Alms and the manor

 Almshouses have been established from the 10th century to the present day. They have enabled people (typically elderly folk who can no longer work to earn enough to pay rent) to live in a particular community free of charge, or at minimal costs. They are often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain forms of previous employment, or their widows, and are generally maintained by a church, charity or the trustees of a bequest.

Most were established before the age of local authority housing, and operate on a fairly small scale. Increasingly, the trusts that were established to administer them have passed their running over to larger social landlords, such as housing associations.

Forest Gate is unusual in that it at one time it hosted three, very separate, but small Almshouse developments, offering between them accommodation for no more than a couple of dozen people.

 Of the three, one - the Pawnbrokers almshouses, of which we have already written (here) - was established by a trade association, and no longer exists. The two other sets were established by religious philanthropists, who created trusts and charities to manage them. These bodies have subsequently passed the functions on to local housing associations.

Forest Gate Retreat, Odessa Road

Jabez Legg lived in Stratford and was an undertaker and Congregational minister in the early 19th century.

The old Congregational church, Sebert
Road, which replaced Legg's church.  He
also established the Forest Gate retreat

In the 1820's Wanstead House was in its prime and received a steady flow of visitors, many of whom travelled along what is now Woodgrange Road for their visits.  Among the attractions, en route, were the tea gardens in the Eagle and Child Public House, on Woodford Road.

Legg decided to build a small Chapel near to this garden, at a cost of £220, offering weekly services and day school facilities, for visitors to Wanstead, and the growing local population.  He chose a site at the junction of Forest Lane and Woodgrange Road. The building was completed in 1830.
 
Within a quarter of a century, the rapid growth of Forest Gate, brought about by the development of the railways, meant that the small Chapel was no longer large enough to cater for local demand.  

With the help of local Quakers, including Samuel Gurney, he was able to construct a much grander Congregational Church, in Forest Lane - at a cost of a little over £1,500.  This opened in 1856. This, itself, was superseded by the large Congregational Church (now the Ark Church, and Renewal Programme headquarters) on Sebert Road a further quarter of a century later.

Legg built the first three of six cottages, known as Forest Gate Retreat, near to the second chapel - as homes for his retired family female servants - two years later.  Three more cottages were added in 1863.  They are still situated on Forest Lane at the junction of Odessa Road, facing the railway line.


Forest Gate retreat - Legg's almshouses,
Odessa Road and Forest Lane

After Legg's death, aged 81, in 1867, his family administered the alms houses. They broadened its base or target population and offered accommodation to needy, usually local, women.  Feeling the need for some support and taking advantage of the economies of scale, the Legg Charitable Trust merged in 1939 with a similar organisation, in Wimbledon, to become the Legg-Whittuck trust.  

This subsequently joined Pathways - a not-for-profit organisation dealing mainly with sheltered housing projects, in 2012.

The six, one-bed roomed,  houses are available for single female tenants, who meet Pathway's selection criteria, and can come from anywhere in the country.  Most of the residents, however, have a local connection.

Meggs Almshouses - Upton Lane

These 12 self-contained, sheltered,  one-bed roomed flats on Upton Lane were built in 1893, to replace an earlier development on Whitechapel Road. The original ones were constructed in 1658, by City benefactor and draper, William Meggs, to provide accommodation for the elderly, industrious poor. He had already assisted with the development of churches in Stepney.

The Whitechapel Road development was demolished in 1883 to make way for railway construction and the Rector and Churchwarden of Whitechapel, who were trustees of the charity that Meggs had established, chose a spot on Upton Lane for their replacement, a decade later.

Late 19th century image of
Megg's Almshouses, Upton Lane

The almshouses are currently listed and now managed by East Living, which is part of the East Thames Housing Group. The development includes a communal lounge and garden and laundry. Would-be tenants must be either Newham or Tower Hamlets residents.

The Pawnbrokers Almshouse , Woodgrange Road

The Pawnbrokers' alms-houses, Woodgrange Road were built in 1849 - about the time the railway arrived in Forest Gate -by the Pawnbrokers Charitable institution. They accommodated 8 residents, not necessarily from West Ham, who had qualified because they had a connection with the pawn broking trade.

The buildings formed an impressive group in 'Elizabethan' style. We provided a detailed account of these fine house here, in July this year.  That account included some contemporaneous reporting of the lives and times of the residents.

The old Pawnbrokers almshouses of
Woodgrange Road, demolished 1897

The houses were knocked down in 1897 to make way for further commercial development along Woodgrange Road. This included the local public hall, which in turn developed into range of cinemas (see here), a skating rink, the Uppercut club etc and is now a ventilation shaft for the channel tunnel rail link, as well as the Woodgrange Road shops themselves, which of course, survive.

The Pawnbrokers of Forest Gate

The opening of H&T Pawnbrokers on Woodgrange Road last year wasn't the first presence by that trade in our area, by a long way.

