PUBLIC SERVICES
WATER SUPPLY.
Six excellent wells were
noted c. 1720, including those commemorated
in the names Pigwell brook and, by the 15th
century, Shacklewell and Well Street. One, a
disused chalybeate spring between Church
Street and Dalston, (fn. 75) may have been the source
near Dalston from which pipes were laid to
Aldgate after Londoners had voted funds in
1535. (fn. 76) Hackney was among the places from
which London was authorized to draw water by
an Act of 1543, which eventually led to the
creation of the Hampstead Water Co., and the
Lea at Hackney marsh figured as a possible
source in unrealized proposals of 1610. (fn. 77) Church
Well Path records a well, on the site of Hackney
bus depot, which had been abandoned by 1850. (fn. 78)
Conduit field lay in the north angle of Kates
Lane and Upper Clapton Road in 1790; an
ancient conduit there in 1831 was to be commemorated in Conduit Place off Wood (later
Rossington) Street. (fn. 79)
Clapton and some other parts were supplied in
1720 from the Lea through pipes which had
recently been laid by the Tyssen family. (fn. 80) In
1753, however, Hackney and Homerton were
losing summer visitors because of the lack of
'soft' water. (fn. 81) From 1760 Abraham Ogier and
other lessees of the Tyssens' corn mill at Lea
bridge increased the waterwheel's power by
making a weir, which in 1766 pumped water for
Hackney. Assisted in 1784 by a reservoir at
Clapton and with profits from the waterworks
rising in 1791, they continued as suppliers
until a new lease was granted in 1820 to a Mr.
Killick. The lease and freehold were bought by
the East London Waterworks Co. in 1830. (fn. 82)
The East London Waterworks Co., incorporated to supply Hackney and other parishes
from the Lea in 1807, secured further powers
in 1829 (fn. 83) and had made a waterworks channel
from Lea bridge to Old Ford alongside the Lee
trustees' Hackney or New cut by 1834. The
supply was increased by reconstruction at Lea
bridge in 1837. Lea bridge reservoir was built
between the river, the cut, and the new channel
and in 1838 the reservoir at Clapton was replaced
by one at Stamford Hill, where by 1891 it had
made way for houses on the west corner of
Portland Avenue and Darenth Road. (fn. 84) Under an
Act of 1853 filter beds were built at Lea bridge,
one on the Essex side of the Lea and the other
replacing Lea bridge reservoir. A new engine
was installed in 1854 and two more filter beds,
on the Essex bank, were built under an Act of
1867. (fn. 85)
In 1850 the vestry unanimously resolved to
seek the establishment of a public body to
improve the metropolitan water supply. (fn. 86) In
1874 the East London Waterworks Co. supplied
most of Hackney; the New River Co. served the
north-west corner of the parish, Shacklewell,
Dalston, and De Beauvoir Town. (fn. 87) The New
River Co.'s supply was not yet constant in 1888
and the East London's was disrupted in 1894. (fn. 88)
Under the Metropolis Water Act, 1902, both
companies were superseded in 1904 by the
Metropolitan Water Board, (fn. 89) itself superseded
under the Water Act, 1973, by the Thames
Water Authority in 1974. (fn. 90)
SEWERAGE posed a problem by 1845 and
preoccupied the new district board's medical
officer of health in 1856, when the spread of
housing had turned Hackney brook into an open
sewer. (fn. 91) In 1859-60 the M.B.W. completed its
northern high-level sewer along the line of
Hackney brook to Church Street and thence
south-eastward across Victoria Park to Old
Ford, (fn. 92) where it joined the Marsh sewer skirting
the Lea from Tottenham and, in the 1860s,
the Wick Lane branch sewer. The high-level
and Ratcliff storm relief sewer, running due
south along Mare Street to join the middle-level
sewer in Shoreditch, was built between 1881 and
1884. The L.C.C. built a more northerly middlelevel sewer, passing through De Beauvoir Town
and south Hackney to Old Ford, between 1906
and 1911. It also built storm relief sewers and
curbed flooding on the marsh with a main sewer
from Abbey Mills in Stratford, passing mainly
between the Lea and the Marsh sewer, which
was finished in 1908. (fn. 93)
Local sanitation (fn. 94) from 1856 was the respon
sibility of Hackney district board of works,
which spent most of its money on paving and
sewerage and much of its time on prosecutions
for nuisances. Although until 1866 the staff was
too small to carry out inspections except after
complaint, the medical officer reported that
1,518 houses had been connected to sewers and
1,839 nuisances abated in 1858 alone. Perhaps
made unusually vigilant by the rapid pace of
building, Hackney was one of the first parishes
to take advantage of the Sanitary Act, 1866, (fn. 95) by
regularly inspecting all houses with a rental of
under £20. By 1870 it claimed to have paved and
drained most yards and alleys, improved ventilation, and enforced the emptying of 5,715
cesspools for houses served by main drains. It
again took the lead when further powers were
conferred by the Sanitary Laws Amendment
Act, 1874, (fn. 96) but was still short of staff, to inspect
c. 2,000 work places, in 1891.
