A survivor's tale - 1889 Forest Gate Industrial School Fire

It is always a great delight to get feedback on articles that appear on this website - particularly from families of people whose stories are affected. It is even more so, when the responses move the story on a little and add further detail to it.

What follows below is an account by one of the great-grandchildren of a resident of the Industrial School on Forest Lane, who was a hero on the night of the tragic fire that killed the 26 boys on the night of New Year's Eve, 1889.

We have written of that fire before, see here, here and here.

The Industrial school ablaze, New Year's eve 1889

Reader, Peter Norton, contacted this website, and said:

Below is an excerpt from a short essay I wrote about my great-grandfather, for my great grandmother, who mourned his death from 1918, until she died in the mid 1960's.

"Charles George Hipkins was born in 1877 in Poplar, to Joseph Hipkins and Sarah Creamer. Joseph was born in the Midlands and by the time Charles was born, he was a boiler maker in London.

Unfortunately, he died when Charles was 10 and the family fell apart, with no money and ended up in workhouses and schools for the poor.

At the age of 12 Charles Hipkins was a boarder at the Forest Gate District School, – the parish charity school for the poor of the Whitechapel and Poplar Union.  He was there when a fire burnt the building down on the night of the 31 Dec 1889.

Fire in the dormitory - source
Illustrated London News

 According to the Illustrated London News 26 boys aged between 7 and 12 died and 58 were rescued from 2 locked dormitories.  There were 636 children in the school that night. 

Memorial to the 26 fire victims,
West Ham cemetery

Charles was awarded a Silver Medal from The Royal Society for the Saving of Life from Fire and was given 5 guineas.  Only 4 others got this highest award for that incident and they were all adult workers at the school.  Already Charles was proving his bravery! 

The silver medal Charles was awarded
for his bravery on the night of the fire

The fire in Forest Gate lead to the government taking urgent action.

It issued a binding circular to all Boards of Guardians urging the importance of leaving dormitory doors unlocked at night, conducting fire drills and establishing voluntary workhouse fire brigades, maintaining telephonic communications with fire stations wherever possible and providing fire escapes.

A second illustration of destruction in the
dormitories - from the Illustrated London News

By the 1891 census Charles Hipkins was a Houseboy at ‘The Brigade Institution’,  147-153 Ebury Street, St Georges Square – another charity school. 

He worked as a coachman and aged 17 he joined the Army Service Corps working as a driver in the 5^th Battalion East Surrey ‘Queens’ Regiment.    He married Edith Croxson in 1899 in West Ham. How they met, as she was from  Kirton in Suffolk, I do not know.  

They then lived in South Wimbledon and had a son Charles William George Hipkins, in 1900. Just one month before his son was born Charles senior went to South Africa with his Regiment for two years for the 2^nd Boer War (where was awarded the South African campaign medal).  When he returned Charles and Edith had their second and final child Edith Hipkins (ed: author, Paul Norton's grandmother) in 1903.  

Charles was working as a house painter when the Great War started and voluntarily re-enlisted ‘for the duration of the war’ on the 29 September 1915.  The attached photo shows him in the East Surrey’s uniform proudly showing his Forest Gate and South African Medals.  On the back of the photo, he wrote ‘ for mum’.

Charles, proudly wearing the medal,
twenty five years later, when he
re-enlisted into the army, to fight in WW1

I  (ed: Paul Norton) have also researched the others who won awards that night but still cannot find out exactly what Charles did. He was certainly the only boy to be awarded the highest award - the silver medal.

The London papers listed all the awardees, they, their status and award are listed, below.

