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• Share Not barking up the wrong tree! By Eric Feasey on Facebook Share Not barking up the wrong tree! By Eric Feasey on Twitter Share Not barking up the wrong tree! By Eric Feasey on Linkedin Email Not barking up the wrong tree! By Eric Feasey link

  Not barking up the wrong tree! By Eric Feasey

  almost 3 years ago

  I first become interested in the history of Barking when I found out about the Wellington Mill, and join my local Barking History Society. To my surprise Barking was looking for volunteers to help with a National Lottery project. So, with a small group of volunteers, one of them turned out to be the young daughter of my best mate’s from childhood. She too was interested in the Wellington Mill because it is very near where we lived in East Ham. Through our research we have found out about the first windmills in Barking in the days of the Abbey... Continue reading

  I first become interested in the history of Barking when I found out about the Wellington Mill, and join my local Barking History Society. To my surprise Barking was looking for volunteers to help with a National Lottery project. So, with a small group of volunteers, one of them turned out to be the young daughter of my best mate’s from childhood. She too was interested in the Wellington Mill because it is very near where we lived in East Ham. Through our research we have found out about the first windmills in Barking in the days of the Abbey, for instance, the 1777 map of Essex shows one of them which generated a lot more discussion amongst the team, as we discovered certain windmills were used for grinding bark into powder which is used in the tanning industry, which was originally situated near Uphall Camp - a Roman encampment by the side of the river Roding. The Romans did understand the process of leather tanning, and it doesn’t surprise me that the opposite side of the river was Tanner Street, in medieval Barking. Also nearby was a windmill. Could this have been one for grinding bark? I looked forward to seeing Barking and researching more about the tanning industry and its importance to Barking Abbey…

  A challenge to all your young people out there compile a list of all the things that had been made from leather before this marvellous stuff called plastic was invented - which is polluting the oceans… So to begin your research on leather - think of this surname, Barker and Smith, there is a connection of leather to these surnames…

  I’m not barking up the wrong tree - the origin of the surname Barker is English and has been found in records as early as 1200. Barker is an occupational surname that refers to those who stripped and prepared bark for use in the tanning process... Bark mills, also known as Catskill's mills, are water, steam, horse, or wind-powered edge mills, used to process the bark, roots, and branches of various tree species into a fine powder known as tanbark, used for tanning leather. The powdering allowed the tannin to be extracted more efficiently. A barker would strip the bark from trees before grinding in such mills and the dried bark was often stored in bark houses...

  Meanwhile the Wellington mill, thus named because it was built in 1815... Our team have carried out research on the windmills and the article from British History Online is missing some details. Should we amend the information when it is just about the Wellington mill?

  There are occasional references to mills elsewhere in Barking, on the site: ‘In 1243 William and Geoffrey Dun, who had erected a windmill, gave an undertaking to Barking Abbey not to erect any windmill or watermill in future within the manor of Barking. (fn. 63) There was a mill on the manor of Wyfields in 1567–74 and one on the manor of Uphall in 1634.’ (fn. 65) Both were no doubt on the Roding. A windmill is shown at the south end of Fisher Street (later Abbey Road) in 1777 – which is the one we now believe to be the bark mill. A steam mill at Ilford is listed in 1848–86.

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• Share Barbara's Barking on Facebook Share Barbara's Barking on Twitter Share Barbara's Barking on Linkedin Email Barbara's Barking link

  Barbara's Barking

  about 4 years ago
  

  My maternal grandfather Edward Charles Hewett, a brush-maker by trade, had originally bought the newsagent at 97 East Street, Barking (now 15 Station Parade) in the early 1930’s, when he moved his family there from Tottenham.

  I was born Barbara Ann Key in 1952, in the flat above the shop, to Albert and Claire Key (née Hewett) who had married at St Margaret’s Church in the grounds of Barking Abbey during the war, in 1944. I lived there till I was 7, when we moved to Ilford, in 1959.

  We didn’t have a garden, just a small backyard, where we... Continue reading

  My maternal grandfather Edward Charles Hewett, a brush-maker by trade, had originally bought the newsagent at 97 East Street, Barking (now 15 Station Parade) in the early 1930’s, when he moved his family there from Tottenham.

  I was born Barbara Ann Key in 1952, in the flat above the shop, to Albert and Claire Key (née Hewett) who had married at St Margaret’s Church in the grounds of Barking Abbey during the war, in 1944. I lived there till I was 7, when we moved to Ilford, in 1959.

  We didn’t have a garden, just a small backyard, where we could play hopscotch and skipping and we walked to Barking Park to feed the ducks and play in the playground – I always wished I could go on the grand-looking paddle steamer on the beautiful lake, or take a rowing boat out!

  I had a doll’s pram with a large white doll and a large black doll, these were my main toys, as I remember, plus playing cards, jigsaws, marbles and five-stones.

  Other fond memories include our occasional trips to J.T. Worricker’s, the toy shop, three stores along from us (103 East Street, 21 Station Parade).

  I read about the Barking Heritage Project and that they recently discovered the hidden old glass sign from their other shop in Barking! I have more vivid memories of wrapping one of my own toys every Christmas Eve, to take to the service at St Margaret’s Church, to give away - it always seemed so painful at the time, because I treasured and played with all my toys and we didn’t have many.

  I spent a lot of time with my Mum learning spelling & times tables, which I loved! I couldn’t wait to go to school and join my brother who I had missed at home, he was nearly 4 years older than me.

  My first school was Northbury Primary School (built in 1895), in North Street – I hated it! I was so disappointed that I wasn’t with my brother at all!

  The highlight of my week was going to Woolworths (close to where McDonalds is now) with my Nan on a Friday afternoon. She bought my brother and I a pack of sweets to share, usually Spangles or Refreshers.

  Another nice shopping experience was going to Sainsbury, at 54 East Street – before the days of supermarkets, it was a large hall beautifully tiled inside and with an unmistakable constant aroma of the hams, bacon, and cheeses that they sold. The butter counter usually had a long queue - butter wasn’t pre-packed – it was served by women expert in using butter paddles!

  Once or twice Dad took me to John’s café next-door to our shop. Dad also allowed us to choose a comic once a week, from the shop, which he managed after my grandfather retired – I usually chose Bunty, a girl’s comic, but I secretly preferred my brother’s Beezer – I was always a bit of a tomboy! One disadvantage of the newsagent’s business was that my Dad was up at 5am for the paper delivery and the shop remained open until 7pm, so we didn’t see too much of him. The store was in a good position en route to Barking Station so there was plenty of trade. I remember Dad worrying about competition from W.H. Smith in nearby Ilford, which developed at a faster rate than Barking.

  Now and then Mum would take my brother and me to the Odeon Cinema to see the old black and white Norman Wisdom films or some of the ‘Carry On’ series, but we often arrived half-way through... I can’t remember ever watching a film from the beginning because everything depended on fitting around the demands of the shop. “This is where we came in”, Mum would say, and then we’d have to leave…

  A favourite lunchtime treat was eels and mash in liquor with parsley, my grandmother’s speciality – bought from the wet fish shop in Ripple Road (beyond the Police Station, the library and Barking Football Club ground, at the real Vicarage Field) where the fishmonger would chop up the live eels in front of you, necessary, I was told, to prove how fresh the eels were – learning to cut eel segments when they were still twitching was an acquired skill!

