Battle of Cable Street

The Battle of Cable Street took place on Sunday 4 October 1936 in Cable Street in the East End of London. It was a clash between the Metropolitan Police, overseeing a march by members of the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, and various anti-fascist demonstrators, including local Jewish, socialist, anarchist and communist groups. The majority of both marchers and counter-protesters travelled into the area for this purpose. Mosley planned to send thousands of marchers dressed in uniforms styled on those of Blackshirts through the East End, which then had a large Jewish population.

Background

The Board of Deputies of British Jews denounced the march as anti-semitic and urged Jewish people to stay away. The Communist Party of Great Britain, under the leadership of Phil Piratin, led the opposition forces. Piratin's role was widely recognised by local people. The following year, he became the first Communist to be elected to Stepney Borough Council. In 1945, he was elected as a Communist MP for Mile End.

Cable Street

Coordinates: 51°30′40″N 0°03′22″W / 51.5112°N 0.056°W / 51.5112; -0.056

Cable Street is a road in the East End of London, England, with several historic landmarks nearby.

It was made famous by the Battle of Cable Street in 1936.

Location

Cable Street runs between the edge of London's financial district the City of London, and Limehouse, parallel to, and south of, the Docklands Light Railway and Commercial Road, and north of The Highway.

The area is close to Wapping and Shadwell Basin to the south, Tower Hill to the west, and Whitechapel and Stepney to the north. Since many Londoners define their locality by the nearest London Underground stations, the Cable Street area is often referred to as Shadwell.

The street is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in postal district E1. It lies within the parliamentary constituencies of Bethnal Green and Bow and Poplar and Canning Town, currently represented by Rushanara Ali and Jim Fitzpatrick, both of the Labour party.

History

Cable Street started as a straight path along which hemp ropes were twisted into ships cables (i.e. ropes). These supplied the many ships that would anchor in the nearby Pool of London, between London Bridge and Wapping and Rotherhithe. Many other "rope walks" can be seen on later maps, showing how demand for ropes grew as shipping increased.

Battle (disambiguation)

Generally, a battle is a combat in warfare between two or more parties.

Battle or battles may also refer to:

Name

Fictional characters

In military

Places

In music

Street

A street is a public thoroughfare (usually paved) in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.

Originally the word "street" simply meant a paved road (Latin: "via strata"). The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", for example in connection with the ancient Watling Street, but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction. Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads, but few would refer to them as streets.

East End of London

The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is an area of London, England, east of the Roman and medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary. For the purposes of his book, East End Past, Richard Tames regards the area as coterminous with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets: however, he acknowledges that this narrow definition excludes parts of southern Hackney, such as Shoreditch and Hoxton, which many would regard as belonging to the East End. Others again, such as Alan Palmer, would extend the area across the Lea to include parts of the London Borough of Newham; while parts of the London Borough of Waltham Forest and London Borough of Hackney are also sometimes included. It is universally agreed, however, that the East End is to be distinguished from East London, which covers a much wider area.

Use of the term East End in a pejorative sense began in the late 19th century, as the expansion of the population of London led to extreme overcrowding throughout the area and a concentration of poor people and immigrants. The problems were exacerbated with the construction of St Katharine Docks (1827) and the central London railway termini (1840–1875) that caused the clearance of former slums and rookeries, with many of the displaced people moving into the East End. Over the course of a century, the East End became synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality.