Sean Gubbins
The history of Hackney
Sean Gubbins, is an expert on the history of Hackney and surrounding areas.
There is a rich thread that goes through the history of this part of London. This building was really built to be a celebration of the non conformist movement. They were a people who ad been persecuted to a certain extent, they had been debarred because of their faith from progressing in British society. But they made good, they became some of the leaders of British industry, and in 1871 when they were looking to build a new chapel in Hackney, they wanted to do something different, they wanted to build a building that didn't look like a church, which established a new style of architecture for the non conformist movement and they came up with this wonderful horse shoe effect and it's a unique church. Its one of the nine non conformist buildings which are listed in London. And of those nine, three of them are in Hackney.
So that is just a little bit of an introduction to the heritage of this place. Hackney is very rich in it's heritage and if I just think about some of the people who have lived here who you will have heard about. Opposite, Joseph Priestly, who identified oxygen, down the road, Thistlewaite Road, Lenin lived for a time, further up the road, Harold Pinter was born, beyond that by Clapton Pond, there was a large house with a private garden. In the eighteenth century it was owned by a rich Jewish merchant and he built the first private synagogue in this country in his garden.
[45.43] I've been asked to talk to you about the history of Hackney and I thought I'd tell you the story of Hackney through the history of the tower, which most of you must have gone up to see the exhibition. I first went up that tower about two years ago and I find it a very exciting place to be. My credentials for speaking to you are not because I researched and published in history, its because I'm a local resident who has a passion for history and to me, there is a lot to get excited about in the history of this borough. Going up that tower for the first time was a memorable experience, I won't forget for the rest of my life. Because if you just stand there quietly and listen to the silence, you can hear the resonance of all those people who for some reason have been there. The people built that building seven hundred years ago, the people who hauled the stones into position, the people who, maybe it was just one man, maybe a couple or a team, who three hundred years ago put together the clock, two years after Guy Fawke's tried to blow up the King and parliament, were they talking about the politics of the time when they put that clock together?
[47.01] Think of all the millions of prayers which have been uttered up to god asking for this or for that, from ordinary people like yourselves but also by the powerful people who visited Hackney and I will tell you a bit about in the next twenty five minutes. So its a very exciting place to be and it is the centre of Hackney, its where Hackney started. Just to tell you a bit about where Hackney has come to, in 2001 the census told us that there were 203,000 people living in this borough, which is 60000 more than there were 50 years ago. So the population has actually decreased. We're a multi cultural society, we speak 40 different languages in our homes here in Hackney. Over a third of us were born outside the UK, 41% of us are non white, 25% of the population are black and the largest ethnic grouping is black Africans, 12% of the population. And that number has doubled since the last census in 1991. And this multi culturalism is not new. As I've mentioned, we've had Germans here, we've had refugees here, it goes back four hundred years. Modern Hackney is made up of three ancient parishes. Stoke Newington to the north, Shoreditch to the south and Hackney here.
[48:41] But I'm only going to talk to you about Hackney. If you look at the coat of arms of the borough, and you can find them above the entrance to the town hall in Mare Street, you can see on the left hand corner, the tower. The tower we know from the show that has been on there recently. Now we don't know when that tower was built, the earliest record of it is 1275. Hackney was not in the Doomsday Book. Stoke Newington was, part of Shoreditch was, Hoxton was, but Hackney wasn't in the Doomsday book in 1086. But we assume that there was a settlement here dating further back than 1275. And the name Hackney comes from a Saxon or a Dane called Hacker. It was Hacker's 'aie' or 'ee'. and we know that there were Saxon people settling here because is 1987 they found an old boat, waterlogged on the banks of the lea, by Springfield Park. It was dated back to the 10th century, before William the Conqueror, in Saxon times, and it was used to ferry people across the river, or go down to the Thames and up the river to trade in London. The word 'ee' comes from the Germanic languages, which are the ancestors of English, and it relates to water.
[50:22]If you think of the Isles of Sheppy, Londy, both places surrounded by water. So Hackney is well watered place belonging to Hacker. And it was a well watered place. The church, if you think about it, is built on a bit of a hill. If you walk up from Hackney Central and you're going up hill towards the MacDonald's and the church. Its on a hill, a promontory. It's a promontory above a river. Amhurst Road, running next to the old Gibbins Store, was Hackney Brook. And that river was there until 1850. The other side of Mare Street, The Narrow Way, where Brett Road is, was another river, Pigwell Stream. So Hackney was certainly a well watered place. It was wooded, it was fertile. So there was timber for houses, water for drinking, rivers for fish, good ground to be cleared for grazing and growing produce and any extra produce was taken to market in London. And you can still trace the ancient track way from Clapton, just up there, down this road to Mare street, through the Town Hall, London Fields, Broadway Market, Spitalfields. That was the old porters path to market.
