|
Joseph Merceron
Joseph Merceron (1764–1839) was a British businessman, property developer, parochial politician and magistrate notorious for his corrupt practices. Early life and family Joseph Merceron was born and raised in Brick Lane, Bethnal Green in the East End of London. His family were of prominent Huguenot stock; his grandfather was a refugee who migrated to London following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His father James Merceron (1723–1780) was a former silk-weaver turned pawnbroker and slum landlord who held various offices in the then-new parish of St. Matthew's, Bethnal Green. Bethnal Green was run by an ‘open' (i.e. elected) vestry, which offered opportunities for political manipulation. Merceron was educated at Merchant Taylors' School in the City of London, following which he spent time working in his father's pawnshop and in a local lottery office. Career After the death of his father in 1780 Merceron became rent-collector for the family properties, subseque ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brick Lane
Brick Lane (Bengali: ব্রিক লেন) is a street in the East End of London, in the borough of Tower Hamlets. It runs from Swanfield Street in Bethnal Green in the north, crosses the Bethnal Green Road before reaching the busiest, most commercially active part which runs through Spitalfields, or along its eastern edge. Brick Lane’s southern end is connected to Whitechapel High Street by a short extension called Osborn Street. Today, it is the heart of the country's Bangladeshi community with the vicinity known to some as Banglatown. It is famous for its many curry houses. Early history 15th to 18th centuries The street was formerly known as Whitechapel Lane, and wound through fields. It derives its current name from brick and tile manufacture started in the 15th century, which used the local brick earth deposits. The street featured in the 16th-century Woodcut map of London as a partially-developed crossroad leading north from the city's most easterly edge, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Francis Burdett
Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet (25 January 1770 – 23 January 1844) was a British politician and Member of Parliament who gained notoriety as a proponent (in advance of the Chartists) of universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, and annual parliaments. His commitment to reform resulted in legal proceedings and brief confinement to the Tower of London. In his later years he appeared reconciled to the very limited provisions of the 1832 Reform Act. He was the godfather of Francisco Burdett O'Connor, one of the famed ''Libertadores'' of the Spanish American wars of independence. Family Sir Francis Burdett was the son of Francis Burdett and his wife Eleanor, daughter of William Jones of Ramsbury Manor, Wiltshire. He inherited the family baronetcy from his grandfather Sir Robert Burdett in 1797. From 1820 until his death, he lived at 25 St James's Place, London. Education and early life He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East End Dwellings Company
The East End Dwellings Company was a Victorian architecture, Victorian philanthropic model dwellings company, operating in the East End of London in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The company was founded in principle in 1882 by, among others, Samuel Augustus Barnett, vicar of St Jude's Church, Whitechapel; it was finally incorporated in 1884. Its aim was to "house the very poor while realizing some profit", "their particular purpose being to erect blocks of dwellings, to be let by the room, so that the poorest class of labourers could be accommodated". Unlike many of the model dwellings companies, the EEDC offered accommodation to the casual poor and day labourers. The company's first venture was Katharine Buildings in Aldgate, followed by a number of schemes in Bethnal Green, London. They went on to build around the East End. Along the principles of Octavia Hill's schemes, the company used female rent-collectors, including Beatrice Potter (later Webb), one of the foun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Blitz
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germans conducted mass air attacks against industrial targets, towns, and cities, beginning with raids on London towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940 (a battle for daylight air superiority between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force over the United Kingdom). By September 1940, the Luftwaffe had lost the Battle of Britain and the German air fleets () were ordered to attack London, to draw RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation.Price 1990, p. 12. Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, ordered the new policy on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 of the following 57 days and nights. Most notable was a large daylight ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kray Twins
Ronald Kray (24 October 193317 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 19331 October 2000) were identical twin brothers, gangsters and convicted criminals. They were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London, England, from the late 1950s to 1967. With their gang, known as the Firm, the Kray twins were involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets, gambling, and assaults. In the 1960s, as West End nightclub owners, the Kray twins mixed with politicians and prominent entertainers such as Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. They became celebrities themselves, were photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television. The Kray twins were arrested on 8 May 1968 and convicted in 1969 as a result of the efforts of detectives led by Detective Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read. Each was sentenced to life imprisonment. Ronnie was committed to Broadmoor Hospital in 1979 and remained there until his death on 17 March 1995 fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East End Of London In Popular Culture