MEDICAL SERVICES.
The vestry granted a
weekly sum to keep a patient at Kingsland
hospital in 1613, (fn. 97) and made payments to the
father of a consumptive child in 1657 and to a
surgeon in 1659 and 1704. (fn. 98) Precautions against
the plague in 1665 were to include procuring
four bearers, a sedan chair for the sick, and four
nurses who would be pensioned for life. (fn. 99) In
1716 most of the poor rate was spent on pensions, often for the sick, but £94 18s. out of £352
7s. provided monthly payments to 14 women for
nursing. (fn. 1) A midwife was paid weekly in 1665
and probably thereafter (fn. 2) for over a century, her
office being among those renewable at Easter. (fn. 3)
An apothecary received gratuities for treating
the workhouse and out poor from 1741 until
1744, when he was granted a salary, (fn. 4) and a
successor was retained in 1764 by the trustees,
who in 1767 appointed a new surgeon and
apothecary to attend both the workhouse and the
poor at home. (fn. 5)
Hackney workhouse infirmary, the forerunner
of Hackney hospital, at first consisted merely of
beds for the sick or idiots. In 1764 the trustees
felt that they had taken over an infirmary rather
than a workhouse. (fn. 6) In 1836 the diet was wrong
for inmates who were mostly old or infirm. (fn. 7) In
1837 the guardians reappointed one apothecary
for the workhouse and three others for the
districts as medical officers of health. (fn. 8) The
infirmary in 1849 consisted of a single range on
the west side of the grounds, immediately south
of the women's wards; (fn. 9) a smallpox ward was
put up with the help of the inmates in 1860 (fn. 10)
and an iron building for sick children by 1866. (fn. 11)
The parish had subscribed to a smallpox hospital
at King's Cross since 1815 (fn. 12) and to the county
lunatic asylum since 1836 or earlier, (fn. 13) but the
workhouse admitted a few smallpox cases and
held some harmless imbeciles in 1866, when 119
of the 613 inmates were visited daily by the
medical officer's assistant. The sick were not
classified, were tended by only two paid nurses,
and had no day rooms. (fn. 14)
Extensions and adaptations from 1869 (fn. 15) led
to a distinction between the workhouse, later
called Hackney and Homerton central institution and entered from Sidney Road, and the
infirmary, called Hackney hospital. (fn. 16) The workhouse in 1890 had 90 beds, chiefly for the aged
bedridden and attended by three paid nurses,
while the infirmary had 437 beds, with 35
nurses. (fn. 17) The infirmary expanded to fill the angle
between Homerton's high street and Sidney
Road and was largely rebuilt in the early 20th
century to include four pavilions, two on each
side of an administration block, with 800 beds
by 1929. The institution underwent less
change, (fn. 18) although its area included a pavilion
opened in 1926 and on the west side a new
nurses' home and mental block, all of which
served the hospital. (fn. 19) Both sites passed in 1930
to the L.C.C., which in 1933 completed improvements to the hospital which had been
planned by the guardians and in 1937 opened a
six-storeyed nurses' home, partly replacing terraced
houses acquired by the institution in Sidney
Road. (fn. 20)
Hackney hospital passed in 1948 to the northeast metropolitan region's Hackney group
management committee, under which it had
1,310 beds in 1949 and 920, mostly acute, in
1968. (fn. 21) The site was cramped and most of the
buildings were outdated in 1976, when prefabricated operating theatres were being installed
and one ward block offered 'arguably the worst
general hospital psychiatric facility in the country'. (fn. 22)
In 1985, when administered by the City and
Hackney health authority as part of its Hackney/Homerton unit, it served as an acute
hospital during the rebuilding of the Eastern
hospital. From 1986 Hackney hospital retained
244 beds for old and psychiatric patients, whom
it was planned to move to an extension at
Homerton. (fn. 23) Demolition on the west side of the
site was in progress in 1993.