  The highlight of the year was the annual Barking Carnival – there was a wonderful procession which ended in Barking Park, and passed right by our shop.

  Everyone used to crowd in the streets but we had a super vantage point from our upstairs flat! We leaned out of the sash windows (not allowed now?!) with our streamers, waving to the Carnival Queen and all the floats. This was always followed by a fair in Barking Park which stayed for a week – we used to go on Friday evening and invariably came home with a token prize of a goldfish in a bag of water!

  I often saw and played with my cousins who lived in Salisbury Avenue and my second cousins lived in Fanshawe Avenue. On very special occasions, like Mum and Dad’s Silver Wedding Anniversary, we would have a celebration dinner at the T-Bone Steak House, run by two Greek guys, in Longbridge Road.

  Although we moved to Ilford in 1959, after passing my 11+ I was delighted to follow in the footsteps of my mother, by returning to Barking Abbey Grammar School, in Longbridge Road. This experience I thoroughly enjoyed especially once I reached the sixth form!

  I still spent quite a bit of time in Barking – on very hot days we’d go swimming in the open-air Lido pool in Barking Park, and I was doing a lot of running – on the track, on the road and cross-country. I was racing most Saturdays for Ilford Athletic Club – the local newspaper Barking Advertiser had regular articles about our team, especially in 1966 at the height of our success. I fondly recall the headline, ”Key to Success”, and Ilford Pictorial ran a feature “Meet the unbeaten athletic quartet – Ilford Girls, Top for Two Years”.

  During the school holidays I loved helping Dad do the stock-taking and choosing the lovely greeting cards for which Hewett’s was renowned in Barking. We selected them from huge photo-album style books that the commercial travellers would leave with us to peruse – I especially liked the ones from Hallmark and Gibson. Once I was old enough, I was allowed to serve in the greeting cards and stationery section, which was good for my mental arithmetic skills, especially when everything was priced in pounds, shillings and pence, before decimalisation, which made things a lot easier, in 1971!

  The most joyful time with customers was during University Christmas holidays – especially on Christmas Eve when so many guys would come into the shop in a very merry mood, looking for the biggest, plushest, boxed cards to give their wives and girlfriends. By this time, we also had a kiosk at the front of Blake's Market (destroyed by fire in 1971, I heard, when I was away at University).

  Dad retired in the 1980s and the business was sold, but we’ve kept the property in the family ever since – every now and then I still wonder whether I should have taken over the business myself instead of training to become a biologist…

  Thank you for the kind permission of Barbara to publish her story and photographs and to the LBBD Archives for the other historical photographs above.

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• Share Barking's Trams by Felicity Hawksley on Facebook Share Barking's Trams by Felicity Hawksley on Twitter Share Barking's Trams by Felicity Hawksley on Linkedin Email Barking's Trams by Felicity Hawksley link

  Barking's Trams by Felicity Hawksley

  over 4 years ago
  

  One of Barking’s Heritage Volunteers, Felicity Hawksley, has been researching Barking Trams, one of which is featured at the apex of Jake’s mural, along with the Bascule Bridge.

  The lifting bridge took one Barking tram route over the River Roding to Beckton, so Barking workers could get to the Gas Works there.

  For almost thirty years, electric trams were a common sight on the streets of Barking, from the 1900’s until their disappearance in the 1930s.

  Tram on East Street with Capitol Cinema and M&S store behind it, taken between 1935-1938

  Originally, the Council submitted plans in 1898/9 for ten... Continue reading

  One of Barking’s Heritage Volunteers, Felicity Hawksley, has been researching Barking Trams, one of which is featured at the apex of Jake’s mural, along with the Bascule Bridge.

  The lifting bridge took one Barking tram route over the River Roding to Beckton, so Barking workers could get to the Gas Works there.

  For almost thirty years, electric trams were a common sight on the streets of Barking, from the 1900’s until their disappearance in the 1930s.

  Tram on East Street with Capitol Cinema and M&S store behind it, taken between 1935-1938

  Originally, the Council submitted plans in 1898/9 for ten tramlines. Interestingly, the plans bear the names of Gerald Baker, the engineer, but also C J Dawson, well-known local architect. In the end, only four short lines were built in the town centre.

  Not everyone favoured the ambitious proposals. The Board of Trade and residents including prominent figures such as the Glennys and Mr W G King opposed them. Officials described the Council’s plans as, “over- reaching” and, in a letter of 1899, General Hutchinson stated that East Street was too narrow for trams. The Council consulted on their plans and records show lists of property owners and tenants in East and Axe Streets and Broadway, including the R White’s factory and the Governors of the United Westminster schools, owners of the Bull Pub and 1-11 East Street. Some 23 objections to the plans were received, 19 of which related to the proposed line along Broadway - Line 1, which ran from the junction with the Beckton line to join up with East Ham trams at the boundary between the two boroughs, crossing the expensively engineered Bascule Bridge over the Roding.

  Barking Tram on Bascule Bridge

  Many of the property owners felt that the proposed line passed too close to their buildings and some suggested that a double track along the Broadway and North Street would be dangerous. In particular, a petition from the Society of Quakers dated 28/12/98, signed by Leo Godlee, pointed out the hazards which the trams would pose to worshippers and mourners at the Quaker Meeting House who parked their carriages in North Street. In the light of these objections, part of the track in North Street was reduced to single track and the indoor market in Broadway was relocated by the Council to create more space.

  Winter tram on a snowy Barking Broadway, outside Willet's Store

  Further objections were raised by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway Company who suggested that running a single tram route up East Street, past the station, over the level crossing would be hazardous. They wanted the council to pay for the construction of a bridge over the railway line. The Council declined and the Board of Trade ruled that the tram lines should not run past the station but stop a distance of 66 feet either side of the station. These demands created a break in the route, with Line 2 running up East Street to the station and Line 3 running from the station, up Fanshaw Crescent and Ilford Lane to join up with the Ilford Council route. The railway company subsequently paid for a bridge to replace the level crossing in 1907.

  View from Longbridge Road of the level crossing for steam trains before the bridge was built in 1907

  Some local landowners stood to gain financially from the sale of their land to make way for the tram tracks. Thomas Matthews was offered £300 an acre for 5.5 acres of his marshland and Mr E, H Glenny offered £5 per square foot to trade his land.

  Originally the tram routes were run in conjunction with the neighbouring councils. By 1914, these arrangements ended due to financial pressures, and Barking’s trams were only seen in the town centre.

  Tram and motor vehicle on East Street - the trams were replaced by trolley buses before the World War II

  At this time only 2.6 miles of Barking track remained. The routes were loss making and the Council sold part of its tram fleet - car 6 was seen on Woodham Ferrers being used as a hen house. The final demise of the Barking trams came in 1938 when they were replaced by trolley buses and the tracks were removed. A tram on the mural marks their interesting if brief history in Barking.

  Thank you to London borough of Barking & Dagenham's Archives, for the use of their historic photographs.
• Share Barking's First Power Station by Eric Feasey on Facebook Share Barking's First Power Station by Eric Feasey on Twitter Share Barking's First Power Station by Eric Feasey on Linkedin Email Barking's First Power Station by Eric Feasey link

  Barking's First Power Station by Eric Feasey

  almost 5 years ago
  

  I am an older member of the Barking Heritage group and I find working with the younger members extremely interesting - I have not had the time to get worried about the lockdown and viruses.