Distraught parents at the inquest into the
Industrial School fire-deaths - source: The Graphic

The lists shows: Name of recipient (details about the person) - nature of award:

 Charles Hipkins (12 year old pupil) - Silver Medal

 Thomas Jones Oakley (Neighbour to school, who helped in the rescue) - Silver Medal

 Henry Elliot (Yardman* , staff) - Silver Medal

 George Hare (Assistant yardman*, staff, aged 22) - Silver Medal

 Charles Duncan (Superintendant of school) - Illuminated Testimonial

 Miss Maria Julia Bloomfield (Wardrobe woman) - Illuminated Testimonial

 Herbert John Roe (Staff?) - Illuminated Testimonial

 Miss Laura Terry (Head sewing mistress) - Certificate

 Mrs Eliza Roe (Staff ?) - Certificate

John Malcolm (Neighbour to school, who helped in the rescue) - Certificate

 Walter Edmond Crisp (Unknown) - Certificate

Frederick William Roe (Staff ?) - Certificate

John Blagdon (Police constable) - Certificate

* N.B., Yardsmen slept in the dormitories, with the boys." We would like to thank Peter for his contribution, and as ever, would be delighted to hear from other descendants of survivors who could provide further details to the tragic story of the fire and its aftermath for the individuals concerned.

We would be delighted to hear other stories of survivors from the fire that night, or indeed any details of any residents of the Industrial School.

Forest Gate Industrial school - The 1890 inquest and background to its 1906 closure

We have written previously about one of the earliest significant institutions to built in Forest Gate: the Industrial School, on Forest Lane. See here for a general history of the school, here for an account of the devastating fire that suffocated 26 boys under the age of 12 on New Year's day, 1890, and here for an account of conditions in the school on Christmas Day, 1897.

This post provides more detail on two key aspects of its history: a brief account and sketch of the early stages of the inquest into the 1890 fire, and a detailed account of the circumstances resulting in its closure - largely through the efforts of some very effective Guardians, who themselves had experienced Industrial School life, and wanted better for future generations.

Site of the former Forest Gate
Industrial School, Forest Lane

The institution was established on former Samuel Gurney land in the mid 1850's, as a school for the children of paupers kept in the Whitechapel workhouse. It later also took in children from Hackney and Poplar workhouses; and at its peak accommodated 600 children, as boarders.

It closed in 1906, became an extension of the Poplar workhouse for a few years, then a general infirmary and ended its public service life as Forest Gate Maternity hospital, from 1930 - 1986.  It is now the Gladys Dimson housing development.

The inquest

We have provided harrowing and graphic contemporary accounts of the 1890 fire in previous posts - see above.

Artist impression of fire at the school, January 1890

We have recently come across a copy of The Graphic, an illustrated weekly newspaper, dated 11 January 1890 offering more details to our understanding of the inquest of the fire - complete with a sketch composed at it.

The Graphic - 11 Jan 1890 'The disastrous
 fire at Forest Gate district school,
 the relatives of the victims at the inquest'

Below is the coverage the paper gave to the inquest, of particular interest is the section that reads:

It seems clear that an over-heated stove pipe was the origin of the mischief. The tragedy is rendered more affecting by the fact that the children, who in such an institution unavoidably lead such monotonous lives, had on the 31st been taken to see the pantomime at the Stratford Theatre, and were looking forward to New Year's Day as an occasion of great festivity.

Our sketch represents the scene at the inquest, which opened on January 2nd by Mr CC Lewis, Coroner of South Essex, in one of the girls' school rooms at the institution. Among the persons present, besides the officials connected with the schools, were twenty or thirty relatives of deceased children.

The principal witness examined on the first day was Mr Charles Duncan, the superintendent of the institution. He endeavoured to put out the flames with a "Fire Queen" (a chemical extinguisher), and partially succeeded. Indeed to his courage and promptitude the preservation of the other parts of the building is due, but he was eventually driven back and almost suffocated by the dense smoke.

Excerpt from The Graphic, 11 Jan 1890

Circumstances and context around its closure

The school survived the fire and continued in service for a further decade and a half.

A good understanding of the reasons for its closure, and relocation to Hutton, Essex, can be gleaned from the memoirs of the chairman of the Board of Guardians at the time of its closure - Will Crooks (From Workhouse to Westminster - the life story of Will Crooks MP, by George Haw 1907).

Crooks was born into poverty in Poplar in 1852. His father was disabled (or "a cripple" as the biography states in the language of the time), unable to work, following an industrial accident and forced onto parish relief.


The family of eight were paid two or three shillings a week (10p - 15p) outdoor relief, by the time Will was eight years old (1860), which barely kept them from starvation. The Poplar Board of Guardians then determined that the family should be sent to the workhouse, down by the Millwall docks for a period.

