Jacob's Island was a notorious slum in Bermondsey, London, in the 19th century. It was located on the south bank of the River Thames, approximately delineated by the modern streets of Mill Street, Bermondsey Wall West, George Row and Wolseley Street. Jacob's Island developed a reputation as one of the worst slums in London, and was popularised by the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist , published shortly before the area was cleared in the 1860s.
The origin of the name is not clear, but one possibility is that it derives from a vernacular term for frogs. [1]
Bermondsey was historically a rural parish on the outskirts of London until the 17th century when the area began to be developed as a wealthy suburb following the Great Fire of London. By the 19th century, the once affluent parts of Bermondsey had experienced a serious decline, and became the site of notorious slums with the arrival of industrialisation, docks and migrant housing, especially along the riverside.
The most notorious of the slums was known as Jacob's Island, with the boundary approximately the confluence of the Thames and subterranean River Neckinger, at St Saviour's Dock across from Shad Thames, to the west, a tidal ditch just west of George Row to the east, and another tidal ditch just north of London Street (now Wolseley Street) to the south. It was a particularly squalid rookery, and described as "The very capital of cholera" and "The Venice of drains" by The Morning Chronicle in 1849. [2]
In the 1840s it became "a site of radical activity", [3] and, after attention from novelists Charles Dickens and Charles Kingsley, joined other London areas of "literary-criminal notoriety" that emerged "as symbols of a developing urban counterculture". [4] The 19th century social researcher Henry Mayhew described Jacob's Island as a "pest island" with "literally the smell of a graveyard" and "crazy and rotten bridges" crossing the tidal ditches, with drains from houses discharging directly into them, and the water harbouring masses of rotting weed, animal carcasses and dead fish. [5] He describes the water being "as red as blood" in some parts, as a result of pollutant tanning agents from the leather dressers in the area. [5] [6]
In the early 1850s Jacob's Island was gradually removed as part of a slum clearance, starting with the tidal ditches that formed the eastern and southern boundaries being filled. In 1861, the slum was partly destroyed by a fire, and the area later redeveloped as warehouses. In 1865, Richard King, writing in A Handbook for Travellers in Surrey, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, observed that "Many of the buildings have been pulled down since Oliver Twist was written, but the island is still entitled to its bad pre-eminence". [7] A decade later, a missionary for the London City Mission provided a more positive report: [8]
The foul ditch no longer pollutes the air. It has long been filled up ... there is now a good solid road ... Part of London Street, the whole of Little London Street, part of Mill Street, beside houses in Jacob Street and Hickman's Folly, have been demolished. In most of these places warehouses have taken the place of dwelling-houses. The revolting fact of many of the inhabitants of the district having no other water to drink than that which they procured from the filthy ditches is also a thing of the past. Most of the houses are now supplied with good water, and the streets are very well paved. Indeed, so great is the change for the better in the external appearance of the district generally, that a person who had not seen it since the improvements would now scarcely recognise it.
Charles William Heckethorn had reservations about these improvements, telling readers of London Souvenirs in 1899, that "Many of the horrors of Jacob's Island are now things of the past ... in fact, the romance of the place is gone". [9]
In 1934, a new public housing development called the Dickens Estate was opened on the site of the former Jacob's Island. [10] The houses of the development were named after Dickens' characters but the only one to have lived, and died, on Jacob's Island, the murderous Bill Sikes, was not honoured. [3]
Jacob's Island was immortalised by Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist , in which the principal villain Bill Sikes dies in the mud of 'Folly Ditch'. Dickens provides a vivid description of what it was like:
... crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem to be too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it – as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage: all these ornament the banks of Folly Ditch.
Dickens was taken to this then-impoverished and unsavory location by the officers of the river police, with whom he would occasionally go on patrol.
