The industrialisation of local agriculture - Jew’s Farm and Wilson’s Farm in East Ham

The origin of these farms is obscure. Jews Farm seemingly lay at the end of what had been called Harrow Lane (named after a local pub) and on John Rocque’s map of the London area in 1746 was Siblemeed Lane. (This is where East Avenue E12 today meets East Ham High Street North and Plashet Grove). This probably refers to a piece pf marshland called Sibley Mead bordering the river Roding, which was sold in 1839 as part of Lord Henniker’s East Ham estates after his death. Today’s Sibley Grove, immediately north of East Ham station, continues the name.

On the Rocque map no farm building is marked, but on the Chapman and Andre map of 1777 buildings have appeared at the end of Jews Farm Lane; this may have been the home of a Jewish farmer named in a document of the 1760s. The farm seems to have disappeared by the early 19^th century but Jews Farm Lane retained its name until it was renamed East Avenue in the 1890s.

On John Rocque’s map “London 10 miles round” 1746 Jews Farm Lane appears as Siblemeed Lane. No farm buildings are marked. Today’s High Street North & Plashet Grove meet at North End above.

By the mid-19^th century East Ham was well-established in vegetable production, growing peas, cucumbers and above all onions for the London market. One of the biggest producers by the 1840s was Thomas Circuit, an incomer to the area from Bedfordshire, who arrived in East Ham about 1840. Circuit rented a holding called Wilson’s Farm in Plashet Lane (today’s Plashet Grove, opposite Plashet Park) and farmland east of what is now High Street North, including the site of Jews Farm.

Circuit and his family lived in the Plashet Lane farmhouse but about 1845 he had already fitted out a building for drying and storing large quantities of onions. This was probably on the Jews Farm site where present day East Avenue meets Sibley Grove. Circuit may have moved to East Ham because he saw the potential for vegetable production to feed the metropolitan market and he contracted to supply Crosse and Blackwell’s Soho factories with onions for pickling. Constructing what became known as the onion sheds enabled him to begin mass production of skinned onions ready for pickling.

The sheds were built well away from the family farm, since they were clearly another example of the “noxious trades” in which both East and West Ham specialised. The site may also have been chosen because in the 1840s the construction of rail links through East Ham into Essex were being actively promoted through bills in parliament. The Jews Farm site was ideally placed next to the eventually constructed line, and at some stage between the 1850s and 1890 sidings were built to serve the onion sheds. This enabled onions to be brought in from Essex for skinning and then shipped on to Crosse and Blackwell’s central London pickling works.

Jews Farm onion sheds c.1890

At mid-century Circuit and his neighbours were still growing vegetables locally. The work was highly seasonal; the workforce on Circuit’s 147 acres of arable and marshland in 1851 was 30 men and boys and 9 women, but in the summer of 1850 Circuit had employed 600 workers, “pulling, carting and peeling onions for pickling”. Pulling and skinning the onions was said to be women’s work, with payment (several times a day) on a piece-work basis, Circuit’s wage bill being about £200 a week during the two-month season.

This seasonal work was insecure, and even during harvest periods was not guaranteed. In 1852 Circuit refused pea-picking work to a group of “mainly Irish” labourers, as he already had enough hands. This resulted in a violent confrontation, with crops damaged before the police arrived to disperse the crowd.

The location of Wilson’s Farm occupied by the Circuits as tenants in Plashet Lane/Grove (left side of map) and the onion sheds in Jews Farm Lane (top right) on the 25-inch OS map c.1895, showing the right of way across the railway tracks where Sarah Ann Merritt was killed.

Around 1860 Thomas Circuit, possibly foreseeing the need to move farming operations away from East Ham as housing development spread, acquired farmland at Rainham in Essex. When he died in 1865 his sons Thomas junior and John seem to have focussed their operations in Essex. Both brothers died young, leaving their property in a family trust, and by 1900 the trust owned or leased several farms in the Upminster and Rainham area.

 Even by the early 1870s John Cubis Circuit was employing 250 workers on the 775-acre Brick House Farm at Rainham. The family retained both Wilson’s Farm and the onion sheds in East Ham, probably under a manager, Thomas Meeks, who was mentioned in Thomas Circuit jnr.’s will as the foreman of “East End Farm” (probably the Circuits’ property in East Ham – Meeks’ home was next to East Ham station). The business was split at this point, with Thomas and John growing onions in Essex which were shipped to East Ham for skinning. The Circuits were able to farm on a much larger scale in rural Essex than in East Ham where land was already being bought up for housing development.  Their farms in Rainham and Upminster were also close to the London Tilbury & Southend Co’s. rail link back to East Ham, and towards the end of the century Essex-grown onions were being shipped by rail to the private siding at the Jews Farm onion works.

 Thomas Circuit jnr. died in 1868, leaving his property in a family trust managed by his brother John and an East Ham farming neighbour Jabez Abbott. As early as 1870 the farm was producing 12,000 bushels of onions a year (well over 300 tonnes) exclusively for Crosse and Blackwell, whose annual output was already two million jars.

  

The farm occupied by the Circuits in Plashet Grove near the corner with East Ham High Street. Here called Circuit’s farm, elsewhere it is referred to as Wilson’s Farm, referring to the landowner. Copy of a watercolour map by Alfred Stokes late C19th, courtesy LB Newham Archive.

John Circuit died in 1876 and the livestock and equipment of Wilson’s Farm (including the onion sheds) were eventually put up for sale in 1883. At that time one of the two onion sheds on the Jews farm site had six floors and the other had three. This was even by local standards a massive operation, and had converted agriculture in East Ham into an industry. Interestingly the 1883 sale also included ploughs, harrows, waggons and “seven powerful horses” suggesting that agricultural production had continued alongside the onion skinning operation, and indeed the fields north of Plashet Lane were part of the farm. They were bought in 1889 and were subsequently developed into Plashet Park.