According to Haw: 

The lad was ravenously hungry all the time he spent in the workhouse. He often felt at times as though he could eat leather; yet every morning when the "skilly" (ed: a very watery porridge/gruel) was served for breakfast, he could not touch it.

For two or three weeks the Crooks children were kept in the workhouse before being taken away in an omnibus with other boys to the Poor Law school at Sutton. Then came the most agonising experience of all to Will. They parted him from his younger brother.

In the great hall of the school he would strain his eyes, hoping to get a glimpse of the lone little fellow among the other lads, but he never set eyes on him again until the afternoon, when they went home together."

The Crooks family, about the time they
 were sent to the workhouse.  Young
 Will is second from the right,
leaning on his father's shoulder

Every day I spent in that school is burned on my soul", he has often declared since.

It was from this house that he saw a bread riot in the winter of 1860, when he got the first of many impressions he was to receive of what a winter of bad trade means to a district of casual labour like Poplar."

Sights like these of his childhood, with the shuddering memories of his own dark days in the workhouse school made him register a vow, little chap though he was at the time, that when he grew up to be a man he would do all he could to make better and brighter the lot of the inmates, especially that of the boys and girls.

This traumatic experience and lasting memory was later to have a profound effect on the future of the Forest Gate Industrial school, on Forest Lane.

Crook's career projectory was dramatic, given his humble origins. As a dock worker, he was a prominent figure in the famous 1889 London Dock Strike (known for its demand to get "The Dockers' Tanner" - an hourly rate of 2.5d per hour).

Crooks, on the way up the social
 scale - from workhouse, to Parliament

In the days before the establishment of the Labour Party, Crooks was elected, under the Progressive banner, as a member of the then London County Council, in 1892.

Within three years, he was elected the first working class member of the Poplar Board of Guardians, where he was soon joined by fellow local progressive politician, George Lansbury. Crooks was appointed chairman of the Guardians in 1897 and set upon a series of dramatic reforms.

He dwelt on his own memorable experiences as a workhouse child to introduce significant changes in the Poplar Union, and at the Forest Gate Industrial school, in particular.

We draw heavily on the Haw biography to explain what Crooks did to change conditions at the Forest Gate - including abolishing uniforms and improving food - and how this eventually lead to its closure and transit to Hutton, in Essex.

The Guardian's school at Forest Gate lay four miles from the Union buildings in Poplar .. with five or six hundred children always under training in the school.

He helped banish all the suggested pauperism from the Forest Gate school. The children were educated and grew up, not like workhouse children, as before, but like the children of working class parents. With what result?

Marked out in their childhood as being "from the workhouse", they often bore the stamp all of their life and ended up as workhouse inmates in their manhood and womanhood.

Under the new system they were made to feel like ordinary working class children. They grew up like them, becoming ordinary working-men and working-women themselves; so the Poor Law knew them no longer.

If I cant appeal to your moral sense, let me appeal to your pocket", Crook once remarked in a Guildhall Poor Law Conference. "Surely it is far cheaper to be generous in training Poor Law children to take their place in life as useful citizens than it is to give the children a niggardly training and a branded career.

This latter way soon leads them to the workhouse again, to be kept out of the rates for the rest of their lives."

How far the principle was carried out at Forest  Gate may be judged from the (undated) report made by Mr Diggard, HM Inspector of Schools, after one visit.  Thus:

"There is very little (if any) of the institution's mark among the children ... Both boys and girls are in a highly satisfactory state, showing increased efficiency with increased intelligence on the part of the children ... They compare very favourably with the best elementary schools."

In all that related to games and healthful recreation Crooks agreed in giving the scholars the fullest facilities. The lads were encouraged to send their football and cricket teams to play other schools. The girls developed under drill and gymnastic training, and became proficient swimmers.

In fact, the scholars at Forest Gate began to count for something. They learned to trust each other and to rely upon themselves. They grew up with hope and courage. The learned to walk honourably before all men. In consequence thousands of them have emerged in the great working world outside, self-respecting men and women.

 I met Crooks looking elated one evening and he told me that he had just come from the Poor Law schools' swimming competition at Westminster Baths.

