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During the 17th century, wealthy traders and Huguenot silk weavers moved to the area, establishing a textile industry centered to the south around Spitalfields.
By the 19th century Shoreditch was also the locus of the furniture industry; now commemorated in the Geffrye Museum on Kingsland Road.
However the area declined, along with both textile and furniture industries, and by the end of the 19th Century, Shoreditch was a byword for crime, prostitution and poverty. This situation was not improved by extensive devastation of the housing stock in the Blitz during World War II and insensitive redevelopment in the post war period, in which whole swathes of the old terraces were replaced by brutalist high-rises.
[edit] Administration
The medieval parish of Shoreditch (St Leonard's), was originally part of the county of Middlesex until 1889 when it became part of the County of London. The parish vestry was the local unit of administration until the creation of the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch in 1899 in the same area.
Shoreditch town hall can still be seen on Old Street. It has been restored and is now run by the Shoreditch Town Hall Trust. The Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch was made up of three main districts in all: Shoreditch, Hoxton and Haggerston. The whole Metropolitan Borough was incorporated into the much larger London Borough of Hackney in 1965.
[edit] Victorian music hall and theatre
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Shoreditch was a centre of entertainment to rival the West-End and boasted of these theatres and Music halls:
1867 Poster from the National Standard Theatre
- The National Standard Theatre, 2/3/4 Shoreditch High Street (1837-1940). In the late 19th century this was one of the largest theatres in London. In 1926 it was converted into a cinema called The New Olympia Picturedrome. The building was demolished in 1940. Sims Reeves, Mrs Marriott and James Anderson all performed here; as well as programmes of classical opera and even Shakespeare, with such luminaries as Henry Irving. There was considerable rivalry with the West End theatres, in a letter from John Douglass (the owner, from 1845) to The Era after a Drury Lane first night, in which he says that "seeing that a hansom cab is used in the new drama at Drury Lane, I beg to state that a hansom cab, drawn by a live horse was used in my drama . . . . produced at the Standard Theatre in ....... - and so on- "with real rain, a real flood, and a real balloon."
- The Shoreditch Empire aka The London Music Hall, 95-99 Shoreditch High Street, (1856-1935). The theatre was rebuilt in 1894 by Frank Matcham. the architect of the Hackney Empire. Charlie Chaplin is recorded as performing here, in his early days, before he achieved fame in America.
- The Royal Cambridge Music Hall, 136 Commercial Street (1864-1936), was destroyed by fire in 1896, then rebuilt in 1897 by Finch Hill, the designer of the Britannia Theatre, in nearby Hoxton. The Builder of December 4 1897, said The New Cambridge Music Hall in Commercial Street, Bishopsgate, is now nearing completion. The stage will be 41ft wide by 30ft deep . The premises will be heated throughout by hot water coils, and provision has been made for lighting the house by electric light.
1907 Hetty King sheet music, expressing a concern of modern residents
Sadly, none of these places of entertainment survive today. For a brief time, Music hall was revived in Great Eastern Street, by the temporary home of the Brick Lane Music hall, this too, has now moved on.
A number of playbills and posters from these Music halls, survive in the collections of both the Bishopsgate Institute and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Since post-war decline, Shoreditch has risen up to become a popular and fashionable part of London. Often combined with neighbouring Hoxton, the area has been subject to considerable gentrification in the past twenty years, with accompanying rises in property prices.
The Crowne Plaza Hotel, Shoreditch
A former citadel of the working classes, Shoreditch and Hoxton have been colonised by Boho yuppies and the artistic set who have turned former furniture warehouses into loft apartments and made Hoxton Square the centre of contemporary bohemia. Curtain Road and Old Street are notable for their clubs and pubs which offer a variety of venues to rival those of the West End.
Art galleries, bars, restaurants, media businesses, the building of the Hackney Community College campus and SPACe Sports Centre and an urban golf club are further features of this transformation. However, to the north, east and south, urban dereliction is still prevalent. Other traditions of working class entertainment survive on Shoreditch High Street where the music halls of yesteryear have been replaced by the greatest concentration of striptease venues in London (Clifton 2002). Also, further south on Commercial Street prostitution is still rife (Taylor 2001: 61).
[edit] Notable local residents
- Matt Monro - Singer (Born Terence Parsons on December 1st 1930) Dubbed "The singers singer" and "The British Sinatra") Famous for singing the 1st James Bond 007 hit "From Russia with love" and "On days like these" from the film "The Italian job"
- William Shakespeare - lodged in nearby Bishopsgate and wrote and performed plays for both The Theatre and Curtain Theatre. A small chapel in Hollywell Street commemorated his association with the area, but was destroyed in World War II. A pub sign that claimed that he drank in the White Horse on Shoreditch High Street has recently been removed.
- William Sommers - Henry VIII's jester; buried in Shoreditch church.
- Richard Tarleton - Elizabethan comedian. Shakespeare's Yorick is believed to be a homage to his memory. Buried in Shoreditch church.
- Barbara Windsor comediene, film actress and modern 'soap' star, was born here.
- William Fairman, the radio presenter, has lived in Shoreditch since 2001.
- Damien Hirst artist, was key to the redefinition of the area's art scene in the 1980s and 90s
- Tracey Emin also member of YBA scene still lives in nearby Spitalfields
- Alexander McQueen, fashion designer, was resident for several years on Kingsland Road in the same period
- Hoxton Tom McCourt, influential in the late 1970s and early 1980s mod and oi/punk scenes and founder of the band, the 4-Skins born in Shoreditch in 1961
High above 38 Great Eastern Street, a painted stone wall made the claim "The Old Blue Last. The First House Where Porter Was Sold. Truman Hanbury, Buxton & Co. Entire". This 1700 public house (rebuilt 1876) was said to be the originator of London Porter, a beer, popular in the 18th century and peculiar to London, that is no longer sold, but evolved into Guinness.
[edit] Education
- For details of education in Shoreditch see the Hackney article
[edit] Transport
[edit] Nearest places
The railway bridge on Kingsland Road - an essential part of the East London Line extension. (September 2005)
In 2005 funding was announced for the East London Line Extension which would extend the existing line from Whitechapel tube station bypassing Shoreditch tube station (which closed in June 2006) and creating a new station titled Shoreditch High Street at the site of the old Bishopsgate Goods Yard which was demolished in 2004.
[edit] Nearest stations
[edit] Disused stations
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Ackroyd, Peter (2000) London: The Biography . Chatto & Windus, London.
- Clifton, L. (2002) Baby Oil and Ice: Striptease in East London. The Do-Not Press Limited: London.
- Clunn, H.P. (1970) The Face of London. Spring Books: London.
- Harrison, P. (1985) Inside the Inner City: Life Under the Cutting Edge. Penguin: Harmondsworth.
- Mander, D. (1996) More Light, More Power: An Illustrated History of Shoreditch. Sutton.
- Schoenbaum, S. (1987) William Shakespeare: a Compact Documentary Life,OUP.
- Shapiro, J. (2005) 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. Faber and Faber, London.
- Sugden, K. (n.d.) Under Hackney: The Archaeological Story. FHA.
- Taylor, W. (2001) This Bright Field. Methuen: London.
- Wood, M (2003) In Search of Shakespeare. BBC Worldwide, London.
- "Asbo TV" BBC News 10th Jan 2006
[edit] External links
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