 This industrial site reflected the conditions prevalent in many factories of the time. In August 1874 an inquest was held on Sarah Ann Merritt, a 16 year-old onion skinner, who had been killed crossing the railway next to the farm. She and many others of the 400 strong work-force were forced by the lack of adequate and clean toilet facilities to cross the line and use a secluded lane on the other side of the railway between East Ham and Barking stations. In summing up the coroner was scathing about “the disgraceful character of the sanitary arrangements” at the farm, and required the Inspector of Health to make an inspection.

Plashet Grove c.1910, showing the entrance to Wilson’s Farm, occupied by the Circuit family while farming in East Ham. Plashet Park is on the left.

 

In response Henry Swann, the works manager, wrote to the papers with a copy of the report by the Health Inspector, who had found not just three closets as the coroner had said, but as many as seven, all clean but unused by the workers then in the plant. Clearly some work had been done before the inspector’s arrival.

 By 1890 onions were no longer grown locally and the works was supplied from estates at Rainham managed by Swann and Thompson. This company was closely associated with the Circuit family, being part owned by Henry Swann, the manager of the Jews Farm sheds and Thomas Thomson, one of John Circuit’s trustees. Although the Crosse and Blackwell name was displayed on the sheds it was Swann and Thompson which ran the operation on contract.

 Conditions at the works were appalling. Girls and women worked up to 15 hours a day skinning onions. They breathed noxious chemicals and lung-burning fumes in unventilated sheds, and eye and skin infections, as well as respiratory and reproductive illnesses were common. Many became permanently disabled with no compensation from their employer.

Crosse & Blackwell advertisement late 19^th century

The work remained seasonal, as it had been in Circuit’s time, and in the summer months onion skinning was, like hop-picking, seen as a means for east London women to earn extra money. Some east enders had been coming every season for nearly 50 years. The women workers ranged in age from 16 to 70 and over, and the younger and quicker workers were able to earn about 12s. a week.  This is equivalent to c.£49 a week today, at a time when a skilled tradesman could expect to earn 12s. a day. Child care and rent took half the women’s wages, leaving just over 6s. for food and all other expenditure. In the summer of 1890 wages were cut; for peeling the equivalent of 9 kg of white onions the women were receiving 6d-8½d, so that many were earning only 1s. for a 15-hour day which began at 6am and lasted well into the evening.

Discontent among the women workers grew, and when on the afternoon of 30 July 1890 some of them were docked pay for alleged bad work the women walked out the following day. They demanded an 8-hour day, a minimum wage and improved working conditions. These were a reflection of the demands made by the unionised workers at the nearby Beckton gas works and in the London docks the previous year. Will Thorne, founder of the National Union of Gas Workers’ and General Labourers, wrote in his autobiography “Towards the end of 1889 the spirit of the ‘New Unionism’ was flaming across the country, here, there and everywhere. Workers were rising for improvements in their wages and conditions; often unorganised, downtrodden, they took action without planning ahead; sheer desperation drove them to striking revolt, and with their striking came organisation”.

 

By the late 1880s a siding had been built into the farm (visible just below the number 237), enabling the product to be dispatched quickly across London to the main plant in Soho, where the pickle was made.

This clearly had an impact on the women at Jews Farm. As Thorne said, “in the public-houses, factories, and works in Canning Town, Barking, East and West Ham every one was talking about the union”. Thorne described the successful conclusion of the gas workers’ action as a milestone in trade union history, but it was also notable for the engagement of Karl Marx’s youngest daughter Eleanor in the emergent “New Unionism”, and her key role in organising women workers. The East Ham onion skinners’ strike was to play a small part in Eleanor’s pioneering work with women trade unionists.

In the aftermath of the Beckton strike and during another local action against exploitative employment practices at Silver’s Gutta Percha works Eleanor set up the first women’s branch of the gas workers’ union, which was admitted as the Silvertown branch in October 1889. When the women walked out at Jews Farm the following summer Eleanor immediately became involved with the strikers and under her influence many of the 400-strong onion skinners joined the Barking branch of the Gas Workers’ union.

As the strike began Eleanor addressed a meeting of 200 in a field next to East Ham station, talking of the need to organise a picket, and perhaps mindful of the recent strike at Silver’s works, counselled against attacking any blackleg labour that was brought in. At the conclusion of the meeting the women marched to East Ham town hall behind a makeshift banner made out a shawl tied between two sticks and decorated with a bunch of onions.

350 women signed up to the gas-workers’ union, and a strike committee and a collection for funds were established. During the week-long strike the union was therefore able to offer small amounts of pay to members, though this usually amounted to a little over a shilling each.

 

Headline in Barking, East Ham & Ilford Advertiser, Upton Park and Dagenham Gazette 2 August 1890

Eleanor was also active in promoting support for the onion skinners both from the general public (through letters to the newspapers) and among other workers in the area. On the first weekend of the strike she was in Ponders End, Enfield addressing gas workers on the need to support the strike, and to end petty jealousies between workers. She emphasised the importance of union membership for both men and women, and declared that young women should demand to see their lovers’ paid-up union membership cards.

Prejudice against women workers and divisions amongst trade unionists between skilled and unskilled workers could, as Eleanor correctly saw undermine strike action. This had happened at Silver’s works in the autumn of 1889, when the Amalgamated Engineers’ Society decided unilaterally to return to work, leaving the other strikers with little choice but to follow suit.

In face of the onion skinners’ action Henry Swann, still the factory “superintendent”, initially refused to negotiate, claiming that rates had not been changed and denying that he had refused to meet the strikers. However he quickly offered a small pay rise, and finally free beer for all. These were refused, and as the railway siding filled with wagons laden with over 30 tons of onions in the summer heat pressure grew for a settlement. Having made an increased offer, again refused, Swann finally agreed the workers’ terms, and after nearly a week on strike the women returned.

Eleanor Marx-Aveling

 Despite this victory labour relations at the works continued to be problematic. In July 1895 another strike was called and 200 women walked out, again because Swann & Thompson had cut wages. There is no record of how this strike ended, nor of the date when the works finally closed, though Swann & Thompson were still growing onions for market at Rainham in 1898, so possibly they were still running the East Ham works at that time.