  It is nice to see Valence Local Studies Library is open again, so you too can research into your family tree with the help of very nice people there. I first became interested in local history when I visited Valence House many years ago. One of my main interests is Barking's earliest power station, which can be seen behind a couple of the churches in... Continue reading

  I am an older member of the Barking Heritage group and I find working with the younger members extremely interesting - I have not had the time to get worried about the lockdown and viruses.

  It is nice to see Valence Local Studies Library is open again, so you too can research into your family tree with the help of very nice people there. I first became interested in local history when I visited Valence House many years ago. One of my main interests is Barking's earliest power station, which can be seen behind a couple of the churches in old pictures of Barking.

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  The Chimney of the Electric Works behind Barking Broadway from 1897-1927

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  The new councilors at the 1893 Public Offices (later Magistrate’s Court and now apartments, on East Street) made the dynamic decision, to bring electricity to Barking, at the end of the Victorian era. They instigated the building of the first electrical works or power station in 1897 and chose Thames Electrical Engineers (possibly linked to the famous Ironworks) to install the generators, because they were well established in putting electrical generators into boats.

  ---

  Electric Cable Stores on the Goad Plans

  ---

  One of the main reasons for initiating electricity in Barking (beside public lighting) was for a new tram service to Beckton Gas Works, where many Barking people worked at that time. Richard Thames claims (in Barking Past, 2002) that residential homes began to benefit from Barking’s new electricity supply from 1899.

  ---

  Old map of Barking, showing the electric works off Axe Street, behind the Public Offices, where it generated electricity from 1997 until 1927

  ---

  I want to point out that Barking's first power station supplied electricity for Barking Urban District Council’s Tram system, in the early years of the twentieth century, and helped with the operation of Barking’s Bascule Bridge (French for balance-scale bridge) over the River Roding. This masterful piece of engineering was manufactured by Joseph Westwood, of Millwall Ironworks [formerly a works manager at Thames Ironworks whose football club (1895-1900) was the forerunner to West ham United FC] and constructed by Anthony Fasey of Leytonstone, with electrical equipment by Mather & Platt Ltd of Salford. It used two 30 horsepower motors, running from the 550 volt D.C. traction supply. The control cabin was overhead, on the Barking side of the bridge, so it differed from the more famous lifting bridge - Tower Bridge, which was steam powered. There was an electric interlock system, and detector brushes on the trams, to ensure that the bridge could not be raised if a tram was within 100 yards According to LA Thomson, the structure was a, ‘modified form of Scherzer type rolling Bascule’ – the first of its kind in the UK, it was built between 1898 and1903, when the tramway opened.

  The Barking Tram system was later seen as a financial disaster and closed in 1929, the Bascule bridge was demolished soon after, but at the time of its construction it had been an innovative feat of engineering and for many hard-working Barking people, using the service to commute to Beckton Gas Works (part of Barking's Gas, Light & Coke Company), it had made travelling easier. After its closure and before cars became affordable in the post-war era locals probably cycled along the Alfred’s Way bypass (now part of the A13, completed in 1928), over the Roding and into Beckton instead…

  In 1925 the Barking Power House, at Creekmouth, was opened by King George V. Sir Harry Renwick described the first of three Power Stations built along the Thames in Barking, as, ‘the opening of a new era…the greatest step yet taken for London and district in the supply of electrical power…’ The Barking electric works closed in 1927, when the town took a contract with the County of London Electric Co who had built the huge new Power Station at Creekmouth.

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  An illustration of the coal conveyor and boiler house at Barking Power Station, from a booklet produced to mark the opening in May 1925

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  The Victorians were brilliant engineers and innovators, so you young people out there should use your computers and mobile phones, which are also powered by electricity, to study the past which may help you to understand the future.

  With thanks to Valence House Archives & Local Studies for the pictures.

  For further information on the construction of the Bascule Bridge see: https://www.tramwayinfo.com/Tramframe.htm?https://www.tramwayinfo.com/trampostcards/Postc155.htm

  Or: http://www.movablebridges.org.uk/BridgePage.asp?BridgeNumber=1048

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• Share The Winds of Change by Simone Panayi on Facebook Share The Winds of Change by Simone Panayi on Twitter Share The Winds of Change by Simone Panayi on Linkedin Email The Winds of Change by Simone Panayi link

  The Winds of Change by Simone Panayi

  about 5 years ago
  

  North Street is an ancient road which like East street, has played a remarkable role in the history of Barking and before the railway arrived it was the main street in the town. We have previously reviewed the history of the Workhouse and Northbury House (Fulke’s Manor), distinctive buildings once situated on the east side of North Street, close to London Road. There are several other significant stories to tell about this street which ran from the Broadway intersection with Church Path, passing the Abbey (and later its ruins) in the direction of Uphall and Ilford.

  At its northern end... Continue reading

  North Street is an ancient road which like East street, has played a remarkable role in the history of Barking and before the railway arrived it was the main street in the town. We have previously reviewed the history of the Workhouse and Northbury House (Fulke’s Manor), distinctive buildings once situated on the east side of North Street, close to London Road. There are several other significant stories to tell about this street which ran from the Broadway intersection with Church Path, passing the Abbey (and later its ruins) in the direction of Uphall and Ilford.

  At its northern end is Northbury (formerly North Street) School built in 1895. This golden brick building has withstood two world wars, including a Gotha Plane attack in the First World War, when a bomb landed in the boys’ playground during a raid, which caused casualties in Barking and East Ham.

  South of the Victorian school, Queen’s Road and Victoria Gardens is another of the few historic buildings which remain on North Street – The Friends Meeting House.

  This was built in 1908 on the site of Tait’s Place, a Tudor mansion purchased by the Quakers in 1673, as a meeting place (an original paneled room remains inside).

  Tait's Place (above) was opposite the orchard that the Society of Friends bought a year earlier, which became the Quaker Burial Ground. This is the final resting place of several remarkable Quakers including Elizabeth Fry, the famous prison reformer, once on the £5 note. The Quakers, as they were known, were some of the earliest opponents of the slave trade from Africa to the colonies and argued for the abolition of slavery. Their belief that, ‘God’s light is in everyone’, also enabled women, like Fry, to preach on an equal footing with men… Many Barking Quakers received punishment for their beliefs, including their refusal to pay tithes to the parish church, at the House Correction further down North Street (on the west side almost opposite George Street). Some locals wonder if this is where Fry first protested the treatment of prisoners…

  North Street, historically housed a strange mix of prosperous homes, places for the poor and punished, and public houses, including King Harry at number 20, The White Hind and The Good Intent, which have all disappeared. The Red Lion was established by 1609, a famous folk singer Paul Simon performed in the building of 1899, during the 1960s, and it is now residential homes. The Jolly Fisherman which opened its doors in the Victorian period and continued to remind locals of earlier cheerful residents recently closed, and only the ancient Bull Inn, opposite the Curfew Tower, last rebuilt in 1925 and recently remodelled, is likely to re-open to customers.