There were three trophies" he said "The first, the London Shield was for boys. Poplar (i.e. the Forest Gate school) won with 85 marks ... The second was the Portsmouth Shield.. our girls won that with 65 marks. The third was the Whitehall Shield, for the school as a whole with the highest number of marks also won. I feel as pleased as though I had done it myself.

The best administration in an out-of-date building is always hampered. Forest Gate belonged to the old order of Poor Law schools known as barrack buildings. Although the Guardians made the very best of the school, there structural defects that hindered the work seriously.

It was therefore decided to build cottage houses at Shenfield in Essex (the Hutton school), where special effort is being made to train girls as well as boys in rural pursuits in order to keep them out of the over-crowded cities.

This transfer took place in 1906, and lead to the closure of the Forest Lane establishment as a school and transformation to an annexe for the Poplar workhouse.

The new "extrvagently
 designed" school, at Shenfield

By this time, Crooks had become the first working class mayor of Poplar, in 1901, and elected as MP for Woolwich in 1903.

Will Crooks, MP for Woolwich

The improved conditions that Crooks and the other Guardians brought for workhouse children did not go unopposed. They were accused of extravagance and squandering public money - for providing decent food and living conditions at Hutton. Crooks, himself, as an MP, had to face a Parliamentary Committee in 1906 to explain these "extravagances".  He and the Guardians were largely exonerated.

He remained an MP for Woolwich until his death, on 5 June 1921. Unlike other early Labour MP's, he was a jingoistic supported of World War 1.

His legacy, however, will be more defined by the transformation of the lives of workhouse children - many from Forest Gate, that he enabled.  Also, for laying the foundations for the kind of radical defiance that his former colleagues on Poplar council exercised to get major changes to Poor Law funding, from almost the moment of his death, from 1922.

Will Crooks' tombstone,
Tower Hamlets cemetery

Two years and counting

This is the second anniversary of this blog; so - time for a little retrospection.

Below is an account of how we are faring, in "hit" terms and our most popular postings.  This is followed by a cursory glance at some of the significant changes that have hit E7 since we started. Feel free to comment, and join a conversation on the good, the bad and the indifferent of Forest Gate's recent past.

In terms of output/contact/readership, since we started we:

• have posted 90 articles on this site
• receive over 250 visits per day to the site
• have a supporting Twitter account, with over 700 followers (@e7_nowandthen)

The five most viewed articles since the site was established have been (each with the hyperlink to the article and a reflective illustration):

• Fire Guts Famous Gym This blog's first post coincided with a fire at the former home of Wag Bennett, where Arnie Schwarzenegger lived in the mid 1960's while training to be Mr Universe.

Arnie and Wag, outside the gym
 and house on Romford Road. The
 house now boarded up,
 after a fire, two years ago.

• The Upper Cut Club, part 1 - the rise There is a plaque on an iron gate, next to Percy Ingle's on Woodgrange Road, denoting that on the site of the railway ventilation shaft behind the gate stood the Upper Cut Club. This was owned by Boxer Billy Walker and for one brief year, in the mid 1960's, showcased the very best in British and American popular music of the day.

Billy Walker, recently celebrating
 The Upper Cut's golden era

• The Forest Gate Good (and not so) Pub Guide A look at Forest Gate's remaining pubs, from a drinker's standpoint, with full notes on some of the area's now-closed, former pubs.

The Princess Alice (pre WW2 bombing),
 once a giant pub at the foot of
 Woodgrange Road, now a restaurant

• Christmas Day in the Forest Gate Workhouse In what is now a refurbed block of flats on Forest Lane is a building that has been a maternity hospital, but which was originally constructed in the mid 19th century as an Industrial School, for the children of workhouse inmates from East London. This is a contemporary press account of conditions in that Workhouse school in the mid 1890s.

Christmas day in the Workhouse

• The Rise and Decline of Forest Gate's Jewish Community Forest Gate hosted a significant Jewish community from the 1890s until the Second World War. This post looks at the growth and decline of that community and particularly its Synagogue, which was for many years the largest in Essex.