The Circuit farms at Rainham and Upminster were finally sold by the family trustees in 1909. In an echo of the move from East Ham in the 1860s the estate was advertised as suitable for building development and included several acres of “unrestricted factory land”. Urban development was moving further out into Essex in the first decades of the new century.

The urbanisation of rural Essex was preceded two decades earlier by housing development in East Ham. The financial return on agricultural production was no match for the gains to be made by mass house building., and in 1893 the farmland immediately north of East Ham station was divided into 99 plots and let for building on very cheap terms. 

  

Land was for sale in the roads leading to Jews Farm. West Ham and South Essex Mail, 8 July 1893

By 1899 the first “villas” had been built in Shakespeare Crescent, which today covers the area where Jews Farm had stood, while in 1901 the London Tilbury & Southend Railway Co. stopped the right of way across the railway at Jews Farm (where Sarah Anne Merritt had met her untimely death 30 years earlier) and built a footbridge, so this probably marks the time by which the onion sheds had disappeared and housing development begun on the site.

East Ham station c.1893 looking east. The onion sheds are just visible in the distance, the line of trees marking Jews Farm Lane. A sign in the left foreground announces building plots to let. (LBN Archive).

Wilson’s Farm survived longer, continuing first as a working farm and later in the 1900s as a depot for a carter contracted to East Ham Council, until it was finally demolished in the early 1920s to make way for the first girls’ school to be built on the Plashet Grove site.

 

A footbridge now crosses the District & C2C Line from Sibley Grove to Southend Road, replacing the foot crossing where Sarah Ann Merritt was killed in 1874

In April 1899 Jews Farm Lane, known locally as “Skinny Lane” because of the onion skinning sheds there, became the much more respectable East Avenue, named after Joseph East, a local councillor and first chairman of East Ham Urban District Council. The farm-factory also disappeared in the face of relentless urban development.

Crosse and Blackwell were to return to the area decades after the Jews Farm site closed down, though this time it was for a sweet rather than savoury product. In the 1920s the company acquired James Keiller & Son (of Dundee marmalade fame). Keiller's had opened a factory in 1878 at Tay Wharf Silvertown, and production continued there under Crosse and Blackwell ownership until the 1980s.

The 1974 strike at Crosse & Blackwell in Silvertown, reported by the Stratford Express

 It was here at Silvertown that in 1974 a curious repetition of the Jews Farm dispute occurred. 300 women at the works went on strike to demand that increased production line speeds were matched by increased bonuses. As in 1890 with union support the women won an hourly pay increase. It was not a long-lasting success however, as Crosse & Blackwell were already winding down the works and moving production to Scotland. The Silvertown works closed in 1985.

Japanese seafarers in East London

 Introduction

In this intriguing article from regular contributors Mark Gorman and Peter Williams, they uncover the story of sailors from the Far East who have memorials in a local Christian churchyard dating from more than a hundred years ago. They also discover more about why this might have happened and the remarkable story of a Christian missionary who is buried locally in Woodgrange Park cemetery.

East Ham connection

In the churchyard of East Ham parish church (the church of St Mary Magdalene) there is a memorial that only has Chinese writing on it. This is in that part of the cemetery that is now Newham Council’s East Ham Nature Reserve.

The so called Chinese grave St Mary’s June 2024 (photo Peter Williams)

 

In June 2024 a member of a corporate volunteering programme spent a morning in the nature reserve. She was of Chinese heritage and was able to decipher part of the grave inscription. She worked out that the death occurred in the fortieth year of the Meiji dynasty which was founded in 1868. So death occurred in late 1907. She also thought the memorial had been erected in March 1909 after the deceased friends got together and organised it, or got the headstone placed then.

The volunteer was aware that the Meiji was a Japanese dynasty and not Chinese. The Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin) languages share many characters but they are pronounced differently. So it seemed the deceased might be Japanese.

Peter, a long term volunteer at the nature reserve, is married to Ros who has lived in Japan and can speak and read Japanese. It turns out the text on the grave is actually Japanese, and it is clear the deceased served on a ship, the “Awa Maru”. East Ham parish church is less than a mile from the Royal Docks, at the time the largest enclosed docks in the world. London was also the largest and busiest port in the world in 1900.

There were numerous ships plying trade between Britain and Japan at this period as the two countries were allies then, and this press cutting shows the Awa Maru was passing Gravesend heading for London in early December 1907.

Western Daily Press - 2 Dec 1907

 

 

The dates fit, as the person in the grave died early December 1907, and shortly afterwards, the ship sailed for Japan, as in this press cutting.

It seems that Awa Maru was built in Nagasaki in 1899 and below is a record of a Lloyds of London inspection - it seems to have had a Scandinavian captain in 1899:

https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/documents/lrf-pun-nag1129-0067-r

 The ship even has its own Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awa_Maru_(1899)

 

And here is a photo of the ship in British waters:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392195027536

 

The photo was taken because she ran aground off Redcar, Yorkshire in 1906 but was refloated.

In WW2 another ship bearing the same name was involved in a notorious incident where it was torpedoed by the US Navy and 2,000 people died. It was carrying treasure. See more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Awa_Maru

Who is memorialised at East Ham?

His name has been deciphered by a Japanese friend of Ros’s in London called Ai Minematsu (Ai).

In summary: His surname is Haru. His given name is either Kyoji or Noriharu (depending on how the characters are pronounced). The date of death shown is early December 1907.

It seems his shipmates got the stone put up – we know from the records the ship was heading back to London in March 1908 when the burial was completed, according to the dates on the stone itself. There is also evidence the memorial stone was imported from Japan, and that the inscription must have been carved there, as this could not have been done in London.

The story in context - Chinese and Japanese burials in east London

By 1900 there were large numbers of Japanese and Chinese seamen in the London docks. Chinese seafarers had been coming to Britain for some time. 

