms of numbers in so far, and the generosity of subscribers in adding extra donations to the basic £10 fee. This is always a great boost to morale as well as to the bank balance! Please send in your subscription if you haven't already done so.
With another year of life for Island History more or less secure, Eve can think of creating one more Island Calendar and has already started on the broad selection of photographs - toying with the idea of the "First world War" theme at the moment, though this may well change. The Calendar has to be ready for the printers by August.
Meanwhile Eve has been asked to give a talk next spring about the effect of the First World War on the Island community. Thought-provoking: there are some obvious themes such as there was more work for women at home; many men's lives were lost or ruined in the trenches; "Homes for Heroes" were a direct response to wartime suffering. There are also more complex issues and how much of the change we see between 1910 and 1920 can be laid at the door of the First World War and how much is attributable to changes which were happening in society anyway? One question Eve is asking herself is, did the experiences of the First World War hasten the process of better-off people moving away from the Island? And another is: did the experiences of the First World War make knowledge of contraception more widely available and help more people to control the size of their families in the post-war years? The overall theme will be explored through the pages of Island History News in the coming months. If you are looking back at your family history during the first two decades of the twentieth century and can see significant changes taking place which might be due to the War, please get in touch.
For news of some recent visitors, see Noticeboard.