Albert Court, 89 Dames Rd, a history and research journey

Local historian, housing expert, and frequent contributor Peter Williams provides a fascinating account of this unusual building set back from the highway on Dames Road. In it, he references several sources that can aid people who wish to trace the history and backgrounds of their older properties.

89 Dames Road today - author's photo

The house at the southern end of today’s Dames Road predates the existence of that street, as perhaps its location, set back from the road, suggests. The street was initially called Leyton Road, but the name was changed to Dames Road in February 1887.

Listed buildings

89 Dames Road became a listed building in 1981, and its formal designation dates its construction to around 1840 – “Two storeys, four bays wide with asymmetrically placed entrance, all under a hipped and slated roof set back from road frontage” (www.historicengland.org.uk provides details of listed buildings).

Over the years, the building has been a substantial family home, business and catering premises and has housed six self-contained flats for almost 40 years.

Old maps

There may have been a house on the site before this time, as the 1777 Chapman and Andre map (www.map-of-essex.uk) shows a row of buildings on the approximate location of Albert Court, just below “The Lodge” on the map below. This could have been “Forest Lodge”, the alternative name for 89 Dames Road.

Chapman and Andre map - www,map-of-essex.uk

Newspaper archives

The earliest occupants we have been able to trace of 89 are the Ward family, who lived there in the 1860s. We know this through birth announcements in the Chelmsford Chronicle in May 1863 and January 1869 (address searches through the British Newspaper Archive—a subscription service can provide similar information – www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk).

Chelmsford Chronicle - 22 May 1863

Chelmsford Chronicle - 29 January 1869

Genealogy websites

This clue opens up access to the census (accessible via www.ancestry.com and www.findmypast.co.uk – both subscription services). According to birth records (also available via these two sites), the Ward family occupied the house as early as 1858 but did not appear in the 1861 census. However, they did a decade later.

1871 census

The head of the household was Humphrey Ward, a corn miller. This sounds strangely like a farming-related occupation, but Forest Gate was then a predominantly rural area. Humphrey had joined many in migrating from the countryside to what we today would consider a London suburb to seek his fortune. His wife, Hannah, was born in West London (source: birth records on Ancestry and Find My Past).

Google Books

Humphrey seems to have had business interests in the Anchor Flour Mills, Shad Thames, Wapping (source: contemporary records accessed through Google Books tab, a major source of information, as they have digitised business directories). He would appear to have been involved in local Liberal politics, as shown in this 1873 notice.

Essex Times - 12 April 1873

Inflation calculators

He died in 1872, aged just 52, leaving his estate to his wife (source: probate records, also on Ancestry and Find My Past) – it was around £500,000 at current prices (source: Bank of England inflation calculator -www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator).

The property’s furniture and effects were put up for sale in 1877. They included three milk cows (one in calf) and a horse and carriage. See below.

Stratford Express 24 March 1877

Local history websites

Humphrey’s widow, Hannah, moved to 65 Romford Road by the time of the 1881 census, and their former house, in what was still Leyton Road, was sold in 1886. (for a history of Dames Road itself, see www.e7-nowandthen.org/2016/04/the-street-where-you-live-4-dames-road.html – always a good source for local history!).

The sale notice, see below, describes the house as having stabling and a garden – about half an acre in total. Its proximity to Forest Gate station was a selling point. It contained “a large drawing room, dining and morning rooms, seven bed and dressing rooms, excellent offices and extensive stone basement”. It was a freehold property.

Chelmsford Chronicle - 26 March 1886

It can be time-consuming to trace the occupants of a building via censuses if you don’t have an occupier’s name, but sifting through census files by enumeration district can locate a house and its occupants.

The 1891 census shows the house occupied by Joseph Merritt, a dock foreman born in Bethnal Green, and his family. By 1901, he had progressed to become a grain merchant, a reminder of how crucial commercial trade was in the area; the Royal Docks were then the largest enclosed docks in the world, and London was the largest port at the height of the empire.

1901 census

They were a prosperous family, as adverts in the local papers in 1895 and 1899 show them advertising for servants.

Barking, East Ham & Ilford Advertiser 30 March 1895

Barking, East Ham & Ilford Advertiser 18 February 1899

Joseph died in 1906 and is buried in Manor Park's City of London cemetery (source: Ancestry and Find My Past). Fortunes could be made, and Joseph seems to have prospered, leaving almost £500,000 (in today’s terms) in his will (see probate and inflation calculation sources above).

