Toponymy The name 'Chadwell' was first recorded in 1254 as
Chaudewell and means 'the cold spring'. The name was first applied to a settlement on the
Barking (later
Ilford) side of the ancient boundary between Dagenham and Barking and it was also known as Chadwell Street, As Chadwell Heath grew it absorbed the neighbouring hamlet of Chadwell Street in the Chadwell ward of the parish of
Barking. The Barking section of Chadwell Heath became part of the new parish of Ilford in 1888. This became
Ilford Urban District in 1894. The Dagenham section became part of
Romford Rural District in 1894. The parish was removed from the rural district and became
Dagenham Urban District in 1926. During the 1920s and 1930s, the local government arrangements of the area came under review and various proposals would have merged the two sections of Chadwell Heath into a single district, however this was not acted upon. Ilford was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1926 and Dagenham was incorporated in 1938. The arrangements of the area were reviewed again in the 1950s and 1960s. The whole area was considered to form part of the Greater London conurbation and in 1957 formed part of the review area of the
Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London. Following the review, in 1965 the
London Government Act 1963 abolished the municipal boroughs of Dagenham and Ilford, and transferred their former area from Essex to
Greater London, to form part of the new
London Borough of Barking and the
London Borough of Redbridge.
During the world wars The area suffered several bomb hits during
World War II. A large parachute mine also exploded causing extensive residential damage in Bennett Road, destroying the school, while a second failed to explode and its parachute became entangled in horse-chestnut trees near Chadwell Heath Station. It did not explode because it was cradled in very soft soil as the result of digging near Hemmings Bakery. It was found by Walter Wiffen, a train guard from Cedar Park Gardens on his way to work at the station early the next morning. He reported it at the police station, which is now the Eva Hart pub, and oversaw the evacuation of Cedar Park Gardens to the bomb shelter at the corner of Wangey Road and the High Road. A
V2 rocket landed on Blackbush Avenue killing several people and blowing out windows for half a mile around. Later, the local council replaced the windows with much more modern frames, and the results provided an incongruous look to the older house designs. A heavy anti-aircraft battery was located east of Whalebone Lane North and traces of the concrete emplacements remain today. A V2 Rocket destroyed two houses in Woodlands Avenue and damaged the houses that had been repaired after the landmine that had destroyed the Whalebone Junior school in Bennett Road. ==Demographics==