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A shop paper bag - an commonplace object from the past that might be making a comeback.

George Lambeth was at number 89 from 1920 to 1947 but Green Street was renamed Roman Road in 1940.

Selling eggs and smoking haddocks nowadays seems a strange combination.  Number 89 Green Street had been a fishmongers from 1887 but George started at 14 as assistant in another fishmongers: the shop at 185 to 187 Green Street run by his father (also George Lambeth). In 1899 his mother Caroline took over and he became shop manager. His mother carried on running 185/7 Green Street until 1928, when she would have been 73, after which it was run (until 1935) by George's younger brother John Daniel Lambeth.

Although 89 Green Street was operating in 1946 and 1947 there is no Trade Directory entry between 1942 and 1945, possibly due to war damage.

 

Click thumbnails for Previous images.
Click to select Staff of Poplar & Stepney Sick Asylum, Devons Road, Bromley by Bow from a 1910 dated post card. Built in 1868 it was renamed St Andrews Hospital in 1921. The site is now under demolition prior to redevelopment.
Click to select A carte-de-visite photograph, by W Bartier, of two well dressed East London boys holding some odd looking objects. The date is approximately 1880. But what are the the boys holding? It looks like a golf club and a whip. But this seems unlikely!.
Click to select An engraving (dated 1808) showing the view through The Mile End (Toll) Gate towards Whitechapel.
Click to select A letter heading from the "London and Edinburgh Shipping Company Limited". It now seems strange to think that, even as late as the 1930s, if you wanted to travel to Scotland, you could take passage on a ship from the East End.
Click to select Cabinet size photograph (about 1900) of one of Henry Bell's shops. Described as an oilman, the nearest modern equivalent would probably be the Robert Dyas chain. In 1902 Bell had shops at 115 and 226 Green Street (now part of Roman Road), 40 Whitehorse Lane, 184 Brick lane, 174 Globe Road, 212 and 263 Roman road, 34 Cable Street and 29 Lyal Road (all within the current borough of Tower Hamlets). The back of the photograph says it is copied by J Pitt & Son of 213 Bethnal Green Road. This dates the copy between 1884 and 1903. All we can say about the location of this particular shop is that it is not the head office (115 Green Street) otherwise they would not have needed to show that above the window. A number of the shops are still listed in 1934, although by then they are owned by Mrs Catherine Bell (widow?).Note the row of wash boards at 5 shillings each to remind us of times before washing machines and laundrettes. 
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Click to select		 Two 1914 photographic postcards taken within a few minutes of each other, showing wounded Belgian soldiers waiting for transportation from The London Hospital to a convalescent home. This must have been very early in World War One as the German invasion of Belgium started on the 4th of August and one card was posted on the 17th of October. In the background we see the still surviving statue of Queen Alexandra, erected in 1908. As a comment on the back of one of the cards notes, this was the only statue of the Queen open to public view.
Click to select Paper souvenir of the air raid on London June 13 1917. During this raid Upper North Street School, Poplar, received a direct hit killing 18 young children. Their memorial is still located in Poplar Recreation Ground.
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A view of the South Kensington Museum from the Illustrated London News June 27 1857. Looks familiar? These structures were only temporary and were dismantled in the 1860s. The large central block known as the Brompton Boilers was reused for the Bethnal Green Museum, officially opened in 1872. 
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Outside the Lord Raglan, (19 St Ann’s Road). Photograph by A Griffith & Son of Armagh Road, Bow about 1900.

 Where is the group going to? Is it a wedding party? There are no women, but some of the men have flowers on their coats. There is a curious mixture of formal and informal and there is obviously going to be music.

 St. Ann’s Road came off Burdette Road and has now completely vanished under Mile End Park. Curiously it is described as being in the Bow Common district in the 1902 Post Office Directory.
Click to select Welsh Children’s Choir, Mile End. This photograph by the Day Studio, Hackney  is probably taken behind the Welsh Calvinist & Methodist Chapel at 209 & 211 Mile End Road. The site was later the home of the Half Moon Theatre and is now a Wetherspoons Pub.
Click to select View of East India Dock Road  looking east. The entrance to the East India Docks is visible in the distance and the shop of James Court & Co. can be seen to the left. They were probably the seller of this postcard posted in May 1912. They were at 257 East India Dock Road (between Ida Street and St Leonard’s Road) from 1908 to 1941 and described themselves as Manufacturing Stationers, Bookbinders and Artistic and Commercial Printers.
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Hopping. A Tintype photograph circa 1900 of a family in the hop fields. The photograph came with a group of carte-de-visites from Bow photographers.

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Activity on the Thames, circa 1910. This photograph was probably taken from the Tower of London foreshore, looking towards Hays Wharf. The rowing boat bears the identification 'Tower 3467', and the barges have the City of London arms.