Genealogy websites' fallibilities

Although census information can be invaluable during house history searches, it is not infallible, as the 1901 and 1911 censuses show. There is confusion about whether the Sparrow or Merritt family were the primary occupants – the former being the daughter and grandchildren of the latter. It takes scrutinising both documents to piece together the likely story. There can also be transcription problems with census documents when the enumerator’s handwritten records are misread by those administering the web sites, as is the case for this house in the 1911 census (see spelling of “Merritt” below).

Inaccurate transcription of 1911 census entry (Ancestry)

It would appear that one of Jospeh Merritt’s daughters, Mary Jane, had left the family home by the time of the 1891 census and married George Henry Sparrow. The 1901 census shows her living at 89 Dames Road with her children but no husband. It is unclear whether this was because of a family break-up.

Mary Jane and her children still lived on Dames Road at the following census, again minus her husband – she was not a widow, as this would have been recorded. He could have been absent on business or at sea – this is not recorded either.

Mary Jane’s mother, Jane, continued to live at the house and died the following year, leaving almost £750,000 in today’s terms. This presumably included the value of the house, which was put on the market three months after her death.

Probate entry, from Ancestry, 1912

Stratford Express 28 September 1912

By the time of the 1921 census, the property’s occupants were the Knight family. Father and son Alfred were described as ships’ caulkers who worked in shipbuilding to ensure the vessels were watertight. Alfred snr was born in Tidal Basin, Canning Town, and their son, Alfred John, seemed to have had a sideline as a musical impresario – see an advert from the Essex Times below.

1921 census entry - Ancestry

Essex Times 2 November 1918

          

Five years later, the house was up for sale again.

                          

Although the circumstances of the sale are unknown, the following advert in the Westminster Gazette suggests that all was not well with the family’s finances!

 

Westminster Gazette 5 May 1927

89 Dames Road was soon taken over by Hart and Holman, a catering firm, occupying the premises for the next fifty years.

West Ham and South Essex Mail, 24 July 1931

The Hart family lived there at the time of the 1939 Register (see: Ancestry and Find My Past), and the Holmans lived on Romford Road.

1939 Register - Ancestry

Many press announcements, articles, and adverts have testified to the use of 89 Dames hosting weddings, Sunday school events, and social gatherings in a large function hall, as indicated below.

The Stage - 20 November 1958

Council archives

Newham Council Archives has an extensive collection of images currently being catalogued and digitised in preparation for the opening of the council’s new Heritage Centre in 2026. They are currently located in the library on The Broadway in Stratford. Access is usually by appointment only, but the facility is currently closed, as they prepare for the relocation. Archives can be a valuable resource for people tracing the history of local buildings. Among Newham’s images are a number relating to 89 Dames Road.

Newham Archives

The house in the 1970s - Newham Archives

Planning department websites

Mr Holman of the catering firm died in the late 1970s, and although the business continued, within a few years, plans were made to convert 89 Dames Rad into six flats. Council planning department records (www.newham.gov.uk/planning)—both current and historical—are open for public inspection online and can provide vital clues about a building’s history and changes in use, shape, and function over a lengthy period.

Newham Planning website, www.Newham.gov.uk

Property sales websites

89 Dames Road remains the site of the six flats for which planning permission was given in the mid-1980s. One was last on the market five years ago for £355,000 (sites like www.rightmove.co.uk and www.zoopla.co.uk are invaluable in tracing recent house sales prices).

Footnote: You can read some of Peter’s other contributions to this blog here:

The oldest continuously occupied house in Forest Gate? - https://www.e7-nowandthen.org/2024/02/the-oldest-continuously-occupied-house.html

The Simpsons – Forest Gate’s jerry builders and slum landlords - https://www.e7-nowandthen.org/2024/05/the-simpsons-forest-gates-jerry.html

Donal Hunter House, Woodgrange Road:  https://www.e7-nowandthen.org/2018/01/donald-hunter-house-woodgrange-road.html

and updated here: https://www.e7-nowandthen.org/2024/01/woodgrange-road-developments.html

23 Earlham Grove – an insight into the local housing crisis - https://www.e7-nowandthen.org/2017/11/23-earlham-grove-insight-into-local.html

Forest Gate’s first £2m house? - https://www.e7-nowandthen.org/2015/11/forest-gates-first-2m-house-224-romford.html

 

Amanda lands in Forest Gate

Local resident and author, Robert Nurden, tells the story of how his Chestnut Avenue House will soon be seen by millions on BBC1. 