Chinese seamen and Chinatown

Some Chinese sailors jumped ship and settled, opening lodging houses, provisions stores, cafes, association halls, and laundries to cater to the transient seamen and indentured labourers that could be signed on by British merchant shipping companies in China’s treaty ports for less than half the wage of a British seaman. 

By 1890 there were two distinct, if very small, Chinese communities living in East London’s dockside neighbourhoods. Chinese men from Shanghai stayed around Pennyfields, Amoy Place and Ming Street and those from Guangzhou (Canton) and Southern China lived on the other side of the West India Dock Road on Limehouse Causeway.

The lack of fluency in the English language of many Chinese migrants added to the hostility they received from British seamen and led to cultural segregation. Gradually the streets of Pennyfields and the Chinese Causeway, as it became known, began to be transformed by colourful shops and cafes serving Chinese food, their interiors an exotic contrast to the generally drab surroundings of Limehouse.

In 1895 an article in the Gentleman’s Magazine stated that Chinatown in Limehouse was no more than a single street of shops and boarding-houses: "It exists by and for the Chinese firemen, seamen, stewards, cooks, and carpenters who serve on board the steamers plying between China and the port of London."

It was this maritime dependence which generated the rapid growth of Chinese businesses in Limehouse during the First World War. And it was this dependence which hastened the decline of Chinatown in the 1930s. Chung Chu, who kept a café on Limehouse Causeway, said in 1931 that "the loss of shipping entering the London docks was killing the Chinese population.”

Japanese seafarers

Japanese sailors were also arriving with the introduction of regular mail, passenger and freight services between the UK and Japan from the late C19th. On average two Japanese ships a month were docking in London by 1900. Given the arduous and dangerous conditions at sea, deaths would have occurred and occasional references are made to Japanese funerals in the newspapers.

For example, in 1900 there was a report that “Plaistow cemetery” had 28 Chinese and Japanese graves “and strange looking epitaphs are cut upon them in Chinese [sic] characters”. In January 1904 the Daily Mirror reported the burial in East Ham of a sailor from a Nippon Yusen Kaisha ship (possibly the Kanagawa Maru, which was in the Albert Dock at the time). As no Buddhist priest was available, a Japanese Anglican minister conducted the funeral service.

The Japanese Christian Institute

This was set up possibly in the late 1890s and may have had two locations, one at Tilbury and the other near the Albert Dock in Custom House. It was run by Margaret McLean, who was born in Inverness in about 1837, and who had been an English teacher in China from 1866 and then moved to Japan from 1872 due to ill-health.

Living in Yokohama, in her spare time she did missionary work with British seafarers. In her book Echoes from Japan (1889) she makes clear that although she had been brought up in the Free Presbyterian Church in Scotland she was non-sectarian and also that she was strongly evangelical. She also makes clear her love of Japanese society and culture, which she contrasts favourably with China. She returned to Britain in 1881, probably again due to ill-health.

 

Finsbury Weekly News and Chronicle 2 April 1904

In 1892 Japanese crews came to bring back naval vessels built in Newcastle and Glasgow, and Margaret began missionary work with them. According to one account, when a regular mail service was introduced between London and Japan she moved first to Tilbury and then to the Royal Albert Dock (though the chronology may in fact be the reverse). By the early 1900s two Japanese ships a month on average were docking in London, and Margaret was also travelling to other ports (Sheerness, Portsmouth and Plymouth) when ships arrived.

The JCI welcomed Japanese seamen and Margaret McLean (who seems to have run the Institute single-handedly) sometimes took parties of up to 200 to see the sights of London. According to the Japanese ambassador in London she was called the “mother of the Japanese navy” and naval barracks displayed her picture on their walls. In 1903 she became the first European to receive the Japanese emperor’s Imperial Order of the Crown, sixth grade, a medal for women only.

Location of the JCI

This is not clear. In the 1901 census Margaret McLean was living at 2 Dock Road Tilbury, described as an “unsectarian missionary preacher, Japenese [sic] mission”. However a letter from Margaret McLean indicates that the JCI was in Coolfin Road, Custom House. This may indicate that the JCI had two locations, or that the JCI moved to Tilbury from Custom House c1900. However, reports of Margaret McLean’s funeral in September 1904 refer to the JCI in “Woolwich” which implies that this was its main or final location.

Margaret McLean became seriously ill in early 1904, and died at Southsea in September. She is buried in Woodgrange Park Cemetery. See more below.

A twist in the tale

In August 2024, when discussing this story with volunteers in the archives at Newham Council, it emerged there are photos in the archives of further Japanese memorial stones in East Ham cemetery.

Wrongly labelled memorial to Chinese sailor (Newham Archives)

 

The first is labelled ‘monument to Chinese sailor’ but is undated. On checking this location in the graveyard today this memorial no longer exists, and it is impossible even to find the base. Note one face of this stone is in English, the rest in characters. The name of his ship ‘Bingo Maru’ (all Japanese ships are something Maru), and then a death date (illegible). Research focussed on this ship has shown that this is the person memorialised here, a J Kawauchi who drowned in 1901:

Westminster Gazette - 21 November 1901

The ship was also spelt ‘Binga Maru’ or ‘Benga Maru’ sometimes in the British newspapers. The above cutting also confirms that stones were imported from Japan.

There is another remarkable photo in the Newham Archives showing the unusual stone that was brought into the UK:

 (Newham Archives)

This photo clearly says "Monuments to Japanese sailors", and it seems the one to the extreme right is the same as the surviving one discussed earlier in this article, which initially appeared to be on its own. In August this year Peter and Ros visited this site and were quickly able to establish that there is indeed a group of memorials together. One of this group is visible and readable after clearance of vegetation, though it is tipped to one side.

Photo Ros Bedlow

Three faces have now also been read by Japanese national Ai:

Name: Yoshizo (given) Kawaguchi (surname).

