London's East End

The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is an area of Central and East London, England; east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London, and north of the River Thames. The East End is the historic core of wider East London but is not defined by any universally accepted boundaries, though the various channels of the River Lea are often considered to be the eastern boundary.

The East End's emergence began in the Middle Ages with initially slow urban growth outside the eastern walls, which subsequently accelerated, especially in the 19th century, to absorb pre-existing settlements.

The first known written record of the East End as a distinct entity, as opposed its component parts, comes from John Strype's 1720 'Survey of London', where he describes London as consisting of four parts: the City of London, Westminster, Southwark, and "That Part beyond the Tower".

The relevance of Strype's reference to the Tower was more than geographical. The East End was the major part of an area called the Tower Division, which owed military service to the Tower of London. Later, as the East End grew and the Tower Division contracted, the East End became, arguably, conterminous with the Tower Division.

The area was notorious for its deep poverty, overcrowding and associated social problems. This has led to the East End’s history of intense political activism and association with some of the country’s most influential social reformers.

Another major theme of East End history has been that of migration; both inward and outward. The area had a strong pull on the rural poor from other parts of England and attracted waves of migration from further afield: notably Huguenot refugees, who created a new extramural suburb in Spitalfields in the 17th century.,Irish weavers,Ashkenazi Jews and, in the 20th century, Bangladeshis.

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