Shadwell
Basin History
A Brief History of Wapping
by Zoe Spencer
Wapping was originally a Saxon
settlement, believed to be that of Waeppa's people, and
although it is not known exactly where the original site
of the village was, it is known that this area was
marshland until the 16th century when it was drained. It
then became rich meadow and garden ground until it was
acquired for the London Docks. The docks brought with
them thriving business and with that seafarers. Many of
the seamen of Charles II's navy lived in Wapping, and
Samuel Pepys, who was a regular in some of the local
inns, often wrote of the disturbances the seamen created.
In 1666 Pepys describes the riots of the seamen over
their working conditions and poor pay, he
wrote:
"…the Duke of Albemarle is gone
with some forces to quell the seamen &endash; which is a
thing of infinite disgrace to us."
In 1798 the river police force was
founded in an attempt to combat the pilfering that was
costing half a million pounds each year. The force was
made up of seamen and watermen who lived dangerously and
were often involved in bloody battles with the thieves of
the river. The Thames police headquarters is still based
in Wapping today. The blue and white building in which it
is housed is adjacent to where the original precinct
would have been.
The warehouses in this area are
Victorian, letting directly onto the river. At one time
they would have all had the catwalks, that is the
walkways high above the streets, joining inland
warehouses to allow the transfer of goods. There are
still two remaining across Wapping High
Street.
Along the road from the Town of
Ramsgate pub you will come across the Pierhead. There is
a small inlet from the river; this is the area where the
Thames fed into the first of the London Docks. In 1800
the London Dock Act was passed, allowing the docks to be
built in Wapping. The Dock Company also wanted a large
amount of land around the docks for the construction of
offices and warehouses. Many homes and small businesses
were swept away and poor people were left, without
compensation, to move to other areas of London. Daniel
Alexander, the architect of Dartmoor prison, designed the
London Docks, and they were classical in design, as
demonstrated in the two buildings at pierhead that are
now the only remaining complete Alexander buildings in
Wapping. The docks had a monopoly for 21 years: all ships
arriving in London with goods such as rice, wine, tobacco
or brandy had to unload here.
Even before the docks, Wapping had a
long history of seafaring. Sir Walter Raleigh's ship was
equipped in Wapping and Ratcliffe before he sailed from
Limehouse for Guyana in 1546. Young James Cook lived in
Wapping and first charted the east coast of Australia in
'Endeavour' with a crew including six other Wapping men.
Captain Bligh of the 'Bounty' also lived for many years
in Wapping.
Tobacco Dock was built later than the
dock that had been adjacent to it, using revolutionary
iron columns. This is all that remains of Alexander's
warehouses. They were redeveloped recently with the
intention of becoming an exclusive shopping centre.
However, it suffered during the recession and is not yet
complete.
By 1969 the docks at Wapping were
empty. In the area between Tobacco Dock and Garnet
Street, in what was the Eastern Dock, trees were planted,
after the 18th Century fashion, and it was optimistically
called Wapping Wood. However, the trees could not survive
and the result is the small park we have today. If you
look carefully, you will notice some telltale signs of
its days as a dock, such as the iron mooring
rings.
The steel bridges at either end of
Shadwell Basin are rolling
bascule bridges, so called for
their seesaw action. In the days when the docks were in
use these bridges were the only means of access, apart
from by boat, into and out of Wapping. Shadwell Basin was
the last of the Wapping Docks to be built, and the only
one to remain to the present day.
Development in the Shadwell area was
greatly encouraged by the enterprising speculator Thomas
Neale, who built the chapel, St. Paul's by Shadwell Basin
in 1656 (rebuilt in 1821). Most of the 8,000 dwellings in
the area at the time were small and wood-framed,
in-filled with bricks. The area between the Highway and
the river became one of the most wretched slums in
Victorian Britain. At the beginning of the 19th century
Malcolm said:
"Thousands of useful tradesmen,
artisans and mechanicks and numerous watermen inhabit
[Shadwell] but their homes and workshops will not
bear description."
The Inns of Wapping
In the mid 18th century there 36
taverns in Wapping, along Wapping Wall and Wapping High
Street, one of which was run by Hannah Snell, who was
famous for having disguised herself as a man and enlisted
in the army, then later joined the marines.
Walking down the alley running by the
side of the Town of Ramsgate pub you will reach Wapping
Old Stairs. Try to imagine this sight through the eyes of
Charles Dickens, who frequented the inns of Wapping.
Dickens no doubt witnessed the activity going on down the
stairs; he would have known the waterfront of this river
as a decrepit decaying place. It seems likely that he got
much of his inspiration for the characters of his books
from these areas. Indeed he attacked the 'poor law' that
saw many of the poor in Wapping suffering the workhouses,
in "Oliver Twist", in which he describes one of the
Wapping workhouses. Imagine the stench of the washed-up
sewage clinging to the stairs at high tide. In Dickens's
time London had far outgrown the capacity of its natural
environment to absorb human and animal waste, and
persistent outbreaks of cholera eventually triggered a
scheme for London sewerage.