The Eastern, later Homerton, hospital was opened
in 1871 as one of the first three foundations of
the Metropolitan Asylums Board. The buildings, on 6 a. north of Homerton Grove, at first
were used solely to meet a smallpox epidemic but
were designed as a pair of hospitals, the northern
for 112 smallpox cases and the southern for 200
fever cases. (fn. 24) The M.A.B., which was in dispute
with Hackney district board of works over health
precautions, in 1882 stressed the pair's wide
catchment area by calling it the North-eastern
fever hospital. (fn. 25) An ambulance station had been
attached by 1889, when there were 400 beds, (fn. 26)
classes on infectious diseases were introduced in
1891, (fn. 27) and a small isolation block was added
in 1900. Accommodation was increased to 561
beds by the M.A.B.'s purchase in 1921 of the
City of London's institution, originally the East
London workhouse, immediately to the west. (fn. 28)
The Eastern hospital was administered from
1930 by the L.C.C. and from 1948 by the
regional board's Hackney group management
committee, under which it had 621 beds in 1949
and 495 in 1968. (fn. 29) A new isolation block was
opened in 1935 (fn. 30) and major rebuilding was
planned in 1939, but demolition started only in
1981. (fn. 31) The hospital was reopened in 1986 as
Homerton hospital, the City and Hackney health
authority's general hospital for the district, with
four two-storeyed brick wards containing 444
beds. (fn. 32)
The German hospital (fn. 33) was opened in 1845 in
Dalston Place on the south side of Dalston Lane,
in three houses bought from the infants' asylum. (fn. 34)
Financed by subscriptions and patronized by
royalty, the hospital offered free treatment to
Germans or German speakers and had dispensing branches in both east and west London; (fn. 35) a
few 'sanatorium' beds attracted fees but most of
the out-patients were poor English. Two linked
blocks of red brick with patterning, designed by
T. L. Donaldson (fn. 36) and E. A. Gruning in Tudor
style, were opened in the garden in 1864, whereupon most of the Dalston Lane frontage was let
for building. The new hospital, with 100 beds,
was approached by Alma (from 1877 Ritson)
Road and from 1867 by a road from Dalston
Lane across the railway. Later additions included the Sister's House designed by C. G. F.
Rees in 1911 and a five-storeyed buff-brick wing
by Burnet, Tait & Lorne, opened in 1936 and
facing Fassett Square. (fn. 37) A small convalescent
home was opened at Graham House, no. 113
Dalston Lane, in 1883 and replaced in 1908 by
one at Hitchin (Herts.). The hospital had 142
beds in 1890, when the London dispensaries
survived, (fn. 38) 161 including 12 private beds in
1931, and 192 in 1935. It passed in 1948 to the
Hackney group management committee as a
general hospital, with 217 beds in 1949 and
1968. (fn. 39) It was reserved for psychiatric and psychogeriatric patients from 1974, was partly
empty by 1976, and closed in 1987. (fn. 40) The original
block, a very early pavilion-plan hospital, with its
contemporary lodge and the noteworthy eastern
extension, (fn. 41) survived in 1991.
The Salvation Army's Mothers' hospital originated in a maternity home for unmarried women
opened in 1894 by Mrs. Bramwell Booth at Ivy
House, on the corner of Mare Street and Richmond Road. It closed in 1912, when the
semidetached nos. 153-63 Lower Clapton Road
were bought and when wards were built in their
gardens to form a general maternity hospital,
opened in 1913. The hospital also trained Salvationist and other midwives; (fn. 42) it had 90 beds in
1935. It passed to Hackney group management
committee in 1948, with 107 beds in 1949 and
114 in 1968, (fn. 43) and despite opposition (fn. 44) was
closed on the opening of Homerton hospital in
1986. (fn. 45) Most of the site was sold to Newlon
housing trust for Mothers' Square. The scheme
was partly finished in 1988, when a small psychogeriatric hospital was to be included. (fn. 46)
The Salvation Army kept a maternity home,
at first called a rescue home, at nos. 27 and 29
Devonshire Road from c. 1898 until 1927 or
later. By 1922 there were homes later called
Cotland at no. 9 Amhurst Park and Hope Lodge
at no. 4 Clapton Common (formerly the Salvationists' training college). Sapsworth House was
at nos. 122 and 124 (later also at nos. 126 and
128) Clapton Common by 1934, when all three
maternity homes had 20-30 beds. All had closed
by 1970. Crossways, opened by 1898 as a rescue
home at no. 13 Laura Place, had 20 maternity
beds in 1970 and remained a hostel for girls in
the 1980s. (fn. 47)
The Metropolitan Free hospital, founded in
1836, moved from Stepney to the south corner
of Kingsland Road and St. Peter's Road (from
1936 St. Peter's Way), where out-patients were
received by 1886. (fn. 48) It was intended for a poor
area, treating subscribers, and in 1888 only 50
of its 160 beds were in use, from lack of funds; (fn. 49)
12 of the beds were for Jews. In 1890 it was
governed by a committee, with the lord mayor
as president, and by 1902 the king was patron. (fn. 50)
All 150 beds remained free in 1935. It passed to
the region's Central group management committee in 1948 and to the new East London
committee in 1966, when it was linked with St.
