Volume 5

Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places / [Walter Thornbury].

  • Thornbury, Walter, 1828-1876.
Date:
[1873-1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places / [Walter Thornbury]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    colony. Here the company has its chief depot for carriages, engines, and rolling stock, and yards for their repairs. The works, which were established here about the year 1847, cover a very large extent of ground, and give employment to upwards of 2,500 hands, independently of about 600 others engaged in the running sheds. The various buildings used as workshops for the different branches of work required to be done, either in the construction or the repair of engines, &c., are large and well lighted, and embrace foundries for casting, forges, fitting rooms, braziers’ shops, carpenters’ shops, saw-mills, &c. The principal erecting shops are about 120 yards in length, by sixty in breadth. The machinery throughout is of the most perfect description, and adapted for almost all kinds of work; one shop alone contains upwards of too machines for the performance of the most delicate work. One of the latest and most useful pieces of machinery in operation in the smiths’ shop is the hydraulic riveting-machine. To give some idea of the amount of labour accomplished in these works, we may state that about 500 engines, 3,000 carriages, and 10,000 wagons are here kept in constant repair, and that the sum paid weekly in wages in the locomotive department alone amounts, on an average, to about ;^6,ooo. The new town which has sprung up in the neigh- bourhood of the works is the residence of several hundreds of skilled employes—engineers, drivers, and others. At first it was called Hudson Town, in compliment to the “ Railway King;” but.when he lost his crown, the name fell into disuse. In 1862 the New Town numbered some 20,000 souls ; and now probably the population has nearly doubled itself The town, it may be added, has its literary institution, a “temperance” public-house, besides numerous places of worship. At a short distance eastward of the railway works, by the side of Forest Road, which runs parallel with the Colchester line, stands an industrial school, with spacious grounds attached, in the rear of which is the West Ham Cemetery, and the Jews’ Cemetery. In the latter, which covers about eleven acres of ground, and was formed in 1858, on the closing of the Jews’ Cemetery at Mile End, are the vaults of the Goldsmid and the Lucas families, of Sir David Salomons, and other leading members of the Jewish community, together with a dome- crowned mausoleum for the members of the house of Rothschild. Adjoining Bow on the south-east, in the parish of Bromley, was, as above-mentioned, a convent dedicated to St. Leonard, stated by some historians to have been founded in the reign of William the Conqueror, by William, Bishop of London, for a prioress and nine nuns; other writers, however, are of opinion that it was founded at a much earlier period. Indeed, when, or by whom, the convent was really founded, seems a very difficult matter now to decide. Stow says it was founded by Henry II., in the first year of his reign (1154); but Dugdale, in the “ Monasticon,” says, “ This is a mistake, it was in being before.” Weever fixed the foundation still later, by saying that “ this religious structure was sometime a monastery re- plenished with white monks, dedicated to the honour of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and Saint Leonard ; founded by Henry II., in the twenty-third year of his reign.” But Strype, in his “ Survey of Lon- don,” says, respecting this statement of Weever :— “ How to reconcile the said antiquary with an elder than he, namely, J ohn Leland, and the ‘ Monasticon Anglicanum,’ I cannot tell, for Weever writes that this monastery was replenished with white monks, and founded by King Henry II., in the twenty-third year of his reign ; whereas Leland and the ‘Monas- ticon ’ reports it a religious house for nuns, founded by William, Bishop of London, that lived in the Conqueror’s time,” which was nearly a century earlier. Lysons, in his “ Environs of London,” attempts to unravel the apparently opposite state- ments of Stow, Weever, Leland, Dugdale, and others, by supposing Weever to have been altogether in error, he having confounded the Abbey of Monks at Stratford (the remaining vestiges of which is now called West Ham Abbey), in Essex, with the Convent of Nuns, in Middlesex, which convent, says Lysons, was invariably said in ancient wills to have been at Stratford, Bow, on account of its contiguity to that place. And he further says, respecting these two religious houses: “ It is difficult to distinguish them in the calendars in the Tower; nor can it be always done without referring to the original will, where the word ‘ Prioresse ’ will determine the grants which belong to this house at Bromley, even if ‘ Beati Leonardi ’ should ! not follow.” i Weever states that the convent of which he was j speaking was in Middlesex, and dedicated to St. ! Leonard; whereas, the convent at Stratford he ^ knew to be in Essex, which he says that he visited ' himself “ after going over ‘ Bow Bridge,’ in his I journey towards West Ham.” Leland, who was ; engaged in making historical collections relating I to religious houses, by order of Henry VHI., is reported to have met with but little encouragement, and to have died insane in the neighbourhood of St. Paul’s; “ uncertain,” says Fuller, “ whether his brains were broken with weight of work or want of