The East End of London in popular culture covers aspects of popular culture within the area of the East End of London. The area is roughly that covered by the modern London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and parts of the south of the London Borough of Hackney. Themes Crime, poverty, vice, sexual transgression, drugs, class-conflict and multi-cultural encounters and fantasies involving Jewish, Chinese and Indian immigrants are major themes. Though the area has been productive of local writing talent, from the time of Oscar Wilde's ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (1891) the idea of 'slumming it' in the 'forbidden' East End has held a fascination for a coterie of the literati.William Taylor (2001) ''This Bright Field: A Travel Book in One Place'' The image of the East Ender changed dramatically between the 19th century and the 20th. From the 1870s they were characterised in culture as often shiftless, untrustworthy and responsible for their own poverty.''Family and Kinship in East London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Twist
''Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress'', Charles Dickens's second novel, was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is bound into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets the "Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin. ''Oliver Twist'' unromantically portrays the sordid lives of criminals, and exposes the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century. The alternative title, ''The Parish Boy's Progress'', alludes to Bunyan's ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', as well as the 18th-century caricature series by painter William Hogarth, ''A Rake's Progress'' and ''A Harlot's Progress''. In an early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises child labour, domestic violence, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel may have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nancy (Oliver Twist)
Nancy is a fictional character in the 1838 novel ''Oliver Twist'' by Charles Dickens and its several adaptations for theatre, television and films. She is a member of Fagin's gang and the lover, and eventual victim, of Bill Sikes. As well as Nancy being a thief, a common suggestion is that she is a prostitute, in the modern sense of the word. At no point is this stated directly in the novel; rather it stems from Dickens describing her as such in his preface to the 1841 edition ("the boys are pickpockets, and the girl is a prostitute"). However, it has been speculated that he is invoking the term's then-synonymous usage referring to a woman living out of wedlock or otherwise on the margins of "respectable" society. In spite of her criminality, Nancy is portrayed as a sympathetic figure, whose concern for Oliver overcomes her loyalty to Sikes and Fagin. By the climax of the novel, she is emaciated with sickness and worry, and filled with guilt about the life she is leading. Backg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Sikes
William "Bill" Sikes is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1838 novel '' Oliver Twist'' by Charles Dickens. Sikes is a malicious criminal in Fagin's gang, and a vicious robber and murderer. Throughout much of the novel Sikes is shadowed by his “ bull-terrier” dog Bull's-eye. Role in the novel Dickens describes his first appearance: His girlfriend Nancy reluctantly tolerates, but is intimidated by, his violent behaviour. However, when he thinks Nancy has betrayed him, Sikes viciously murders her. After police identify him as travelling with a dog, Sikes attempts to drown Bull's-eye to rid himself of his companion. In the end he hangs himself while trying to escape. It is left ambiguous whether or not this act was accidental or intentional. Sikes is a somewhat conflicted character. For instance, after preventing her from keeping her midnight appointment with Rose Maylie and Mr Brownlow, he wondered aloud to Fagin if being indoors for so long in their ding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's Bench Prison
The King's Bench Prison was a prison in Southwark, south London, England, from medieval times until it closed in 1880. It took its name from the King's Bench court of law in which cases of defamation, bankruptcy and other misdemeanours were heard; as such, the prison was often used as a debtor's prison until the practice was abolished in the 1860s. In 1842, it was renamed the Queen's Bench Prison, and became the Southwark Convict Prison in 1872. Origins The first prison was originally constructed from two houses and was situated in Angel Place, off Borough High Street, Southwark – as with other judicial buildings it was often targeted during uprisings, being burned in 1381 and 1450. During the reign of King Henry VIII, new prison buildings were constructed within an enclosing brick wall. This was eventually demolished in 1761. New building Its 1758 replacement was built at a cost of £7,800 on a site close to St George's Fields (south of Borough Road, close to its junction ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Grey Bennet
The Honourable Henry Grey Bennet FRS (2 December 1777 – 29 May 1836) was a British politician. Life Bennet was the second of three sons and fourth of eight children of Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville, and his wife, Emma, Lady Tankerville (1752–1836), daughter of banker Sir James Colebrooke, 1st Baronet. He was educated at Eton College (1788–92), served in the 1st Foot Guards, and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1798, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1799. He was called to the bar in 1803, practising on the Western Circuit. Bennet's first election as MP for Shrewsbury in 1806 was invalidated. His advocacy of Catholic emancipation led to defeat in 1807 but he regained his seat in 1811. In the Commons his maiden speech was directed at the Prince Regent. From 1813 to 1815 he was the second president of the Geological Society of London; the Lyell Collection contains his account of the Island of Tenerife. After the Peterloo massacre in 1819 he called for an inquiry into th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Sir Francis Burdett")