  The northern end of North Street was traditionally more respectable, this is where Braintree House once stood, opposite Union Terrace (see Frogley’s map below). It may have been named by the Willet’s family in the 1880s who came from Braintree. John Willett, market gardener, pawnbroker, and later known for his drapers next to the Curfew Tower, lived there with his wife Sophia, his daughter Sophia, her husband Henry Linsdell, three children and two servants.

  Roden Lodge was another grand home at 100 North Street. By the late nineteenth century it was home to the Hewetts – Barking fishing fleet owners, who lived there into the mid twentieth century. This house was removed for the widening of the relief road, in the late twentieth century.

  Joseph Leftley a ‘car-man’ and his wife Isabel, lived in North Street in 1881, with their children. Joseph’s grandfather and his two brothers reportedly left their farm in Suffolk in the 1790s to seek their fortune... Isabel, still lived at 86, North Street at the age of 65, where she had managed her husband’s haulage company for 30 years. Other members of the Leftley family lived in North Street including a Baker, living there in the 1930s. During that period ‘Leftley Brothers Ltd’, founded in 1933, built the ‘ever popular’ Longbridge Road Estate, and provided land for the building of a Baptist Church. Another well-known Barking family that lived in North Street was the Glenny family, Thomas Glenny, aged 35, lived there in 1841 with his wife Harriet, at the time he was described as an agriculturist but later the family became more famous as land agents and brewers…

  Meanwhile Mr Winch started a furniture business in North Street in 1899, selling his stock to local people, mostly on credit.

  He is shown in the photograph, from 1925, wearing a waistcoat and leaning on a Sterling Mangle. Around that time he retired from the business on the grounds of ill health, although he actually lived until 1960, reaching a ripe old age… Tim Moore’s grandfather, was an agent for Stirling Mangles in the early twentieth century, and whilst calling at the store, discovered that Mr. Winch was selling his business - Mark Moore, his wife and his sister in law, who had a successful furniture shop in Commercial Road, Poplar, took this opportunity to purchase Winch’s store in North Street. Due to the money owed by the customers, they discovered that the business was actually a good bargain! Stanley Moore - Mark’s son and Tim’s father, was persuaded to leave his position as a clerk at the Midland Bank to manage the new shop.

  Retired Barking Magistrate, Tim, recalls that, ‘the girl pictured in the light-coloured dress is Nellie (Mr. Winch’s niece) she married the young man to the right of the horse, Fred Standing, who continued working for the Moore family until his death in the 1960s’.

  Fred appears in another photograph with the Winch’s horse and cart, on Bennington Avenue, which was at the junction with North Street. The horse and carts pictured, ‘delivered furniture etc. and called on customers to collect their weekly payments of 6d or 1/- each week’. There were two carts and two horses stabled in North Street at that time. Tim’s father said that one of the horses was, ‘rather bad tempered’, although it was in the interest of modernisation not a moody horse that Mr. Moore upgraded to the store’s first motor van, shown here, in 1929.

  Later he recognised the prospects of a new shopping development, by Edward Glenny, in Ripple Road, on land once owned by the vicar of Barking. They moved there in 1932, where Winch’s furniture store traded until 1999.

  Over the years a cold wind of change has blown down North Street, sweeping away grand old buildings, such as the workhouse of 1788, ancient homes like Roden Lodge and Faulke’s manor and various quaint pubs, but this Spring a balmy breeze, by way of the Punjab, brings a beautiful new building to the corner of North Street and Gurdwara Way. Carved from Indian marble, including engravings of Elizabeth Fry and both Barking and Sikh Heritage, the new Singh Sabha celebrates 50 years since they moved into the Friends Meeting House, North Street. I recently spoke to Alderman Inder Singh Jamu about the history of the Sikh Community in Barking, and he mentioned that in seeking employment in post-colonial Britain many Asian workers were offered jobs at William Warne’s Rubber Factory – where they imported rubber from India and perhaps for that reason were more welcoming to Asian workers. The borough archives have some lovely old photos from this period at Warne’s factory in Barking.

  
  

  The Barking Heritage Project would like to send our best wishes to the Gurdwara on the occasion of the Sikh community’s fiftieth anniversary in Barking!

  With special thanks to Mr. Tim Moore and the local archives for the photographs and images shown here and Lesley Gould for her research into North Street residents in the Victorian era. A version of this story recently appeared in the Barking & Dagenham Post.

  
  

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• Share Northbury House by Lesley Gould & Simone Panayi - Part Two of a trilogy on North Street on Facebook Share Northbury House by Lesley Gould & Simone Panayi - Part Two of a trilogy on North Street on Twitter Share Northbury House by Lesley Gould & Simone Panayi - Part Two of a trilogy on North Street on Linkedin Email Northbury House by Lesley Gould & Simone Panayi - Part Two of a trilogy on North Street link

  Northbury House by Lesley Gould & Simone Panayi - Part Two of a trilogy on North Street

  about 5 years ago
  

  Eastbury Manor House is well known in Barking, but Westbury and Northbury manors have left only their names behind – both are more widely known as schools today – two of the earliest council (Education Board) schools built in the borough - Westbury, built in 1904, is now a site of Ripple Primary. Northbury, built as North Street School in 1895, was later renamed, after Northbury House which was sadly demolished in 1936, to make way for the London Road extension. It left behind an interesting history…

  Northbury School today as viewed from upper North Street...

  The site of Northbury... Continue reading

  Eastbury Manor House is well known in Barking, but Westbury and Northbury manors have left only their names behind – both are more widely known as schools today – two of the earliest council (Education Board) schools built in the borough - Westbury, built in 1904, is now a site of Ripple Primary. Northbury, built as North Street School in 1895, was later renamed, after Northbury House which was sadly demolished in 1936, to make way for the London Road extension. It left behind an interesting history…

  Northbury School today as viewed from upper North Street...

  The site of Northbury was an ancient tenement in the manor of Barking, long managed by Barking Abbey. It was originally named Fulks, after a local land owing family, in the middle ages.

  In the mid-15^th century, it was purchased by the landowner of Samkynes (Thomas Sampkyn), who also owned the Wyfield estate. After the dissolution of the Abbey, this land was all granted by King Henry VIII to Thomas Audley, the Lord Chancellor, and eventually passed to Thomas Fanshawe, who in 1628 became the new ‘lord of the Manor’ of Barking.

  Fulks House, was on the east side of North Street, on the northern corner of Nelson Street - now incorporated into London Road. When Fulks was owned by Sir Edward Hulse he sold it separately from the manor, in 1773. It was occupied as St Margaret’s Vicarage for a time before the new vicarage was built in Ripple Road, in 1794. The late medieval manor may have remained on the site up until then, but it was eventually redeveloped and became known as Northbury House (50 North street) in the nineteenth century.

  Christopher Spashett one of Barking’s Fishing Smack owners lived in Northbury House in 1841. It was a bustling household, with his wife Mary, their children Mary, Agnes, Harry, Christopher, Louisa, Emily and six fishing apprentices all residing there. The Spashett’s story reflects the rise and fall of the fishing industry in Barking. In 1851 the family were still living at Northbury, with one servant, and Christopher employed 40 men and boys, yet three years later he was facing Bankruptcy. His occupation latterly shows diversification - to mast and block maker, smack owner and Chapman (or merchant), but by 1854 he had moved to Gorleston, in Norfolk. He was one of the first of many Barking fishing men to move there and was helped by his friend Samuel Hewitt who famously owned the Short Blue Fleet! Splashet continued to adapt starting out as a fishing agent and eventually becoming licensee of the “Feathers” pub in Gorleston.

