Seeking you Ancestor in Tower Hamlets Cemetry Park

I found this site after trying to solve a query from one of you. It has information about the cemetery and gives you contact details if you want to find out if one of your relatives was buried there.

East End History: Bethnal Green churches

'In 1839 the Bishop of London, James Blomfield, decided to build ten new churches in Bethnal Green ‘one of the most desolate parishes’ in his diocese. At the time the area had a population of around seventy thousand people and two Anglican churches, dedicated to the apostles St Matthew and St John. Blomfield set up a fund, and the new churches were completed by 1850 and dedicated to the remaining ten apostles (St Matthias replacing Judas Iscariot as the twelfth apostle). This was the start of a long tradition of philanthropists from the West End, Oxford and the churches coming into the East End and trying to improve its moral and social condition.' (from Dickens and London.com).

There's a map showing the churches and also some photographs, including one of St Matthew (which is our latest CD) and one of St James the Great, which is the latest database we've uploaded.

Charles Booth Online archive

The archive is a searchable resource giving access to material from the Booth collections of the archive division of the library of the LSE and the Senate House library.

The Booth collection at LSE archives contains the original records from Booth's survey into life and labour in London, dating from 1886-1903. The archives of the Senate House library contain Booth family papers from 1799-1967. This site is really interesting and once you're in it's hard to leave! It also has a list of parishes on the 1898-9 Booth poverty map. 

Ramblings from the Council Estate

First of all, I'd like to wish each and every one of you a happy new year, and I mean that most sincerely folks! ! I expect, like me, you are relieved that Christmas is out of the way and life can revert back to normal....although what normal is I've no idea, I've never really achieved that state of Nirvana when everything is as it should be; you know, hassle free, no worries, no dramas, everyone around you is happy too, all bank errors go in your favour, your insurance goes down once you've clocked up another year's no claims bonus instead of up etc etc Talking of dramas, we didn't have one outside our flat a couple of weeks before Christmas. I know what you're thinking, your thinking 'doesn't he mean we did have one outside our flat..' OK, let me clear up the confusion I've cunningly caused. One night the two of us were slothing on the couch watching the goggle box when her indoors suddenly realised that all was quiet outside, and it's never quiet outside! I reached up, stuck my head between the curtains and Kingsland road looked like a scene out of one of those disaster movies; ambulances, police cars, loads of fire engines, police tape blocking off all access. But the strange thing was, they had all crept there in silence, how weird is that? No sirens, no loud crashes of metal on metal-nothing! On further inspection we couldn't see any smashed up cars, no injured people laying motionless on the floor (not that I was hoping for any), just loads of rescue people standing next to a coach which was in pristine condition. I got bored at this point, but the other half went upstairs to get a better view. I received regular updates from her, which basically went along the lines of 'nothing's happening' and 'still nothing's happening', until in the end it was 'they're packing up now'. How strange that they should close one of the major routes out of London for apparently nothing. We googled it the next day but found out nothing, so this will remain one of life's mysteries!

Did I tell you our plans for Christmas? We decided to break from tradition this year, so instead of our usual chicken dinner with no tree and no decorations we opted for the full monty (no we didn't plan to eat my brother's dog Monty) and we went to my Uncle John and his wife Margaret's pad in Norfolk. Talk about the opposite to us; I've never seen so many father Christmas's in one room, it was like they were having their annual convention there this year. They didn't just sit there, no they lit up, they danced and when squeezed some of them would wish us a merry Christmas!We stayed for three nights, had a meal out on boxing day and two wonderful meals cooked by Margaret. The first meal was a juicy steak and the other was the works on Christmas day. So, what else did we do? Well, funny you should ask, we did the usual and went on the duck walk. Normally this is a gentle two mile walk which gives Polly (a dog, not a parrot) her daily dose of exercise and her indoors her bi-annual dose (remember the unused gym bag). This year it was a bit more hazardous than normal on account of the snow and ice that hadn't had the decency to melt yet. John and Margaret being countrified had wellies and they had tipped her indoors to purchase a pair of wellies as well, which she did (posh shiny ones), but I just had my trainers, I'm too cool for wellies, don't you know. Have you guessed what happened? Two of the welly brigade slipped and ended up on their derrieres! Oh yes, and the other one (her indoors) didn't get away Scott free either! As she tipi-toed on a dodgy bit of icy path she put her ungloved hand on a wooden rail to steady herself, then she called me and asked me what was on her hand, to which I replied, completely dead-pan (but laughing out loud inside, 'duck pooh!' (I bet you're laughing too now!)