Leonard's hospital, Shoreditch. (fn. 51) The Metropolitan remained open, with a chest clinic, in
1975 but was closed to in-patients in 1977. (fn. 52) The
yellow- and red-brick building, mainly of four
storeys, later housed workshops and survived in
1991.
A dispensary for Stamford Hill, Stoke Newington, Clapton, West Hackney, Kingsland, and
Dalston was opened in 1825 on the Hackney side
of Stoke Newington High Street but moved to
the opposite side in 1864. (fn. 53) The union guardians
in 1870 acquired a site in Roseberry Place for a
dispensary (fn. 54) which was open by 1872, when
there was also a homoeopathic dispensary at no.
100 Stoke Newington High Street; (fn. 55) the Roseberry Place dispensary survived until c. 1961. (fn. 56)
Hackney Provident dispensary, established in
1877 as a branch of the Metropolitan Provident
Medical Association, had 370 subscribers at no.
8 Brett Road in 1910. (fn. 57) A disinfecting station
and shelter designed by Gordon & Gunton, to
isolate people whose homes were being disinfected, was built by the council in Millfields
Road in 1900 and retained in the 1980s. (fn. 58) There
were health centres in 1985 at no. 205 Morning
Lane, no. 36 Lower Clapton Road, no. 210 Wick
Road, no. 3 Mandeville Street, no. 210 Kingsland Road, and in Fountayne Road and
Somerford Grove. (fn. 59) A mortuary, initially for
cholera victims, was housed in the old church
tower by 1875; part of the Rectory's garden was
taken in 1890 for a new mortuary, which was
opened with rooms for a coroner's court in
1893. (fn. 60)
Hackney was associated with lunatic asylums, (fn. 61)
although less notoriously than Hoxton by the
1670s or Bethnal Green later. The longest lived
was Brooke House, taken in 1759 by John
Monro (d. 1791), who was physician to Bethlehem hospital like his father and many of his
descendants. (fn. 62) The house was licensed for 50
patients c. 1840, when it was dilapidated and
rarely visited by Henry Monro, whose family
owned it until the late 19th century and retained
an interest until it was bombed in 1940. (fn. 63) Whitmore (formerly Balmes) House had by 1756 been
taken for an asylum by the physician Meyer
Schomberg (d. 1761) (fn. 64) and in 1773 was occupied
by Roger Devey and another doctor, John Silvester. (fn. 65) It passed by marriage to Thomas
Warburton, an unqualified man with influential
contacts, who supplied keepers for George III
in 1788 and reserved Whitmore House for rich
patients; they included Henry Addington (d.
1823), son of the former prime minister and
lodged separately in the grounds, and John
Murray, marquess of Tullibardine and later
duke of Atholl (d. 1846). (fn. 66) Conditions were
praised by Edward Wakefield (d. 1846) in 1815
but fiercely attacked in the 1820s. (fn. 67) The asylum
passed to Thomas's son Dr. John Warburton (d.
1845) and was closed in the mid 19th century,
although more crowded madhouses in Bethnal
Green remained in the family. A house which
Thomas held from 1801 in Mare Street was to
be demolished in 1847 and was commemorated
in Warburton Road. (fn. 68)
In the same part of Mare Street the old 'Black
and White House' was a madhouse in 1724. (fn. 69)
The nearby Pembroke House was taken by Dr.
George Rees in 1818 for insane employees of the
East India Co. It was under Dr. Walter Davis
Williams by 1844 and had 135 inmates by 1870;
the site was then bought by the G.E.R. and the
house soon replaced by Bayford Street. (fn. 70) London
House, also nearby, was an asylum c. 1826 under
Samuel Fox (fn. 71) and in 1830 and 1844 under
William Oxley, who joined its grounds to those of
a house in Mare Street, possibly the later Tre-Wint
industrial home; presumably they constituted
the male and female asylums with 15 and 22
inmates in 1861. (fn. 72) Wick (later Sidney) House
was marked in 1831 as Dr. Tuke's lunatic asylum. (fn. 73)
Dr. Thomas Ruston, a propagandist for inoculation, (fn. 74) offered treatment in Mare Street in 1768
but was apparently forced to leave by threats of
prosecution. (fn. 75)
Charitable institutions with medical functions
included a school for the deaf and dumb, which
Thomas Braidwood (d. 1806) moved in 1783
from Edinburgh to Bowling Green (renamed
Grove) House and in 1799 to Pembroke House,
where it was continued by his family until c.
