Etymology In the 13th century, the area was a low lying
marsh known as
Scadflet, from the
Anglo-Saxon , meaning a shallow creek or bay. Because a spring by a church dedicated to
St Chad filled a nearby well, a
false etymology changed the name into Chadwelle. This changed further into Shadwell.
Roman period In 1975,
archaeologists discovered evidence of a
port complex between
Ratcliff and Shadwell, that was used throughout
Roman occupation of Britain, and being most active in the 3rd century AD. The port seems to have initially been used for seagoing ships into the
City of London, which is believed to have stopped between 250 and 270AD. A water level drop meant that the port was used primarily for the public bath house near
St George in the East, which existed from the first to fourth centuries. Archaeologists has also found evidence of a late third-century
signal tower in Shadwell. A Roman cemetery containing two coffins was also discovered in Shadwell in around 1615.
Administrative history The area was part of the
historic (or ancient) county of
Middlesex, but military and most (or all) civil county functions were managed more locally, by the
Tower Division (also known as the Tower Hamlets). The role of the
Tower Division ended when Shadwell became part of the new
County of London in 1889. The County of London was replaced by Greater London in 1965.
16th and 17th centuries Shadwell's eastern waterfront had been drained in the
Middle Ages whilst the western waterfront had been drained during the reign of King
Henry VIII, by Cornelius Vanderdelf after an
act of Parliament. This had been caused by an increase in London's maritime activities in the 16th century. The riverside areas of East London experienced rapid, low quality development, that reached Shadwell in the late 16th century. Writing in 1598,
John Stow describes the poverty of the riverside development that took place then, with its: John Stow also recalls
elm trees being felled in order to make way for
tenements. Away from the river the area remained largely undeveloped. In 1650, Shadwell had 703 buildings. Of the houses, 195 were
single-storey houses, 473 were
two-storey houses, and 33 were
three-storey houses, although many were subdivided. The population of Shadwell in 1650 was around 3,500. In 1669,
Thomas Neale became a local landowner, buying some land reclaimed from the river, and gained Shadwell
parish status. In addition, Neale built 289 homes, a mill, and a market, and also established a waterworks on large ponds left by the draining of the marsh. The area had been largely undeveloped and he developed the waterfront, with houses behind as a speculation, and in doing so provided fresh water for Shadwell and Wapping. Shadwell's maritime industries were further developed with roperies, tanneries, breweries, wharves, smiths, and numerous taverns, as well as the chapel of St Paul's. Seventy-five sea captains are buried in its churchyard;
Captain James Cook had his son baptised there. Shadwell's new houses were built in an orderly fashion, so that the streets ran between
Ratcliff Highway and
Wapping Wall. seeking the capture and return of enslaved runaways, known today as Freedom Seekers has identified sisters living and working in Shadwell in the mid-1700s. Jane Gray and her younger sister, Maria, were born in Antigua in 1739 and 1742. They were the enslaved domestic servants of Captain James Barrett and his family. In 1758, when they were 19 and 16 years old, parish records confirm that the Barrett family lived in Musick House Court, just opposite
St Paul's Church, Shadwell. It is not clear how they entered Captain Barrett's service but the surname, Gray, suggests a connection with the Gray family and their plantations in Antigua. John Gray Senior, owned Turnbulls and Gray's Belfast amongst other property on the island, and he may have named the sisters after two of his daughters, who were also called Jane and Maria. The sisters arranged their own baptisms, on different days, in July 1758. Not at St Pauls, in the parish they lived, but at
St Margaret's, Westminster. By the mid-eighteenth century, Shadwell Spa was established, producing sulphurous waters, in Sun Tavern fields. As well as being used for medicinal purposes, salts were extracted from the waters and used by local calicoprinters to fix their dyes. By the mid-eighteenth century, many houses in Shadwell had been rebuilt. "Seamen, watermen and lightermen, coalheavers and shopkeepers, and ropemakers, coopers, carpenters and smiths, lived in small lathe and plaster or weatherboard houses, two storeys and a garret high, with one room on each floor"; the average rent was £2/7/0. in 1794, many houses on the
Ratcliffe Highway were destroyed by a fire which "consumed more houses than any one conflagration has done since the
Great Fire of London", and also destroyed many boats, and around £40,000 of sugar. The modern area is dominated by the enclosed former dock,
Shadwell Basin, whose construction destroyed much of the earlier settlement – by this time degenerated into slums. Between 1854 and 1858, a 45 feet wide new entrance to the docks was constructed to allow larger ships into the dock. In 1865,
HMS Amazon docked at Shadwell Basin in order to pick up around 800
Mormons who were emigrating to
America, In 1865 during excavation for the creations of some docks at Shadwell, four nearby houses were flooded. In 1844, Shadwell was recorded as having had a population of 10,060, and having ten
almshouses built using money from
James Cook. Watney Market developed into a busy shopping area around this time. In the 19th century, Shadwell was home to a large community of foreign
South Asian lascar seamen, working on the sea-lanes to
British India. There were also
Anglo-Indians, from intermarriage and
cohabitation between
lascar seamen and local girls. There were also smaller communities of
Chinese and
Greek seamen, who also intermarried and cohabited with locals. In 1805, lascars caused disturbances in the streets of Shadwell which ended with 15 people being hospitalised, and 19 people being arrested. During Victorian times, Shadwell and the
East End were not seen as pleasant places. The growth of Shadwell's port led to an increase in the number of prostitutes in the area, and the area was known as the centre of the capital's opium smoking, and in 1861, Shadwell paid a
poor rate of 3 s. 9d. An 1889 book
The Bitter Cry of Outcast London described Ratcliffe, Shadwell and
Bermondsey as a "revolting spectacle", a "dark vision", and a "ghastly reality", whilst
Charles Dickens' unfinished novel
The Mystery of Edwin Drood involves a journey to an opium den in Shadwell, which includes the line "Eastward and still eastward through the stale streets he takes his way, until he reaches his destination: a miserable court, specially miserable amongst many such." From 1868 to 1932, Shadwell was home to the East London Hospital for Children (later the
Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children), before it moved to
Wapping, and was later closed down in 1963. In 1916, seven women were killed in a sack factory fire; around 50 women were in the building at the time, and the rest escaped. The five-storey warehouse was almost completely destroyed. In 1934, a bomb was found four feet below the surface of Shadwell High Street; the bomb was believed to be from the German
World War I air raids on the area. In 1936 residents of Shadwell were heavily involved in the
Battle of Cable Street which took place nearby, when
Oswald Mosley's
fascists attempted to march through the East End, in order to intimidate the area's large Jewish population. The police ordered Mosley to abandon his march when 250,000 or more protestors blocked his way, and police attempts to clear a way for him were unsuccessful. Workers in Shadwell continued to oppose the
British Union of Fascists, and in 1937, Shadwell dockers threatened an unofficial strike after local casual dock labourer Cecil Anthony Hiron was nominated as a BUF candidate in the
Stepney Council elections in November; Hiron later withdrew his nomination. In 1969, the Shadwell Docks, along with the other London docks, closed and were purchased by
Tower Hamlets Council. before being bought by the London Docklands Development Corporation, who built 169 houses and flats by the basin in 1987. In 1987,
Shadwell DLR station was opened, which connected Shadwell to
Tower Gateway near
Fenchurch Street, and later also
Bank station from 1991. ==Parish church==