VicLondon-Whitechapel

Whitechapel, the East End

District Traits

Interactive: Access -1, Information -2, Prestige -1 Reactive: Safety -2, Awareness -2, Stability -3

Notable Locations

Civic: Baker's Row Workhouse (4), Metropolitan Police H-Division Headquarters (7), Trinity Alms House (2) Landmarks: The Tower of London (8) Medical: London Hospital (6) Nightlife: The Pavilion (3), The Ten Bells Pub (1) Residences: Dr. Goddard's Surgery Transportation: White Chapel Station & White Chapel Mile End Station (5)

Class: Poor, with a smattering of Middle class

Moving past Bishopgate, north of Commercial Road, is the district of Whitechapel. Its poverty is featured prominently in the scandal sheets and Parliamentary reports. The working class are the dominant class in the area, but middle class homes and shops line the main thoroughfares of Whitechapel and Commercial Roads. Much of the population is Irish, Germanic Jews, and poor Italians. As with St. Giles, most of them are transient and drunken, renting a bed or bench as they have the money. The public fountains and standpipes draw a constant stream of residents, who have to bathe in the open. People are sleeping in gutters, publicly relieving themselves, or even have sex in the alleys. The hotels and flop houses are frequently rented out by sailors in town for a few days and looking for the cheap thrills of the district.

These pleasures are mostly set out on Whitechapel’s eponymous road: music-halls, theatres, and large public houses which feature a singer or small band, darts competitions, and other cheap entertainments. The streets of the area are packed with sales carts offering every kind of inexpensive goods from food products to furniture, books to boots, to second-hand clothes. By day, the district is clogged with food and vehicle traffic, and animals are much more common to see than in the West End or the City. The rats in this area of town are bold and can be seen scuttling around the walls of the buildings. Dogs, cats, and the occasional farm animal roam the alleys.

Crime

The other pleasures of Whitechapel are well-known and are frequently written about with concern by the newspapers and charitable societies. Prostitution, gambling dens, dog and rat fighting establishments, gin shops, and opium dens draw fire from do-gooders in the city. These dark entertainments draw all levels of society, from the most base to the aristocracy. These illicit activities feed one of the most pro table of business sectors: crime. Organized gangs run certain areas of Whitechapel, specializing in various ‘services’. Robbery teams run the streets, especially at night, preying on the gentlemen slumming in the East End. They know that the embarrassment of even being in Whitechapel will keep their marks quiet; a gentleman in Whitechapel at night would be well advised to carry a sword cane or revolver.

Protection is the most lucrative, the shaking down prostitutes and businesses, punishing people who ‘blow the gab’ to the peelers, or warning of the occasional police raid. Some of the larger gangs are even rumoured to have ‘rum’ judges on their payrolls. Frequently, these gangs aren’t just based on geographic position, such as a specific block of the district, but also along family and ethnic lines. Irish tend to run with Irish, Jewish with the Jewish, Italians with Italians.

Rookeries dot the landscape in Whitechapel, ranging from lone buildings to entire blocks of tenements. These rookeries are sanctuaries for criminals and gangs protect them ercely. Police avoid these havens unless a raid is conducted in force. Even the low streets and alleys are considered dangerous for the copper who is not on the payroll of that particular gang, or has a reputation fearsome enough to stave off attack.

Industry

Unlike the larger or more prosperous industry of the rest of the city, the factories and shops here tend to work their employees longer, harder, and dismiss them for any reason. Chemical works like matchmakers, drug manufacturers, and dye-makers are common throughout the district and give the place its characteristic sulphurous scent. Cheap weaving and dressmaking, tinker, tailors hire many from the area. Hanbury’s Brewery is on Brick Lane and is a major employer in the area.