Date of death: 18 September 1911. Aged 22. From Tottori prefecture, Iwamoto village, Ooaza, Ooiwa, Iwami District

British newspapers at the time reported ship movements in remarkable detail.

Searching the digital versions, it is clear ‘Kitano Maru’ was off the St Catherine’s lighthouse, Isle of Wight and London bound on 13 September 1911.

Liverpool Journal of Commerce - 14 September 1911

It is hard to identify the other memorial stones as none is now standing, and some are more than half buried.

These are not graves in the normal sense, as they are far too close together for burials – so either the seamen are buried elsewhere, or at sea, or they were cremated (as is the Japanese custom) though cremations were rare in Britain at the time. Official church records are of burials only, not memorials.

The stone used for the memorials is also interesting, being not recognisable as one of those used for gravestones in the UK. As discussed above, there is a possibility that the stone was imported from Japan. 

We can speculate about the very poor current condition of this cluster of 5/6 Japanese graves. It is possible they have been deliberately vandalised (there was huge anti-Japanese feeling after WW2) but this is speculation. We can also speculate these Japanese seamen converted to Christianity under the influence of Miss McLean, as otherwise it is hard to understand how this group of stones came to be in this Christian graveyard.

More on Miss McLean

In another coincidence, while the authors were searching for unrelated images in the Newham Archives, a photo was found of the grave of Miss McLean in Woodgrange Park cemetery Romford Rd, on the borders of Forest Gate and Manor Park. This can be seen here in a photo taken in 1991 with its Japanese characters.

 

Newham Archives

Notice it says “erected by the officers and sailors of the Imperial Japanese navy”. In the early 1900s there was a strong military alliance between Britain and Japan. New warships for Japan were being built in Newham at the shipyards of the Thames Ironworks which were located where the River Lea and the Thames meet. In fact, these were the last major orders for the yard and it closed not long after. The works' football club morphed into West Ham United FC (hence The Hammers from the tools the shipwrights used).

Woodgrange Park Cemetery, which is a private profit-making business, went through a very troubled period in the 1990s when it was bought and sold a number of times, and a developer called Badgehurst got hold of it with a view to part of it becoming a housing development. 

They applied for planning permission which was refused, then it was appealed and again refused. The Cemetery Friends Group were objectors. The owner then obtained the "Woodgrange Park Cemetery Act 1993". This allowed the clearance of the part on High Street North side for building work. The Friends Group took part in the consideration of the Act, and no work was undertaken until it came into force.

There was considerable controversy. The local MP, Stephen Timms was involved and there was much press coverage over the years, to save the graves.

Miss McLean’s grave did survive this trauma but has been vandalised since the 1990’s. It has lost its cross/anchor at the top due to vandalism in 2023, and the lower part of the Japanese inscription has been covered by raising the ground level when the current cemetery owners, a Muslim organisation, re-landscaped that part of the cemetery.

Miss McLean’s grave, autumn 2024 (Photo Ros Bedlow)

From this photo you can see there is a small interpretation sheet in front of the grave. The cemetery owners recently agreed that the Friends’ Group could place this sheet explaining why a grave with Japanese writing is there.

The sheet says that she set up the Anglo Japanese Christian Mission in North Woolwich road (now the runway to London City Airport), that she died insolvent, and that the grave was paid for by a member of the House of Lords, who was a founder member of the Plymouth Bretheren, a conservative Christian sect, not unlike the tradition of her Scottish Presbyterian upbringing.

In recent years a representative of the Friends' Group met with the Japanese Attache at the cemetery. He was interested and said he would try to get funds for the grave to be restored, but sadly they lost interest and were not forthcoming with funds.

Ai, our collaborator, has undertaken further research in the Japanese diplomatic archives. According to an article there, in September 2019 somebody from the Cemetery (presumably from the Friends' Group) contacted the Embassy of Japan in London to try to find any information on Ms Mclean, as the cemetery people couldn't decide what to do with her grave. Then the embassy staff contacted the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in Tokyo in 2020.

They found an old document explaining how she got the Imperial Order of the Crown. This showed that Naval Officer Tamara recommended her for the award to the Japanese ambassador to the UK, who in turn sent a recommendation to the Japanese Foreign Minister, in 1902. She was awarded the recognition and was contacted by the ambassador to that effect the following year.

The file suggests that Miss McLean was very well known amongst Japanse seamen staying in the UK. She looked after them well, and they called her "Dear Mother". As already indicated, she was known as the "Mother of Japanese seamen" in the UK.

The article states that in 2021 with help from the Embassy of Japan, the manager/caretaker of Woodgrange Park Cemetery managed to contact the relatives of Miss Mclean and the cemetery decided to keep Miss Mclean's grave there.

The historical documents from the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan will be archived locally (presumably in Stratford - although that has yet to be confirmed, or those documents received).

Conclusion 

What started as a query over a supposed Chinese grave in a cemetery in East Ham has led the authors on an interesting journey into a little-known aspect of local history: the presence of seamen from Japan in Newham over one hundred years ago - and the influence of a Christian mission in looking after their welfare.

End note

Peter and Mark acknowledge the considerable assistance they have had on this project from Ros Bedlow and her friend Ai Minematsu with translating the Japanese; and from Ken Marshall of the Friends’ of Woodgrange cemetery who carried out his own independent research. All have contributed interesting new discoveries to this article. Tony Morrison helped with AI to enhance and read a grave inscription. Kathleen Partington a volunteer at Newham archive shared her knowledge of grave records at East Ham parish church.

A shortened version of this article recently appeared in the Newham Recorder Newspaper online version. The authors acknowledge the help of Jess Conway archivist at Newham with this.

Do not hesitate to contact either this blog or the authors for details of some of the sources accessed for this article, and in particular, if you can add more to this fascinating subject.

You may also be interested in this short film from Newham Heritage Month contributor the Thames Festival Trust: https://www.facebook.com/ThamesFestivalTrust/videos/591480612272837/ , Keiko Itoh on the Japanese Seamen’s Club, Elizabeth Street North Woolwich from 1898.

