Heading up from Royal Mint Street to its junction with Dock Street, on the left side of the road, you will see a plaque on a building commemorating the ‘Battle of Cable Street’. On 4th October 1936, groups of Jews, dockers of all ethnic groups, communists and ex- servicemen successfully prevented the Blackshirt followers of Sir Oswald Mosley (the leader of the British Union of Fascists) from marching into the East End to attack the Jews.
Cross over Dock Street and keep walking straight ahead. The street becomes Cable Street, which gave its name to the infamous battle. Cable Street started as a straight path along which hemp ropes were twisted into ships cables (ie ropes). These supplied the many ships that would anchor in the nearby Pool of London, between London Bridge and Wapping & Rotherhithe. The length of rope needed for the sails on the ships was a mile in length and this is why Cable Street is exactly one mile long. Many other "rope walks" can be seen on later maps, showing how demand for ropes grew as shipping increased.
Until Victorian times, the current Cable Street had different names for each of its sections. From west to east these ran: "Cable Street", "Knock Fergus", "New Road", "Back Lane", "Blue Gate Fields", "Sun Tavern Fields", "Brook Street". Knock Fergus is probably a reference to the large numbers of Irish residents there then. Also, in the 19th century, the area at the western end was identified as "near Wellclose Square", as this was a well-known landmark, where nautical items were sold. The whole of the central area of the current street was named after St George in the East church and its parish.
From Victorian times through to the 1950s, Cable Street had a reputation for cheap lodgings, brothels, drinking inns and opium dens. The neighbouring street of East Smithfield was the site of The Shovel public house where on 29th June 1787 local constables were beaten and ‘turned out’ of the pub by over 40 black drinkers. In 1919 Cable Street was the scene of one of the race riots which erupted across Britain and the United States of America. In Britain, white colonial soldiers were prominent in these riots, often attacking local black communities which had grown up in the port cities and established greater social and economic independence than was possible in the colonies. In Cable Street racists objected to white women fraternising with black men living in the street. A café in the street was set alight and gunshots fired. This wave of violence took place as the Paris Peace conference rejected the Racial Equality Proposal put forward by Japan. It also contributed to the development of independence movements in Africa and the Caribbean and the rapid evolution of Marcus Garvey’s pan-African Universal Negro Improvement Association.
By the 1950s so many black residents had settled in this district that the area around Golding Street, Greenfield Street and Cable Street was known as ‘the Harlem of London’. Walk down the street and take the first road to your right, Ensign Street. Then turn into the first small alley on your left, Grace’s Alley. After a few steps you come to a rather dilapidated building called Wiltons. In the 19th century it was one of the most famous music halls in London seating audiences of 3,000 people. In common with similar Victorian institutions it helped to popularise the ‘minstrel’ phenomenon with white performers such as Messrs Duriah and Davis in 1865. The Methodist East End mission took it over in 1888 and the famous (or infamous) mahogany bar was converted into a coffee house for around 1,000 people. It had beds for 30 people and there were always black sailors seeking accommodation here. It closed in 1956 and there were plans to demolish it. However, protestors led by the poet laureate Sir John Betjeman objected and it was taken over by Broomhill Opera which staged the first all-black Carmen, the South African mystery plays and a black version of The Beggar’s Opera. HRH The Prince of Wales has recently become Wilton’s first Patron and the trust is now raising funds for an extensive refurbishment of this Grade II listed building.
Continue along Grace Alley to Wellclose Square, turn first left up Fletcher Street into Cable Street again and then turn right. On a site opposite 74-87 Noble Court was the house (now demolished) lived in by Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi, the photographer, whose photographs were ‘rediscovered’ in an exhibition at the Spitz Gallery in October 2002. Continue walking along Cable Street until you get to Cannon Street Road. Up the street to the left is what used to be called Bigland Street School and is now called Mulberry Girls School. This is one of the schools where the Guyanese writer ER Braithwaite taught. Braithwaite was an engineer who, despite having served as a bomber pilot in the Royal Air Force in WWII, could not get a job because of his colour. He then trained as a teacher. His experiences of teaching were set out in the book To Sir With Love. This book was later turned into a film starring Sidney Poitier. This area was also the focus of James Greenwood’s 1874 article A Visit to Tiger Baywhich documented the black and Asian presence in this area. Go right down Cannon Street Road until you come to the magnificent baroque church St. George in the East, one of three churches in the borough designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, Christopher Wren’s assistant. Many black baptisms took place here including that of a 15-year-old slave, Anne Clossen. She promptly left her master and negotiated very well-paid employment (£7 per annum) with a local surgeon.
The last occasion in England when a stake was hammered through a sinner’s heart at an official burial, took place at the junction of Cable Street and Cannon Street Road. John Williams was found hanged in his cell, after being arrested as a suspect in the Ratcliff Highway murders. Local people went along with the claim that he had committed suicide, from guilt of the crimes. At the time, 1812, suicide was considered to be sinful, and justified him being buried upside down with a stake through his heart. His skull was found when new gas mains were being laid in the 1960s, and was on display for many years in The Crown and Dolphin pub opposite.
As you go up the steps of the church look to your right and look for the rigging of sailing ships. This is Tobacco Dock, a Grade 1 listed warehouse designed by the engineer John Rennie in the early 1800s. It is sobering to think that at the time it was opened the tobacco was brought in from slave plantations in Virginia, America. If you look to the left as you go up the steps you will see the now abandoned St. George in the East School behind 206 Cable Street. This school was the first school in the East End where the Guyanese author ER Braithwaite taught.
Go to the right, around the church and into the churchyard at the rear. Head diagonally across to the left and you will come to a neo-classical building called St. George’s Town Hall, which served as the Town Hall for this area for many years. You will see a large and colourful mural on the west wall commemorating the Battle of Cable Street. There is only one black protester featured on the mural, just above the banner reading ‘They Shall not Pass’. The mural was first painted by David Binnington in 1979. It was vandalized by right-wingers in 1982 and repainted by the artist Ray Walker in 1982-83. He relied a great deal on contemporary photos in painting it.
Jack Kid Berg
Judah Bergman, known as Jack Kid Berg or Jackie Kid Berg (June 28, 1909 – April 22, 1991), was an English boxer born in the East End of London.
Judah Bergman was born in Cable Street, St George in the East. He was apprenticed as a lather boy in a barber's shop, and began his boxing career at the Premierland, Back Church Lane, when he was 14. Jewish, Berg boxed with a Star of David on his trunks.
The book The Whitechapel Windmill covers the handsome boxer's rise in the boxing world as well as his flamboyant out-of-the-ring life, which is said to have included an affair with Mae West and to have borne a long-lasting friendship with fellow East Ender Jack Spot, the colourful (and also Jewish) gangster.
Berg died in London on April 22, 1991.
He is commemorated by a blue plaque on Noble Court, Cable Street, close to the place where he was born. Stepney Historical Trust presented the plaque at a ceremony attended by the Chief Rabbi, the Bishop of Stepney Richard Chartres, Professor Bill Fishman, Councillor Albert Lille and the Retired Boxers Federation. Later in the evening the Trust held a Charity Ball to raise funds for the Retired Boxers Federation attended by Mr Cox, Chairman of the Boxing Association and also the local Arbour Youth and Repton Boxing Clubs Boys. Over a £1000 was raised for the Retired Boxing charity.
