Docklands

Urban Change And Conflict In A Community In Transition

Janet Foster

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781138424029
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000153842
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping
• Index: Social Sciences

This text is a sociological study of a community in transition and the impact of urban regeneration. The process of change on the Isle of Dogs is revealed from the differing perspectives of Islanders, developers and business, and yuppies attracted to the area. The book is intended for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in urban sociology, social geography, cultural and community studies, housing and urban planning, race and ethnic studies, and broader market including Open University courses, "A"-level courses and general interest.

Chapter One

“Echoes of the past”

… for all the changes, the overriding conclusion is that there has been a remarkable consistency in the underlying processes … In pursuit of profits, investors have come and gone in the past, and now they are coming back again. Historically, what is happening now is not so new… Each new application and new agency to steer development looks unique but they are themselves part of deep-flowing processes. In Docklands everything changes, yet everything stays the same. (Hardy 1983a:22)

The vast Canary Wharf tower, which now dominates the skyline to the East of the City of London and beyond, is situated close to the Isle of Dogs, an area which for most of its existence was isolated and little known (see Figure 1.1). Almost a century before the controversy surrounding the redevelopment of London’s decaying dock areas, Booth, in his study of the London poor, described it as “strangely remote from the stir of London”, where it appeared residents were “neither in it nor of it” (Booth 1888–91: Vol. 3, Sec. 1:20); a situation that, despite “its international industrial and trading connections” (Hostettler undated a: 11), barely changed in more than a century. “Nobody knew where the Isle of Dogs was” (Foster 1996: 48), a woman who moved there in the 1970s recalled:

I called a mini cab … and asked him to take me to the Island. He thought I meant Sheppey!… He was going [in that direction] and I said, “Where are you going?” and he said, “You said the Island.” I said “The Isle of Dogs!” He said “Where on earth’s that?” … Even now to try and say to somebody that you live on the Isle of Dogs they go “Where’s that?” Now it’s recognised as Docklands so we’re still not known in that respect. (Christine)¹

Another woman whose daughter went for a job interview in St Katherine’s dock, “not three miles away” summed up the Island’s isolation and anonymity

She started to say where she lived and that and the bloke said “Hold on before we start I think it’s a hell of a long way for you to travel everyday.” So she said: “What, the Isle of Dogs?” He said… “Where is the Isle of Dogs? Is it near the Isle of Wight?” and she said “No. It’s just down the road!” For years people had never heard of it. I just used to tell people that I lived just across the river to Greenwich cos they hadn’t heard of the Isle of Dogs and it was so much easier. (Sally)

Figure 1.1 London and the Isle of Dogs. Reproduced with the permission of CNT as owner of the LDDC archives. © Commission for the New Tovms

Figure 1.2 The Isle of Dogs 1588 (Source: Walford, E. c.1900:534) The Isle of Dogges is marked as a little islet to the south-west of what is now known as the Island. The theory is that as dead dogs floated down the Thames which they did in those days they got lodged by the title in that part of the river which runs between the islet and the shore. So it became known as the Isle of Dogs, which — as the islet was washed away by the river — got transferred to the present Isle of Dogs. (Hostettler in The Islander July 1992:6)

How the Isle of Dogs acquired its name “has never been satisfactorily explained” (Weinreb & Hibbert 1983:411–12). The most popular explanation for its origins was described by an elderly Islander who had lived there all his life: “I was taught… that King Henry VIII used to hunt deer in Greenwich Park and used to keep his hunting dogs” here which “usually making a great noise, the seaman and others thereupon called the place the Isle of Dogs” (Walford c. 1900:534). This theory has been challenged, however, not least because there were Royal kennels at Deptford on the south side of the river (Hostettler 1992:6), a more practical option for housing hunting dogs used in Greenwich Park. Furthermore, a map (see Figure 1.2) dated 1588 reveals the area of land now called the Isle of Dogs was “not an Isle, indeed scarce a peninsula” (Walford c.1900:534). It is possible, therefore, that over time the land surrounding the small “Islet” also became known as the Isle of Dogs “even though” this surrounding land was recorded “officially” (as) “Stebunheath (Stepney) Marsh” (Hostettler 1992:6).