1810. (fn. 76) The British Asylum for Deaf and Dumb
Females was founded by two ladies at Stamford
Hill in 1851, moved to Eagle House, Homerton,
in 1857 and to no. 179 Lower Clapton Road
in 1864. (fn. 77) After demolition of the house in
1933, (fn. 78) the Deaf and Dumb Home continued at
no. 26 Clapton Common, a four-storeyed building designed by A. Rubens Cole, until c. 1986. (fn. 79)
The East London Home and School for Blind
Children, founded c. 1894 by Miss S. Rye at no.
120 Lower Clapton Road, moved in 1901 to nos.
2 and 4 Warwick Road (from 1938 Warwick
Grove), where it was licensed for 15 by the
Education Department and replaced c. 1948 by
a municipal welfare centre, itself replaced by
Warwick Court. (fn. 80) The Anglican sisters of St.
Francis maintained a home for bedridden
women at no. 157 Richmond Road from 1920
until 1962. (fn. 81) St. Mary's home for mothers and
babies moved in 1918 from Paddington to no.
153 Stamford Hill, where it remained in 1975. (fn. 82)
PUBLIC ORDER.
A cage, a cucking stool, and
a whipping post were to be set up in 1630. The
cage was at the south-west corner of the churchyard in 1657 and, with the stocks, was repaired
in 1659; a new cucking stool was ordered in
1690. (fn. 83) A manorial court demanded that the
public stocks and whipping post be mended in
1744 (fn. 84) and a pillory near the pond in Mare Street
was used in 1748. (fn. 85)
A nightly watch was the responsibility of a
headborough in 1617. (fn. 86) Quarter sessions in 1681
ordered those magistrates who lived in Hackney
to form 16 night watchmen into companies; in
1686 the constables were to be prosecuted for
not keeping a proper watch. (fn. 87) A watchhouse was
to be built in 1696 and one at Cambridge Heath
was paid for by voluntary contributions in 1714;
there were watchhouses at Cambridge Heath
and nearby at the Shoulder of Mutton in 1728. (fn. 88)
Watchmen, to be fined in 1725 for unpunctuality, were in 1740 to patrol both the road and
footway to London in pairs, those on the road
to be mounted. The expense was to be met from
the 'unappropriated funds', (fn. 89) as were rewards
and prosecution costs (fn. 90) until subscriptions had
raised enough for rewards by 1778. (fn. 91) Hackney
turnpike trust employed its own eight watchmen
under an Act of 1756, when guns and bayonets
were bought, beats defined, the two watchhouses
to be continued, and four more to be provided. (fn. 92)
There was no lock-up, however, in 1763, when
the landlord of the Mermaid and Bird in Hand
refused to guard prisoners taken by the turnpike
trust's watchmen. (fn. 93)
Watching, with lighting, devolved in 1763
upon the parish trustees, (fn. 94) although the vestry
continued to issue orders and offer rewards. (fn. 95) It
replaced a road patrol with four local watchmen
in 1764 and because the lighting and watching
rate sufficed only for the winter it agreed in 1785
to pay for a nine-man summer patrol out of the
'unappropriated funds'. (fn. 96) The parish meeting
also offered rewards and in 1782 sought subscriptions for armed patrols whose cost was too
heavy for the rates. (fn. 97) To avoid taking all prisoners to Hackney, a cage at Kingsland was
promised in 1819 and again in 1822. (fn. 98) In May
1828 the lighting and watching trustees took
pride in having recently freed the parish from
all night-time robberies: four inspectors had
charge of an evening patrol of 26 and a night
patrol of 30, the numbers being much greater in
winter, when boxes were used; horse patrols had
been replaced by foot and in addition eight
parish constables saw to inns, shops, and the
serving of warrants. Claiming to have driven
criminals away to Tottenham, Hackney advised
other parishes to copy its vigilance (fn. 99) and was one
of only two petitioners against the Metropolitan
Police Act, 1829. (fn. 1) It was nonetheless included
in the metropolitan police area, with stations
next to the old church tower and in Kingsland
High Street south of Shacklewell Lane by 1842. (fn. 2)
The Hackney station had moved to the northwest corner of the churchyard (later no. 422
Mare Street) by 1865; (fn. 3) the site was that of a
police barracks in 1910, the station having
moved to a building of 1904 at the north-east
corner, (fn. 4) where it remained in 1991. The
Kingsland station had moved by 1872 to Dalston
Lane, where its building at no. 39, dated 1914,
had recently closed in 1991. A station in Wick
Road, west of Hedgers Grove, was in use by 1892
and until the Second World War.