  In 1861 Northbury became a school for young ladies, run by the Tuck sisters Emma, Charlotte, and Louisa. Among their seven pupils were three sisters with the unusual surname of Jamrach. These were the daughters of Charles Jamrach, the owner of Jamrach’s Animal Emporium in London. Which has since become the subject of an acclaimed novel, Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch. James Reed was the occupier of Northbury in 1862, in this period a well provided fresh spring water and by 1867 it had a new gas supply!

  Nineteenth century Northbury, in the snow, before being demolished in the thirties...

  From 1868 and for almost half a century, Northbury belonged to Barking’s Quash family. John Thomas another local smack-owner and his family filled the house. Along with his wife Mary and children: Mary Amelia, Jane, Elizabeth, John James, Emma, Maria, William, and a baby, there was father-in-law James Bure Mills, a nurse, and two domestic servants. Records suggest they were a very close family as the children all had nicknames.

  John Quash had retired by 1881, but still lived at Northbury with his family, some of the older children were then working themselves – James as a Ship Brokers’ Clerk and John Junior kept a Hossier, Hatter & Glover Shop, further along North Street. This shop was recorded by local historian Frogley as becoming the base of the Industrial Co-operative Society in Barking, in 1889. Supported by the Stratford Co-operative Society, the Co-op expanded into ‘Bonnet Box’ a milliners’ shop, next door, owned by two sisters called Read.

  In 1900 the Co-operative Society erected a new building on this enlarged site, with a beautifully glazed first floor, crowned by their symbol of an industrious community working for each other – the beehive - which can still be seen on the building today and will hopefully receive some loving restoration work over the coming year.

  George Westbrook coloured this plan of the Co-op building, 1900, held in the borough archives.

  John Quash Junior became the captain of Barking’s volunteer fire brigade and remained in post there for fifteen years. Younger brother William had even greater success as an amateur football player. He competed in the 1900 Olympic Games for Great Britain in Paris, where he won a gold medal, as a member of Upton Park club team! “Bill” was an all-round sportsman, he excelled at cycling, swimming, figure skating and cricket and is believed to have been one of the founder members of Barking Cricket Club in 1901.

  Around this time John senior moved from Northbury to Linton Road, with several of his children, also their partners and children. Most of the family remained at Linton Road after John senior’s death. At one point at least fifteen of them lived in a 12 roomed house. There is some evidence that William moved back into Northbury before 1917, including a photograph of William’s niece, Ethel, having her wedding party in Northbury garden, in 1912.

  By 1917 Northbury had been taken over by the notorious Cape asbestos company and became known as Cape Lodge and eventually converted to a local club before it made way for the London Road during a phase of Barking redevelopment in the thirties. Asda roughly covers the site of Northbury House today.

  This Story Featured in the Barking & Dagenham Post: https://www.barkinganddagenhampost.co.uk/lifestyle/heritage/history-of-northbury-house-barking-7563106

  
  

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• Share North Street Stories - The Workhouse by Sue Hamilton on Facebook Share North Street Stories - The Workhouse by Sue Hamilton on Twitter Share North Street Stories - The Workhouse by Sue Hamilton on Linkedin Email North Street Stories - The Workhouse by Sue Hamilton link

  North Street Stories - The Workhouse by Sue Hamilton

  over 5 years ago
  

  A workhouse was opened in Barking in 1722 in four tenements in North Street.

  An inspection report of March 1725 gives an impression of daily life for the inmates in the workhouse:-

  “Their employment consists of picking Ockam (this was old rope and cable or Junk purchased from merchants and teased out into fibres to be resold to shipbuilders for mixing with tar to seal the lining of wooden craft. This could also be used to make matting or bandaging). The women knit and mend stockings for the whole family, make beds and keep the house clean, and sometimes pick... Continue reading

  A workhouse was opened in Barking in 1722 in four tenements in North Street.

  An inspection report of March 1725 gives an impression of daily life for the inmates in the workhouse:-

  “Their employment consists of picking Ockam (this was old rope and cable or Junk purchased from merchants and teased out into fibres to be resold to shipbuilders for mixing with tar to seal the lining of wooden craft. This could also be used to make matting or bandaging). The women knit and mend stockings for the whole family, make beds and keep the house clean, and sometimes pick Ockam.

  The Steward and his wife have the government of the family, he buys the food at the market and she prepares it. There is a small infirmary built on the back but the people are generally in such good health that it has little use.”

  There were three meals a day- breakfast, consisting of broth or porridge. Dinner included meat four times a week usually beef, sheep’s head, or ox cheek. Supper was left-overs from dinner or bread and butter with cheese and unlimited bread and beer!

  The civil parish of Barking was divided into four wards. Barking Town, Ripple, Chadwell and Ilford. The Barking Workhouse Act passed in 1786 appointed six Directors of the Poor to be responsible over the four Guardians (one from each ward) and Overseers for Poor Relief. The original Directors were:

  The Rev Peter Rashleigh, vicar

  Mr Bamber Gascoyne senior of Byfrons

  Mr Bamber Gascoyne junior of Byfrons

  George Spurrell, farmer of Roden Lodge

  Thomas Pittman, farmer of Loxford Hall

  Edward Hulse, Lord of the Manor

  A new building could accommodate over 250 inmates. It was one of the largest parish workhouses in Essex, completed in 1788 on a site which had previously housed Mr Rayment’s Brewhouse & Malthouse and an old school building. The brick building, which cost £4,000, had a frontage of 140 feet, was two storeys high, plus a basement, with two side wings, forming a square with piazzas (supported by plain pillars) where the inmates could enjoy their recreation periods. It contained an apartment for the Master and Matron, committee room, store rooms and a long room for the looms (spinning and sack making were two of the occupations the inmates performed). The bedchamber was on the first floor. A Latin inscription on the pediment translated as “This House of Industry was built at the sole expense of the inhabitants of Barking to provide for and protect the industrious and to punish the idle and wicked”. This inscription was salvaged when the workhouse was demolished and is now displayed in the kitchen garden at Eastbury Manor House.

  The Grammar School and Workhouse at Barking 1799

  From the Workhouse (where the Asda supermarket is today) looking diagonally across the junction with London Road could be seen the site of the Barking House of Correction/Bridewell from 1792 until it closed in 1831. Also the site of the old North Street Police Station from 1842 until it was demolished in 1955.

  The new Union Act of 1837 abolished local workhouses and the inmates were transferred to the care of the Romford Union. From 1836 to 1838 the Barking workhouse was leased to Romford Poor Law Union for two years until their own building was completed. The vacated building was let and converted into shops in 1841.

  There was evidence part of the building was used as a mortuary. The London Morning Advertiser reported on 5^th January 1853.

  “Suspected suicide: The naked body of a young man found in the Thames and the body removed to Barking Workhouse to be owned”.

  The Western Mail on 5^th September 1878 reported the sinking of The Princess Alice Paddle Steamer disaster at Woolwich on 3^rd September with the loss of hundreds of lives. No less than 29 bodies were recovered on the shore of The Beckton Gas Company and they were removed to the Barking Workhouse about a half a mile away.

