Hi,
Last night I watched Barbara Windsor on "Who do you think you are", finding her East London roots.
Apart from being irritated at the fact that certificates will now take weeks rather than days to arrive and all the genealogy sites will be busier than ever, I have to admit that I found the programme extremely enlightening.
I have been researching my partner's family and many of them were also born in the Bethnal Green / Shoreditch areas. In my ignorance where Victorian London is concerned, I thought that people with a trade or a skill would not be living in such horrific conditions as we saw last night. Am I totally wrong on this. The men in my partner's family were employed as plasterers, picture frame makers, walking stick makers, rug makers, bricklayers, amongst other things. Did these jobs give them a living of any sort?
They lived in Totty ( Tolly ?) Street, Carlisle Street, Wennington Road, Longnor Road, West Street,Turville Street amongst other places. Were these as desperately poor as I now think they were?
Were Mile End Old and New Towns as poor as Bethnal Green and, if so, how did someone from there manage to have an education which gave him the chance to be a banker's clerk and later to be a resident caretaker in Threadneedle Street?
Social history ( and Geography) lesson needed please.
Thanks,
Jen