Whatever the derivatives of its name, and the land it referred to, the area that is now known as the Isle of Dogs, was not technically an island, as it is surrounded by water on three sides. It only became an “island” during the nineteenth century after the docks were built because, when the bridges that formed the entrances to the docks were raised to let shipping in and out, the area was cut off and inaccessible by road (Hostettler undated a:11, Hostettler undated b:33). The theory about the small islet would, however, explain why an area that is not surrounded by water acquired this title (Hostettler 1992:6). For its inhabitants, whatever its strict geographical characteristics, it was an island, and the territorial boundaries, marked out by the bridges, remained very important to those who had lived there all their lives even after the 1980s redevelopment was well underway. “When I was young I was taught that the Isle of Dogs was definitely an Island”, a local in his eighties explained:

… The boundaries are still there … where the City Arms pub is, the City Pride they call it… there used to be a bridge there used to run to the docks … that was the start of the Island there. Then you come right the way round the Island … the first big bridge, the one that lifts (the blue bridge), that was the second part of the Island. You had to cross water and … Island Gardens … you know the foot tunnel that goes under the River? That was the three parts. It didn’t matter where you went, living in this area, you had to cross water to get off it, that is … the Isle of Dogs. … [Now] they’re calling parts like Canary Wharf and all round there … right the way round to Poplar High Street,… they’re still sayin’ that’s the Isle of Dogs — it’s not the Isle of Dogs. (Henry, 89)

The problems that beset this little-known and isolated area of London, its history and fortunes (and those of Docklands generally) were inextricably linked with the economic booms and slumps that characterized the British economy over two centuries which, as Hardy (1983a) eloquently described, left an impression of history repeating itself. Furthermore, as he also pointed out, these communities were not alone. “In many ways the story of Docklands is but a microcosm of Britain’s changing economic fortunes — one place amongst many where the impact of these wider changes are experienced and vividly portrayed on the ground” (Hardy 1983a:3).

This chapter briefly describes the history of the Isle of Dogs and the ways in which its geography, and the social and economic factors that influenced its development, shaped the experiences of the people who settled there and the communities in which they lived.

Boom to bust and back again: 1800–1945

Until the nineteenth century the Isle of Dogs was largely marshland used to graze cattle. However, this changed dramatically during Britain’s rapid industrialization and “imperial expansion” (Hardy 1983a:4). In a few decades the Island became a densely populated and industrialized area. Its transformation began with the construction of the West India Dock, opened in 1802, surrounded by a similar kind of hyperbole to that of the regenerated Docklands a hundred and eighty years later:

Whoever has enjoyed the satisfaction of visiting [the West India Dock] and viewing the work in its present state must be astonished by the stupendousness of its scale and the extent of human wisdom, skill and industry, which has begun, carried on, and so far completed an “Imperial Work”, the proof of past and pledge of future prosperity. (European Magazine 1802, quoted in Hollamby, 1990:5)

The West India and later Millwall docks (opened in the 1860s) formed an integral part of London’s dock network and contributed to a trade that in the middle decades of the nineteenth century made London the “busiest port not only in Britain but also … in the world” (Hardy 1983a:6). It was the area’s dependency on the docks and its associated industries that linked the Isle of Dogs’ (and the rest of London’s Docklands’) fortunes with the vagaries of the national and international economy. Nevertheless, during “its Victorian heyday the port must have seemed like the sun, with trade routes radiating like rays to all parts of the world. And it all seemed so simple and enduring — with raw materials and cheap food coming in, and finished goods going out” (Hardy 1983a:11).

The realities, however, for those working in the docks were far less romantic. Dock work was based on casual labour and workers were required to call-on twice a day at the dock gates (Hardy 1983b:11, Hill 1976:16–29, Hostettler undated a:2). Mayhew (1860) described this practice as “a sight to sadden the most callous” in which “to see thousands of men struggling for only one day’s hire” was “made the fiercer by the knowledge that hundreds out of the number there assembled must be left to idle the day out in want. To look in the faces of that hungry crowd is to see a sight that must be ever remembered” (quoted in Ellmers & Werner 1991:116). The “exploitative and degrading” nature of casualization was the subject of much criticism by social commentators like Booth and later social reformers like Beatrice and Sidney Webb as well as the newly emerging trade unions (Hill 1976:14), and in the early part of the twentieth century the 1908 Port of London Authority Act included provision for “permanent employment whenever possible in London” (Hill 1976:14/15). However, almost thirty years later working practices in the docks had barely changed at all “apart from some voluntary schemes to register those eligible for work in the docks” (Hill 1976:15) (see Figure 1.3). The casual system suited employers because of its flexibility and opportunities to reduce costs, and also because it “placed minimal obligations on” them as they “virtually hired for each job by the piece, paying either for hours worked or tons removed” and “took no responsibility for the welfare of men who sought a living from dock labour” even though their work was essential during peaks in demand (Wilson 1972:17, quoted in Hill 1976:15).