I never thought when I bought my unremarkable terraced house in Chestnut Avenue, Forest Gate, in 1989, that one day a production company would choose it as a prime film location. But, much to my surprise, its diminutive hallway and traditional 19^th century porch were just what Merman Productions needed for the new BBC1, six-part comedy series Amandaland, starring Lucy Punch as Amanda. It’s a spin-off of the cult drama Motherland, which starred Anna Maxwell Martin and Diane Morgan.

Philippa Dunne, left, during the filming of Amandaland at Robert Nurden's house, 67 Chestnut Avenue

Nothing grand about the start of my flirtation with the stars though: a flimsy flyer stuffed through the letterbox, asking home owners to let the cameras in for half a day. I contacted the location manager and he asked me to take some shots of my front door. I sent them off and he replied: “Just what we’re after. May I pop round tomorrow for a better gander?”

Martin approved. “We want to film a bedroom scene, too,” he said. “We’d double the fee, of course,” he added as an afterthought. I knew Dame Joanna Lumley (who plays Amanda’s insecure mother, Felicity) was in the cast for this series. But I quickly dismissed any disgraceful thoughts of her occupying my bed for a scene or two. 

Philippa Dunne, Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley

My shameful and ridiculous notion turned into a mere academic red herring as Martin was on the hunt for a teenager’s bedroom, which mine clearly wasn’t. Still, the fee for two-and-a-half-hours’ filming in the porch turned out to be more than adequate.

There remained the issue of the overgrown privet hedge. I asked him if I should give it a clip before the cameras rolled. He made it abundantly clear that long and straggly was the look he was after. So, thankfully, I was able to leave it uncut.

I was told that in this eagerly awaited sequel to Motherland, Amanda, who is in the throes of a divorce, has downsized to Harlesden. But apparently producers thought that unsung Forest Gate looked more like Harlesden than Harlesden did. So, E7 it was. There’s no stopping our beloved Forest Gate these days.   

The first thing to happen on the day in question – 25 October – was the arrival of the art department (otherwise known as the props department), which consisted of two serious-looking chaps sporting neatly trimmed hipster beards. 

They deposited a brightly coloured football, a pair of football boots, red wellies, armfuls of coats, a frightening-looking plastic gun that made a lot of noise, a cricket bat and a tennis racquet both in the hall and on the front step of my humble abode. Clearly a sporty family. They also rigged up a pair of net curtains at the front window, something I’d always managed to do without until that point.

My gaff, for just one afternoon, was going to be lived in by one of the three stars of the show – Philippa Dunne (who plays the put-upon Anne), the kindest of the triumvirate of leading women. She is always lending a hand in one way or another. Apparently, in this series, she runs a voluntary maths class and a young lad was being dropped off by his dad for extra tuition. That was to be the scene.  

At 1.45pm two more men with a health and safety remit arrived to check the surroundings. The child actor had to be allotted two ‘safe’ locations for those times when he wasn’t filming and the men pinned notices on certain doors, warning adults not to enter. The boy’s father also attended as extra security.

The film crew were simultaneously using the interior of the big pink house in Avenue Road for another scene. This one featured Lucy Punch, who I caught a glimpse of munching a sandwich in between takes. 

I noticed that her long, blonde tresses were covered by a plastic bag in order to protect her from the rain. When the two locations were taken together, there must have been nigh on 60 people involved, inside and out.

About 2.30pm the crowds descended on number 67. Everyone was disarmingly polite. The director Holly Walsh apologised for taking over my house and asked if she could get me a cup of tea or a chair to sit on. I was content to watch from the pavement on the far side of Chestnut Avenue in order to get a panoramic view of proceedings. 

Orders were barked from inside the house, then down a chain of command through the porch and out into the street. It seemed to be running like clockwork. Except for the time when I mistakenly drifted into shot and was asked to move out of the way. And filming temporarily ceased when mothers and their kids from Godwin School drifted past on their way home, wondering what was going on.

