Silvertown is a district in the

London Borough of Newham The London Borough of Newham is a London borough created in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. It covers an area previously administered by the Essex county boroughs of West Ham and East Ham, authorities that were both abolished by the s ...

, in

east London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

, England. It lies on the north bank of the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

and was historically part of the parishes of

West Ham West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham. The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancien ...

and

East Ham East Ham is a district of the London Borough of Newham, England, 8 miles (12.8 km) east of Charing Cross. East Ham is identified in the London Plan as a Major Centre. The population is 76,186. It was originally part of the Becontree Hun ...

, hundred of Becontree, and the historic county of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. Since 1965, Silvertown has been part of the London Borough of Newham, a

local government district The districts of England (also known as local authority districts or local government districts to distinguish from unofficial city districts) are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the st ...

of Greater London. It forms part of the London E16 postcode district along with

Canning Town Canning Town is a district in the London Borough of Newham, East London. The district is located to the north of the Royal Victoria Dock, and has been described as the "Child of the Victoria Docks" as the timing and nature of its urbanisation ...

and

Custom House A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting c ...

. The area was named after the factories established by Stephen William Silver in 1852, and is now dominated by the

Tate & Lyle Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business i ...

sugar refinery and the John Knight ABP

animal rendering Rendering is a process that converts waste animal tissue into stable, usable materials. Rendering can refer to any processing of animal products into more useful materials, or, more narrowly, to the rendering of whole animal fatty tissue into pur ...

plant. A £3.5billion redevelopment of part of the district was approved in 2015.

History

In 1852 S.W. Silver & Company moved to the area from Greenwich and established a rubber works, originally to make waterproof clothing. This subsequently developed into the works of the

India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company The India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company was a London-based company based in Silvertown, East London. It was founded by Stephen William Silver in March 1864 as Silver's Indiarubber Works and Telegraph Cable Company Ltd. However ...

, which constructed and laid many

submarine cable Submarine cable is any electrical cable that is laid on the seabed, although the term is often extended to encompass cables laid on the bottom of large freshwater bodies of water. Examples include: *Submarine communications cable *Submarine power ...

s. By the 1860s a number of manure and chemical works and petroleum storage depots had been set up. In 1864, the area became an ecclesiastical parish of its own, centred on the church of St Mark's. Sugar refiners in the area were joined by

Henry Tate Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet (11 March 18195 December 1899) was an English sugar merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the Tate Gallery in London. Life and career Born in White Coppice, a hamlet near Chorley, Lancashire, Tate wa ...

in 1877 and

Abram Lyle Abram Lyle (14 December 1820 – 30 April 1891) is noted for founding the sugar refiners '' Abram Lyle & Sons'' which merged with the company of his rival Henry Tate to become Tate & Lyle in 1921. Early life He was born on 14 December 1820 i ...

in 1881, whose companies merged in 1921 to form

. Prior to the merger, which occurred after they had died, the two men were bitter business rivals, although they had never met. Tate & Lyle still has two large refineries in the area. In 1889 Silver's factory was the scene of a twelve-week-long strike by the majority of its 3,000 workers. The strikers were demanding higher pay and were inspired by the recent successes of New Unionism in the East End of London. Management refused to negotiate with the strikers who had immense popular support. Leading figures in the strike included

Tom Mann Thomas Mann (15 April 1856 – 13 March 1941), was an English trade unionist and is widely recognised as a leading, pioneering figure for the early labour movement in Britain. Largely self-educated, Mann became a successful organiser and a ...

and

Eleanor Marx Jenny Julia Eleanor Marx (16 January 1855 – 31 March 1898), sometimes called Eleanor Aveling and known to her family as Tussy, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a socialist activist who sometimes worked as a ...

. The workers were eventually starved back to work, with many being victimised for their role. In the aftermath of the strike, Silver's declared a half-yearly dividend of 5 percent. The rest of the industry congratulated Silver's management for holding a line against New Unionism. On 19 January 1917, parts of Silvertown were devastated by a massive

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

explosion at the Brunner-Mond munitions factory, in what is known as the

Silvertown explosion The Silvertown explosion occurred in Silvertown in West Ham, Essex (now part of the London Borough of Newham, in Greater London) on Friday, 19 January 1917 at 6:52 pm. The blast occurred at a munitions factory that was manufacturing explos ...