Former West Ham Synagogue,
 Earlham Grove

The last twelve months

Meanwhile, the five most viewed posts, of those published in the last year, have been (with hyperlink and illustration):

• 24-hour Forest Gate Gourmet Trail An illustrated wander around six Forest Gate eateries, with a different meal/nibble at each. Delicious - follow the trail, and be ready to let out your belt a notch or two!

CoffE7 - part of the gentrification
 of Forest Gate - but with a damn
 good breakfast and coffee offer!

• Fascists in 1930's Forest Gate Forest Gate hosted a thriving Fascist group in the 1930's, with a base close to Wanstead Flats. The British Union of Fascist held rallies on the Flats. Many rare photos included in this blog.

Woodford Road site of Fascists' 1930's
 Forest  Gate HQ and bookshop

• Forest Gate Industrial School Story This post gives a history of the Industrial School, mentioned above - from its origins, extending to its more recent post-school story.

Site of Forest Gate Industrial
 School, Forest Lane

• Tragic End to World War 1 Romance Local resident, Paul Holloway, has recently self-published There are No Flowers Here - a touching story of his Forest Gate grandmother's romance with local lad Jack Richardson. Two posts summarise the story, and its tragic end on the World War 1 battlefields. 

Jack Richardson - one
 half of the tragic romance

• Wanstead Flats Saved from Post World War II Development Wanstead Flats had a busy part to play during the Second World War. In its immediate aftermath there were plans for considerable housing construction there to accommodate East Enders bombed out during the conflict. This post examines the struggle.

Map produced by Wanstead Flats
 Defence Committee, showing
 areas planned for the "land grab"

Retrospective glance

Clearly, there have been significant changes to the area in the short time that we have been running - most notably the continued "gentrification"/house-price-lunacy that has affected the area.

Arm-in-arm with this has been an explosion of related social activities - most notably the massive improvement to the local food and drink offer. We've seen the opening of three independent coffee shops in a little over the two years (Kaffine, CoffeE7 and Compotes) and a serious upgrading of the local alcohol range, thru the new Forest Tavern, eclectic Wanstead Tap and the recently revamped and face-lifted Golden Fleece.

The up-market food options are beginning to emerge, too. There are already good cheese, organic veg, bread and charcuterie stalls on Woodgrange market, together with regular tasty options and menus at the Tap, Tavern and CoffeE7, and a bit more initiative from Aromas, the best Indian eat-in/takeaway around. On the horizon are the eagerly awaited Pie Republic, on Upton Lane and the well-trailed Pyramid Pizza at the junction of Forest Lane and Woodgrange Road.

One downside on the foodie angle is the imminent demise of the popular Siam Cafe on Woodgrange Road, closing this weekend, after a reported (and shocking) hike of 140% in the rent, come lease renewal time.

Brik-aBrak has gone upmarket too, with The Emporium, some interesting offers at Woodgrange Market and frequent pop-up "vintage fairs" in a variety of local venues. Environmental and related conservation issues are moving up the agenda apace, with the recently established (but yet to open) Community Garden on Earlham Grove and the frequent "Clean up Wanstead Flats" forays, so effectively run and supported.

The Arts are beginning to assert themselves more vigorously, with live music regularly on show at the Tavern, the Tap and CoffeE7, and the emergence on an interesting Arts trail in the district.  All of these initiatives are backed and their efforts re-enforced by the recently established, on-line E7 Magazine (www.E7magazine.com).

The downsides are almost the flipsides of some of the above. With gentrification has come the pricing out of local young people from being able to afford to live independently in the area in which they were brought up - always a serious sign of social dysfunctionality (like the fate of the Siam Cafe - see above). Some of the area's old boozers, notably the Live and Let Live (or in its case, Die) have gone under and some of our few local historic treasures (Old Spotted Dog, Wag Bennett's old gym) are being left to rot and decay under our eyes.

Heritage under threat - The Old Spotted
 Dog, boarded up, and rotting

But there is life in the Old Dog yet - in an odd kind of way - at least on the football terrace side of things. Clapton FC has been one of the true success stories on English non-league football over the last couple of season. Two years ago you could count the number of spectators at the Old Spotted Dog ground in the length of time it took to line up and take a corner kick (about 30 fans).