The afternoon became cold and I asked if I could go back indoors. The cry went up: “stop filming – owner returning to house”. I have never seen my front room so full – cameras, monitors, black screens, reflectors, sound engineers, runners, security guards, people brandishing clapperboards, a producer, an assistant producer, a director and an assistant director. Holly Walsh – the Holly Walsh –was sitting directing in the armchair in which I usually sat watching Spurs tumble to yet another defeat on the box. And then there were the thrilling cries of “camera roll”, “action” and “cut”.

Meanwhile, my kitchen had turned into the make-up room. Actors were ranged in front of the table poring over their scripts as make-up artists tried to dab at their upturned faces with cotton pads. I offered Philippa a cup of tea. “Better not,” she replied. “Might spill it on my coat. By the way, you’ve got a lovely house. It has a special feel to it. Easily the nicest one we’ve been in.” Well, thank you, Philippa. I bet you say that to all the owners!

Then the front door bell started ringing – again and again. Shooting had started. On the doorstep Philippa said: “Welcome to the maths class.” The director told her she loved the way she’d said that. There was an animated conversation at the door between Philippa and the father of the student. 

After a brief contretemps, he turned and left, walking down the very short garden path. “For the love of God,” said Philippa under her breath. It was impossible to know if that was in the script or whether she was letting off some actorly steam. I look forward to seeing whether that sentence ends up on the cutting-room floor or whether it’ll be in the final version.

Once the director said: “I’d like you to look more annoyed.” That took a few more takes. And then there were the other re-takes. But the team was nearing the end. What I hadn’t known was that this was the very last afternoon of filming. The show was in the can. So, at the last cry of “cut”, director embraced actor and producer embraced deputy producer and everyone asserted that it had all been “wonderful”. It was a moment for the luvvies.

One by one, camera by camera, they walked out of the door. Holly thanked me and then there was a sudden and eerie silence. Martin turned up and apologised for my payment not having come through yet. A snarl-up in accounts, he said. He’d see to it. And, indeed, he did.

In addition, he promised to send a cleaner round on the Monday, despite me saying that the house was looking immaculate. “It’s something we always do,” he said. So, number 67 ended up looking cleaner than it had been before filming started.

There remained the outstanding issue of the hedge. There was no way out of it: it was time to get the shears out. Now that the creatives had packed up and gone, it was the only type of cutting I’d be experiencing for a while. 

 

Amandaland goes out on BBC1 at 9pm on 5 February.   

The industrialisation of local agriculture - Jew’s Farm and Wilson’s Farm in East Ham

The origin of these farms is obscure. Jews Farm seemingly lay at the end of what had been called Harrow Lane (named after a local pub) and on John Rocque’s map of the London area in 1746 was Siblemeed Lane. (This is where East Avenue E12 today meets East Ham High Street North and Plashet Grove). This probably refers to a piece pf marshland called Sibley Mead bordering the river Roding, which was sold in 1839 as part of Lord Henniker’s East Ham estates after his death. Today’s Sibley Grove, immediately north of East Ham station, continues the name.

On the Rocque map no farm building is marked, but on the Chapman and Andre map of 1777 buildings have appeared at the end of Jews Farm Lane; this may have been the home of a Jewish farmer named in a document of the 1760s. The farm seems to have disappeared by the early 19^th century but Jews Farm Lane retained its name until it was renamed East Avenue in the 1890s.

On John Rocque’s map “London 10 miles round” 1746 Jews Farm Lane appears as Siblemeed Lane. No farm buildings are marked. Today’s High Street North & Plashet Grove meet at North End above.

By the mid-19^th century East Ham was well-established in vegetable production, growing peas, cucumbers and above all onions for the London market. One of the biggest producers by the 1840s was Thomas Circuit, an incomer to the area from Bedfordshire, who arrived in East Ham about 1840. Circuit rented a holding called Wilson’s Farm in Plashet Lane (today’s Plashet Grove, opposite Plashet Park) and farmland east of what is now High Street North, including the site of Jews Farm.

Circuit and his family lived in the Plashet Lane farmhouse but about 1845 he had already fitted out a building for drying and storing large quantities of onions. This was probably on the Jews Farm site where present day East Avenue meets Sibley Grove. Circuit may have moved to East Ham because he saw the potential for vegetable production to feed the metropolitan market and he contracted to supply Crosse and Blackwell’s Soho factories with onions for pickling. Constructing what became known as the onion sheds enabled him to begin mass production of skinned onions ready for pickling.

