| AdminHistory | The Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green was a local authority in the former County of London for the area of Bethnal Green, which comprised the seven districts of:
- The Green: Bethnal Green village
- Dog Row
- The West: Shoreditch side, Spitalfields and the Nichol
- Cambridge Heath
- The North-West: Hackney Road
- The Centre: Bethnal Green Road
- The East: Old Ford Lane, Green Lane and Globe Town
The following statistics were gathered at around the time of the Borough's creation:
- Area: 755 acres
- Population (1896): 129,162
- Rateable value (1899): £457,519
- Number of MPs: 2
Origins and purpose
The Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green was created in 1900 under the terms of the 1899 London Government Act. The Act replaced the old system of governance based mainly on vestries, which had developed from the civil role of ancient parishes, and district boards. Across London, 28 new borough councils were created consisting of a mayor, aldermen and elected councillors, supported by salaried officers and departmental staff headed by the town clerk, treasurer, borough engineer and surveyor - all key local figures in their day.
The new Metropolitan Borough replaced a number of parochial vestries, by far the most important of which was that for the church of St Matthew, Bethnal Green (ref: L/MBG). Other churches known to have conducted vestry meetings that may have included matters relating to the civil business of the parish were:
- St John, Bethnal Green
- St James the Great, Bethnal Green (Bethnal Green Road)
- St Jude, Bethnal Green (Old Bethnal Green Road)
- St Thomas, Bethnal Green (Baroness Road)
The Borough was initially divided into four wards for electoral purposes: East and South (each returning nine councillors), North and West (each returning six councillors). A fifth ward - Central - was created in 1952, each ward then returning six councillors. The first elections to the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green were held on 1 November 1900. The Borough was initially financed from a general rate of businesses and residents; however, loans for part-financing services and facilities were obtainable from a central government department rather than from the London County Council (LCC) which had been established in 1888.
The Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green was abolished in 1965 as part of a major reorganisation of local government in London that followed the passing of the 1963 London Government Act; Bethnal Green joined the Metropolitan Boroughs of Poplar and Stepney and became a district in the newly created London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which officially came into being on 1 April 1965.
Activities
The Metropolitan Borough inherited a number of functions from the previous system of vestry-based local government, which was supposed to have made provision for, among other things, services and facilities relating to:
- regulating the sanitary conditions of houses, including the power to condemn and close insanitary dwellings
- the acquisition and demolition of condemned houses
- rules governing the letting of premises in lodgings and tenements
- the acquisition of land for the provision of public lodgings and tenement houses for the poor
- street paving and lighting
- the provision of public baths and wash-houses
- the provision of public libraries
- cemeteries and other works relating to public health
- the provision and maintenance of open spaces and other public amenities
Over the 65-year history of its existence, the Metropolitan Borough expanded the scope of its functional remit to take in numerous other matters, including, but by no means limited to:
- electricity supply (until handing over responsibilities to the nationalised London Electricity Board in 1948)
- street maintenance and improvement, including scavenging
- the removal and disposal of refuse
- local museums
- maternity and child welfare services
- the registration of births, deaths and marriages
- the inspection of sanitary conditions in factories, dairies, shops selling food, slaughterhouses and seamen's lodgings
By 1902 nine committees had been formed to make decisions and the figure inevitably grew as the Borough's functional responsibilities increased.
Key activities and events
Between 1900 and 1965 the Borough saw many key developments and events which are of local, regional and national importance. Among some of the key personalities connected to the Borough, and important developments and events to have occurred were:
- 1895-1906: Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree sits as Conservative MP for the constituency of Bethnal Green North-East, the second British MP of Indian heritage
- 1909: the Sutton Dwellings Trust housing estate opens, financed by the estate of the philanthropist William Richard Sutton
- 25 June 1914: electrician Joe Vaughan, London's first Labour Party councillor, elected to Bethnal Green South Ward (Vaughan later became three-times mayor of Bethnal Green and also
helped to found the British Communist Party)
- 1920: Bethnal Green Men's Institute opened in Wolverley Street
- 1922: Bethnal Green Library, the Borough's first permanent public library opened in the vacant Bethnal House asylum (the red-brick neo-classical extension was designed by
the borough surveyor A. E. Darby). See below for more information on George Frederick Vale and the history of the Borough's Library service.