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The prisoners’ lot in Little Ilford gaol

This is the fifth and final article in the series on Little Ilford Gaol. The previous four dealt with the gaol's origins, its first thirty-year history, its final twenty years, and its ultimate demise. The fourth article looked at its governance and supervision.

An estimated 30,000 people served sentences in the gaol over its history – many of them multiple times (see later). “Average” numbers per year, or at any one time, are misleading because of the fluctuations in committals over the gaol’s history, but 60 prisoners at any one time (including ten women) and 700 prisoners over the course of a year would not have been untypical.

Treadmill, without partitions (see below) - the "hard labour" fate for many incarcerated in Little Ilford gaol - Brixton 1817

Because of the nature of the inmates sent there and the courts from which they were sentenced, the prisoners tended to be there for relatively minor misdemeanours. More serious offences were sent to the county gaol in Chelmsford, hanged, or transported to Australia (see previous articles).

This article, based on the Essex Records Office (ERO) and contemporary newspaper accounts, aims to provide a general understanding of the nature of offences committed by offenders, thereby painting a portrait of who they were likely to be. It will also examine conditions in the gaol and what “hard labour” meant in practice, including discomfort levels imposed, punishment regimes and food and dietary standards.

Newspaper articles and many of the records in the ERO provide a steady flow of details of convictions and sentences imposed on those sent to the gaol. It would be impossible to generalise too much about the fate of 30,000 individuals over a fifty-year period, but a number of trends emerge, particularly from ERO documents that help describe the lives of those committed to the gaol and the fate that befell them.

Poverty – the greatest cause

Perhaps the most obvious fact is that the single greatest cause of the majority of prisoners' incarceration was their poverty. Their circumstances and crimes show lifestyles at incredible variance with the visiting magistrates responsible for the gaol. This was not accepted at the time as a cause of their crimes; contemporary thinking saw “wickedness,” “fecklessness,” “ungodliness,” and “bad character” as better explanations for their offences.

Despite their harsh verdicts on the nature of the incarcerated, the magistrates were forced to make special provisions for the poor. As early as 1837, the visitors' report stated that "Visitors have to recommend to the court some additions to the buildings on either side of the governor's house, to place vagrants, not felons" (ERO Q/SBb 527/71).

The two most prominent visiting magistrates, John Gurney Fry and William Swanson Suart, shared fourteen and six servants with their families at different times, respectively (see last post). Many of those committed to gaol were found guilty of stealing food worth barely pennies.

As mentioned in a previous article, in an era before local police had a detection function, many offences were committed against employers, landlords, local shopkeepers, or farmers, who identified the culprit and called upon a county constable to arrest, charge them, and send them to court.

The Essex Standard of 26 May 1843 provided an account of five people committed to the goal, all for relatively minor offences. The report highlighted the arrest processes, that children as young as 11 and women were committed and that “hard labour” was often a standard part of the sentence. As far as the final case mentioned is concerned, because Colemen had a previous conviction, he was in danger of being transported to Australia for the theft of a pin (presumably a broach) had he been found guilty, which he wasn’t. The cases were:

Ellen Barry, 21 was indicted for stealing a shawl, the property of Robert Addison of Stratford Green. It appeared that the prisoner who had formerly been in his service in the neighbourhood had lodged at the prosecutors’, and the shawl was traced to a pawnbroker’s in Stratford, where it had been lodged by the prisoner. On this charge she was convicted and sentenced to four calendar months hard labour in Ilford goal.

Geo Simmons, 31, pleaded guilty to stealing a quantity of lead from the premises of JW Nyren, his master, at Leytonstone. Sentenced to four months hard labour at Ilford goal.

 Major Burton, 11, was convicted for stealing at Stratford from a shed in the possession of James Patrick Murphy, a quantity of lead: the young delinquent was stopped by a marine store dealer of trying to dispose of it. Sentenced to seven days hard labour. (It was not until the Youthful Offenders Act of 1854 that children under the age of 16 were sent to separate juvenile detention centres)

James Mumford, 16, was indicted for stealing a quantity of wearing apparel, and also the sum of 10s, the property of Thos Skiggs at Great Ilford. The prisoner took advantage of the prosecutors Skiggs’ absence from home, and stole a pair of trousers from his room (he at the time living in the same house), and in the pockets was money named in the indictment; the possession of articles was clearly traced to the prisoner. He was convicted and sentenced to six months hard labour in Ilford Gaol.

William Coleman, 18, was indicted for stealing a gold pin from Henry Barwick. He had previously been tried, in October 1841 of stealing 16 sheep, with three others. Two of the other three had been transported (to Australia). Coleman, then aged only 16 was given 12 months hard labour in Ilford goal. In the event, Coleman was found not guilty of stealing the pin. He was told in court that if he had been found guilty of stealing the pin, he too, would have been transported.

There are literally dozens of newspaper reports telling similar stories.

Essex Herald 6 June 1848

Women constituted between 10% and 20% of the gaol’s population throughout its history, and like most of the men in the above cases, they were usually there for cases of theft of small items from employers or local shops. Many were described as prostitutes in court cases, though prostitution itself was rarely the reason they faced the magistrates, but it seemed to have been used as a statement of their “bad character”, helping to explain the offence for which they were charged and cast them in a bad light.

A rare example of women being charged with prostitution per se came in the cases of two women who were also charged with creating a disturbance, as the Chelmsford Chronicle (19 November 1847) reported:

Ellen McDonald … and Emma Page were charged by the constabulary with being common prostitutes and creating a disturbance in Epping Twon on Sunday 7^th inst. Convicted and sentenced to one month’s hard labour at Ilford goal.

Hard labour

Prison governor John Anderson told the Essex Quarter Sessions in June 1844 (ERO QAGp 15) what “hard labour” would mean. “Some were put to work, others on the treadmill. Work could be tailoring, shoemaking, mat making, painting and whitewashing the gaol … working the water crank, picking oakum and turning hand cranks, of which there were three. Water was supplied via a pump, worked by five men”.