The sheds were built well away from the family farm, since they were clearly another example of the “noxious trades” in which both East and West Ham specialised. The site may also have been chosen because in the 1840s the construction of rail links through East Ham into Essex were being actively promoted through bills in parliament. The Jews Farm site was ideally placed next to the eventually constructed line, and at some stage between the 1850s and 1890 sidings were built to serve the onion sheds. This enabled onions to be brought in from Essex for skinning and then shipped on to Crosse and Blackwell’s central London pickling works.

Jews Farm onion sheds c.1890

At mid-century Circuit and his neighbours were still growing vegetables locally. The work was highly seasonal; the workforce on Circuit’s 147 acres of arable and marshland in 1851 was 30 men and boys and 9 women, but in the summer of 1850 Circuit had employed 600 workers, “pulling, carting and peeling onions for pickling”. Pulling and skinning the onions was said to be women’s work, with payment (several times a day) on a piece-work basis, Circuit’s wage bill being about £200 a week during the two-month season.

This seasonal work was insecure, and even during harvest periods was not guaranteed. In 1852 Circuit refused pea-picking work to a group of “mainly Irish” labourers, as he already had enough hands. This resulted in a violent confrontation, with crops damaged before the police arrived to disperse the crowd.

The location of Wilson’s Farm occupied by the Circuits as tenants in Plashet Lane/Grove (left side of map) and the onion sheds in Jews Farm Lane (top right) on the 25-inch OS map c.1895, showing the right of way across the railway tracks where Sarah Ann Merritt was killed.

Around 1860 Thomas Circuit, possibly foreseeing the need to move farming operations away from East Ham as housing development spread, acquired farmland at Rainham in Essex. When he died in 1865 his sons Thomas junior and John seem to have focussed their operations in Essex. Both brothers died young, leaving their property in a family trust, and by 1900 the trust owned or leased several farms in the Upminster and Rainham area.

 Even by the early 1870s John Cubis Circuit was employing 250 workers on the 775-acre Brick House Farm at Rainham. The family retained both Wilson’s Farm and the onion sheds in East Ham, probably under a manager, Thomas Meeks, who was mentioned in Thomas Circuit jnr.’s will as the foreman of “East End Farm” (probably the Circuits’ property in East Ham – Meeks’ home was next to East Ham station). The business was split at this point, with Thomas and John growing onions in Essex which were shipped to East Ham for skinning. The Circuits were able to farm on a much larger scale in rural Essex than in East Ham where land was already being bought up for housing development.  Their farms in Rainham and Upminster were also close to the London Tilbury & Southend Co’s. rail link back to East Ham, and towards the end of the century Essex-grown onions were being shipped by rail to the private siding at the Jews Farm onion works.

 Thomas Circuit jnr. died in 1868, leaving his property in a family trust managed by his brother John and an East Ham farming neighbour Jabez Abbott. As early as 1870 the farm was producing 12,000 bushels of onions a year (well over 300 tonnes) exclusively for Crosse and Blackwell, whose annual output was already two million jars.

  

The farm occupied by the Circuits in Plashet Grove near the corner with East Ham High Street. Here called Circuit’s farm, elsewhere it is referred to as Wilson’s Farm, referring to the landowner. Copy of a watercolour map by Alfred Stokes late C19th, courtesy LB Newham Archive.

John Circuit died in 1876 and the livestock and equipment of Wilson’s Farm (including the onion sheds) were eventually put up for sale in 1883. At that time one of the two onion sheds on the Jews farm site had six floors and the other had three. This was even by local standards a massive operation, and had converted agriculture in East Ham into an industry. Interestingly the 1883 sale also included ploughs, harrows, waggons and “seven powerful horses” suggesting that agricultural production had continued alongside the onion skinning operation, and indeed the fields north of Plashet Lane were part of the farm. They were bought in 1889 and were subsequently developed into Plashet Park.

 This industrial site reflected the conditions prevalent in many factories of the time. In August 1874 an inquest was held on Sarah Ann Merritt, a 16 year-old onion skinner, who had been killed crossing the railway next to the farm. She and many others of the 400 strong work-force were forced by the lack of adequate and clean toilet facilities to cross the line and use a secluded lane on the other side of the railway between East Ham and Barking stations. In summing up the coroner was scathing about “the disgraceful character of the sanitary arrangements” at the farm, and required the Inspector of Health to make an inspection.

