East of London riverside hamlets prior to the 19th century

While executions of general offenders were typically held at Tyburn, the hanging of pirates took place at ‘Execution Dock’ on the foreshore at Wapping. It was not a specific location but wherever the temporary gallows were erected. Once caught, the pirate would be tried by an Admiralty Court at the Old Bailey. On the appointed day they were taken in procession from the prison and out to Wapping, cheered or jeered by spectators along the route. Typically, a group of pirates were hanged together. Such an example was the Orkney-born John Gow (later immortalised by Daniel Defoe), who was executed in June 1725 along with seven members of his crew. Following death, their bodies were tarred and left to hang on the riverside as a warning to others. Executions were generally held at low tide, allowing large crowds of spectators to gather on the riverside, with the bodies remaining in situ for several tides before being taken for dissection by surgeons for medical research. Perhaps the most famous pirate to be hanged at Execution Dock was Captain William Kidd in May 1701.

On the south bank of the river, the hamlet of Rotherhithe had existed since at least the 12^th century. Its medieval riverside church of St. Mary was rebuilt in 1714. During the 17^th and 18^th centuries the area was usually referred to by the alternative name of Redriff. Like the communities on the north bank, its people depended on sea-faring and maritime industries. It was home to many ships’ captains, most memorably Christopher Jones, master of the Mayflower that sailed the Pilgrims to America, who was buried at St. Mary’s in 1622. The local charity school, opposite the church, was founded for the sons of mariners in 1613 by Elders of Trinity House and in 1731 seventeen of its trustees were captains. Many of those who made up the vestry – the parish council – were ships’ masters.

At the end of the 17^th century the large Howland Great Dock was opened at Rotherhithe for the laying up and repairing of ships. From the early 18^th century the dock was used by whaling ships to process blubber and whalebone and during the 1740s its name changed to the Greenland Dock. At the turn of the 19^th century Rotherhithe’s long waterfront was lined with shipbuilders and breakers-yards, wharves, and dry docks, as well as the entrance to the Howland dock. Numerous stairs led down to the water. There were about twelve shipyards, with some perhaps dating back several centuries, building ships for the Royal Navy and East India Company amongst others. The famous painting by J.M.W. Turner shows The Fighting Temeraire being towed to John Beatson’s yard at Rotherhithe to be broken up. All these businesses were connected by the two-mile long Rotherhithe Street, which curved around the edge of the peninsula. By around 1800 the population of Rotherhithe was over ten thousand.

During the 18^th century the Thames from London Bridge downstream to Limehouse Reach was busy, and often congested, with shipping. As vessels sat idle waiting to be unloaded for days, or even weeks, they became prey to theft, particularly from gangs based around Wapping. At the end of the century a marine police force was  established, initially to combat theft from vessels arriving from the West Indies. At the same time, the West India merchants, frustrated by the lengthy delays they endured in unloading their cargoes, made plans for new enclosed docks that, in the early decades of the next century, were to completely change the riverside hamlets.

Sources include: John Marriott ‘Beyond the Tower’; Derek Morris & Ken Cozens ‘London’s Sailortown’; Millicent Rose ‘The East End of London’; John Stow ‘A Survey of London’ (1598); The Diary of Samuel Pepys (1660-1669); Roger Williams ‘London’s Lost Global Giant’; Stephen Humphrey ‘The Story of Rotherhithe’; London Archaeologist magazine; Walter Besant ‘East London’; Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith ‘The History of East London’; Chris Ellmers ‘London and the Whaling Trade’; Walter Thornbury ‘Old and New London’ (1897). Alfred Simmons ‘The History of the Parish of All Saints Poplar’ (1870); Derek Morris ‘Whitechapel 1600-1800’. Also, talks given to the Docklands History Group ‘London River and Port in the 18^th Century’ conference, May 2016 by: Prof. Sarah Palmer; Derek Morris and Ken Cozens; and by Chris Ellmers, Docklands History Group, July 2017.

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