. Seventy three people died and hundreds were injured in one of the largest explosions ever experienced in the British Isles. In the early 20th century the area suffered greatly from road congestion due to being located between the

and the

Royal Docks Royal Docks is an area and a ward in the London Borough of Newham in the London Docklands in East London, England. The area is named after three docks – the Royal Albert Dock, the Royal Victoria Dock and the King George V Dock. They are mo ...

, then the largest and one of the busiest dock groups in the world. The area was cut off for much of the time by lifting bridges over dock entrances and

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

s which were closed for up to three-quarters of each hour by train movements. This led in the early 1930s to the construction of the elevated ''Silvertown Way'', one of the earliest urban flyovers. On the first night of

The 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 Germa ...

, Tate and Lyle's sugar refinery, John Knight's Primrose Soapworks, and the Silvertown Rubber Works were all badly damaged by bombing. Silver's was eventually taken over by the British Tyre and Rubber Co, later known as

BTR Industries BTR plc was a British multinational industrial conglomerate company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1924, grew strongly by acquisition under Sir Owen Green's leadership, and merged with Siebe plc in 1999 to form BTR ...

. The site closed in the 1960s and is now the Thameside Industrial Estate. Another major local employer was the Loders and Nucoline plant at Cairn Mills, a traditional port oleo industry and formerly part of

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy drink, t ...

. This originally milled seeds but later concentrated on production of fats from

palm kernel oil Palm kernel oil is an edible plant oil derived from the kernel of the oil palm tree ''Elaeis guineensis''. It is related to other two edible oils: ''palm oil'', extracted from the fruit pulp of the oil palm, and ''coconut oil'', extracted from ...

. The area was part of the ancient parishs of

and

, from the 12th century onwards. The Local Government Act 1894 created East Ham Urban District. West Ham became a

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent ter ...

in 1900, before merging with East Ham to create the new

in 1965.

Regeneration

The residential area of Britannia Village was developed in the 1990s. On 21 April 2015,

Newham Council Newham London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Newham. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a di ...

gave planning permission to The Silvertown Partnership for a new £3.5 billion redevelopment in the area. The development will provide offices, a tech hub, 3,000 new homes and brand experience pavilions. A school, health centre and shops are also included in the plan and a new bridge will cross the

to get people to

Custom House station Custom, customary, or consuetudinary may refer to: Traditions, laws, and religion * Convention (norm), a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom * Norm (social), a ...

and

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway ...

London, view from Shooters Hill, Silvertown

The Silvertown Partnership were selected as the development partner to take forward the regeneration of the site. Their plan was to develop the site with homes, restaurants, commercial buildings, local convenience retail facilities, and significant public realm for community use. They predicted that it would provide up to 20,700 new jobs, up to 3,000 homes and contribute £260m each year of gross value to the London economy. The redevelopment is planned to include the restoration of former flour factory

Millennium Mills The Millennium Mills is a derelict turn of the 20th century flour mill in West Silvertown on the south side of the Royal Victoria Dock, between the Thames Barrier and the ExCeL London exhibition centre alongside the newly built Britannia villa ...

. In January 2015, the

Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum, Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first Directly elected may ...

announced an initial £12m of government funding to start work on demolishing part of

and clearing it of

asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...

. Prior to this latest development, the area was transformed in the 1970s by the construction of the

Thames Barrier The Thames Barrier is a retractable Flood barrier, barrier system built to protect the floodplain of most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. It has been operational since 1982. When n ...

, an adjacent park, new housing areas and

London City Airport London City Airport is a regional airport in London, England. It is located in the Royal Docks in the Borough of Newham, approximately east of the City of London and east of Canary Wharf. These are the twin centres of London's financial ...

. In the mid-1990s much of the business activity in the area was centred on the brewing firm Bass. In 2007

Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, (Richard Alexander Walter George; born 26 August 1944) is a member of the British royal family. He is the second son of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, as well ...

visited Silvertown, to formally open the new Silvertown Ambulance Station on North Woolwich Road.

Education

Maritime

The

Thames Refinery is a

safeguarded wharf Safeguarded wharves are those wharves in London which have been given special status by the Mayor of London and the Port of London Authority (PLA) which ensures they are retained as working wharves and are protected from redevelopment into non ...

in the

Port of London The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent) with the North Sea ...