Plashet Grove c.1910, showing the entrance to Wilson’s Farm, occupied by the Circuit family while farming in East Ham. Plashet Park is on the left.

 

In response Henry Swann, the works manager, wrote to the papers with a copy of the report by the Health Inspector, who had found not just three closets as the coroner had said, but as many as seven, all clean but unused by the workers then in the plant. Clearly some work had been done before the inspector’s arrival.

 By 1890 onions were no longer grown locally and the works was supplied from estates at Rainham managed by Swann and Thompson. This company was closely associated with the Circuit family, being part owned by Henry Swann, the manager of the Jews Farm sheds and Thomas Thomson, one of John Circuit’s trustees. Although the Crosse and Blackwell name was displayed on the sheds it was Swann and Thompson which ran the operation on contract.

 Conditions at the works were appalling. Girls and women worked up to 15 hours a day skinning onions. They breathed noxious chemicals and lung-burning fumes in unventilated sheds, and eye and skin infections, as well as respiratory and reproductive illnesses were common. Many became permanently disabled with no compensation from their employer.

Crosse & Blackwell advertisement late 19^th century

The work remained seasonal, as it had been in Circuit’s time, and in the summer months onion skinning was, like hop-picking, seen as a means for east London women to earn extra money. Some east enders had been coming every season for nearly 50 years. The women workers ranged in age from 16 to 70 and over, and the younger and quicker workers were able to earn about 12s. a week.  This is equivalent to c.£49 a week today, at a time when a skilled tradesman could expect to earn 12s. a day. Child care and rent took half the women’s wages, leaving just over 6s. for food and all other expenditure. In the summer of 1890 wages were cut; for peeling the equivalent of 9 kg of white onions the women were receiving 6d-8½d, so that many were earning only 1s. for a 15-hour day which began at 6am and lasted well into the evening.

Discontent among the women workers grew, and when on the afternoon of 30 July 1890 some of them were docked pay for alleged bad work the women walked out the following day. They demanded an 8-hour day, a minimum wage and improved working conditions. These were a reflection of the demands made by the unionised workers at the nearby Beckton gas works and in the London docks the previous year. Will Thorne, founder of the National Union of Gas Workers’ and General Labourers, wrote in his autobiography “Towards the end of 1889 the spirit of the ‘New Unionism’ was flaming across the country, here, there and everywhere. Workers were rising for improvements in their wages and conditions; often unorganised, downtrodden, they took action without planning ahead; sheer desperation drove them to striking revolt, and with their striking came organisation”.

 

By the late 1880s a siding had been built into the farm (visible just below the number 237), enabling the product to be dispatched quickly across London to the main plant in Soho, where the pickle was made.

This clearly had an impact on the women at Jews Farm. As Thorne said, “in the public-houses, factories, and works in Canning Town, Barking, East and West Ham every one was talking about the union”. Thorne described the successful conclusion of the gas workers’ action as a milestone in trade union history, but it was also notable for the engagement of Karl Marx’s youngest daughter Eleanor in the emergent “New Unionism”, and her key role in organising women workers. The East Ham onion skinners’ strike was to play a small part in Eleanor’s pioneering work with women trade unionists.

In the aftermath of the Beckton strike and during another local action against exploitative employment practices at Silver’s Gutta Percha works Eleanor set up the first women’s branch of the gas workers’ union, which was admitted as the Silvertown branch in October 1889. When the women walked out at Jews Farm the following summer Eleanor immediately became involved with the strikers and under her influence many of the 400-strong onion skinners joined the Barking branch of the Gas Workers’ union.

As the strike began Eleanor addressed a meeting of 200 in a field next to East Ham station, talking of the need to organise a picket, and perhaps mindful of the recent strike at Silver’s works, counselled against attacking any blackleg labour that was brought in. At the conclusion of the meeting the women marched to East Ham town hall behind a makeshift banner made out a shawl tied between two sticks and decorated with a bunch of onions.

350 women signed up to the gas-workers’ union, and a strike committee and a collection for funds were established. During the week-long strike the union was therefore able to offer small amounts of pay to members, though this usually amounted to a little over a shilling each.

