Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
13
East London Mosque
82-92 Whitechapel Rd • Mon-Fri 9am-10pm • Free •
T
020 7650 3000,
W
eastlondonmosque.org.uk •
!
Whitechapel
Whitechapel Road boasts the most visible symbol of Muslim presence in the East End,
the
East London Mosque
, a gaudy red-brick 1980s building, with a golden dome and
minarets, which seats five thousand. Its size completely overwhelms tiny
Fieldgate
Street Great Synagogue
, dating from 1899, which lies behind the mosque, and is
hemmed in on three sides by its neighbour.
Whitechapel Bell Foundry
33-34 Whitechapel Rd • Mon-Fri 9am-5pm • Free • Guided tours Sat 10am, 1.30 & 4pm; £12; no under-14s •
T
020 7247 2599,
W
whitechapelbellfoundry.co.uk •
!
Whitechapel
On the south side of the street, the
Whitechapel Bell Foundry
occupies the short
terrace of Georgian houses on the corner of Fieldgate Street. Big Ben, the Liberty
Bell, the Bow Bells and numerous English church bells (including those of
Westminster Abbey) all hail from the foundry, established in 1570. Inside, there's a
small exhibition on the history of the foundry, which is the oldest manufacturing
company in the country.
Whitechapel Market
Mon-Sat 8am-6pm •
!
Whitechapel
Whitechapel Road widens halfway along, at the beginning of
Whitechapel Market
,
once one of the largest hay markets in London, now given over to everything from
nectarines to net curtains, and including a large number of stalls catering for the
local Bangladeshi and Somali communities. In the 1890s, this was where casual
workers used to gather to be selected for work in the local sweatshops, earning it the
Yiddish nickname
Hazer Mark
,
or “pig market”. The sole reminder of those days is
the Edward VII monument at the centre of the market, erected by the local Jewish
community in 1911.
ANARCHISTS IN THE EAST END
Founded in 1886 by Charlotte Wilson and Prince Kropotkin, the
Freedom Press
(Mon-Sat
noon-6pm, Sun noon-4pm;
T
020 7247 9249,
W
freedompress.org.uk;
!
Aldgate East), a
small anarchist bookshop and printing press in Angel Alley, by the side of the Whitechapel
Art Gallery, is the lone survivor of an East End tradition of radical politics that reached its
height at the end of the nineteenth century. For a roll call of famous anarchists, check out the
stainless-steel portrait gallery in Angel Alley. East End anarchism found a strong following
among the Jewish community especially, and supporters of the
Arbeter Fraynd
newspaper
(whose editor was the wonderfully named Rudolf Rocker) staged atheist demonstrations
outside Orthodox synagogues on the Sabbath, as well as making other gestures like
ostentatiously smoking and eating ham sandwiches. In 1907, delegates to the Fifth Congress
of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party staged a meeting on the corner of Fulbourne
Street attended by, among others, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Gorky, Litvinov and Rosa Luxembourg.
The local Jubilee Street Anarchist Club later loaned £1700 to the Bolsheviks, and were paid
back in full by the Soviet government after the revolution.
The event for which the anarchists are best remembered, however, is the
Siege of Sidney
Street
, which took place in January 1911. A gun battle occurred after a routine police
enquiry at the back of a jeweller's on Houndsditch, and left one Russian anarchist and three
policemen dead. Over the next few weeks, all but three of the anarchist gang were arrested;
following a tip-off, the three were eventually cornered in a building on Sidney Street. A
further gun battle ensued: a detachment of Scots Guards and two cannons were deployed,
and even the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, put in an appearance. By lunchtime the
house was in flames, leaving two charred bodies in the burnt-out shell. However, the
ringleader, nicknamed Peter the Painter, vanished without trace, to join the likes of Jack
the Ripper as an East End legend.