[51:35]London has always been a market for Hackney for selling our produce there, for entertaining London citizens, they came to the pubs and the pleasure gardens here in Hackney, London's young were educated up here, the mentally ill were hospitalised up here and of course London had to house it's people somewhere and many houses were built here in the 19th century to house the people working in London.
But to go back to the tower, the mother church of this part of London is in Stepney. St Dunstan's Stepney is still there, an old medieval building and it dates back to Saxon times. St Dunstan was a bishop of London and the Saxon King gave him land extending all that way east. So the bishop of London owned the manor around here. But in some time, Hackney was created, it was separated out of Stepney. It had its own little settlements, it had Dalston, it had Kingston, it had Shacklewell, it had Stamford Brook, Clapton, Hackney Wick, Homerton, all little settlements which were settlements which were separated from each other by fields.
Hackney was your main town. It was where the church was, the church was probably build by a people called the Knights Templar. They were in charge of the land around here, maybe they were given it by the bishop to look after, maybe they leased it. The knights were a religious chivalric order. they were formed at the beginning of the crusades and they were formed to look after, to defend the pilgrims going to the holy land. They were called templar because they were given accommodation in the old temple in Jerusalem. They were from the wealthier classes of society, the classes which produced Knights in the armies of Europe. So they had power They had influence and they and friends.
[53:50]They soon made a name for themselves all over western Europe and they became very influential in the governments of France and England for instance. And their name still lives on. Temple Mills is not too far away from here in the east, and for a long time, until the 19th century, there was a house called the Templars at the top of the Narrow Way, where the wishing well pub is now. The church that they built was dedicated to St Augustine. Now if you think of your English history, you may remember that St Augustine was the man sent by the pope to convert Kent to Christianity at the end of the 6th century. He was an Italian sent by an Italian.
In fact, the church here was not dedicated to him, it was dedicated to another man, St Augustine of Hipo. And he lived in the 4th century, born and died in north Africa, in what is now Algiers. And he was a leading philosopher and theologian of the western church. And the rules of St Augustine were a model for religious life and for monastic living. They may have been the basis for the rules by which the Knights Templar lived and that may be why they dedicated their church to him. But they may also have dedicated their church to him because he argued that you could have just war. and of course the Templar's were armed people who used violence and their arms for what they saw were just causes.
St Augustine was an African, and as I mentioned earlier, a large proportion of the populations today are black. In fact the black population in hackney today, are the oldest ethnic grouping after the white British. And the earliest record of a black person in Hackney is in 1630. There is a parish burial record of a poor Anthony, who was buried in 1630, and he was 105 so they say when he died - which would have meant he was born in 1525, which is interesting because that was before slavery was really established so how did he get to hackney. But I've done a bit of research on this and I've noticed that in the United States for instance, St Augustine is seen as an African Saint, and there are various Afro-American educational institutions that are named after him, and they date back to the time after the civil war when they were founded for the children of freed slaves. So to my mind, it's appropriate that with at least a quarter of us in Hackney with African ancestry, the first church and the surviving tower, are named after an African saint.
[57.09] The parish of Hackney was for a long time, the larges parish in Middlesex. Now, Middlesex was a county and it stretched al the way from the river Lea, which was the boundary with the East Saxons - Essex, all the way far west as Twickenham, and it was a county which included all of London on the north side of the Thames, and Hackney was its largest parish.
[57:34] As I said, the church was built by the Templars. And the Templars made a lot of money, they ad a lot of influence, and they made a lot of enemies. They made an enemy of the King of France, and he convinced the pope to dissolve them, and they were put down. Much of their property passed from the to another Knightly religious order called the knights of Hospitalar of St John. The Knights Hospitalar of St John was established, again, in the crusades not to look after pilgrims on their way to the holy land but when they were in the holy land. They too were very powerful and their emblem, you probably remember St John's ambulance 8 pointed cross, or the cross of Malta, that emblem is also on the coat of arms of hackney. So Hackney commemorates in its coat of arms, St Augustine's tower and the knights of St John.