 

Headline in Barking, East Ham & Ilford Advertiser, Upton Park and Dagenham Gazette 2 August 1890

Eleanor was also active in promoting support for the onion skinners both from the general public (through letters to the newspapers) and among other workers in the area. On the first weekend of the strike she was in Ponders End, Enfield addressing gas workers on the need to support the strike, and to end petty jealousies between workers. She emphasised the importance of union membership for both men and women, and declared that young women should demand to see their lovers’ paid-up union membership cards.

Prejudice against women workers and divisions amongst trade unionists between skilled and unskilled workers could, as Eleanor correctly saw undermine strike action. This had happened at Silver’s works in the autumn of 1889, when the Amalgamated Engineers’ Society decided unilaterally to return to work, leaving the other strikers with little choice but to follow suit.

In face of the onion skinners’ action Henry Swann, still the factory “superintendent”, initially refused to negotiate, claiming that rates had not been changed and denying that he had refused to meet the strikers. However he quickly offered a small pay rise, and finally free beer for all. These were refused, and as the railway siding filled with wagons laden with over 30 tons of onions in the summer heat pressure grew for a settlement. Having made an increased offer, again refused, Swann finally agreed the workers’ terms, and after nearly a week on strike the women returned.

Eleanor Marx-Aveling

 Despite this victory labour relations at the works continued to be problematic. In July 1895 another strike was called and 200 women walked out, again because Swann & Thompson had cut wages. There is no record of how this strike ended, nor of the date when the works finally closed, though Swann & Thompson were still growing onions for market at Rainham in 1898, so possibly they were still running the East Ham works at that time.

The Circuit farms at Rainham and Upminster were finally sold by the family trustees in 1909. In an echo of the move from East Ham in the 1860s the estate was advertised as suitable for building development and included several acres of “unrestricted factory land”. Urban development was moving further out into Essex in the first decades of the new century.

The urbanisation of rural Essex was preceded two decades earlier by housing development in East Ham. The financial return on agricultural production was no match for the gains to be made by mass house building., and in 1893 the farmland immediately north of East Ham station was divided into 99 plots and let for building on very cheap terms. 

  

Land was for sale in the roads leading to Jews Farm. West Ham and South Essex Mail, 8 July 1893

By 1899 the first “villas” had been built in Shakespeare Crescent, which today covers the area where Jews Farm had stood, while in 1901 the London Tilbury & Southend Railway Co. stopped the right of way across the railway at Jews Farm (where Sarah Anne Merritt had met her untimely death 30 years earlier) and built a footbridge, so this probably marks the time by which the onion sheds had disappeared and housing development begun on the site.

East Ham station c.1893 looking east. The onion sheds are just visible in the distance, the line of trees marking Jews Farm Lane. A sign in the left foreground announces building plots to let. (LBN Archive).

Wilson’s Farm survived longer, continuing first as a working farm and later in the 1900s as a depot for a carter contracted to East Ham Council, until it was finally demolished in the early 1920s to make way for the first girls’ school to be built on the Plashet Grove site.

 

A footbridge now crosses the District & C2C Line from Sibley Grove to Southend Road, replacing the foot crossing where Sarah Ann Merritt was killed in 1874

In April 1899 Jews Farm Lane, known locally as “Skinny Lane” because of the onion skinning sheds there, became the much more respectable East Avenue, named after Joseph East, a local councillor and first chairman of East Ham Urban District Council. The farm-factory also disappeared in the face of relentless urban development.

Crosse and Blackwell were to return to the area decades after the Jews Farm site closed down, though this time it was for a sweet rather than savoury product. In the 1920s the company acquired James Keiller & Son (of Dundee marmalade fame). Keiller's had opened a factory in 1878 at Tay Wharf Silvertown, and production continued there under Crosse and Blackwell ownership until the 1980s.

The 1974 strike at Crosse & Blackwell in Silvertown, reported by the Stratford Express

 It was here at Silvertown that in 1974 a curious repetition of the Jews Farm dispute occurred. 300 women at the works went on strike to demand that increased production line speeds were matched by increased bonuses. As in 1890 with union support the women won an hourly pay increase. It was not a long-lasting success however, as Crosse & Blackwell were already winding down the works and moving production to Scotland. The Silvertown works closed in 1985.