London
Facing page, top: Judge Jeffreys is captured despite his disguise. Bottom: Jeffreys watched hangings from The Angel. This page, clockwise from top: Enclosed docks began to restrict smuggling; postwar the East End improved for families; The Railway Tavern in Limehouse was a popular dockers' pub in the 1920s
STEP INTO SMUGGLERS' SHOES • Sailortown, at the Museum of London in Docklands, is a full-size, walk-through reconstruction of 19th century maritime Wapping – complete with alehouse, chandlery and other buildings. www.museumoflondon.org.uk • The Thames River Police Museum tells the story of river policing in London, but as it is housed in the police station at Wapping you need to make an appointment to visit. www.thamespolicemuseum.org.uk/museum.html
In 1798, the privately operated Marine Policing Establishment was formed. Its task was to police the river and it was based, appropriately, at Wapping where it remains to this day (it is now called the Marine Policing Unit). Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t popular with smugglers, interfering in a way of life that had thrived on the river for hundreds of years. In its first year alone it retrieved goods worth almost 30 times its set-up costs. By 1800, it was publicly owned. In latter years much of the contraband seized found its way to the ‘Queen’s Pipes’ – enormous ovens at London Docks – where it was incinerated. A second important move in the fight against smugglers and thieves came with the development of London’s enclosed docks. The West India Docks was the first of these, founded after the West India Dock Act was passed in 1799. Within 30 years, the East India, St Katharine and London Dock (Wapping) complexes had all been built. With walls up to 20ft high and almost www.britain-magazine.com
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