In a recent match (on an international break, when major league football was not being played in the country) over 400 showed up. The "Tons" are widely regarded as having some of the best non-league support in the UK, lead by the dedicated Ultras (pyros, banners, chants and all). And now they have an appearance in their first cup final in years to look forward to on 2 May. Just such a shame that the club's owner seems to hostile and disinterested.

Pyros and anti-homophobia
 demos - there's more than just
 football, supporting Clapton FC,
 at The Old Spotted Dog ground,
 these days

Politically, E7 continues to be an all red patch in the one party state that is Newham. But the local councillors seem to be very effective within the extremely limited scope within which they are able to operate - particularly the three young women councillors in Forest Gate North and the more experienced Diane Walls in Forest Gate South.

A shame that their efforts are clouded by the absurdity of the Mayor appointing a personal "Advisor on Forest Gate" - on a sinecure - who is not from among them. We'll return to this in a future post.

In summary, it would seem that overall, the Forest Gate's curate's egg is mainly good, but unpalatably expensive for the children of the last generation's inhabitants, and longer established eateries - which leaves a rather sour taste in the mouth, of an otherwise story of sweet success. (Ok - a strained metaphor too far. I'll get my coat).

The Forest Gate Industrial school story

One of the most popular items on this site has been the reproduction of the Forest Gate Times account of Christmas Day in the (Forest Gate) Workhouse, 1896 - see here, last December.

Newham maternity hospital -
former industrial school - in 1970s

We are following it up, as promised, with a general history of the Forest Lane establishment, and next week will present a very graphic newspaper account of its most tragic moment - a fire on New Year's day 1890 - in which 26 of its pupils were suffocated.

Many uses

The school was erected in 1852-54 by the Whitechapel Board of Guardians, and since that time has undergone several changes of ownership and uses, including as a workhouse, general and then maternity hospital.  It is currently a residential development - Gladys Dimson House.

The building was initially constructed to provide a school for boys some distance from the choked inner districts of East London.  It was used as an Industrial  school from 1854 to 1906, formally becoming part of the Forest Gate School District in 1868.

Children parading outside Lambth's industrial
school, similar to Forest Gate's c 1905

It was converted to  an annex to the Poplar Workhouse between 1908 - 1911, when it was bought by the West Ham Union (Poor Law Guardians), which then reopened it in 1913 as a workhouse infirmary.  The site was  converted, yet again, into the Forest Gate Sick Home between 1913 and 1930, by which time it had 500 beds for maternity, mental and chronic sick cases. An extension with 200 beds was added in 1931. It formally became the Forest Gate Hospital (maternity) from 1929 - 1973.
 
The hospital suffered severe bomb damage in 1940 and new maternity wards were built in 1950.

After a period of disuse, it has been sensitively restored to become residential accommodation, for the last quarter of a century. The principal building still retains its mid Victorian institutional appearance. It is a brick range, 15 bays long, with three storeys
.
The 1890 fire was undoubtedly the most significant event of its century and a half plus history. There had been a number of fires in Industrial Schools throughout England in the 1850's - 1880's, and so, in 1882 the Local Government Board urged local Poor Law Guardians to make proper fire escape provisions.

 Fire

The fire in Forest Gate in on New Year's day 1890, however, when two dormitories were destroyed and 26 boys under the age of 12 were suffocated lead to the government taking more urgent action.

It issued a binding circular to all Boards of Guardians urging the importance of leaving dormitory doors unlocked at night, conducting fire drills and establishing voluntary workhouse fire brigades, maintaining telephonic communications with fire stations wherever possible and providing fire escapes.

The disaster caused similar institutions to review fire precautions and stimulated interest in 'scattered home' instead 'barrack' schools. Poplar Poor Law Union continued to maintain the school until 1906, when the children were transferred to a new school at Hutton, Essex.

Bomb damage

The second World War provided more dramatic moments for the establishment (by now a hospital) It was hit directly, or collaterally on five nights/days during the war. These were on 2 October, 1940 (hit by high explosives); 9, October 1940 (suffered collateral damage); 15 October, 1940 (high explosives); 9 December 1940 (incendiary bombs); 3 March 1943 (collateral damage) and 29 Jan 1944(hit by a flying bomb).