[58:36] Because the church had now passed to another religious order, it changed its dedication and it became St John at Hackney. St John at Hackney, that's the full title. why? It was to distinguish it from St John at Clerkenwell, and Clerkenwell was the head quarters of the knights of St John. Little is known about hackney in the middle ages. Ordinary people would have been involved in farming. As I said earlier, they would have been taking their produce over their fields to London on foot. There are in the records, especially later on in the 17th century, of people leaving money in their wills to look after the pathway from Clapton to Spitalfields. to fence it, to repair the bridges. The parish of hackney was lead by a rector, not a vicar, but a rector. And being a rector meant that he could enjoy the taxes of the parish, and in those days you had tithes, which meant that 10% of the income of everyone went to the church and if you were a rector it meant that straight to you. And the rector was appointed by the lord of the manor who was the bishop of London. So it was a pretty nice number to be a rector of Hackney because you got a lot of revenue. And it was used as a way of rewarding servants of the crown and the church, they were coming to the end of their career, you wanted to keep them on side, you gave them a nice little earner and a rectory somewhere. So many of the rectors of hackney were people who had worked for the crown.
[60:26] In 1317 there was a rector called Robert de Wadham who worked for Edward 2nd as the baron of the exchequer. He was a priest, but he worked in royal service. Often these rectors were absentee. The would leave behind a team of priests to look after the religious side of things. The church must have been quite a magnificent building. It was pre reformation, it was full of colour, it had some side chapels dedicated to various saints, there were chapels dedicated to the holy trinity, to the Virgin Mary and to St Lucy. And these chapels were associated with fraternities from different parts of the parish. In 1428 we hear of the church street fraternity, there was a Homerton fraternity and they would vie with each other to make their chapel, their saint, more beautiful than the next. Bequests would be left, like for lights for these little side chapels, for church ornaments. A bigger bequest was left for a crucifix to be put in the centre of the church, and then another one to create a window in the south side of the church. So it must have been full of colour, full of beauty, very different to the drab lives of most people outside. To enter that church must have been a really exciting and uplifting experience.
[61:56] In 1502, there came to Hackney a man called Christopher Erswig, to be rector of Hackney. If you go out of this building, turn left towards Homerton, you will eventually be going down Erswig Road, named after him. He was an important man. He was born in1548 in Cumberland from a rich wealthy family, so to get on in life then, if you're A man from that type of background, one of your best options was to become a priest. You got a good education. And he ended up in the service of a woman called Margaret Beaufort. She was the Lancastrian claimant to the throne of England, from the red roses side. If you remember your history of the civil war at that time, the red roses, the white roses, the house of York, the house of Lancaster. She was in exile because the house of York, the white rose, were on the throne at the time. She must have recommended this Christopher Erswig to her son, Henry Tudor. He took him on and Christopher Erswig came with Henry to England and was at the battle of Bosworth when Henry won, Richard was killed, and Henry was declared king. Henry the 7th of England. The first of the Tudors. I you read Shakespeare's Richard 1st part 1, Erswig has a small bit part, he has eight lines in act 4 scene 5. Its said that he arranged the marriage between Henry and Elizabeth of York and so ending the dynastic confrontation.
[64:07] Its also said that he arranged the marriage between Henry's son, Prince Arthur, and Catherine of Aragon. Arthur died, Catherine went on to marry Henry 8th, didn't produce an heir, Henry wanted to divorce and so caused the split with Rome etc. He was acquainted with Virgil, of Erasmus, and of Thomas Moore. And he was the type of man who was employed at that time to set up the first Tudor on the throne of England and establish strong government in England after about 60 years of civil war. He was dean of Westminster. So this can't have been a backwater if this living was to be given to Christopher Erswig. And he came and chose to live here. In 1502 he worked here, he wasn't an absentee rector, he actually worked here and he rebuilt the church with te financial help of a man called John Herron. who was the wealthiest man of that time in this parish. He lived up in Shackelwell, his son went on to marry the daughter of Sir Thomas Moore.
When Erswig died in 1521, he was buried here in hackney and when the new church was built, they moved his tomb to the new church and you can still go there and see it.. So we have a tomb in hackney dating back nearly 500 years, to the first years of the Tudor dynasty. But that's not all. Go and see Erswig's tomb, and across the way you'll see another fantastic Tudor tomb of a woman called lady Lucy Latimer. She lived here locally, she had 4 children, they all married the nobility and she is known as the grandmother of the house of lords. It was people of that ilk who were in hackney, living in Hackney, establishing their houses. Go further up the road here, next to Texaco there is a house that has Tudor foundations, further up to Lea Bridge round about, Brook House, a Tudor building destroyed in the second world war. The Earl of Northumberland lived there Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford lived there. Some people believe that he was the real Shakespeare, so if they were right we would have been talking about Hackney on Lea and not Stratford upon Avon.