Notable Locales

Baker's Row Workhouse (4)

Dedicated to the aiding the poor is the Baker’s Row Workhouse, an imposing five story red brick slab with a series of arch-topped windows regularly running about all of the oors. Located across from Coverly Fields, with its crowded burial ground (which goes out of use in the early 1890s), and the Union Infirmary. The workhouse is segregated by sex, with men in the west wing, women in the east. The ground oor contains the of ces for the porters and overseer, the second and third oors are reserved for the living quarters of the inmates, and the uppermost oor is set aside for children under the age of fourteen. The living quarters are an open bay, the better to protect the occupants from their own natures and allow the staff to monitor their behaviour. Kitchen and canteen occupy the crossbar of the H shape that the building takes when viewed from above. These rooms are used for Sunday services, as well.

London Hospital (6)

Whitechapel Road is also home to London Hospital, a large facility that caters to the poor and which receives much of its operations funds from charitable donations. The hospital is constantly on the edge of insolvency at this time and has to charge its patients a nominal fee for services. Most of their clientele cannot afford this. London Hospital also has questionable quality of care, more due to the lack of funding with which to draw better physicians.

Metropolitan Police H-Division Headquarters (7)

A simple two story brick building on Leman Street, H-Division's peelers are generally agreed to be some of the most brutal coppers to be had in London's Metropolitan police, and that is saying something in general. A downstairs features a desk sergeant, a set of six cells, a morgue, and a records office. The upper floor contains a garret and armory, as well as the Inspector's offices.

The Pavilion (3)

The more respectable of Whitechapel's theatres is the Pavilion, although the quality of the bill is questionable.

Ten Bells Pub (1)

There is the famed Ten Bells Pub on Commercial Street and Fournier, which offers excellent beer brewed on the premises since 1666. The food is good enough to draw workers from the nearby banking centres.

The Tower of London (8)

Lastly, one of the most famous buildings in the City is the Tower of London. Finished in 1100, the Tower was home to the monarchs of England. A mint and menagerie were built by Henry III and Edward II respectively, and a wharf provides direct access to the Thames. It is infamous for its use as a prison, starting with Richard III’s murder of Henry VI and the imprisonment and assassination of his sons. Other prisoners include two wives of Henry VIII, who also met their end here at the end of the executioner’s axe, and that same king’s daughter Elizabeth, later the queen. Charles used the tower as his headquarters for the English Civil War, and it is the repository of the Crown Jewels, which Queen Elizabeth open to viewing for the paying public. The Tower has been a tourist attraction for the last hundred years. The mint has been moved to the Bank of England, the menagerie to the zoo in Regent’s Park, and the moat lled in for health and safety purposes.

The White Tower is the original piece of the fortress and houses the Royal Armoury, which consisted mostly of the weapons and armour of King Henry VII, as well as some clever medieval torture devices. Attached is the Medieval Palace, where Edward I and the subsequent kings used as their residence. The Tower Green and Scaffold is the site where prisoners were put to death. The Chapel of St. Peter and Vincula is on the Green and was where last rites were administered to the condemned, which included three queens. It is their nal resting place, and their ghosts are rumoured to wander the grounds on the anniversaries of their deaths. Most famous is the ‘Bloody Tower,’ where the Princes were kept by Richard III, and where Sir Walter Raleigh was jailed by James I for plotting against the Crown. Beauchamp Tower is notable for the inscriptions of the varied high-ranking prisoners left in their cells. The walls are considered ‘historical documents’ by the British Museum.

The Yeomanry of the Tower have stood guard since the time of Henry III. The Yeoman Warders, or ‘Beefeaters’, still wear the red and black uniforms from Elizabeth’s time, complete with halberds for weaponry. These guardsmen protect the Crown Jewels, but also are an attraction for the public, who enjoy the ritual changing of the guard. The Crown Jewels are on display from nine in the morning until ve in the afternoon, and include ve royal crowns, tens of thousands of diamonds, the king of which is the allegedly-cursed Koh-I-Noor diamond, recovered from the Sikhs in 1848 and presented to the Queen by General Napier.

Trinity Alms House (2)

In eastern Whitechapel, just past Cambridge Road is the Trinity Alms House, where the poor are provided a place to stay for the night and a simple meal.

Whitechapel Station & Whitechapel Mile End Station (5)

Across from the hospital are the twin stations of Whitechapel and Whitechapel Mile End Stations. The first handles train and tram traffic, the second is the final terminal for the Whitechapel line of trams.