Tower Hamlets

From the records: “In 2013, Janet Montgomery of Durham University undertook lead isotope analysis of tooth enamel, identifying the first person from Rome known to have been buried in Britain.”

From the records: “The first surviving record of the place name is from around 1000 AD as Stybbanhyð, "Stybba's hyð"; hyð developed into hithe (meaning landing-place) in modern English, so "Stybba's landing-place".”

From the records: “Victorious at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, the invading Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, spent the rest of the year securing his holdings by fortifying key positions.”

From the records: “Work on the White Tower – which gives the whole castle its name – is usually considered to have begun in 1078, however the exact date is uncertain.”

From the records: “The Domesday Book survey of 1086 gives the name as Stibanhede and says that the land was held by the Bishop of London and was 32 hides large, mainly used for ploughing, meadows, woodland for 500 pigs, and 4 mills.”

From the records: “In 1197, a priory, The New Hospital of St Mary without Bishopsgate, latterly known as St Mary Spital, was founded by Walter Brunus and his wife Roisia, and built on the site of the cemetery.”

From the records: “There is evidence that King John (1166–1216) first started keeping wild animals at the Tower.”

From the records: “In the 13th century, Kings Henry III (1216–1272) and Edward I (1272–1307) extended the castle, essentially creating it as it stands today.”

From the records: “In 1252, the sheriffs were ordered to pay fourpence a day towards the upkeep of the King's polar bear, a gift from Haakon IV of Norway in the same year; the bear attracted a great deal of attention from Londoners when it went fishing in the Thames while tied to the land by a chain.”

From the records: “In 1254 or 1255, Henry III received an African elephant from Louis IX of France depicted by Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora.”

From the records: “Six hundred Jews were imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1278, charged with coin clipping.”

From the records: “In 1279, the country's numerous mints were unified under a single system whereby control was centralised to the mint within the Tower of London, while mints outside of London were reduced, with only a few local and episcopal mints continuing to operate.”

From the records: “When Richard II was crowned in 1377, he led a procession from the Tower to Westminster Abbey.”

From the records: “During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 the Tower of London was besieged with the King inside.”

From the records: “The Yeoman Warders have been the Royal Bodyguard since at least 1509.”

From the records: “Records show that ships preparing to carry the English royal household to Calais in 1520 docked at the southern bank of the island.”

From the records: “The priory and hospital were dissolved in 1539 under Henry VIII.”

From the records: “The earliest reference to the name "Tower Hamlets" was in 1554, when the Council of the Tower of London ordered a muster of "men of the hamlets which owe their service to the tower".”

From the records: “High-status prisoners could live in conditions comparable to those they might expect outside; one such example was that while Walter Raleigh was held in the Tower his rooms were altered to accommodate his family, including his son who was born there in 1605.”

From the records: “Spitalfields Market was established in 1638 when Charles I gave a licence for flesh, fowl and roots to be sold in what was then known as Spittle Fields.”

From the records: “By the time the English Civil War broke out in November 1642, the Tower of London was already in Parliament's control.”

From the records: “When the monarchy was restored in 1660, the only surviving items of the coronation regalia were a 12th-century spoon and three ceremonial swords. (Some pieces that had been sold were later returned to the Crown.)”

From the records: “When the Great Fire of London broke out on 2 September 1666, Samuel Pepys ascended the Tower to view the early progress of the fire, which he reported, collecting further reports from witnesses on the way, to Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York at Whitehall Palace.”

From the records: “Spitalfields' historic association with the silk industry was established by French Protestant (Huguenot) refugees who settled in the area after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.”

From the records: “Stepney All Saints School is a Church of England voluntary aided school that was opened in 1710 by Sir John Cass as the Sir John Cass School.”

From the records: “The hospital moved to the then largely rural Whitechapel Road site in 1757, and was renamed the London Hospital.”

From the records: “In 1802, the West India Docks began to be developed on the Isle of Dogs.”

From the records: “A particularly famous inhabitant was Old Martin, a large grizzly bear given to George III by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1811.”

From the records: “After the death of George IV in 1830, a decision was made to close down the Menagerie on the orders of the Duke of Wellington.”

From the records: “William Booth began his Christian Revival Society, preaching the gospel in a tent, erected in the Friends Burial Ground, Thomas Street, Whitechapel, in 1865.”

From the records: “By the 1880s, the casual employment system caused Dock workers to unionise under Ben Tillett and John Burns.”

From the records: “From the late 19th century until the late 20th century the area had a very high Jewish population, with multiple Yiddish-language theatres, newspapers and synagogues.”

From the records: “On 23 September 1940, during the Blitz, high-explosive bombs damaged the castle, destroying several buildings and narrowly missing the White Tower.”

From the records: “The borough was formed in 1965 by merger of the former metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal Green. 'Tower Hamlets' was originally an alternative name for the historic Tower Division; the area of south-east Middlesex, focused on (but not limited to) the area of the modern borough, which owed military service to the Tower of London, is located in the borough, adjacent to its western boundary with the City of London.”

From the records: “On 1 March 1970 a group of activists led by Ted Johns and John Westfallen, in a reference to the Republic of Rhodesia's recent unilateral declaration of independence or UDI, issued a UDI for the Isle of Dogs.”

From the records: “In the late 20th century the Jewish presence diminished and was replaced by an influx of Bangladeshi immigrants, who also worked in the local textile industry and made Brick Lane the curry capital of London.”

From the records: “The closure of the last of the East End docks in the Port of London in 1980 created further challenges and led to attempts at regeneration and the formation of the London Docklands Development Corporation.”

From the records: “Since its construction in 1987–1991, the area has been dominated by the expanding Canary Wharf development with over 437,000 square metres (4,700,000 sq ft) of office and retail space having been created; 93,000 now work in Canary Wharf alone.”

From the records: “In 1988, the Tower of London was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, in recognition of its global importance and to help conserve and protect the site.”

From the records: “In March 2022, Whitechapel station signs had "হোয়াইটচ্যাপেল" in Bengali installed.”