  Barking was the first place in Essex to adopt the Public Libraries Act in 1888. After long negotiations space in the north-west corner of the old workhouse building was allocated for the library. Repairs and renovations were supervised by Mr. C.J. Dawson, the Surveyor to the local board. On the 31^st May 1889 the new Barking Public Library was officially opened. In 1894 the library transferred to the Public Offices in East Street.

  The workhouse was finally demolished in 1936.

  Bamford's depiction of the Workhouse in 1905

  
  

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• Share The impact of Britain's colonial past on Barking's heritage by Simone Panayi on Facebook Share The impact of Britain's colonial past on Barking's heritage by Simone Panayi on Twitter Share The impact of Britain's colonial past on Barking's heritage by Simone Panayi on Linkedin Email The impact of Britain's colonial past on Barking's heritage by Simone Panayi link

  The impact of Britain's colonial past on Barking's heritage by Simone Panayi

  over 5 years ago
  

  
  

  Tucked away in the tiny print of Victorian newspapers is a local story that should be shared this Black History Month and beyond – an incredible and inspirational story of transcending the suffering of slavery, to fight for freedom and equality. In October 1888, Revered W B Brown, and his wife, were on a lecture tour entitled, ‘Scenes in Slave Land’. They had travelled from Baltimore, in America, to speak out against slavery and addressed Barking Baptists at a temporary Baptist Chapel on Ripple Road (not the earlier chapel on Queen’s Road, sketched by Frogley, or the beautiful Tabernacle was... Continue reading

  
  

  Tucked away in the tiny print of Victorian newspapers is a local story that should be shared this Black History Month and beyond – an incredible and inspirational story of transcending the suffering of slavery, to fight for freedom and equality. In October 1888, Revered W B Brown, and his wife, were on a lecture tour entitled, ‘Scenes in Slave Land’. They had travelled from Baltimore, in America, to speak out against slavery and addressed Barking Baptists at a temporary Baptist Chapel on Ripple Road (not the earlier chapel on Queen’s Road, sketched by Frogley, or the beautiful Tabernacle was built in 1893).

  This event was recorded in the Barking, East Ham & Ilford Advertiser and the Hendon and Finchley Times also covered the lecture in great detail, when it was delivered at Victoria Hall, enabling us to find out more about this intriguing visitor.

  Reverend Brown was born the son of a 'free father' and a 'slave mother' and therefore forced to ‘scare crows’ for ‘his owner’, from the age of eight. He described how he was ‘always longing to escape’ and eventually took that perilous risk… Unfortunately he was recaptured and resold in Baltimore market… Twice, during the American Civil War he fled to the north to join the Union Army in order to fight for the ending of slavery in the United States, and in 1863 he was with that army when, ‘the guns boomed out’ to celebrate the emancipation proclamation (freedom for all slaves) and he shared, ‘…with 4,500,000 of his race, the joy of liberty’. This was written into the US Constitution two years later. ‘Freed themselves’, the couple, ‘longed and laboured for the freedom of their race in…Africa,’ where slavery still persisted, in 1888.

  The transatlantic slave trade had begun several hundred years earlier - taken from Africa, by British and European traders, the captives were exploited for their labour in the ‘new world’ plantations, across the Americas and Caribbean islands. They were enslaved to produce valuable commodities, for their owners, such as rum, sugar, tobacco, and cotton. Fortunately for Barking its colonial legacy does not include any controversial statues or grand buildings constructed from the profits of the slave trade, by wealthy traders, merchants, bankers, investors or land owners in the colonies, who had benefited from enslaving others. Rather it can be proud of its links with abolition and those who opposed slavery and human trafficking.

  One of the first religious groups to challenge the existence of slavery were the Quakers - like the many Baptists, Methodists (including founder John Wesley, who visited Barking in 1783 & 84) and other non-conformist Christians, including the famous Anglican abolitionist, William Wilberforce, who followed in their footsteps, the Quakers argued that all people were born equal - ‘God’s light is within everyone…’ They therefore allowed women to preach, promoted pacifism, and denounced slavery.

  The Religious Society of Friends was founded in 1652, by George Fox. Quakers (as they were known) were recorded in Barking soon after. They purchased half an acre of orchard here in 1672, to use as a burial ground and the following year they bought Tate’s Place (opposite), where the Tudor hall could be used for gatherings of friends and worship. One of the Barking Quakers, William Mead, became a good friend of Fox and was also imprisoned for his beliefs, with William Penn - who later founded Pennsylvania as a Quaker state (opposed to slavery) in America. Many escaped and rescued slaves found refuge there, including the incredible Harriet Tubman. The picture below shows Mead and Penn's trial where the jury controversially found the Quakers 'not guilty' against the King's counsel, they were released from prison but still fined for their religious practices. To find out more see: https://www.lauderdalehouse.org.uk/about-us/our-history/william-mead

  By 1758 the Quakers were actively campaigning to abolish slavery, one of their many advocates was Elizabeth Fry. She had eleven children, lived in Newham for 35 years and holidayed in Dagenham. Mrs Fry became a world-famous Prison Reformer. Queen Victoria was a great admirer of her achievements, and her face previously graced the Bank of England £5 note (2002-2017)… She was buried in Barking’s Quaker cemetery (between North Street and Whiting Avenue) in 1845, her remains still lie there and a memorial explains more about her achievements.

  In 1908 a new Friends’ Meeting House was built on the site of the previous Tudor hall, and one of the paneled, rooms is said to still exist within it… This building was purchased by Barking’s Sikh community in 1971, to become the Singh Saba, which will be celebrating fifty years in Barking next year. They share some views on God, with the Quakers who were here before them - the Guru Granth Sahib says, "There is no other like the merciful God. He is contained deep within each and every one." The crowning glory for their Barking anniversary, will be the new Gurdwara, on Gurdwara Way, built in the style of its region of origin – the Punjab, where Guru Nanak built the first one in 1521-2, not long before Tate’s Place was built on the site of the previous Barking Gurdwara, at the time of King James I...

  Barking’s Indian connections date back to at least 1866, when the great Jute works was opened in Fisher Street (now Abbey Road) by Thomas Duff. At the time it was the largest in the world! There were over 1,000 workers there, mainly women and children, creating jute bags and sacks. Mr Howe, of Barking, explained in 1891, ‘the fibre of raw jute is obtained chiefly from British India…its native place’. He believed it was imported to the UK from the 1820s and including the Daisee kind from the Calcutta area. Meanwhile much of the female labour force was imported, from Ireland, as ‘spinners’ and Dundee in Scotland, as ‘weavers’. In 1935 Mrs Storey recalled memories from her childhood, including the sound of the workers’ clogs on the cobbles to and from work. When ‘at liberty [the women] wore flounced and highly coloured dresses, braided and coiled hair, and were hatless and shawled.’ The female weavers’ salaries were, ‘as much as many of the men’ – a rare situation at the time. A local church formed a ‘Jute girls distress fund’ in 1886 when the factory closed for two years during an economic depression. It did reopen but finally closed for good in 1891. Strikes and factory laws gradually increased the wages and improved the conditions of UK workers but the Barking works could no longer compete with the factories opening in India, where the sacks were produced far more cheaply, by the end of the Victorian Era. William Warne took over the factory making medical products and the insides of footballs, among other things, from natural rubber (caoutchouc) – which was also imported from India!