. It is one of the largest sugar refineries in the world, with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per annum. The Raw Sugar and Refined and Shore Berth jetties include two

bulk-handling crane A bulk-handling Crane (machine), crane is one that, instead of a simple hook that can handle a range of slung loads, has an integral grab for lifting bulk cargoes such as coal, mineral ore etc. Where the grab is a two-piece hinged bucket, it is k ...

. The terminal commodities are sugar, as dry bulks, and edible and vegetable oils, as liquid bulks: it exports globally and imports from

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

Transport

From 2020/21 a new station at Custom House station will provide transport to and from the area, using the trackbed of the old North London Line. There is passive provision for a stop serving Silvertown to be built in future. The nearest

Docklands Light Railway stations Dockland or Docklands are areas occupied by, or in the neighbourhood of maritime docks, sometimes described as a Sailortown (dockland). The term is more common in Britain and British Commonwealth. Specifically the term may refer to: * Aarhus Doc ...

is West Silvertown. Access was much improved by an extension of the

Docklands Light Railway The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light metro system serving the redeveloped Docklands area of London, England and provides a direct connection between London's two major financial districts, Canary Wharf and the City of Londo ...

from

to Woolwich Arsenal, which opened on 2 December 2005. However, the old

Silvertown railway station Silvertown railway station was on the North London Line (NLL) serving the Silvertown area of east London, until the station and the eastern section of the line it was on were closed in 2006. It was situated between Custom House (now a Dockland ...

on the North London Line, was closed in 2006. The London Cable Car connects Silvertown with the

Greenwich peninsula The Greenwich Peninsula is an area of Greenwich in South London, South East London, England. It is bounded on three sides by a loop of the River Thames, Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east. To the south is the ...

is located on the eastern edge of Silvertown. A new bridge to connect Silvertown with Crossrail's Custom House station is one of the features of a £3.5bn redevelopment plan for London's Royal Docks. The

Silvertown Tunnel The Silvertown Tunnel is a road tunnel under construction beneath the River Thames between the Greenwich Peninsula and west Silvertown. It is being promoted by Transport for London and will be delivered through a design, build, finance and main ...

is a road tunnel under the Thames which will open in 2025 and provide a toll route to the Greenwich peninsula.

Popular culture

Silvertown is featured in a ballad by

Mark Knopfler Mark Freuder Knopfler (born 12 August 1949) is a British singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Born in Scotland and raised in England, he was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits. He pursued a s ...

, titled '' Silvertown Blues'', which describes the area as it was before redevelopment. The district also features in

Charlie Connelly Charlie Connelly (born 22 August 1970, London, England) is an author of popular non-fiction books. In addition to being a writer, Connelly also appears as a presenter on radio and television shows. Overview Connelly's writing exhibits a self-d ...

's book, ''Attention All Shipping''. In the first chapter "Sea, Soup and Silvertown" the author describes his grandparents' flight from the area during

and the inspiration for the book.

Melanie McGrath Melanie McGrath is a Romford, London, Romford-born English non-fiction writer and crime novelist. Early life Born in Romford, London, Romford, McGrath's parents moved several times during her childhood; to Basildon in Essex, then to a village in ...

's book ''Silvertown'' is a novelistic account of her grandmother's life in the area, where she and her husband ran a cafe. ''

The Sugar Girls ''The Sugar Girls: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End'' is a bestselling work of narrative non-fiction based on interviews with women who worked in Tate & Lyle's East End factories in Silvertown from the mid-1940s onw ...

'', by

Duncan Barrett Duncan Barrett is a writer and editor who specialises in biography and memoir. After publishing several books in collaboration with other authors, he published his first solo book, ''Men of Letters'', in 2014. Barrett also works as an actor and t ...

and Nuala Calvi, tells the true stories of women who worked at

's Silvertown factories, and features much detail on the area.

Notable people

* Frank Bailey (1925–2015), firefighter

References

External links

Silvertown Official Redevelopment Website

Project Silvertown: A film by Ravensbourne students

Stories from Silvertown - Eastside Community Heritage

''The Sugar Girls'' official website
{{Authority control Districts of the London Borough of Newham Areas of London Food processing in London Cable manufacture in London Districts of London on the River Thames Port of London