STREET LIGHTING.
Oil lamps were set up
in 1756 by Hackney turnpike trustees, (fn. 5) who
ordered five for 130 yd. of Church Street and
offered a contract to light all the lamps from
Shoreditch. In 1757 their surveyor stored 154
lamps during the summer. (fn. 6) The parish trustees,
responsible for lighting under the Act of 1763,
established a lamp board, (fn. 7) whose legality was
questioned in the 1830s (fn. 8) but which was superseded only in 1856 by Hackney district board of
works, which fixed the lighting rate. (fn. 9) For 1841-2
the lamp board paid £2,290 to the Imperial Gas
Co. and £611 to a contractor for the oil lamps. (fn. 10)
With 30 miles of road and 1,047 lamps, the
parish was comparatively well lighted in 1854. (fn. 11)
The oil lamps were converted to gas in 1856-7
under the district board, (fn. 12) whose area was part
of that supplied by the Imperial Gas Co. (fn. 13)
Electric street lighting, under an order of 1893,
was provided only in 1901, after Progressive
electoral gains had ensured that Hackney would
have its own power station. (fn. 14) The station, at the
east end of Millfields Road, was built in brick
with stone dressings to the design of Gordon &
Gunton. (fn. 15) An adjacent refuse destructor supplied heat, and a wharf was built on land leased
by the Lee Conservancy for bringing coal and
removing waste. (fn. 16) Allegations that profits from
the electricity supply had been misused proved
harmful locally to the Labour party in 1922. (fn. 17)
The power station passed to London Electricity
Board in 1947 and still operated, as a substation,
in 1994. (fn. 18)
FIRE ENGINES were required by law in 1708,
when Francis Tyssen offered to supply one
cheaply and all landholders were to pay in
proportion to their poor rates. (fn. 19) An engine house
was to be sited on the south side of the churchyard, where churchwardens were to inspect the
equipment twice a year in 1712, and was built
or rebuilt in 1725. A second engine, under a
further law, was needed in 1774. (fn. 20) A new large
engine was to be bought in 1823 and the existing
one assigned to Kingsland. (fn. 21) In 1849 engines
were kept in Church Street, in the workhouse,
and at Kingsland (probably the later De Beauvoir Town station in St. Peter's Road), (fn. 22) and in
1858 one was bought for west Hackney and
Stoke Newington and installed on the east side
of the high street. (fn. 23) By 1861 the parish had five
engines tended by eight men. (fn. 24) Under the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act, 1865, the vestry
leased its engine houses and sold most of the
equipment to the M.B.W., whose duties later
passed to the L.C.C.'s London Fire Brigade. (fn. 25)
The M.B.W. in 1868 rented and in 1874 bought
a site for Hackney fire station at the corner of
Amhurst and Bodney roads. (fn. 26) In 1870 there were
fire stations in Amhurst Road, St. Peter's Road,
and, for south Hackney, Perry (later Kingshold)
Road. (fn. 27) Stoke Newington's station was moved
in 1886 to the corner of Brooke and Leswin roads
and a station at the corner of Kingsland and
Downham roads, presumably replacing the one
in St. Peter's Road, was built in 1895. (fn. 28) Hackney
Wick, which factories made particularly vulnerable, was served only by a substation moved
from Poplar to the north end of Wallis Road in
1897, (fn. 29) until a full station was opened in 1902
on the site of nos. 97 and 99 Homerton High
Street. (fn. 30) Hackney fire station survived until c.
1921 and Leswin Road until 1977, after it had
temporarily housed firemen from Homerton and
Kingsland, whose rebuilt stations were reopened
in 1974 and 1977. (fn. 31)
PUBLIC LIBRARIES (fn. 32)
were the subject of a
rowdy meeting in 1878 and were successfully
opposed by a small popular vote. (fn. 33) Private institutions (fn. 34) or circulating libraries (fn. 35) were
supplemented in 1885 by a gift of records and
books to the vestry from the executors of J. R.
