St George in the East
St George in the East, historically known as Wapping-Stepney, was an ancient parish, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, England. The place name is no longer widely used.
Ancient parish areas were historically the same for both civil and ecclesiastical (church) functions, and while St George in the East is no longer a civil parish there is still a smaller continuing ecclesiastical parish. The church, crypts and second floor outreach mission are open and holds regular services, as well as community organizing and social justice campaigns.
History
The parish was largely rural at the time of its creation, the main settlement a hamlet (administrative sub-division of Stepney) and former farm estate known as Wapping - Stepney, or Wapping. The parish church of St George in the East was completed in 1729 by the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches. To distinguish it from other parishes in and near London with the same name, an addition was made which denoted it as "in the East" as a suffix which reflected it was then an eastern suburb of London. The parish boundaries of St George in the East were used as the basis of two wards of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney.
In 1800, work on constructing the London Docks had begun, with parts of Wapping demolished. In 1820 St. George in the East was at the height of its prosperity with wealthy merchants and traders living and building in the parish. The London Docks caused a large influx of unskilled labor and brought poverty with the population growing dense and causing outbreaks of cholera in 1849, 1855, and in 1866.
In the 1930s, Sir Oswald Mosley British Union of Fascists organized a march east down Cable Street to Stepney with 3,000 supporters in October 1936, which was blocked by protesters' barricades at the junction of Cable Street and Christian Street and was known after as the Battle of Cable Street, a mural painted on the side of the former St George's vestry hall shows this event.
After the devastating bomb damage during the Second World War, St George in the East was redeveloped into an almost entirely residential area, which included high-rise flats in tower block style built in the 1970s.
Geography
Much of the former northern boundary of the parish was with Mile End Old Town and ran alongside Commercial Road. In the west the boundary with Whitechapel fell just short of Back Church Lane. The parish of Wapping bordered it to the south, with Wapping forming a salient in the west, dividing it from St Botolph Without Aldgate. The parish of Shadwell was to the east, and the parishes of Wapping and Shadwell almost met, giving St George in the East only a narrow frontage to the River Thames of 53 feet (16 m).
Shadwell and St George's East railway station on the London and Blackwall was within the parish of St George, as was a large part of the London Docks, which have since been filled in. There is an architectural Conservation Area covering the area around the Parish church and Town Hall.