Bomb damage to maternity hospital,
9 December 1940

Although there was considerable damage as a result of these actions, thankfully,  they resulted in only one direct death, Elizabeth Sinclair, aged 61 - on 2 October 1940. The photo below shows a limited amount of damage to the hospital (mainly windows) following the bomb two months later, on  9 December 1940.

Although the Forest Lane institution was this area's largest visible connection with Poor Law and workhouse institutions, there were other, notable local facilities.


Dilapidated maternity hospital,
just before conversion into flats

Other local workhouse connections

From 1870 -75 the Forest Gate District School operated a training ship called The Goliath, moored on the Thames.  This provided pauper boys from the District with instruction in all aspects of seamanship to help equip them for entry to the Royal or Merchant Navy. The scheme was highly successful, although,  in another appalling tragedy affecting the Forest Gate workhouse institutions, it was destroyed by fire on 22 December 1875, with the loss of 23 lives.

Its replacement, The Exmouth, was moored off Grays in Essex and continued the role. This, however, was managed by the Metropolitan Asylums Board. It took boys from all over London, and from the 1890s, from beyond the capital. By this time it was training as many young boys for navy life as all other similar institutions in rest of the country, together.

Boys training on HMS Exmouth, photo
undated, but early 20th century

The Forest Gate Industrial school was not the first of its kind in Newham.  The Stepney parish of St George's -in-the East established an industrial school at Plashet in 1851 - 52, at the junction of Shaftesbury Road and Green Street (see figure) for its pauper children.


St George's Industrial School, Plashet

It  accommodated 150 boys and 120 girls and 80 infants. In addition to the school rooms and dormitories it had a wash house and a laundry. Animal husbandry was taught to girls and boys alike in the farm complex on the girls side of the establishment. This included piggeries, a stable and cow-houses. Other detached buildings on the site included a bailiff's house, a porter's lodge and an infirmary.


Undated plans for the Plashet Industrial school

Although in open countryside at the time of its construction, the school became engulfed in urban sprawl by the 1890's, as a result of the rapid population growth in the area. It closed in 1927 and the building was converted into the Carlton, later ABC Cinema and several shops. These closed in 1983 and the site is now a car park.


Carlton Cinema stood in Green Street.
It was built in 1927 on the site of the old
St-George's-in-the-East industrial school
and was built in an exotic "Egyptian" style
using decorative tiles. It stood until the 1980s,
when it was demolished. For a time it was called
the ABC Cinema. The rear of the site is now a
car park although there are still
shops along the Green Street frontage.

St George's was one of three such schools in East Ham. Another was St Nicolas RC school, Gladding Road, Manor Park. It was opened in 1868 in the Manor House (one of the Fry family's homes) and was closed in 1925 and sold to the Co-op. The third East Ham Industrial school was St Edward's RC, opened in 1875 at Green St House (the Boleyn Castle).  It closed in 1906 and is now part of the West Ham FC grounds.


Manor House, Manor Park, 1864. The manor house,
which gave Manor Park its name, stands north of
the Romford Road near Gladding Road and Wanstead
flats.In 1866 the house was purchased by the Roman
Catholic church and converted into the St Nicholas
Industrial School for boys. In 1925 the property
was purchased from the church by the London
Co-operative Society, who used it for offices and a
milk depot. The Co-op funeral service is still located
there. The house itself and some of the site has been
converted into residential accommodation.

On reflection

This marks the first anniversary of the establishment of this blog, so a bit of reflection and a progress report is called for.

We've published 50 posts, on a wide range of ... well, Forest Gate-related issues, past and present, to date.

We are upto an average of 200 -250 hits per day on the site, which given the relatively small geographic area of its focus and the fairly eclectic nature of the content, isn't bad.

We've established a complementary Twitter account (@E7_NowAndThen) which now has in excess of 380 followers.  This is used largely to announce new postings on this blog, and many of the Tweets are retweeted and favourited - many with generous comments - which is satisfying.