John Newton, a Wapping slave-trader,
landed his cargoes for sale near the Town of Ramsgate
pub. Later, when he was converted from supporting
slavery, and actively rallying against the barbaric
trade, he wrote "Amazing Grace".
In the backyard of the Town of
Ramsgate are the gallows put up to commemorate the
capture of Judge Jeffreys, the so-called Hanging Judge.
He was well known in the area and often turned up to
court after one too many ales. It is said by some that it
is in this public house that he was captured as he tried
to make his escape to France by boat in 1688. It has been
suggested that he was lured back ashore by the temptation
of a final tipple for the road! Sir George, born in 1648,
was the first Baronet Jeffrey of Wem. On the 100th
anniversary of his death it was said of him:
"...though a Judge his legal learning
was small, but his talent in cross-examination was great
and his language, though always colloquial and frequently
coarse, was forceful."
Judge Jeffreys was taken to the Tower
of London where he died a natural death aged 40 &endash;
the cause of which was a large kidney stone aggravated by
his excessive drinking.
The Turks Head Inn supposedly held a
licence to serve the last quart of ale to the condemned
pirates on their final journey from Newgate prison to
Execution Dock. Execution Dock, where Wapping Underground
station is now, was the official place of hanging. The
criminal was hung from a rope and left for three tides,
then the body was covered in tar and hung in the streets
as a warning to others. The notorious Captain William
Kidd was hanged there in 1701. The last men to be hanged
at Execution Dock were George Davis and William Watts,
who were hanged for murder and mutiny on the High Seas on
the 17th December in 1830.
The artist Joseph Mallard William
Turner supposedly owned Turners Old Star Pub. It is
thought that Turner often visited Wapping for inspiration
under the pseudonym "Admiral Puggy Booth". Some believe
that Turner enjoyed Wapping as a place of debauchery, and
that the erotic sketches found in his estate, were all
done here. There is some doubt as to the truth of this.
However, it is thought that when he painted "The Fighting
Temeraire" he must have been on the river shore at
Wapping, as the old boat of Trafalgar fame was dragged to
the breakers yard at Rotherhithe across the
river.
It is surprising that an area, which
once had an unsavoury reputation and image, attracted the
likes of Turner, Dickens and Whistler into its inns. They
were all known to frequent the Prospect
of Whitby, previously named
the Pelican and established c.1520. In Samuel Pepys's day
it was locally known as the Devil's Tavern because of its
association with river thieves and smugglers. The pub's
name was changed in 1777 after a ship named the Prospect,
which was registered at Whitby, moored off the tavern and
became a landmark.
Wapping was a place of many marvels,
its seamen brought back wondrous souvenirs from the
distant lands they discovered. In the early 18th Century
a sailor sold an unknown plant here at the Prospect of
Whitby, to a local market gardener &endash; it became
known as the fuchsia.
The pub has many interesting features,
including the flagstone floor and the pewter bar top. On
the balcony at the back of the pub there stands a set of
gallows, again in commemoration of the Hanging Judge
Jeffreys. To the right of the pub there is a small alley
leading to the Pelican Stairs, when the tide is low you
can go down onto the foreshore.
It is not hard to imagine Wapping as
it once was; the narrow streets lined by the high walls
of the warehouses with the evil smell of the Victorian
river drifting into the streets; the thriving dockland
community by day and dimly lit by gas-light and eerily
sinister by night.
Where did the names Wapping and
Shadwell come from?
Many places settled by the
Anglo-Saxons have names ending in '-ing', which in old
English meant 'son'. In place names it was usually short
for 'ingas' meaning 'sons' or 'people of'. Many believe
that the name came from a chieftain, Waeppa, and that the
name means 'the people of Waeppa'. Others think the name
came from 'wapol' meaning 'bubble' or 'foam', an apt
description for the marsh at Wapping.
The name Shadwell is believed to be
derived from 'Schadfleet', meaning shallow river, by
some. But perhaps it comes from 'St Chad's Well', a
spring discovered by St Chad.
Further Reading
Ashworth, N. (1992) Wapping
Tales
Darby, M. (1990) Captain Bligh in
Wapping, History of Wapping Trust
Darby, M. (1998) Waeppa's people: A
History of Wapping, published by
Connor and
Butler, on behalf of the History of Wapping
Trust
Ritchie, R.C. (1987) Captain Kidd and
the war against pirates
Smith-Mason, C. (1998) The Stones of
Wapping DOICA Ltd
The Wapping History Group (1994) Down
Wapping, Hobart's vanished Wapping
A Brief History of Wapping - Zoe
Spencer