“The pattern of dock life”, therefore, “was shaped by common themes” Hardy explained:

The vagaries of trade and uncertainty of work; the sheer physical exertion involved in most of the tasks; and conflicts surrounding constant attempts by employers to minimise labour costs. Inevitably what happened at work was reflected in Docklands life generally and, long after the docks have closed, these historical relationships still have a bearing on what is happening in the area now. (Hardy 1983b:7)

Indeed they did. A hundred years after Mayhew’s observations, competition for jobs, among men who now had trade union recognition and more job security, was still a point of conflict (see Hobbs 1988:109–110) as this former docker recalled:

Figure 1.3 The “Call” c.1946, © Topham Picture Point. The stevedores began to assemble at six in the morning, in readiness for the “call” at a quarter to eight. There was a second “call” each day at a quarter to one. Stevedores loaded ships; dockers, who unloaded, were “called on” inside the dock area.

It was a ’ard job … even in the late sort of sixties and sometimes even to seventies … there would be fights break out on the stones … I mean you know pushing and shoving, a right ‘ander, broken nose ’ere and there … you would get sort of an idea, a good idea there was a good job going and you would all try and shape for it you know and all try to get on there and you’d try to get in front of someone and someone would take offence at that and put you back in your place…. You know there’s desperation as well. I mean it’s born out of working hard for nothing then a good job comes along and someone else is trying to nick your place. (Jim)

“The … thing I couldn’t come to terms with”, this former shop steward continued, “was the physical aspect of no respect for the workers … like round where the ship was, there was no washing facilities, no heating facilities, nothing, no toilets … I mean 1960 we’re talking about. The conditions was like 200 years ago.” It was “like stepping back in time” (Jim). Sir Christopher Benson, who became the second Chairman of the London Docklands Development Corporation during the 1980s, had himself sailed from the London docks in his teenage years and recalled his impressions:

I saw the old method of choosing men to work each shift; they gathered round the dock gates early in the morning were picked off [and] told to go and do duties at various ships and if there wasn’t a job for you you went home. … I can think of nothing more awful than this sort of cattle wagon treatment… the whole method was awful and it must have had an effect on them.

Hill (1976), in an excellent study of London dockers in the early 1970s, suggested that even after the abolition of casual labour in 1967 “the institutional and cultural structure of one distinct and unique system of employment relationships” embodied in casual labour was “transposed in another”. (Hill 1976:14). Furthermore, he suggested that the casual system had become so ingrained in people’s thinking about dock work that it was not simply the employers who allowed it to continue for so long but the dockers themselves who had “a fatalistic acceptance of the system”, believing that the nature of the work required, as employers’ argued, “the need for a margin of surplus labour to be hired or fired according to fluctuations in trade” (Hill 1976:15).

Hardy (1983b:4) wrote: “Since the construction of the first docks in the early nineteenth century through to their present redevelopment, the interests of capital have been in clear and open conflict with the interests of labour and local communities.” Certainly the nature of the work, exploitation and poor labour relations contributed to an inheritance of struggle and a negativity that remained a hallmark of established Islanders’ lives even in the 1990s, as this relative newcomer observed: “All their lives they’ve been done down, all their lives they’ve had to live in uncomfortable conditions and [they] can’t believe that anything good will ever happen to them.” Another said:

There’s always a negative aspect to things … I couldn’t believe how devastatingly suspicious, how naturally the instinct of Island people is to see the worst and to see a threat in everything. Now that is desperately sad and I can only assume that that comes from having been at the lower end where horrid things have always happened and big people up there have always taken decisions which affected their lives which they’ve been powerless [to influence] and are always in a defence position, to have to react and never initiate. (Part quoted in Foster 1996:152)

With the docks came a plethora of other industries from “timber wharves … cement works, potteries … and heavy engineering” (Hardy 1983b:21). In the boom years of the mid-nineteenth century, shipbuilding was a major industry and Brunel’s Great Eastern was built on the Island (Hostettler a:5–6). A man whose family had been in the area since the 1830s recalled how his great great grandfather, a master shipwright and Huguenot refugee, moved to the Isle of Dogs from Portsmouth because it was “the ship building boom area in those days … [and] he came up for work”. In fact people from all pa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 “Echoes of the past”
• Chapter 2 Dreams and schemes
• Chapter 3 “We didn’t have time to be nice to people”
• Chapter 4 “Grab and greed”
• Chapter 5 Different worlds
• Chapter 6 “A slice of the cake”
• Chapter 7 It all turns very nasty: “Obvious, visible and on our doorstep”
• Chapter 8 “A different place altogether”
• Chapter 9 Making sense of it all: The global and the local
• Postscript
• References
• Index