Wilton’s Music Hall

Tucked away in a nondescript alley near Cable Street E1 is the Grade II-listed Wilton’s Music Hall, the last remaining example of the first generation of pub music halls from the 1850s. I have visited Wilton’s Music Hall on three occasions. The first time was on a walk around Aldgate in 2009, when I stumbled across what was then a shabby mess of a building down an unprepossessing back street. I returned during Open House 2011 just as renovation was about to start. Five years later, I visited again - this time as a ‘punter’ - to see Roy Hudd playing Mother Goose to a packed house! Now a flourishing arts centre, with atmosphere oozing from the crumbling plaster of its walls, Wilton’s has very definitely got its mojo back!

Wilton’s began life as five houses, built in the 1690. By the first half of the 18^th century, the largest of these had become an alehouse, serving the Scandinavian sea captains and wealthy merchants who lived in nearby Wellclose Square.

Map of 1792 - Wilton's is circled

Front entrance today

From 1826 the pub began to be known as The Mahogany Bar, so named as it was the first such premises in London to have a mahogany bar and fittings. In 1839 a concert room was built behind the pub. In 1843 this was licensed as the Albion Saloon and legally permitted to stage full-length plays.

John Wilton, manager of another music hall in Lambeth, acquired the pub in 1850 and soon after also bought the neighbouring properties. In 1853 he replaced the previous concert room with a much larger ‘music hall’. This was replaced six years later with his ‘Magnificent New Music Hall’, capable of seating 1500 people.

The venue had a long, thin auditorium with barrel-vaulted ceiling and a gallery on three sides supported by barley-sugar columns. A narrow staircase led up to a number of small supper rooms. The balcony fronts were decorated with papier mâché and there were mirrors in each of the

Auditorium today

paired recesses. The stage had a proscenium arch and was constructed high so that the audience had a clear view over the top hats of the gentlemen who came over from the West End for their ‘low pleasures’! Keen to draw visitors away from the swish West End theatres of the day, Wilton also laid plush carpets throughout and installed the very latest heating, lighting and ventilation systems. Plasterwork depicted flowers, roses and leaves ‘in the Italian style’ – some of it has survived . Most impressive of all the fittings, however, was the auditorium’s stunning centrepiece - a vast chandelier with 300 gas jets and 27,000 crystals. Reflected in the many mirrors all around, the effect would have been sparkling.

The entertainment on offer was mainly madrigals and operatic excerpts, along with attractions from West End and provincial halls, circus, ballet and fairground. Popular acts included a Herr Whautkins (no relation!) who “wound up his feats of dexterity by juggling with flaming torches”. George Leybourne, the original Champagne Charlie, launched his career there. The character’s trademark was to swig from a bottle of Moet during his act. Sadly, his penchant for fast living led to his premature death at the age of 44. Wilton’s Hall is also reputed to have been where the can-can was first performed… and banned immediately afterwards!

Wilton's in 1859

Sadly, in 1877 a serious fire left just the four walls and the barley twist columns that still support the balcony. The Hall was rebuilt and refurbished the following year but with hardly any change to the 1859 design. The venue changed owners a few times, including a brief reincarnation as ‘Frederick’s Palace of Varieties’ in 1874. Less than a decade later, Wilton’s was no more. Splendid new theatres had sprung up across London to replace the simpler halls.

In 1881 Wilton’s Music Hall closed its doors, probably as a result of new, more stringent fire regulations which the 1878 rebuild did not conform to. From 1888 the Hall was used by the East London Wesleyan Methodist Mission. Working to improve the lives of local East Enders, the Mission occupied the premises until the mid-1950s. During the 1889 Dockers’ Strike, 2,000 meals a day were served from the building. In 1936 it served as a safe house for socialists during the battle of Cable Street (just behind the Hall). During World War 2, it was the only building in this area to survive the Blitz and provided shelter for those bombed out of their homes. Eventually the Methodists left Wilton’s due to declining numbers and the closure of the docks.

Old Mahogany Bar c.1930

In the 1950s the building was used as a rag warehouse. In the early 1960s it was acquired by the LCC which drew up plans for its demolition and redevelopment of the whole Cable Street area. But a campaign led by Spike Milligan and Sir John Betjeman resulted in a stay of execution. The GLC bought the Hall and agreed not to demolish it.