In 1849, at about the time the railway arrived in Forest Gate, The Pawnbrokers' Charitable Institution built almshouses on the developing Woodgrange Road.  The institution, which still survives, existed then and now to provide pawnbrokers and their dependents, in need, who had been in business for at least five years and are generally over the age of 60, with assistance. 


1867 Ordnance survey map, showing
 location of Almshouses on Woodgrange Road

The rather splendid houses they built (pictured)accommodated upto eight occupants and their immediate dependents.  The impressive buildings were constructed in what has been described as the Elizabethan style. They occupied the land that was later to be turned into a public hall and range of cinemas (see last week's edition), a skating rink, the Upper Cut club etc and is now a ventilation shaft for the channel tunnel rail link.

As Forest Gate began to take off, economically, at the very end of the nineteenth century, the Pawnbrokers body cashed in, knocked them down and developed the land for more commercial purposes.


Pawnbrokers almshouses, Woodgrange Road,  soon after construction c 1850

We are very fortunate to still have contemporary records of that period available to us, in the form of the short-lived Forest Gate News.

The edition of 25 September 1896 tells us that:

A scheme has been sanctioned by the Charity Commissioners, under which the Almshouse buildings on Woodgrange Road may be sold and other buildings erected on the vacant site and the grounds surrounding.  The existing 'almspeople' will each receive additional yearly pensions of £25 to compensate for disturbance together with the sum of £2.10s to defray the expenses attendant on removal.

The Pawnbrokers Charitable Institution had some property clout, locally, at the time.The News tells us  that their total local landholding:

Embraces the almshouses buildings and the vacant land adjoining; the land on which stand the Princess Alice and seven shops eastwards along Romford Road; the ground and shops Nos 1 - 13, Woodgrange Road; and the ground on which stand the nine shops in front of the Almshouses (probably including what is today H&T Pawnbrokers). The present yearly revenue from the estate is close upon a thousand pounds, and when the new buildings are erected it will be very much larger ... The revenues will continue to be devoted to the payment of pensions of aged and destitute pawnbrokers and their assistants.

The paper described the occupants and their circumstances at the time:

In these five houses there are eight persons of the average age of 79 or 80 years. .. (namely) ... Mrs Sarah Emmaretta Lawes, aged 88; Mrs Martha Campion (widow of the ate Mr HH Campion, formerly an inmate), aged 76; Mrs Mary Anne Poole (widow of the late Mr F Poole, formerly an inmate), aged 73; Mrs Harriette Jones, aged 84; Mr James Corbridge, aged 83; Mrs Mary Ann Mackie (widow of the late Mr G Mackie, formerly an inmate), aged 76 and Mr Richard M Clarke, aged 73.

A dozen strides out of Woodgrange Road, through the gateway just above Messrs Lush and Cook's, and I was already in another world ... You would hardly credit the extent of those grounds at the rear of this little Elizabethan group of houses. I am told that presently it will form the site of a crescent of twenty or more new buildings.  Just now it is a site for little besides weedy paths and straggling plants

Sketch of almshouses, 1896, just before demolition

At the back of the Almshouses is  a paved courtyard, with nine wash houses ranged around it, all neat as you please. These were intended for nine tenants, but at present there are only (counting Mr and Mrs Corbridge the only married couple as one) seven.  Mr and Mrs Corbridge occupy the two back rooms in the centre house and are the only inmates in the row to go upstairs to bed. In each of the other four houses the sitting room and the bedroom are on the same floor.

These houses, then, were knocked down in 1898 to make way for further commercial development along Woodgrange Road.

Now, fast forward 115 years, to the appearance of H&T Pawnbrokers, within the footprint of the Pawnbrokers' charity's old land holding. Just who, and how useful are they?

Booming business, unfortunately.  By a strange co-incidence the firm was first established in 1897 in Vauxhall, as the Almshouses were being demolished, by Walter Harvey and Charles James Thompson (hence H&T).  They trundled along as small scale British high street pawnbrokers for almost a century.


New rip-off kids on the block - H&T
 pawnbrokers, Woodgrange Road, 2013

In 1992 the company was taken over by Cash America, the US's second largest pawnbroking firm, and developed rapidly.  By the millennium they had 41 UK outlets. They were subject to a management buy-out in 2004 and now boast over 180 shops, nationwide, including four in Newham.

Recent legislation requires pawnbrokers to be upfront about their charges.  We will let their website speak for the company, as other words fail us.


Just the 820% APR for a payday loan then - no, thanks!

The typical APR quoted on their website for pawnbroking with them is 137%

A typical payday loan, illustrated on their website, would set the borrower back an 820% annual rate of interest.

There was a time when pawnbroking activity in Forest Gate was concerned with providing cheap housing for poor, old folks, now it's just content to rip them off.

Coming soon - upstairs and downstairs in Claremont Road, in 1881!