The Street and Old Church Tower, Hackney, by Joseph Pennell (1857-1926)

The Street and Old Church Tower, Hackney

Joseph Pennell (1857-1926)

1899

Illustration for Walter Besant's East London (London: Chatto & Windus, 1901), p. 262.

Scanned image and text by Jacqueline Banerjee

[This image may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Joseph Pennell and Leonard Raven-Hill have each contributed several illustrations for Chapter X ("The Memories of the Past") of Besant's book. As might be expected, Leonard-Hill's focus is on people, Pennell's on places. This illustration shows the dramatic contrast between old and new: the tower of the medieval Knights Templar church of St Augustine, which Besant doesn't name, but explains is "the one ancient thing left in Hackney"; and the "crowded and busy thoroughfare" which Besant also mentions (263). The picture encapsulates the way Hackney had changed during the nineteenth century. The once popular resort village, where on 25 June 1666 Pepys had surreptitiously plucked a tiny orange from a tree (299), has become a crowded metropolitan borough. Much of this change has been brought about by the railways. A train billowing smoke is seen crossing the dark bridge in front of the tower. A packed open-top omnibus passes beneath it, there are tram-car lines on the road, and crowds of pedestrians surge along the pavements. This illustration follows Besant's text to the letter.

Bibliography

Besant, Walter. East London. London: Chatto & Windus, 1901.

Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Lord Braybrooke. London: Frederick Warne (The Chandos Classics), n.d.

Last modified 21 April 2008