The London Borough of Newham

The London Borough of Newham

The London Borough of Newham was created in 1965 out of the Essex

county boroughs of East Ham and West Ham. These were rural villages

until a century ago, and fortunately the medieval parish churches and

a few other ancient buildings survive as a reminder of this rustic

past.

The area has always been a gateway between London and Essex, with farm

animals and food produce being raised or passing through Newham for

London markets and manufactured goods coming out of London to serve

local needs. The availability of water power (the River Lea) and the

absence of strict London guild controls saw Newham grow in the 17th

and 18th centuries as an industrial area, with workshops - such as the

famous Bow China factory - built along the Lea valley.

In the 19th century, when the Royal Docks were built as the hub of

imports and exports for the whole British Empire and as other

industries grew rapidly thanks to good railway connections, vast

numbers of people from Essex and beyond moved into Newham in search of

work. West Ham in particular was a major manufacturing centre with

chemical, pharmaceutical, retail, railway and printing industries.

East Ham was strongly residential, and has a distinctive Victorian and

Edwardian architectural heritage, notably its magnificent Italianate

town hall.

Between the wars, the two boroughs had a joint population of over half

a million; the area suffered the worst of the Blitz which left much of

the area a wasteland, though there was considerable pride too in the

traditional grit and humour which somehow got everyone through.

After the war, massive reconstruction and new...

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...opment were being drawn up

by West Ham Council. The aim was to reduce the population, transfer

industry and provide new housing such as that on the Keir Hardie

Estate which included also schools and welfare services.

Housing schemes in the early post war years followed a ‘garden city’

pattern with low density housing. But supply could not keep up with

demand and in 1961 the first high-rise units appeared in Canning Town

followed by Scrapbook Point and Dunlop Point in Silver town (1967) and

others which took their names from firms that had been in the areas

where they now stood, such as Albion and Brocklebank tower blocks in

North Woolwich. The collapse of one of the blocks - Ronan Point - in

1968 led to a rethink on high density housing and most of the tall

blocks have since been demolished or cut down in size.