  Mahatma Gandhi (pictured in a portrait from Valence House Museum's collection) visited Kingsley Hall, in Barking, in 1931, speaking up for the civil liberties of disadvantaged groups and calling for Indian Independence from the British Empire, which was eventually achieved in 1947, when it became a former colony like the American states, Canada, and Australia, along with Pakistan. Barking’s Al Medina Mosque has served the local Muslim community here for over thirty years now and is recognised as a ‘beacon mosque’.

  Many other countries achieved their independence, during the post war era, including, Sri Lanka in 1948, Ghana in 1957, Cyprus in 1962, Jamaica and Uganda in 1962, Barbados in 1966, to name a few. Nigeria is celebrating sixty years of Independence from the British empire this month, and Barking residents of Nigerian heritage form one largest ethnic communities in the borough. A lasting legacy of British colonial history, in Barking, has been the settlement of peoples from across the former colonies. Like the European settlers – including, pre-historic tribes, Germanic Saxons, Scandinavian Vikings, French Normans and Jewish refugees – who came before them, they bring their colourful culture, customs and beliefs to the evolving heritage of the local area.

  About thirty years after Reverend Brown gave his emotional lecture at the Baptist Chapel, Barking welcomed another significant visitor of African Heritage - he did not arrive to preach, but to play football, for Barking FC. Jack Leslie performed with impressive skill too, it’s worth remembering that the father of Barking’s current club president, Dave Blewitt, described Jack as, ‘the greatest player he had ever seen play for Barking in his 60 plus years of watching the Blues.’ In 1925 Jack was born in Canning Town to an English mother and Jamaican father. After playing for Barking he was a successful striker for third division Plymouth Argyle, with an impressive scoring record, and was named in the England squad for an international match against Ireland. He would have been the first black England player, 53 years before Viv Anderson… Yet his name mysteriously disappeared from the team sheet… See the B&D Post for more information and the local campaign for a statue of him..

  Jack Leslie recovered from the disappointment and scored over a hundred goals in his career. After his retirement, he worked at West Ham for many years, and one of the mangers he worked with, Ron Greenwood, was the first to finally select a black player when he became England manger; perhaps Leslie’s personal story played a part in his ground breaking decision – more than half a century later than it should have happened…

  Although the slave trade was abolished by the UK government in 1807 and slavery outlawed across the British empire in 1834, the battle against racial prejudice has courageously continued for people of African heritage in the UK, and the demand for equal rights and opportunities for all underprivileged and minority groups, will carry on into the future.

  We welcome people of every heritage to join our heritage volunteers for this local project, researching and celebrating Barking's past and evolving cultural heritage.

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• Share When Barking's Public Offices became a Magistrate's Court by Sue Hamiliton (retired magistrate) on Facebook Share When Barking's Public Offices became a Magistrate's Court by Sue Hamiliton (retired magistrate) on Twitter Share When Barking's Public Offices became a Magistrate's Court by Sue Hamiliton (retired magistrate) on Linkedin Email When Barking's Public Offices became a Magistrate's Court by Sue Hamiliton (retired magistrate) link

  When Barking's Public Offices became a Magistrate's Court by Sue Hamiliton (retired magistrate)

  over 5 years ago
  

  In 1893 Barking's Public Offices were built on land in East Street that was previously a market garden. When borough status was conferred on Barking in 1931 it was decided that a new Town Hall was needed, and plans were approved in 1936. Due to austerity, the building of the Town Hall was halted until after the war and it was not completed until 1957.

  Meanwhile Barking Council fought to have a much needed Magistrates court in the old Public Offices and eventually received Home Office approval. Alterations were made to the building to make it suitable for use as... Continue reading

  In 1893 Barking's Public Offices were built on land in East Street that was previously a market garden. When borough status was conferred on Barking in 1931 it was decided that a new Town Hall was needed, and plans were approved in 1936. Due to austerity, the building of the Town Hall was halted until after the war and it was not completed until 1957.

  Meanwhile Barking Council fought to have a much needed Magistrates court in the old Public Offices and eventually received Home Office approval. Alterations were made to the building to make it suitable for use as a criminal court. Courts Number One and Two were on the first floor. Court One had secure access direct to the cells downstairs and both courts included areas for court officers, press and public. On the second floor were the two more informal Courts Three and Four where Youth (Juvenile) and Family (Domestic) cases were heard.

  Cases proceeded in Barking in August 1960. There were about 50 magistrates, mainly residing or working in the area. Mr. Jack R.Train was the Chairman of the newly formed bench and Mr. F.W. Wright Clerk to the Justices. One of the magistrates was Miss Eva W Hart M.B.E. who at the age of seven had survived the sinking of the Titanic. She continued sitting as a magistrate in Barking until 1975.

  Many cases were heard at Barking Court during those fifty years! Three of the most notable cases that were reported nationally and caused the largest crowds outside the court were:

  In 1984 – the case of Marie Payne, whose her body was not found for over a year. Colin Evans, was eventually arrested for her murder and at several remand hearings at Barking the police were required to protect Evans from angry crowds. Evans was sentenced, at the Old Bailey, to life imprisonment.

  In 1993 – another gruesome murder case was heard in Barking, that of Matthew and Alison Manwaring (father and daughter) murdered in 1992, by 25 years old, Benjamin Laing, who forced his entry into their Barking home. Again the public surrounded Barking court and jeered when Laing appeared on remand. He too was sentenced to life imprisonment, at the Old Bailey .

  On 1^st December 1989 nearly every national newspaper reported the news that boxing promoter Frank Warren had been shot by a lone gunman, as he got out of his car to attend a boxing match at The Broadway Theatre in Barking! He suffered serious chest and stomach wounds. Frank Warren was the ex-manager of Terry Marsh, the undefeated former world lightweight champion, nicknamed, “The Fighting Fireman” and there was an ongoing libel case between the two men.

  In 1990 - Terry Marsh was arrested at Gatwick Airport, after returning from America where he had watched Nigel Benn’s victory. His first appearance, and each one that followed, at Barking, saw the courthouse surrounded by Terry Marsh’s supporters who cheered for him and on one occasion among his friends in court, along with family and his agent Ambrose Mendy, was Nigel Benn. Marsh was remanded in custody until the trial at the Old Bailey.

  On 7^th November 1990, after a nine-day trial and four hours of jury deliberations, Terry Marsh was found not guilty of attempted murder. The verdict drew a loud cheer in the court.

  In 1986, while the clock tower was being repaired came the hurricane force winds, which cause devastation throughout the country. The scaffolding on the roof was declared a safety risk and the court was evacuated for the day!

  Despite strong opposition, from magistrates and court users, Barking Magistrates Court was closed, along with 142 other courts in England, in September 2011. The approximately 85 magistrates at Barking were eligible to sit at any of the London courts. The majority remained in the North East London Justice Area, sitting by contrast at the more modern Magistrates Court buildings at Barkingside or Romford.

  The original of this print, by a local artist,

  Hung in the retiring room of Court No. 1.

  When the court closed each magistrate was given a

  copy as a memento of their time there.