Dickens wrote in a preface to Oliver Twist, in March 1850, that in the intervening years his descriptions of the disease, crime and poverty of Jacob's Island had come to sound so fanciful to some that Sir Peter Laurie, a former Lord Mayor of London, had expressed his belief publicly that the location was a work of imagination and that no place by that name, or like it, had ever existed. [11] [12] (Laurie had himself been fictionalised, a few years earlier, as Alderman Cute in Dickens' short novel The Chimes ). [11]
In 1911, the Bermondsey Council opposed a suggestion by the London County Council that George's Yard, in Bermondsey, should be renamed "Twist's Court", to reflect the site of the demise of the Dickens' character Bill Sikes. [13] Nine years later, G. W. Mitchell, a clerk with the Bermondsey Council found a plan dated 5 April 1855, in the London County Council archives, which showed 'Bill Sykes' house' marked on Jacob's Island. [14] This was at a time when the London County Council was proposing that Jacob's Island should be 'demolished'. [15] The following year, it was noted that "so accurately" did Dickens' "describe the scene that the house that he chose for Bill Sikes's end was easily located" in 1855, and "became a Dickens' landmark", leading it to be marked on the Council's plan. [15]
At the time of the 1920s news reports, the site of the house, which had been in Metcalf Court as shown in a reproduction of the 1855 plan, [15] was behind 18 Eckell Street (formerly Edwards Street), [15] and "occupied as stables by Messers. R. Chartors and Co.". [14] But "in the time of a Dickens" it overlooked the Folly Ditch on one side and was approached by means of "two wooden bridges across the mill stream', [14] and was "used by thieves of the area". [15]
In The Mysteries of Paris and London (1992), author Richard Maxwell describes a poster in 1846 inviting Jacob's Island residents to celebrate the end of the Corn Laws. Maxwell identifies the location given on the poster of "that highly interesting Spot, described by Charles Dickens" as the site of Bill Sikes' house. [3]
In Charles Kingsley's 1850 novel Alton Locke , the title character visits Jacob's Island and sees the death of the drunken Jimmy Downes, who has been reduced to poverty, and the bodies of his family, taken by typhus. [16] Kingsley had been inspired by the accounts of the 1849 cholera epidemics published by The Morning Chronicle to visit Jacob's Island with his friend Charles Blachford Mansfield. [17] In addition to his fictional portrayal, Kingsley joined with Mansfield and fellow Christian socialist John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow in purchasing water-carts that were sent to Jacob's Island to supply clean drinking water to the residents. [17]
The site of the former Jacob's Island was heavily damaged in the Blitz during World War II, when it was extensively bombed by the Luftwaffe due to the industrial presence in the area. Today it is part of the London Borough of Southwark, with only one of the Victorian warehouses surviving. In 1981, the area was one of the first in the London Docklands to be converted to expensive loft apartments, which have since been joined by new blocks of luxury flats, including a development by architects Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands.
Since the early 1990s the Jacob's Island area has undergone considerable regeneration and gentrification, with significant friction at times between the new land-based arrivals and the more bohemian set based in the houseboats moored just offshore at Reed Wharf. [18]
Bermondsey is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham, and to the north is Wapping across the River Thames. It lies within the historic county boundaries of Surrey. During the Industrial Revolution Bermondsey became a centre for manufacturing, particularly in relation to tanning. More recently it has experienced regeneration including warehouse conversions to flats and the provision of new transport links.
Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens. It was originally published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. The story follows the titular orphan, who, after being raised in a workhouse, escapes to London, where he meets a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin, discovers the secrets of his parentage, and reconnects with his remaining family.
Canning Town is a district in the London Borough of Newham, East London. The district is located to the north of the Royal Victoria Dock, and has been described as the "Child of the Victoria Docks" as the timing and nature of its urbanisation was largely due to the creation of the dock. The area was part of the ancient parish of West Ham, in the hundred of Becontree, and part of the historic county of Essex. It forms part of the London E16 postcode district.
William "Bill" Sikes is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1838 novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Sikes is a malicious criminal in Fagin's gang, and a vicious robber and murderer. Throughout much of the novel Sikes is shadowed by his “bull-terrier” dog Bull's-eye.
The River Neckinger is a reduced subterranean river that rises in Southwark and flows approximately 2.5 kilometres through that part of London to St Saviour's Dock where it enters the Thames. What remains of the river is enclosed and runs underground and most of its narrow catchment has been diverted into other combined and surface water sewers, flowing into the Southern Outfall Sewer and the Thames respectively.
Nancy is a fictional character in the 1838 novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and its several adaptations for theatre, television and films. She is a member of Fagin's gang and the lover, and eventual victim, of Bill Sikes.
