Research - 10 Facts about the East End

10 Facts about the East End

1. Given that London is notorious for its traffic it only seems fitting that the first traffic light in the world was erected in the East End. It was put up in 1868 outside the House of Commons; unfortunately it exploded the following year.
2. Captain James Cook first met Elizabeth Batts when she was a young child in Wapping; they married in 1762 and lived in Mile End, the East End of London.
3. The first ship to ever be built and launched was in the East End, it was called The Greyhound.
4. One of the first people to sight Australia was Zachariah Hicks and he was from the East End.
5. Such excellent peppermints were created by a company in the East End, called C & E Mortons that Madagascar used them as a form of money.
6. The first ever British female to qualify as a doctor was born in the East End; due to Britain’s refusal for women to study she had to study in Paris.
7. Slavery was finally abolished in 1833, around 15,000 people were freed and most of these were found living in the East End.
8. Many of whom set foot in Britain for the first time in the local docks. In the 17th century the East End became the home of many Huguenot refugees who fled from persecution in France.
9. A bell tower marks the radius of the East End, if you can hear it your in this part of London, if you cannot then you are not.
10. Fish and chips were the East End of London's signature meal and over half the population ate it.