  The magistrate's court did experience one more flurry of hearings, this time of the fictitious kind when the following year, while the court building remained empty, with court furniture and fittings still in place, Sky Living filmed the pilot for a drama “Lawless”, starring Suranne Jones as a new young judge, and Lindsay Duncan as a senior judge. This drama showed the interior of the courthouse in its former glory.

  Today the Victorian Public Offices and former Magistrates Court has been converted into local residences, on East Street. You can read more about the Barking Magistrate's Court in the Post article, here.

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• Share Barking's Public Offices on Facebook Share Barking's Public Offices on Twitter Share Barking's Public Offices on Linkedin Email Barking's Public Offices link

  Barking's Public Offices

  almost 6 years ago
  

  Of the borough’s listed buildings, the grade II* Barking Public Offices, also known as ‘Barking Magistrate’s Court’, is the only one with Victorian origins and remains one of the most imposing buildings in Barking and Dagenham. The imminent borough architect, Charles James Dawson, submitted its plans in July 1891 and Thomas W Glenny laid the foundation stone in 1893, underneath which, were placed: copies of a national and local newspaper, The Essex Times periodical and three silver coins. It cost £15,085 to build and was opened in October 1894, by philanthropist Mr J. Passmore Edwards, who also donated a thousand... Continue reading

  Of the borough’s listed buildings, the grade II* Barking Public Offices, also known as ‘Barking Magistrate’s Court’, is the only one with Victorian origins and remains one of the most imposing buildings in Barking and Dagenham. The imminent borough architect, Charles James Dawson, submitted its plans in July 1891 and Thomas W Glenny laid the foundation stone in 1893, underneath which, were placed: copies of a national and local newspaper, The Essex Times periodical and three silver coins. It cost £15,085 to build and was opened in October 1894, by philanthropist Mr J. Passmore Edwards, who also donated a thousand books to the library within. C.J. Dawson presented Mr Edwards with a silver, engraved, master key to the building. As well as public offices and library it also included a mortuary, stabling, sheds, and a fire station (at the back).

  The Fire Brigade decorated the route from the station with bunting, and along with the Ambulance Brigade formed a guard of honour, for the opening ceremony.

  All this pomp promoted the start of a new era for Barking, as became an ‘Urban District Council’ in 1894 too, bringing various Barking Boards and the parish’s vestry power ck under the control of one overseer – the council... Local authority in Barking began with the powers of the Abbess, the first being St Ethelburga. Each mother of the Abbey controlled the ‘manor’, which originally lay between the Roding and Beam rivers and north of the Thames through Ilford to the forest boundary (there is no solid evidence of where that was), from AD 666. Dagenham parish separated from Barking & Ilford at some point after the Doomsday Book was written and before the end of the thirteenth century, in line with the establishing of St Peter & St Paul’s parish church. These local powers were absorbed by the King (after Henry VIII’s dissolution of the Abbey) and later became the role of the secular ‘Lord of The Manor’, from 1628, the first of these being Sir Thomas Fanshawe. Queen Elizabeth I addressed her manorial responsibilities to Barking by commissioning the Leet House (also known as the Tudor Market Hall) – explained in Sue Hamilton’s previous article on this topic.

  According to J E Oxley, local governance had probably passed almost exclusively to the vestry (of the Parish Church – St Margaret’s) by the beginning of the eighteenth century. Rapid urbanisation and population growth through the Victorian era however, put enormous pressure on urban parish vestries, particularly on health and welfare services. Provision for the poor had already been removed from vestries by the Poor Law of 1834 and a separate Board of Health was created 1853-5 and from 1875. Barking eventually established a Town Board in 1882 - they immediately authorised a sewerage system for the Town Ward. A Burial Board followed in 1884 – who planned the Rippleside Cemetery as an extension of the graveyard.

  An outbreak of infectious diseases in 1885 led to the hasty erection of an isolation tent and eventually a hospital for those suffering infectious diseases such as Scarlet Fever, Typhoid Fever and Smallpox.

  This was built on Upney Meadow, close to Upney Lane in 1893 and became Upney Hospital - many local babies would be born there in the twentieth century and today it is the site of a community hospital.

  The necessary new cemetery opened in 1886. A School Board was established in 1889 and the first free Barking Board School, Gascoigne, opened in 1891. In 1893 the Town Board took over the Quay and built a pumping station and water-tower. That year culminated in the completion of the new Public Offices, which became known as the Town Hall.

  The Town Board and most other local Boards combined to form the Urban District Council, who met for the first time, in the new building, in 1895.

  Susanna Mason, the first female councillor was elected that year and her (unelected) husband Doctor Hugh Herbert Mason became the first Chairman of the UDC - he was said to be the choice of local trade unionists, as a trusted medical officer, factory surgeon, and a known ‘radical’. Both he and his wife had previously served on the Burial Board and Susanna was also a member of the School Board and regular visitor to Gascoigne school, even during periods of fever, as documented by the school logbook. Tragically their eldest child and only daughter, Marian, shockingly succumbed to ‘croup’ at the age of seven, in 1896, and the local paper described how, ‘the parents were wonderfully fond of their child.’

  This devotion was evident in Mrs Mason’s request to fund a set of stained-glass windows, to be designed and fitted in the new Rippleside Chapel, in Marian’s memory. One is dedicated to the child and features a beautiful likeness of Marian, it can still be seen there today.

  She is buried in an unmarked grave, close to the chapel, probably purchased for the family, but sadly after all their dedication to Barking, they moved back to the midlands, maybe due to this huge sorrow… Marian’s grave is next to that of C.J. Dawson – the architect of the Public Offices, Rippleside Chapel, the original Gascoigne School, North Street (Northbury) School and many other schools and significant buildings in the borough.

  Dawson and his wife Hannah had fifteen children, they also experienced tragedy - they lost four sons, one as a child and three as young men, two were casualties of World War I. Dawson a talented artist and skilled architect was appointed to the Town Board in 1883, initially as a surveyor, and he went on to design more than twenty buildings for the borough over 54 years of service. At his funeral, in 1933, the Vicar described him as, ‘marked by [his] consideration for others, by sterling integrity and by incomparable devotion to duty and to work’. He was renowned for his generosity and kindness and considered, ‘one of the greatest and most highly esteemed of Barking’s citizens’!

  The UDC took over the Burial Board in 1897 and opened Barking Park and Swimming Baths (which were situated behind the old Town Hall and are marked by the foundation stone still) in 1898-9. The town’s electricity supply and a tram way service followed - Barking was a trail blazer with both these new innovations.

  During World War One, local recruits signed up at The Town Hall, at that point it was known as the ‘Clockhouse’. Dawson’s distinctive four-faced clock and weathervane still grace the building and it is also worth looking for the engraved dates, globe lamps and gabled windows with ‘ogee heads’.

  The building was once again centre of attention in 1931, when the Town was granted a royal charter and visited by Queen Elizabeth II’s father, Prince George. By this time however, a new, bigger, town hall was being planned. The outbreak of the second war delayed this project, and it was eventually completed in 1957. Dawson’s building, after serving as a town hall for over sixty years, was to get a new role as a magistrate’s court, which lasted another fifty years... More about that, in the next article on Law and Order…

  Thank you as always to the LBBD Archives for most of these photos.

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