Oliver Twist is a 2005 drama film directed by Roman Polanski. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood adapts Charles Dickens's 1838 novel of the same name. It is an international co-production of the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, France and the United States.
Mr Brownlow is a character from the 1838 novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Brownlow is a bookish and kindly middle-aged bachelor who helps Oliver escape the clutches of Fagin. He later adopts Oliver Twist by the end of the novel.
Oliver! is a 1968 British period musical drama film based on Lionel Bart's 1960 stage musical of the same name, itself an adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1838 novel Oliver Twist.
St Saviour's Dock is an inlet-style dock in London, England, on the south bank of the River Thames, 420 metres east of Tower Bridge. It forms the eastern end of the Shad Thames embankment that starts at Tower Bridge. The east side of the Dock is Jacob's Island.
Oliver Twist is a 1922 American silent drama film adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1838 novel Oliver Twist, featuring Lon Chaney as Fagin and Jackie Coogan as Oliver Twist. The film was directed by Frank Lloyd. It was selected as one of the best pictures of 1922 by New York Times, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Walter J. Israel handled the costuming. Studio interiors were filmed at the Robert Brunton Studios in Hollywood. The film's tagline was "8 Great Reels that make you ask for more. Will Hays says Jackie Coogan Films are the sort the World needs." A still exists showing Fagin training his wards to be pickpockets.
Charley Bates is a supporting character in the Charles Dickens's 1838 novel Oliver Twist. He is a young boy and member of Fagin's gang of pickpockets, and sidekick to the Artful Dodger, whose skills he admires unreservedly. Bill Sikes's murder of Nancy shocks him so much that at the end of the novel he leaves London to become an agricultural labourer.
Fagin is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist in Charles Dickens's 1838 novel Oliver Twist. In the preface to the novel, he is described as a "receiver of stolen goods". He is the leader of a group of children whom he teaches to make their livings by pickpocketing and other criminal activities, in exchange for shelter. A distinguishing trait is his constant and insincere use of the phrase "my dear" when addressing others. At the time of the novel, he is said by another character, Monks, to have already made criminals out of "scores" of children. Nancy, who is the lover of Bill Sikes, is confirmed to be Fagin's former pupil.
A rookery, in the colloquial English of the 18th and 19th centuries, was a city slum occupied by poor people and frequently also by criminals and prostitutes. Such areas were overcrowded, with low-quality housing and little or no sanitation. Local industry such as coal plants and gasholders polluted the rookery air. Poorly constructed dwellings, built with multiple stories and often crammed into any area of open ground, created densely-populated areas of gloomy, narrow streets and alleyways. By many, these parts of the city were sometimes deemed "uninhabitable".
Oliver Twist is a 2007 British television adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1838 novel Oliver Twist, written by Sarah Phelps and directed by Coky Giedroyc. It consists of five episodes, broadcast on BBC One from 18 to 22 December 2007. It aired on PBS' Masterpiece Classic in the United States on 15 and 22 February 2009, in two ninety-minute installments. In Australia, ABC1 also opted to air this series as a two-part special each Sunday at 8:30 pm from 20 December 2009.
Oliver Twist is the title character and protagonist of the 1838 novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. He was the first child protagonist in an English novel.
Edward "Monks" Leeford is a character in the 1838 novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. He is actually the criminally-inclined half-brother of Oliver Twist, but he hides his identity. Monks' parents separated when he was a child, and his father had a relationship with a young woman, Agnes Fleming. This resulted in Agnes' pregnancy. She died in childbirth after giving birth to the baby that would be named Oliver Twist.
Oliver Twist is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film directed by William J. Cowen. The earliest sound adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1838 novel of the same title, it stars Dickie Moore as Oliver, Irving Pichel as Fagin, Doris Lloyd as Nancy, and William "Stage" Boyd as Bill Sikes.
Charles Dickens's works are especially associated with London, which is the setting for many of his novels. These works do not just use London as a backdrop but are about the city and its character.
Joseph Clayton Clark, who worked under the pseudonym "Kyd", was a British artist best known for his illustrations of characters from the novels of Charles Dickens. The artwork was published in magazines or sold as watercolor paintings, rather than included in an edition of the novels.