The earliest reference to the name "Tower Hamlets" was in 1554, when the Council of the
Tower of London ordered a muster of "men of the hamlets which owe their service to the tower". This covered a wider area than the present-day borough, and its military relationship with the Tower is thought to have been several centuries earlier than the 1554 record. is in the borough, and the borough's name references the hamlets which owed military service to the castle authorities. In 1605, the
Lieutenant of the Tower was given the right to muster the militia and the area east of the tower came to be a distinct military unit, officially called
Tower Hamlets (or the Tower Division). The Hamlets of the Tower paid taxes for the militia in 1646. The borough is closely associated with the
Whitechapel murders a series of brutal serial killings by
Jack the Ripper. These events drew intense crime research public attention, which ultimately contributed to the instruction of the
Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890 and the Public Health Amendment Act 1890, that ultimately renewed efforts by the government to address and reform deteriorated urban conditions in the East End. Hundreds of books and articles discuss the Whitechapel murders, and they feature in
novels, short stories, comic books, television shows, and films of multiple genres. On 24 September 1888,
George Bernard Shaw commented sarcastically on the media's sudden concern with
social justice in a letter to
The Star newspaper. The population of Tower Hamlets grew enormously in the 19th century, leading to extreme overcrowding and a concentration of poor people and immigrants throughout the area. These problems were exacerbated by the construction of
St Katharine Docks (1827) and the
central London railway termini (1840–1875) with many displaced people moving into the area following the
clearance of former slums and
rookeries. Over the course of a century, the East End became synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality. The area was once characterised by rural settlements clustered around the City walls or along the main roads, surrounded by farmland, with marshes and small communities by the river, serving the needs of shipping and the
Royal Navy. Until the arrival of formal docks, shipping was required to land goods in the
Pool of London, but industries related to construction, repair, and victualling of ships flourished in the area from
Tudor times. The area attracted large numbers of rural people looking for employment. Successive waves of foreign immigration began with
Huguenot refugees creating a new extramural suburb in
Spitalfields in the 17th century. They were followed by
Irish weavers,
Ashkenazi Jews and, in the 20th century,
Bangladeshis. is known for being a significant centre of the
British Bangladeshi community Many of these immigrants worked in the clothing industry. The abundance of semi- and unskilled labour led to low wages and poor conditions throughout the East End. This brought the attentions of social reformers during the mid-18th century and led to the formation of
unions and workers associations at the end of the century. The radicalism of the East End contributed to the formation of the
Labour Party and demands for the
enfranchisement of women. Official attempts to address the overcrowded housing began at the beginning of the 20th century under the
London County Council. Aerial bombing in
World War II devastated much of the East End, with its docks, railways and industry forming a continual target. In the separate boroughs making up today's Tower Hamlets a total of 2,221 civilians were killed and 7,472 were injured, with 46,482 houses destroyed and 47,574 damaged. This led to some dispersal of the population to outlying suburbs. New housing was built in the 1950s for those that remained. mean that the East End is undergoing further change, but some of its districts continue to see some of the worst poverty in Britain.
Administrative history The area of the modern borough had historically been part of the
hundred of
Ossulstone in county of
Middlesex. Ossulstone was subsequently divided into four divisions, one of which was the
Tower Division, also known as the Tower Hamlets, which covered a larger area than the modern borough, also including parts of
Hackney. From at least the 17th century the Tower Division was a
liberty with judicial and administrative independence from the rest of the county. The liberty appears to have arisen from much older obligations on inhabitants of the area to provide military service to the
Constable of the Tower of London. From 1856 the area was governed by the
Metropolitan Board of Works, which was established to provide services across the
metropolis of London. In 1889 the Metropolitan Board of Works' area was made the
County of London. From 1856 until 1900 the lower tier of local government within the metropolis comprised various
parish vestries and district boards. In 1900 the lower tier was reorganised into
metropolitan boroughs, including the
Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green, the
Metropolitan Borough of Poplar and the
Metropolitan Borough of Stepney. The modern borough was created in 1965 under the
London Government Act 1963. It was a merger of the old boroughs of Bethnal Green, Poplar and Stepney, and was named Tower Hamlets after the historic liberty. ==Geography==