 
Click to select Preparing for an outing. A party of ladies pose outside the 'Earl of Ellesmere' public house in the late 1920s. Horace Ernest Knott is listed as publican of the 'Earl of Ellesmere' 19 Chisenhale Road Bow from 1928. He had moved to another local pub by 1934. Everyone is wearing a corsage, why? Note, there are only two men in this party. One is a musician, the other is, possibly, the charabanc driver.
Click to select We don’t know where and when this group photograph was taken, but the photographer T.S. Robinson, of 185 and 187 High Street, Homerton, took many group photographs in the open spaces of East London. The ladies are wearing flowers and elaborate hats and there are two statues in the background. One is probably the Virgin Mary and the other seems to be wearing a Cardinal’s hat. There is a picnic table at the extreme right. Will they be having their tea after the photographer has finished? 
Click to select A Provision Merchants shop at 187 Bethnal Green Road. This how your milk was delivered in the days before milk bottles.
Click to select This image is an animated group around a costermonger’s cart in Bethnal Green Road (north side, just west of Valance Road). Donkeys would have been a common sight in the East End until WW2: now the only ones I know of in London, can be found outside Greenwich Park, providing rides for children. Does anyone know who the driver was or the tall man watching? 
Click to select This card shows the electrical department of the East London Hospital for Children at Glamis Road, Shadwell. The card dates from about 1910 and shows their X-ray equipment. X-rays were discovered in 1895 (Roentgen) and The London Hospital started using them in 1896. The East London Hospital opened its electrical department in 1902 so this equipment was very new. The dangers of long term exposure to X-rays were not then appreciated and the equipment is totally unscreened. For this reason many nurses and radiographers died from over exposure to the X-rays. The hospital was founded by Dr Nathaniel Heckford in 1868 and was originally housed in a warehouse in Ratcliffe. It was the first hospital in London to admit children under two years of age. A new, much larger, hospital was opened in 1877 but Dr Heckford did not live to see it as he died of consumption in 1871 at the age of only 29. In 1942 the hospital was merged with the Queen’s Hospital, Hackney Road to form the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children. It closed in 1963 and the building was demolished in 1967.
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At this time of year it seems appropriate to show a greetings card. This one dates from around the year 1910. The choice of subject featured in these seasonal cards is sometimes rather peculiar. In this instance it is the Blackwall Tunnel
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The Spratt’s factory

The Spratt’s factory in Violet Road, Bromley by Bow about 1930. The founder James Spratt was an electrician from Ohio. In England , around 1860, trying to sell lightning rods he made the world’s first commercial dog biscuits. He felt dogs being fed leftovers would fare better with his combination of “wheat meal, vegetables, beetroot, and meat”. He went public about 1890 and also opened in the USA. This immense factory, as it says “the largest in the world” closed in the 1960s? and has been converted to flats and artists’ studios. The Company’s world famous scotty dog logo will be familiar to most people and their former sales office in Bow Road is now the Tower Hamlets Planning Office. How many people remember the St Bernard dogs kenneled in Harley Grove, behind the offices?
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Bow Road and Gladstone Statue.

Almost all the structures on the left side of this post card published by Charles Martin in about 1910 still survive. The pub just to the left of the lamppost was the Three Tuns only “flatted” a few years ago. The Gladstone statue erected in 1882 and the monument just inside the churchyard still look the same. The church of St Mary suffered severe damage in World War 2 but was repaired in 1952. Everything to the right of the card has been demolished and rebuilt as a housing estate. The imposing building at the extreme right was the Eastern Empire Theatre. In later life this became the Regal Cinema. If someone can identify the bus company operating the bus in the foreground we would be pleased to know. Although the printer has retouched the image it doesn’t look like a L.G.O.C. bus. Note the tram tracks near the traffic island - travellers heading west had a much better choice of routes than nowadays. 

 
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One of a series of postcards published around the 1930s. This is the full text from the back of the card.

Some old waterside Inns of the Port of London.

The "Prospect of Whitby," at Shadwell is one of the most picturesque, as well as the oldest, of the few remaining waterside inns in London. Situated near Execution Dock, where criminals, such as pirates, were hung in chains, it was much used by the Newgate officers who could sit in the bar parlour bay windows while the full sentence was carried out, the law at that time being that three tides should flow over the body.

 
Click to select A generic comic postcard overprinted for Leytonstone. Is this a fair representation of the area in 1912, when this card was posted?
Click to select Atmospheric view of the Isle of Dogs and sailing barges on the river, taken from Greenwich promenade, near the Trafalgar Tavern. Circa 1920.
Click to select Shop on junction of Selby Street and Vallance Road Bethnal Green (circa 1930). This photograph shows, Mary Davis (my aunt), the proud proprietor of The Vallance Drug Stores. The building was badly damaged by the V2 rocket that destroyed Hughes Mansions on the 27th of March 1945. It was rebuilt and is now a cafe. She later purchased another drug store, 'The Old Maids', at 321 Bethnal Green Road. This is still open as a pharmacy, operated by her son Julian.
Click to select At first glance this appears to be a typical Victorian school photograph showing infants class 4 at Dempsey Street School, Stepney. In actual fact the school (very close to Jubilee Street) is in the process of being converted into apartments as part of a development called Stepney City and this post card was issued, just this year, by the developer’s sales agents.
Click to select Comic postcard showing Jewish? or Italian? ice cream vendor making 'suggestive' remarks to two 'flappers' down The Lane. Circa 1920.
Click to select Interior view of typical grocer's shop somewhere in the Forest Gate / Newham area, circa 1910.