The treadmill was a punishment without product. Those allocated to it would simply walk to keep the wheel turning, for no end output but punishment.

The goal operated on the “separate system,” where prisoners were forbidden to talk to each other at any time (Anderson: “The separate system is decidedly the best system, the best form of discipline in the goal”)—hence one-person cells—see previous articles. The problem with Little Ilford’s two treadmills is that they were open (see illustration 1 below, from Brixton prison, 1817), where prisoners could talk to each other.

Anderson, again: I try “to enforce the discipline of silence and succeed generally; they do communicate, but if heard, they are punished” More than fifty punishments for breaking the silence were recorded in the previous quarter “for insubordination and misconduct on the part of the prisoners from associating with each other.”, and punishments ranged from whipping through food deprivation and solitary confinement in an unlit cell.

Anderson told the Quarter Sessions, "If you had wooden divisions (see second treadmill photograph, Pentonville 1895) on the treadmill and a turnkey walking backwards and forwards, it would prevent conversation, such is injurious to the prisoners. It would be desirable both on the treadmill and at the force pump. I have drawn attention to the visiting magistrates on the subject, and they have asked me to obtain an estimate of its cost.” 

It is not clear from surviving records whether these partitions were obtained.

Before prisoners could be placed on the treadmill, the surgeon had to certify that they were physically fit enough for the punishment and could insist on an enhanced diet for them – see later. Typically, a prisoner was required to ascend up to 12,000 feet per day on the treadmill until the 1860s, when the limit was reduced to 8,400 feet. They were expected to complete fifteen quarter-hour sessions on the wheel daily, with a five-minute break between sessions. The effort was simply punishment and literally unproductive.

Treadmill with partitions, Pentonville 1900

Picking oakum was a common form of work, and both male and female prisoners were often employed in the task (see photograph from Coldbath prison). This was picking tar out of sisal that had been used to seal the decks of wooden ships. It’s a strange task, but it was commonly used in workhouses too. The picked sisal was often sold outside the prison for mattress fillings – hence the term: “money for old rope”.

Picking oakum - "Money for old rope" - Clerkenwell House of Correction

The hand crank, of which there were three, was a machine that was installed in a cell (see etching below), and the prisoner was expected to turn it about 20 times per minute, or 10,000 times in an eight-hour shift – again without productive outcome. If a turnkey felt that the tension on the crank was too easy for a prisoner to manage, he would tighten the tension via the central screw – hence “screw”, the slang term for prison wardens.

Hand crank - Pentonville prison

Women prisoners were employed in knitting socks for the prisoners, washing and making clothes, and oakum picking too. (ERO Q/SBb 550).

Sentences for those incarcerated were typically three to six months long, mainly with hard labour. Sometimes, the product of the prisoners’ work could be sold externally, and the income received would be used to reduce the net running costs of the gaol. The Essex Herald in December 1876 (31 December) noted that over the previous quarter, the gaol had received an income of £3.6s from oakum picking, £5.9s 6d from mat making and £2 10s 6d from jute picking.

According to the same report, working hours were: “Governed by the length of the day. Commencing half an hour after unlocking (the cells) and ending half an hour before locking up for the night. Deducting three hours for meal times, prayers, attending school (often on a one-to-one basis with the “schoolmaster” in the cell), and a half hour for air (exercise yard time) and leisure”. That would mean about 10 hours of “hard labour” in summer and seven in winter—there was no artificial lighting beyond daylight hours.

As further press reports showed, these harsh punishments did not deter hungry people. The prison chaplain expressed doubts about any reforming outcome from imprisonment very soon after it opened. Oliver Lodge, in 1832, reported to the Essex Quarter Sessions that: “It is deplorable … to see some few in so wretched a state of ignorance and so far advanced in crime that in the short period of their time abiding in the prison little can be done for them.”

Recidivism, particularly for offences associated with poverty, was common. The December 1842 Quarterly returns (ERO Q/AGp 15) highlighted this, indicating that the number of people convicted for a number of offences in the gaol was: Poaching: 19 (of which for four - it was a first offence, three - the second, four - the third, two - the fourth, two -the fifth, one – the seventh, one the ninth, one – the tenth and one – the 11th). There were 12 prisoners in gaol for vagrancy at the time (of which eight were the first offence, two were the third and two were the fourth).

The Home Office was told three years later: “Over the year 64 prisoners have been in once before, 25 twice, 12 three times and 15 four or more times.”

Escape attempts were not uncommon and steps were regularly taken to prevent them. In April 1837, for example, the visitors' report noted that there had been "an increase in the height of the (outer) walls, to prevent escape, which can be done by scaling the rooves of the existing buildings" (ERO Q/SBb 527/71). 

The same report expressed concern that the recent construction of the Eastern Counties railroad, which "will pass within 20 yards of the north side of the outer wall and be about 10 feet below the surface of the ground," may encourage escapes. Reports were commissioned to offer preventative measures.

Conditions for the inmates

According to the Annual Returns of the Gaol to the Home Secretary, in October 1845 (ERO Q/SBb 550): “All prisoners before trial wear their own clothes, but are clothed if necessity requires. Convicted prisoners wear a coated dress (see etching below) and are provided with a bed filled with straw, two blankets, and a rug.” The weekly cost of keeping a prisoner under these conditions in Little Ilford at this time was estimated to be 1s 1d (less than 6p) per week.

"Coated dresses"- the uniform worn by prisoners at Little Ilford, etching from Millbank, 1873

The report continued: “Punishments for offences committed in prison: 119 solitary confinements and one whipping. During the year, there were 36 cases of sickness, with a maximum of four at any one time.”

Diet

Food and diet in the gaol provided a long-running saga, with a balance having to be struck between keeping the prisoners alive – particularly after some of the hard labour inflicted - and not providing sustenance of higher quality than the inmates could have expected outside prison, or in the workhouse.

