What kind of area was WEST HAM??

[Lady constance]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick question, i found a really awsome site online that has the map showing areas of poverty and wealth in and around london. the problem is it doesn't go up as far as West Ham, Plaistow area.

Lots of my relatives moved to this area in the 1880 era. Was wondering what kind of area it was?

just wondering:-)

any musing or suggestions greatfully contemplated:-)

Constance

[Clincher]

Good morning my Lady-
 Plaistow - pronounced Plarsto by the locals and Playstow by BBC radio presenters.
It is close to where the docks used to be so I guess most people in that area had work related to the docks/warehousing/transport etc.
I would say that most of the streets were made up of fairly close-packed terraced houses occupied by working-class people. The area suffered a lot of bombing in WW2 and a lot of the housing was replaced by high-rise flats in 1960s.
I suspect that most of the streets are as they were in 1880s in outline but a lot of the buildings would be relatively modern. If you want to be more specific I'll try to add further detail.
Well before 1880s it would have had a railway which now forms part of the London Underground District Line

[Lady constance]

Thanks so much for your reply,

i have the following street names if they will help you at all... i have found some modern images from these areas, but i don't have a time machine. (one object that i would dearly love to own.... )

Katherine street West Ham... many years spent there.
Peter St West Ham
Beckton road West ham
Crofton Road, Plaistow (my granddad was born at no 94. :-)

any further ideas?

love to know


kind regards,

Constance

[Indaloman]

Thanks so much for your reply,

i have the following street names if they will help you at all... i have found some modern images from these areas, but i don't have a time machine. (one object that i would dearly love to own.... )

Katherine street West Ham... many years spent there.
Peter St West Ham
Beckton road West ham
Crofton Road, Plaistow (my granddad was born at no 94. :-)

any further ideas?

love to know


kind regards,

Constance

My family have lived for over 150 years in West Ham. Sorry a small point is its Katherine Road, my father during the war, sneaked home,  parked his army lorry in the grounds of Katherine House and it was bombed over night, I wounder how it got out of that one. On the corner of Katherine Road and Milton Avenue Dame Vera Lynn lived in a huge house which is still standing. I lived in Milton Avenue as a kid and can remember my best friend and I found a small bomb and proudly took it to the police station and asked if we could keep it, the policeman told us to *** off! Also of course West Ham was in Essex and therefore may not be listed as in London. Clincher is quite right it was terraced housing in the main and the docks played a huge part of daily life. My family were seamen my wife's watermen, tugmasters and dock labourers. There were very rich areas of West Ham in the Romford Road area. Holy Trinity is the main church for the Plaistow Parish

[Lady constance]

Oh wow, :-)

my nana and her family moved from there in the early 20's to New Zealand  so escaped the bobming of the area. except that all her siblings (including herself) went as served during the war overseas. She was a nurse in Egypt!

but they lived there between the 1880 - 1901 that i can tell....don't know after that till the census comes out.

Nice to here from you
Constance

[PrueM]

Hi Constance,
I've got ancestors living in West Ham from the 1830s - 1880s and then another lot in 1881-about 1890. 
The first lot were farmers and market gardeners from Kent, who moved to Essex for some reason in the mid 1830s, and continued market gardening in West Ham (Whalebone Lane) for several decades.

The second lot were a newly married couple who ran a private tuition institution for a short time in a new area of West Ham.  It looks like new suburban subdivisions were being put in around that time (1880) and you can see evidence of this on one of the old maps on this site:  http://www.old-maps.co.uk/

Just put the following coordinates into the search box at top left, and choose "coordinates" and click search:  539826,183951
You will get a choice of maps, choose the top one (Essex).  Then, when you see the map, click the "show enlarged view" option and you will get a nice big ordnance survey map to look at.  Look over at the far right and you will see some new roads sketched in, just above the London-Tilbury Railway.  These are the new subdivisions.

Hope that helps 

Prue

[Clincher]

I think it is accurate to say that West Ham was (still is?) the Registration District covering all those streets and those streets are in localities such as:
Katherine Street runs from edge of Forest Gate in north to Upton Park, East Ham in south. Solid terrace houses on main road. Nice place to live in before  the car was invented. Most houses from 1880s still there I suspect but open to correction. Lots of houses converted to shops
Peter St - can't find that on modern map.
Beckton Road - closer to Canning Town than Plaistow -I remember working briefly at huge gasworks and coking-plant in 1950s which dated from 1880s if not before. This area massively re-developed. Gasworks may have disappeared by now.
Crofton Road - co-incidentally I drove down Prince Regent Lane past the end of this road recently. Off the main road and possibly intact from Victorian times.
I've just read Indaloman's message - many of the houses in Romford Road are still there. Basements for the servants to live and 2 or 3 storeys on top of that. Went into multi-occupation by WW2 and area declined rapidly but now being partly 'gentrified'

[Lady constance]

It really makes a difference knowing that these places are in some way "real" when researching the people that lived in them.

living in Australia it make it very difficult to place people in an environment. If you know what i mean.

thanks so much for your comments they really do help.

this is the family that comes from that area...

http://ketleyfamilytree.rootschat.net/ketleyphotopage.htm

the big photo with about 14 people in is an riot of very "interesting people" i have nicknamed them with very nastly names im afraid to say... i have never seen so strange people together..



thanks for the tip about the map i will look that up. i tried old maps earlier but i just got a black screen. I'll give it another go now..

thanks again

Constance

[PrueM]

Hi Lady Constance 

I know what you mean - I live in Australia too! 

I hope you can get Old Maps to work, it's such a great site.  West Ham is very different today from back when it must have been open fields, small farms and not much else!

Prue