Brief information about the East End
East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the Historical Center of Broader East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London, and north of the River Thames. Though the River Lea is seen as the border it does not have accepted bounds to west and the north.
Parts of it may be regarded as lying within Central London (though that term also has no precise definition). The East End began to emerge with slow urban growth outside the walls, which accelerated, particularly in the 19th century, to absorb settlements in the Middle Ages.
The earliest known written record of the East End as a different thing, compared to its component parts, comes from John Strype's 1720 Principle of London, which describes London as consisting of four parts: the City of London, Westminster, Southwark, and "That Part past the Tower".
The significance of Strype's reference to the Tower has been more than geographical. The East End was the part of an administrative area called the Tower Division, which had owed service since time immemorial into London's Tower. As London grew the urbanised Tower Division became a byword for wider East London, until East London grew east of the River Lea and to Essex.
The region was infamous for its poverty, overcrowding and related social issues that are deep. This resulted in the East End's history of political activism and association with some of the most influential social reformers of the country . Another significant theme of East End history is being migration, both outward and inward.
The region had a powerful pull on the rural poor from different parts of England and brought waves of migration from further afield, especially Huguenot refugees, that created a brand new extramural suburb in Spitalfields in the 17th century, Irish weavers, Ashkenazi Jews, and, in the 20th century, Sylheti Bangladeshis.
The closure of the final of the East End docks in 1980 resulted in efforts at regeneration and the creation of the London Docklands Development Corporation and made additional challenges. The Canary Wharf development improved infrastructure, and the Olympic Park means the East End is undergoing change, but a few parts continue to contain some of the worst poverty in Britain.