You know what, I nearly forgot, our Christmas started a week earlier in actual fact. That was the Saturday the whole of London and Essex was covered in the white stuff. Not only that but a signal went down on the central line. So what? I hear you ask. Well, we were having our family Christmas at Yvonne's (in Loughton) that afternoon,with her of course (she's essential as she cooks!), dad, brother William and his wife Phill (with two letter Ls, not one), and baby Joss who had just turned 1, oh and little James, as he lives there too, although he;s sunning it up in Thailand at the moment. Where was I? Oh yes, the white stuff. As you all know everything grinds to a halt when it snows, and that day was no exception. I would normally walk to Bethnal green tube but we, no I, was over-laden with presents so we decided to splash out £1.20 on a bus. So we waited and waited and waited, until I had almost run out of patience, then it came. Then it was a trudge through the snow down to the station, which is when the fun started. Due to adverse weather conditions and a signal problem on the Hainault branch the next train was 20 minutes away. As we waited more and more people came and filled up the platform, then after twenty long minutes, it arrived. It was more tightly packed than a tin of sardines, people's screwed up faces squashed against the windows. No way was I getting on that! Never mind, the next one was only a few minutes away, until it was 'held' and 'held' and 'held' for another 10 minutes. Needless to say when it arrived it resembled the last sardine tin! I resolved that if the next one was so bad we were going back. The next one came and it was just as bad, but the stubbornness in me took over and I led her indoors into battle. Shoving Joss's alphabet train in front of me I pierced a hole in the human wall in front of me and set up camp amongst the heaving hoards! What a relief! But that soon evaporated as we were hit by delay after delay, with the train driver eventually announcing that the controller hadn't got a clue what he was doing! By the time we had negotiated the ice rink at the other end we arrived two and half hours later! I could have ran it faster,without the presents of course. I must say it was well worth it though, the highlights being see Joss walk for the first time and Yvonne's culinary masterpiece! Oh, and the journey back only took half the time, PHEW!

One last little tale for 2010. I'm now back into my running and up to 3 runs a week, even in the ice and snow! Well, one day after school I shot home, got changed into my string vest and underpants (we're hard down south!) and off I went for a 6 miler. After about 3 miles I spotted, eagle-eyed as ever, four shifty youffs up ahead. As a man passed them I could hear them shouting sarcastic abuse at him. Then as I passed them they did the same to me, but I decided to rise above it and continue on my way. But then a large lump of ice just missed me. Without thinking I turned around and ran straight at them shouting miscellaneous words (you know the usual thing-rascals, cheeky lads etc) at the top of my voice, waving my arms like demented windmills! Now, if they had stayed put I'd have turned on my heals and ran as fast as I could, but to my astonishment they scattered in all directions screaming their heads off! I picked on one who thought he could outrun this balding old jogger, but I screamed at him that he was wasting his time and that I could run all day. Sure enough, he tired and eventually gave up, by now looking like he was going to cry and ask for his mummy! What a come down from the four brave souls of just a few minutes ago, I thought. Don't worry I didn't lay a finger on him, I had achieved my aim, and just continued on my merry way again. I didn't run that way for a while after that!

Here's my last joke for 2010:

There's a man sitting at a bar just looking at his drink. He stays like that for half an hour. Then, a big trouble-making truck driver steps next to him, takes the drink from the guy, and just drinks it all down.

The poor man starts crying. The truck driver says, "Come on man, I was just joking. Here, I'll buy you another drink. I just can't stand seeing a man crying."

"No, it's not that. This day is the worst of my life. First, I fall asleep, and I'm late to my office. My boss, in an outrage, fires me. When I leave the building to my car, I found out it was stolen. The police say they can do nothing. I get a cab to return home and when I leave it, I remember I left my wallet and credit cards there. The cab driver just drives away. I go home and when I get there, I find my wife sleeping with the gardener. I leave home and come to this bar. And when I was thinking about putting an end to my life, you show up and drink my poison."

And here's my last funny video clip for you, 264 million people have seen this already!:

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.
Edith Lovejoy Pierce

All the best for 2011

Jonathan and the team