The building remained in a state of dereliction throughout the 1980s and 90s, but the unique atmosphere of the place still made it the perfect setting for film and video shoots, including Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax in 1984.

Wilton’s Music Hall Trust took ownership in 2004, and in 2012-15 comprehensive repairs were finally carried out. The venue is now equipped with a new rehearsal space, an exhibition room, a kitchen, offices, dressing rooms and a new bar. But much of the original fabric has been preserved, including original fireplaces and much of the Georgian brickwork.

References:

Website: https://www.wiltons.org.uk/heritage/history

Images of London: Hidden Interiors Philip Davies (2014)

111 Places in London That You Shouldn’t Miss John Sykes (2016)

The East End Nobody Knows Andrew Davies (1990)

Chinatown

My only acquaintance with Chinese culture being the stories of Triad gangs in my brother’s Sexton Blake comics (!) and the occasional visit to Chinatown to eat, I decided it was high time I found out more about London’s Chinese population – their fascinating history and the part they have played in the life of our capital city.

Britain first began trading with China in the 17^th century, but it wasn’t until the late 1700s that the first Chinese seamen began to appear in London. Hired by the East India Company to navigate its ships home to Britain (the Napoleonic Wars had left a gap in native manpower) these sailors were then unable, or reluctant, to return home and so formed a community near the docks in Limehouse, settling mainly around Pennyfields and Limehouse Causeway.

These men lived impoverished lives. By the 1820s there were so many destitute Chinese on the streets that the government passed a law compelling the East India Company to provide lodgings for Chinese sailors waiting to sign on with a vessel. The situation was slow to improve, so in 1857 the government was forced to intervene again and opened up the “Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders” on West India Dock Road, with 220 beds.

 

Cargo of tea unloaded by Chinese sailors, 1877

By the 1880s, a fully-fledged Chinatown had grown up.  Chinese grocery stores were established, selling exotic goods such as lychees, dried seaweed and sam-shu, an alcoholic drink made from boiled rice.  Gambling dens, lodging-houses and Chinese laundries were set up. They also opened premises where guests could smoke opium – the notorious ‘dens’ frequented by local Chinese people and members of London’s smart set. One or two of the dens around Limehouse Causeway later came to double as venues for the Hung League secret society, popularly known as the Triads. 

It wasn’t long before the Chinese acquired a reputation for nefarious activity, and this only added to the antagonism that already existed as a result of the popular assumption that their numbers were greater than they actually were. This notion was perpetuated by writers such as Thomas Burke (who wrote the sensationalist “Limehouse Nights”) and Sax Rohmer (creator of the villain Fu

Limehouse opium den

Manchu) who depicted a London overrun by the sinister “Yellow Peril”. The actual number of Chinese settlers in the dockland hamlets of late 19^th century London is, in fact, more likely to have been  less than a hundred. And even at their peak just after the First World War, there are known to have been, at most, around 300.

In fact, by this time Chinatown’s demise was just around the corner. In 1916, the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union organised strikes to protest at the use of Chinese workers on British ships.  It eventually became illegal to sign on a Chinese crew in a British port. In addition, the Defence of the Realm Act of 1914 made it illegal to possess or smoke opium, resulting in the forced closure of lucrative dens. The Chinatown of Limehouse and Poplar was gradually dismantled by the local council during the 1920s and 30s. A sweeping slum clearance took place, the decision having been made to ‘clean up’ the area and bring it back under English, rather than Asiatic, law. Limehouse Causeway – always the hub of the Chinese community- was demolished in 1934. The whole area then suffered extensive bomb damage in WW2 and this proved to be the final nail in the coffin of the East End’s Chinese community.

'New' Chinatown

During the 1950s, the Chinese moved west to Soho, opening restaurants and food shops in and around Gerrard Street, off Shaftesbury Avenue. And so a new ‘Chinatown’ was born. Today the area remains a hub of Chinese culture, and a mecca for tourists.

Back in Limehouse, street names such as Ming, Canton and Peking Streets are the only reminder of the East End’s once strong Chinese connection.

References:

London’s East End Life and Traditions Jane Cox (1994)

The East End Nobody Knows Andrew Davies (1990)

East End Chronicles Ed Glinert (2005)

Website: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/tra43336