Daniel-Tyssen. Kept at the Manor House and
then at the town hall, with its own librarian, the
Tyssen library came to form the basis of Hackney's local history collection. (fn. 36) After adopting
the Public Libraries Acts in 1903, the council
bought land in Mare Street from the L.C.C. for
a central library, designed by Henry Crouch, (fn. 37)
built with funds from Andrew Carnegie, and
opened in 1908. Branch libraries, also paid for
by Carnegie, were opened for Dalston in 1912
in Forest Road on land given by the Rhodes
family, for Homerton, to the design of Edwin
Cooper, in Brooksby's Walk, and for Clapton in
1914 in Northwold Road. (fn. 38) A fourth branch, in
a converted motor showroom at no. 158 Stamford
Hill, was open part time from 1936 and full time
from 1939. Dalston library was bombed but
reopened in temporary premises, extended in 1946,
at nos. 80-82 Dalston Lane and on a permanent
site at nos. 24-30 in 1959. (fn. 39)
Part-time libraries (fn. 40) had been opened by 1942
at no. 160 Victoria Park Road, no. 71A Englefield
Road, and Kingsmead Way. A further branch
was opened in 1947 in a prefabricated building
in Eastway, where it was enlarged in 1948,
and in 1951 at no. 24 Somerford Grove. The
Englefield Road branch was reopened at no. 105
Mortimer Road in 1962 and the Victoria Park
branch, called Parkside, at nos. 92-6 Victoria
Park Road in 1964. (fn. 41) New two-storeyed libraries
were opened for Stamford Hill on the site of
the Congregational church in 1968 and for
Homerton in the high street in 1974; Eastway
library was rebuilt as part of a shopping precinct
in 1979. (fn. 42) Rose Lipman library, beneath a community hall in De Beauvoir Road, replaced
Mortimer Road in 1975; thereafter it held Hackney
archives department, established in 1965 and
first housed in Shoreditch. (fn. 43) Hackney museum was
opened in the Central hall, Mare Street, in 1987 (fn. 44)
but three branch libraries were closed in 1988. (fn. 45)
BATHS.
Public baths designed by Harnor &
Pinches were opened in 1897 in Lower Clapton
Road; proposed alterations caused controversy
in 1990. (fn. 46) Slipper baths were opened in Wardle
Street in 1922, Gayhurst Road in 1928, Shacklewell Lane in 1931, Englefield Road in 1932,
and Gainsborough Road (later Eastway), together with a laundry, in 1935. All remained
open c. 1980, as did the first municipal launderette opened in Oldhill Street in 1958 and a more
recent one in Morning Lane. (fn. 47) The more westerly of Victoria Park's bathing lakes lay within
Hackney, although not the Lido which superseded them in 1936. (fn. 48) The L.C.C.'s
improvements to Hackney marsh included the
formation of a bathing pool, unused in 1898 as
the Lea had still to be purified. (fn. 49) An open air
pool was opened at West Side, London Fields,
c. 1931. (fn. 50) It survived, with Eastway baths, c.
1987, but swimming pools were open only in
Lower Clapton Road in 1989. (fn. 51)
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES.
The first large
open space maintained from public funds was
Victoria Park, (fn. 52) created under Acts of 1841 and
1842 (fn. 53) on lands compulsorily purchased with
money from the Crown's sale of York (later
Lancaster) House. The park, intended for east
Londoners as a whole, extended from Bethnal
Green into south Hackney mainly over parts of
the Cass and St. Thomas's hospital estates. It
was unofficially open from 1845, when still being
laid out by the commissioners of Woods and
Forests, whose architect Sir James Pennethorne
planned gardens at the west end and open grass
for recreation at the east. A quarter, later reduced
to a sixth, of the purchased land could be leased
for building until the M.B.W. bought c. 24 a. from
the Woods and Forests to add to the park's 193
a. in 1872; (fn. 54) a small plot was added by Wilberforce Bryant in 1876. Maintenance of the park
had passed in 1851 from the Woods and Forests
to the office of Works and Public Buildings,
which received annual parliamentary grants until an Act of 1887 (fn. 55) transferred the charges to
Londoners. Thereafter management was by the
M.B.W., the L.C.C., the G.L.C., and from 1986
a board representing Hackney L.B., which contained 27.92 of the park's 88.02 ha., and Tower
Hamlets. (fn. 56)
Victoria Park, whose first lake was authorized
in 1846, was noted for its landscaping (fn. 57) and for
amenities ranging from floral displays to concerts and sports contests. Ornamental
furnishings included a Tudor lodge of 1845 and
imposing gates at Approach Road, Bethnal
Green, a pagoda ordered in 1847, a Moorish
arcade designed by Pennethorne, a polygonal
Gothic fountain designed by H. A. Darbishire
and given by Baroness Burdett-Coutts in 1861,
a palm house of 1892, a refreshment pavilion of
1940, and two alcoves from the 18th-century
London Bridge. Many did not survive the Second World War or subsequent neglect, but in
1988 it was planned to restore the fountain,
which stood within Hackney, and to re-erect
other monuments. (fn. 58)
Enough commons and Lammas lands were
preserved from 19th-century building to make
Hackney relatively rich in open spaces, (fn. 59) although most were useful rather than ornamental.