Within two years of the goal being opened, the prisoners drafted a “Humble Petition” (see image below) claiming that the standard of food in Little Ilford was below that experienced in the County gaol in Chelmsford. This was taken seriously, and the visiting magistrates reported back to the Quarter Sessions that “Although frequently questioned, we have not heard any complaints from the prisoners. The attached petition is not based on fact … Some of the names, marked with an X, did not know about the petition or its contents”!

1832 petition from prisoners, complaining about small food portions at Little Ilford

Despite these complaints, the visiting magistrates seemed satisfied that the staff were running the gaol efficiently. Their report of April 1837 commented that they had visited at different times and "always found it in good order and discipline and that the chaplain and surgeon have constantly attended their several duties" (ERO Q/SBb 527/71).

By 1850, the Essex Herald reported that the visiting magistrates feared the standard and quantities of food supplied in the goal were higher than those prevailing in local workhouses and ordered that the quantity should, consequentially, be reduced (6 April).

Discussions were frequent on the topic, and by 1864, the Home Secretary had got involved. The Essex Herald of 5 Jul 1864 provided a detailed account of the Essex Quarter Sessions considerations on the matter.

For the first week of all terms of imprisonment from now on, the diet was to be:

Breakfast – 1 pint of oatmeal gruel

Dinner – 1lb bread

Supper – 1 pint oatmeal gruel

Quantities were gradually increased the longer the prisoner spent in gaol, so that by the time a male prisoner had served four months, he could expect to receive:

Breakfast – 1 pint of oatmeal gruel plus 10 oz of bread

Dinner – 11 oz bread every day, plus one of a)1.5lb potatoes and 3 oz cheese, b) 4 oz cooked meat and 8 oz potatoes, c) 1-pint soup and 1lb potatoes

Supper – 1 pint oatmeal gruel plus 8 oz bread.

Women prisoners were given approximately 10% less at each meal time.

The quantities of food recommended by the Home Office were so small that the surgeon was given a licence to increase them if he felt the needs of individual prisoners warranted it. Two years later, the Essex Standard was reporting:

Diet. The weekly amount of food supplied to the prisoners is according to the official dietary of 1864 (is so low that) fifteen prisoners have received extra diet by order of the surgeon for 127 days in aggregate, and the average weekly cost of food per head is 1s 11d. (9p, today, or less than £9, adjusted for inflation).

It is unclear whether the surgeon’s increased food allocation to some prisoners was because he had a relatively liberal outlook or whether the Home Office had imposed a particularly punitive regime. Whichever, food was uninspiring, but there are no recorded incidents of prisoners dying of malnutrition during the gaol’s fifty-year existence.

A snapshot of prisoner backgrounds – the 1871 census

The 1871 census provides a rare snapshot of the population of Little Ilford goal at one time. The prisoners were, for the most part, local working-class men.

There was a surprisingly low number of prisoners incarcerated on the night – only twenty men and one woman. No details are given of the offences they committed, but their ages ranged from 12 to 66, with four in their teens, eight in their twenties, four in their thirties (including the solitary woman prisoner), four in their forties and two in their sixties. It is surprising that there was a 12-year-old prisoner, as people of that age should have been placed in a juvenile institution, according to a law passed 17 years previously. He may well have been in Little Ilford on the night, awaiting transport to a more suitable location.

All bar for of them came from Essex, Middlesex or East Anglia, the exceptions being one from the West Midlands and one from Gloucester. Intriguingly, two were American-born, although they did not appear connected.

Six of the 21 were classified as agricultural labourers, three were bricklayers, two were railway workers, and two were dock workers (giving substance to the fact that the goal took prisoners captured by the Metropolitan police in the greater London area). The others came from a collection of other working-class occupations: a baker, a blacksmith, a messenger (the 12-year-old), a seaman and a seaman’s wife (apparently unrelated), a gas worker, a plasterer and a general labourer.

Conclusion

Most of the inmates were in Little Ilford goal for relatively minor offences, which received harsh punishments. The “separate system” of silence was likely to be the greatest punishment for all who were imprisoned, although most also had “hard labour” imposed on them, which was all-consuming.

Cells were small, although they often had what—compared to workhouses —seemed to offer some decent bedding, although no heat or artificial light. Clothing was standard and probably better than some of the poorer inmates had been used to outside the gaol. From the very beginning, there were real doubts about how effective the goal would be as a reforming measure, concerns confirmed by rates of recidivism.

As previous articles in this series have indicated, there was a relatively high staff-inmate ratio. Christian campaigning about prisons was probably responsible for ensuring that a higher level of religious attention and medical support was available in the goal that many of the inmates would have experienced outside.

Food provision was a real issue for the authorities, and efforts were made to keep quantities to a minimum, but at least the prisoners were fed inside, when they may not have been when they were arrested for vagrancy.

So, although it was unpleasant for all who entered the goal as prisoners, it was difficult for the authorities to impose even harsher conditions on them than prevailed on the streets and workhouses outside. This dilemma ran through the history of Little Ilford goal.

It is difficult to assess the goal's impact, either on the inmates who were incarcerated there or on the wider society who were supposed to be protected from their malign influences. The vast majority of inmates were there for crimes closely associated with their poverty. Testimony of magistrates and chaplains cited in this series of articles seems to have doubted any reforming impact a sentence in Little Ilford goal may have had on them.

Levels of recidivism, particularly for the most desperate offences (vagrancy, petty theft, and poaching), were so high that deterrence doesn’t seem to have worked as an outcome of imprisonment. Certainly, the punishment of imprisonment seems to have been severe for the prisoners, but if this were not complemented by more socially acceptable behaviour post-imprisonment, it is difficult to see its benefit rather than giving perverse pleasure to vengeance seekers.

All of which seems wearingly to summarise the impacts of imprisonment in Britain 150 years later.

 

Foornote. We are extremely grateful to Neil R Storey for his excellent book: Prisons and Prisoners in Victorian England, for the etchings that appear in this article illustrating prisoners' conditions