[66:31] Henry 8th met up with his daughter Mary Tudor, Mary who was catholic, the fell out, they reconciled, they met there in Brooke House. Thomas Cromwell, who helped Henry 8th dissolve all the monasteries and establish the Church of England, he for a time lived up there. One of his protégés, Ralph Saddler, build Sutton House. Thomas Sutton, owned property where Sutton Place is now. He died in 1611 one of the richest commoners in England. he lived in what was called the Tan House next to Sutton House. that was the type of person living in Hackney at that time.
During the 17th century though, Hackney was a centre for many people who oppose the king. Who were pro Cromwell, who were pro parliament. Remember there was another Civil War then, and if you go down Mare Street now, just opposite where Richmond Road is, there was a house where a man called Colonel Oaky lived. He was one of the men who signed the death certificate for Charles 1st. After the restoration of the monarchy, the rector of hackney, Dr William Spurstow had to leave his job because all priests were told they had to conform, to swear to uphold the church of England. And if they didn't conform, they had to leave their job, and that's what happened to him. They were called non conformists and non conformists were not allowed to preach within 5 miles of a town centre, so they had to settle away from the towns, be out of sight and many of them came to settle around here, especially Newington Green. They built their own schools their and they trained their own ministers. Daniel Defoe, was educated there, he mostly lived in Stoke Newington.
[68:56] Mary Woolsencraft lived for a time just passed where Primark is now, she ran a school for girls. Joseph Priestly, was hounded out of Birmingham, the mob burned down his library and his labs. He ended up in here, living just across the road for a further 2 years before he felt that England was too uncomfortable and he went of to Philadelphia. One visitor to Hackney in the 17th century mentions coming here - Samuel Pepys.
[70:05]Pepys had been educated in Hackney, in Kingsland and on evening in 1668 he decided to walk up across the fields to visit Hackney because he wanted to hear the organ. He had heard that there was a very good new organ installed in the church and he wanted to hear it because he wanted to get an organ bought for his parish church in the city. And he went to a pub called the Mermaid. Go up Mare Street you see Mermaid Fabrics. That's where there was a pub called the mermaid, dating back to the early 17th century. And he went there and he drank and ate with his servant girl that he had brought up with him. Then he came back to hear the organ played on Sunday. He liked the organ, he also liked another sight in the church which he wrote about which was the young girls. He had an eye for the female form, they caught his attention, so he made a few return visits. Those young girls had trooped along from Sutton House where they had been schooled.
[71:06] Hackney, being fresh country air, was a place where Londoners liked to educate their children and there were many schools here. If you go up to where the London Orphanage Portico is, where Martin Creed had his exhibit, there was a school there. It was called the Hackney School for sons of gentlemen. 60 old boys from that school became members of Parliament in the 18th century. Every year they used to put on a school play, which became a social event. David Garrick once made a guest appearance there as well. But as well as schools there were asylums, what we would call now, which would be politically incorrect I'm sure, lunatic asylums. There were quite a few around here, in Hoxton there was a famous one run by a man called Warburton and he had another one down mare street, and if you go down Mare Street, near London fields there is still Warburton house named after him. He attended mad king George 3rd, who was absolutely terrified on the man.
[72:23] Also near London Fields, the east India Company had a lunatic asylum for its employees Brooke House as I mentioned, in the mid 18th century, became a hospital for the mentally ill and remained so until the second world war In the 18th century getting to and fro in hackney became easier because they started to establish Turnpikes which raised money. You charged money if people wanted to go down the road, and you would raise money and use the income from that to improve the road. And this had almost as great an impact as the coming of the railways 100 years later. It vastly improved transport and access in and out of the cities. And consequently people who worked in London could live further a field and the population grew. Because the population was growing, the church became perceived as being too small so they had to do something about it. They argued and argued. Had the Hackney Gazette been around then, the letters page would have been full of letters all about the pros and cons of building a new church. Eventually a decisions was made, they were going to build a new church.
[73:49] They did their research and said that from 1759 to 1777, the number of houses in Hackney had increased by 50%. There were 19 schools in the parish and the church was just too small. So they commissioned a man to build a new church. St John at Hackney as we know it today. He wanted £15,000, they said £10,000 no more. Eventually he got £11,000 but not enough for a tower. So he came back in 1812 and built the tower. Then there was debate, was it strong enough for the bells? So when the new church was consecrated in 1797 they pulled down they old church, apart from the tower, because they had to keep the bells there.
Last updated on 18th February 2007