Under the Metropolitan Commons Act, 1866,
the district board organized a petition for
the inclosure of nearly 180 a. collectively
described as Hackney commons, whose transfer to the M.B.W. was confirmed in an Act
of 1872. The lands were Clapton common
(9¼ a.), Stoke Newington common (5½ a.),
North and South Mill fields (57½a.), Hackney
Downs (50 a.), Hackney or Well Street common
(30 a.), London Fields (27 a.), and strips of waste
in Dalston Lane and Grove Street (later Lauriston Road). (fn. 60) The lord, while repudiating his
agent's digging for gravel on Stoke Newington
common, in 1875 provoked protests by inclosing
part of Hackney Downs and the Mill fields. His
fences were torn down, as were notices put up by
the Grocers' Co. in 1877, but Chancery upheld
him against the M.B.W. in 1879. (fn. 61) His rights
were purchased by the M.B.W. under an Act of
1881 and those of other freeholders under a
further Act of 1884. (fn. 62)
Hackney marsh (337 a.) (fn. 63) where Lammas
rights were still exercised, was excluded from
the M.B.W.'s scheme in 1872. The possibility
that the owners might unite to convert it into
building land led the district board to seek its
purchase by the L.C.C. in 1889, when further
agitation was caused by the manorial drivers'
ban on football by boys from the Eton mission.
After the Board of Agriculture had drafted a
Scheme in 1890 the owners negotiated to sell
their rights to the L.C.C. for £75,000, the
district board contributing £15,000 and private
subscribers £10,000. The marsh was open to the
public from 1893, when transferred under the
London Open Spaces Act, and formally dedicated in 1894. Flood prevention works by the
L.C.C. included four cuts across bends in the
Lea, the old channels being retained to form
islands; a bathing pool was created by the northernmost cut. West of Lee Conservancy Road
37½ a. taken in 1915 for the National Projectile
factory were to be retained by the government
in 1922 but later were cleared for Mabley Green
recreation ground. (fn. 64) Kingsmead estate was built
on 20½ a. exchanged with the L.C.C. in 1937. (fn. 65)
Thereafter it separated Hackney Marsh recreation ground (later Daubeney Fields) from
Mabley Green ground to the south. (fn. 66)
Springfield park (32½ a.) was opened in 1905
after its purchase from T. K. Bros under the
L.C.C. (General Powers) Act, 1904. As the
SpringWeld estate, it had contained Thomas
Garland's Spring Hill House, the Chestnuts,
and SpringWeld House, the last of which was
retained for refreshments and staff accommodation; it also included Spring Lane, which was
diverted closer to the Lea, and the island at
Horse Shoe Point. (fn. 67)
Smaller plots were bought or held for nominal
rents by Hackney district board and its successors, the vestry and the metropolitan borough,
which respectively cared for 11 a. in 1895, and
13½ a. in 1912. (fn. 68) They included the freeholds of
Shacklewell green, the Triangle in Mare Street,
Stonebridge common, and strips along Stamford
Hill, all acquired by the board in 1883, and strips
in Dalston Lane and Lauriston Road handed
over by the M.B.W. in 1884. With grants from the
Metropolitan Gardens Association, the M.B.W., and
the L.C.C., gardens were created in Well Street
burial ground, bordering St. Thomas's Place,
and West Hackney, St. John's, and South Hackney
churchyards under faculties granted in 1884,
1885, 1893, and 1900, and also in De Beauvoir
Square and St. Thomas's Square, leased from
1891 and 1892. West Bank at Stamford Hill was
bought in 1891, East Bank in 1894, and Clapton
pond and gardens and Albion Square in 1898. (fn. 69)
Clapton Square, neglected as a residents' garden,
was acquired by the L.C.C. and passed to
Hackney M.B. in 1924, by which date 621 a.,
almost one fifth, of the borough was open space. (fn. 70)
Encroachment on parks by sports pitches and
playgrounds, notably on London Fields and
Hackney Downs, brought complaints in 1980. (fn. 71)