IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
East India Dock Road, LONDON, E14 6DE

Lurking behind pollarded plane trees is this former home for seamen, built 1839-41, and now flats. Grade II listed. Much more info here: Image

This is the only survivor of the buildings erected in the road for the philanthropic George Green as a home primarily for the seamen of his merchant ships. He paid for it all and probably used carpenters and labourers from his own ship yard. Work began in summer 1839 and was probably completed late in 1841. In 1856 the building acquired a further use, as the home of the Poplar and Blackwall School of Trade and Navigation under the Science and Art Department. This forerunner of the LCC's School of Marine Engineering and Navigation in the High Street provided day lessons in navigation for masters and mates in the merchant navy, and a 'trade school' to give technical instruction to workmen in the evenings. Later it was taken over by the Board of Trade and subsequent government offices before being converted into flats in the 1980s. From: 'East India Dock Road, North side: Nos 1-301 (and Nos 2-50)', Survey of London: volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs (1994), pp. 127-147. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=46479. Date accessed: 30 June 2008. The domed piers that stand on the pavement outside are original and one can be seen in an old photograph of the Seamen's Rest next door, here http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/conMediaFile.5334/The-Queen-Victoria-Seamens-Rest.html

The 1928 clock, and clock tower, on the former school in East India Dock Road commemorates the centenary of George Green's original foundation in Chrisp Street nearby. That school was outgrown and rebuilt here in 1883.

Suitably pious Victorian motto: however, the wealthy shipowner who founded the original school, and his son Richard Image were both major public benefactors for their locality.

This world-famous hostel and retirement home for merchant seamen started out in 1887 as Methodist mission in Jeremiah Street (right), at the end of the century a new building went up which is now sandwiched between C20 extensions, this one fronting East India Dock Road to the south, the other behind to the north. It accommodates 170 men of all faiths. The old institute was bombed during WW2 but never closed. For full history of the QSVR see http://www.qvsr.org.uk/history.htm

Imposing redbrick school in East India Dock Road. It replaced a previous, smaller school founded by wealthy local shipbuilder George Green (1767-1849) in Chrisp Street in 1828. That outgrew its premises and the new school, built in 1883, provided places for 200 boys and 200 girls, in separate classrooms. They paid modest fees and or were assisted with scholarships. Later it became a LCC maintained school and was the first to institute co-education. Remained open until 1979 when it became part of Tower Hamlets College.

Grade II listed building (http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1240304) Designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield and built in 1892-4 as the Mission to Seamen Institute. When the Mission moved to the Royal Docks in 1930s, it became the Commercial Gas Company's Co-partnership Institute. It has been converted to flats.

Looking south down Hale Street.

This is the Jeremiah Street entrance of Queen Victoria Seamen's Rest opened in 1902. See http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.141/chapterId/2941/The-welfare-of-seamen.html for contemporary photos. Earlier there was a small mission, run by the Wesletyan Methodist church, consisting of a plainly furnished reading room and rest room with a third room available for daily Bible and Prayer meetings. An elementary nautical school ran three mornings a week and services were held on Monday and Friday evenings. Prior to that on this spot stood a tavern appositely named The Magnet - a considerable attraction, no doubt, to the recently-paid-off sailors who thronged this area. The Methodists had it closed down and took over the site.

By Cecil Handisyde and D. Rogers Stark, 1949-51. Very distinctive and original owing to its angular tower (the bell apparently survives from the predecessor destroyed in the war) and copper-clad body set within a concrete frame. It was included in the Exhibition of Live Architecture, part of the Festival of Britain at the nearby Lansbury Estate.