- 1924: the Cambridge and Bethnal Green Jewish Boys' Club founded by a group of Cambridge graduates
- Opening of York Hall in 1929, designed by the borough surveyor A. E. Darby - still world famous today as a boxing venue
- 1937: the Bethnal Green branch of the British Union of Fascists puts up candidates for election to the LCC
- 1940: the silk weaving industry in Bethnal Green comes to an end after a presence of more than 200 years
- 3 March 1943: Bethnal Green tube disaster, in which 173 people lost their lives
- 1957: completion of Keeling House (now a Grade II listed building), designed by the British architect Denys Lasdun
- 1962-64: construction of the Cranbrook estate, an ambitious and internationally famous housing project designed by the modernist architect Berthold Lubetkin
Addresses
The Bethnal Green Town Hall at Patriot Square - facing Cambridge Heath Road - was opened in November 1910 (later designated Grade II listed building status). For the first ten years of its existence the Metropolitan Borough (apart from the Public Health Department, which was located at 2 Paradise Row) was based in the old parish vestry in Church Row - a Tudor Revival building that had been designed by a Mr Simmonds and was opened in 1851. This must have long been inadequate for the needs of municipal government as new premises were designed as early as 1887; this initiative was defeated in 1889, however, and it was not until 1907 that the Borough voted to acquire land at 2-16 Patriot Square to serve as the site for a new town hall. Open competition resulted in the Leeds-based architect Percy Robinson and his assistant William Alban Jones securing the commission. The building is fine example of Edwardian civic architecture (it was described as 'flamboyant Edwardian Baroque' by the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner). A major extension to the town hall was made in 1937-39, to the designs of the architect E. C. P. Monson and with the assistance of the borough engineer A. E. Darby. The Town Hall remained the headquarters of the Borough Council until April 1965, when it was merged with the Metropolitan Boroughs of Poplar and Stepney to form the new London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Mayors of Bethnal Green:
1900-01 Felix Loughlin
1901-02 Charles Edward Fox
1902-03 James Walker
1903-06 Charles Wood (three terms)
1906-07 Charles Edward Fox (second term)
1907-08 Garnham Edmonds
1908-09 Alfred Fisk Barnard
1909-11 Charles Edward Fox (third and fourth terms)
1911-12 William Henry Clark
1912-13 William H. Rawles
1913-19 William John Lewis (six terms)
1919-22 Joseph James Vaughan (three terms)
1922-23 Reverend George Elwes Allen Whitworth
1923-24 Thomas Joseph Boyce
1924-27 Charles William Hovell (three terms)
1927-28 Michael Richard Seymour
1928-29 Wesley Clark Chandler
1929-30 George Bayley
1930-31 Richard Edward Pearson
1931-32 Tom Brooks
1932-33 Charles Bennett
1933-34 Lydia Dorothea Benoly
1934-36 Henry (Harry) E. Tate (two terms)
1936-37 Henry P. Wilson
1937-39 Percival James Bridger (two terms)
1939-42 James C. Edwards (three terms)
1942-43 Mrs Margaret S. Bridger
1943-44 Allan Edward McAuliffe
1944-45 Henry James Stubbs
1945-46 Albert Edward Turpin
1946-47 Henry Hooke
1947-49 George Reginald H. Hemsley (two terms)
1949-50 Henry (Harry) E. Tate (third term)
1950-51 Alfred G. Clark
1951-52 Alfred Gilbert
1952-53 Mrs Beatrice Lillian Tate
1953-54 Frederick E. Sanders
1954-55 Henry P. Wilson (second term)
1955-56 G. A. Hadley
1956-57 William R. Johnson
1957-58 Mrs Alice Mary Sivill
1958-59 Alfred W. Hastings
1959-60 William E. Hart
1960-61 George Mackley Browne
1961-62 Robert H. Hare
1962-63 Alfred Stocks
1963-64 Robert Henry Rosamond
1964-65 Leonard Algernon Coan
George Frederick Vale and WW2 Library Provision
George Frederick Vale was born in Mile End in 1890. After a perfunctory education he started his career in the Stepney Library service in 1903 as a junior assistant. Over the next 16 years he advanced in the service, studying for a professional qualification and eventually becoming a Fellow of the Library Association.
In 1919 the library service for Bethnal Green was established, and Vale was appointed as deputy to James Radcliffe, the first Borough Librarian. Vale worked hard on the foundation of the Local Records Collection, which he created out of practically nothing. In 1934 James Radcliffe died, and George Vale succeeded him as Borough Librarian. Stanley Snaith became the Deputy Librarian, and the two men formed a close working relationship, especially during the war years. Vale conceived the innovative idea of establishing a branch library in the tube shelter at Roman Road. The Shelter Library became a notable success, with trained staff and a stock of 4,000 volumes of great scope, quality and diversity, including, for example, 'Western' novels, Shakespeare, Dickens, Trollope, Charles Lamb and Conan Doyle, together with books on astronomy, philosophy, art and economics. The Shelter Library is an important part of Bethnal Green's wartime history, and even inspired a recent novel by Kate Thompson: 'The Little Wartime Library' (class mark 870 THO).
George Frederick Vale became a broadcaster, author and lecturer who established a national and international reputation in librarianship. He died at Theydon Bois in Essex in 1960.
Partly based on an appreciation of G. F. Vale by Stanley Snaith published in the 'Hackney Gazette', 29 November 1960 (see cuttings folder LCX00309 Class 100: Vale).
Sources
-T. F. T. Baker (ed.), Victoria County History (VCH): Vol. XI Early Stepney with Bethnal Green (London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research, 1998)
- Roger Bowdler, 'Bethnal Green Town Hall, English Heritage Historical Analysis and Research Team', Reports and Papers First Series (14), (1996)
- F. G. Brewer, A Century of London Government: The Creation of the Boroughs (London: Ernest Benn Ltd, 1934)
- Albert Bassett Hopkins, The Boroughs of the Metropolis (London: Bemrose and Sons, 1900)
- William A. Robson, The Government and Misgovernment of London (London: Allen and Unwin, 1939) |