London's East End
- Tower Hamlets Introduction by Professor Eade
- ..During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the rapid expansion of London’s `East End’ saw the emergence of a self-conscious working class, as lower middle class clerks, supervisors and small businessmen moved further out into the expanding suburbs. A sharp social and economic boundary also separated this working class East End from the City of London’s merchants and the aristocratic and upper middle class quarters in the West End. Although East London’s working class neighbourhoods may have appeared at first sight to be homogeneous, they were riven
by ethnic and racial differences as people arrived from the surrounding countryside, from other parts of Britain, from Ireland and from Eastern Europe.
- ..Until the 1970s the local working class relied heavily on the Victorian industrial belt stretching round the City of London to the north and south, as well as the docks and their associated services. This mixture of manufacturing and dock enterprise linked the East End to the national economy and to a global economy shaped by colonialism.
A distinctively working class culture was reflected in the rhythms of work and leisure. These occupational and cultural forces informed and were, in turn, shaped by the political changes of the early 20th century where the municipal socialism of the Labour Party was challenged by Communist, Ratepayer, Conservative and Far Right
organisations. After the Second World War the Labour Party established an almost undisputed position in response to local social restructuring, the physical rebuilding of neighbourhoods and global political developments such as the emerging ‘Cold War’.
- ..Working class communities had been severely disrupted by the 1940 ‘blitz’ and subsequent re-housing. The development of ‘new towns’ beyond London after 1945 further weakened the working class since they heavily recruited members of the local skilled working class. However, the most decisive blow was delivered by the closing
of the docks and their associated services during the 1970s and early 1980s. The establishment of the London Docklands Development Corporation in 1981 by the new Conservative national government initiated the restructuring of the dock neighbourhoods for high technology enterprises and business and financial services
relocating from the City of London. A new workforce was drawn to ‘Docklands’ – middle class commuters and settlers occupying new private housing. The restructuring of the global economy combined with national politics to produce a new urban landscape where those profiting from global flows of capital, technology and information now lived close to the remnants of the former industrial world. The old working class communities and the new middle class settlers are not homogeneous, of course. Differences of occupation and skill overlapped with ethnic and racial solidarities. Before 1939 dock labour was recruited predominantly from English and Irish families while Jewish settlers from Russia and Poland dominated the garment industry. Those employed in high technology enterprises and the finance and business services of ‘Docklands’ are largely white English newcomers. At the topmost levels of the finance and business services are the more transitory members of the global elites who are drawn from diverse nations, especially those in North America, the European Union and the Pacific Rim.
- ..Although most of these Bangladeshi settlers were employed in manual jobs across the industrial and service sector, a few entered white collar jobs in education, local government, welfare and social services and the professions. While their life chances were conditioned by the structural class position jobs in education, local government, welfare and social services and the professions, their social identities were also shaped by ethnic differences based on continuing links with their country of origin and Islam. This interplay between class and ethnic identities was reflected in local political struggles where secularist and Islamist factions supported competing uses of local urban space.