Although we always invite comments, suggestions, recollections, additions, corrections to Blogs posted,;we've had relatively little feedback, which is slightly disappointing.  All comments submitted are subject to being overseen by a moderator before being published. The ONLY ones which are screened out are attempts by (often dodgy) commercial organisations to hijack the site for their own purposes, or responses which are potentially unlawful, or abusive (very few).

Below is a list of the hyperlinks to the eight most viewed posts, together with photos representative of the article.

Upper Cut Part 1

First week's bill at the
Upper Cut - magic!

Christmas Day in the Forest Gate Workhouse


The Forest Gate Industrial School, later maternity
hospital and now flats - scene of description
of Christmas day in the Workhouse

Forest Gate good (and not so good) pub guide



Forest Gate Hotel - part of the local pub trail

Rise and decline of local Jewish community


The old West Ham synagogue, Forest Lane

Fire guts famous gym  This was the first blog


Arnie and Wag, outside Bennett's gym
(now, sadly in tatters) on Romford Road, c 1966

Booming Woodgrange Road



Saturday markets at the junction of Woodgrange
and Sebert Roads, early signs of the
Woodgrange Road boom

Spotted Dog, still under threat Another very early posting


An undated woodcut of the Old Spotted Dog

Food hygiene in Woodgrange Road



A long-established local eaterie,
featured in the food hygiene story

24-hour Forest Gate gourmet trail One of the most recent posts, which has had a relatively huge hit rate in its short time on the site



CoffeE7 - the beginnings of the Forest Gate gourmet
trail and still less than 18 months old

The titles of the posts are fairly self-explanatory, and eating, drinking and being merry seem to provoke most interest! Also, not surprisingly, older posts get quite high hit rates, because they have been around longest and so have had more opportunities to be viewed.

To reinforce the popularity of the eat drink and be merry point, the least viewed posts (by a long way!) are the two on Forest Gate's local cemeteries, and their inhabitants.  Clearly, not much merriment there, but we think they are interesting!

Perhaps surprisingly the local good schools guide, with summaries of the Ofsted and other inspection reports of all local schools bombed a bit, in terms of viewership. 

Our small number of posts on Clapton FC (Walter Tull, the club history etc) haven't attracted too much attention.  I guess the club isn't huge and they have their own sites etc - but the are local, and having their best season for years - so give them watch - on line, but more importantly in the flesh, while the good times are here (as I, do elsewhere, unfortunately). 

As regular visitors will know, we've produced a monthly update on who featured at the Upper Cut Club 47 years ago, each month.  This has provoked a wildly varying range of  numbers of viewers, which it is difficult to understand, other than because of the popularity of the acts performing.  The two biggest sets of interest have been over the Jimi Hendrix gigs and the Stax tour with Otis Redding, Sam and Dave etc that we featured recently. We have a couple of interesting photos to update these with.

The first is a poster of the first Jimi Hendrix gig (Purple Haze, written while waiting to go on stage), on Boxing Day 1966.  The Emporium, next to CoffeE7  is selling a limited number of these, in frames (all repro, of course), a photo is reproduced below, for aficionados.


Jimi plays the Upper Cut,
after writing Purple Haze

For real geeks, we are delight to post a photo of the (rather undistinguished looking) complimentary tickets for the Stax tour, previously mentioned.  These were sent to us by attendee Brain Lovegrove.  Thanks, Brian.



Ticket to ride - or at least see the Stax tour,
with Otis, half price!

We did rather wonder how much material there would be around for further interesting(ish) posts for the future, but the options and opportunities just keep growing - almost exponentially.  So, there's a good couple of years of weekly posts left before repetition, deviation or hesitation kicks in.

Additionally, we'll try and Tweet a couple of photos, from the archives, each week from now, as nudges to view older pieces and to bring the photos to the attention to new audiences, perhaps.

Finally, some interim thanks.  It's been great fun, and an opportunity to meet up and discuss all kinds of weird stuff with lots of interesting people.  We welcome all of this. Many thanks to the authors, whose books we've plundered for information - and we don't object if we are the subject of the same (though a touch of acknowledgement would be welcome).

A very special thanks however must go to the over-worked staff at Newham Archives, whom we drive mad on a regular basis - particularly to Jenni, now back from a period of absence.

Enough of the introspection.  Proper stuff and service will resume next week!