Editing Whitechapel (section)

===20th century===
In 1902, American author [[Jack London]], looking to write a counterpart to [[Jacob Riis]]'s seminal book ''[[How the Other Half Lives]]'', donned ragged clothes and boarded in Whitechapel, detailing his experiences in ''[[The People of the Abyss]]''.
[[File:Winston Churchill at the Siege of Sidney Street, 3 January 1911.jpeg|thumb|Home Secretary Churchill observing the events at Sidney Street, Whitechapel]]

The [[Siege of Sidney Street]] (also known as the ''Battle of Stepney'', after the [[Metropolitan Borough of Stepney]] of which Whitechapel was part) in January 1911 was a gunfight between police and military forces, and Latvian revolutionaries. Then Home Secretary [[Winston Churchill]] took over the operation, and his presence caused a political row over the level of his involvement during the time. His biographers disagreed and claimed that he gave no operational commands to the police,<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Addison |first=Paul |title=Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer |author-link=Paul Addison |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/32413 |date=2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Jenkins |first=Roy |author-link=Roy Jenkins |title=Churchill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BmOzDFxEdtQC |year=2012 |publisher=Pan Macmillan |location=London |isbn=978-0-330-47607-2 |page=195 |access-date=28 August 2022 |archive-date=31 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071608/https://books.google.com/books?id=BmOzDFxEdtQC |url-status=live }}</ref> but a Metropolitan Police account states that the events of Sidney Street were "a very rare case of a Home Secretary taking police operational command decisions".{{efn|Subsequent stories that a bullet passed through Churchill's top hat are apocryphal, and no reference to such an occurrence appears in either the official records, or Churchill's accounts of the siege.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Waldren |first1=Mike |title=The Siege of Sidney Street |url=http://www.pfoa.co.uk/uploads/asset_file/The%20Siege%20of%20Sidney%20Street%20v3.pdf |publisher=Police Firearms Officers Association |access-date=30 January 2016 |date=July 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160323052214/http://www.pfoa.co.uk/uploads/asset_file/The%20Siege%20of%20Sidney%20Street%20v3.pdf |archive-date=23 March 2016 |page=11}}</ref>}}

The [[Freedom Press]], a socialist publishing house, thought it worthwhile to explore conditions in the leading city of the nation that had invented modern capitalism. He{{who|date=January 2025}} concluded that English poverty was far rougher than the American variety. The juxtaposition of the poverty, homelessness, exploitative work conditions, prostitution, and infant mortality of Whitechapel and other East End locales with some of the greatest personal wealth the world has ever seen made it a focal point for leftist reformers and revolutionaries of all kinds, from [[George Bernard Shaw]], whose [[Fabian Society]] met regularly in Whitechapel, to [[Vladimir Lenin]], led rallies in Whitechapel during his exile from Russia.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/first-thursdays/galleries/first-thursday-gallery-46/ |title=First Thursday GALLERY 46 |website=Whitechapelgallery.org |access-date=6 January 2018 |archive-date=29 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171029012722/http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/first-thursdays/galleries/first-thursday-gallery-46/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The area is still home to Freedom Press, the anarchist publishing house founded by [[Charlotte Wilson]].

On Sunday 4 October 1936, the [[British Union of Fascists]] led by [[Oswald Mosley]], intended to march through the East End, an area with a large Jewish population. The BUF mustered on and around [[Tower Hill]] and hundreds of thousands of local people turned out to block the march. There were violent clashes with the BUF around Tower Hill, but most of the violence occurred as police tried to clear a route through the crowds for the BUF to follow.

The police fought protesters at nearby [[Cable Street]] – the series of clashes becoming known as the [[Battle of Cable Street]] – and Tower Hill, but the largest confrontations took place at [[Aldgate]] and Whitechapel, notably at [[Gardiner's (department store)|Gardiner's Corner]], at the junction of [[Leman Street]], [[Commercial Street, London|Commercial Street]] and [[Whitechapel High Street]].<ref name="Guardian newspaper">{{cite web |publisher=Guardian newspaper |title=Fascist march stopped after disorderly scenes |date=5 October 1936 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1936/oct/05/fromthearchive |access-date=2 November 2022 |archive-date=2 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221102204141/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1936/oct/05/fromthearchive |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Halal restaurant on the junction of St Mark Street and [[Alie Street]] opened in 1939 to serve the many Indian seamen living in the area.{{citation needed|reason=The article mentions the year the restaurant opened, but says nothing about Indian sailors.|date=February 2025}} It is now the oldest Indian restaurant in East London.<ref>INews article on publicity campaign to save the restaurant after Covid 19 https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/east-london-oldest-indian-restaurant-threat-city-workers-custom-572955 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230417200018/https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/east-london-oldest-indian-restaurant-threat-city-workers-custom-572955 |date=17 April 2023 }}</ref>
[[File:Whitechapel Marker.jpg|thumb|Whitechapel was the centre of British Jewish refugee immigrant life in the late 19th and early 20th century.]]

Whitechapel remained poor through the first half of the 20th century, though somewhat less desperately so. It suffered great damage from enemy bombers during [[the Blitz]], and from the subsequent [[Nazi Germany|German]] [[V-weapons|V-weapon]] attacks. The parish church, [[St Mary Matfelon]], was badly damaged in a raid on 29 December 1940, a raid so damaging that it caused the [[Second Great Fire of London]].

The remains were demolished in 1952. St Mary's traced stone footprint and former graveyard remain, as part of [[Altab Ali Park]].<ref name="Christopher Hibbert 1983">Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert (eds) (1983) "Whitechapel" in ''The London Encyclopaedia'': 955-6</ref><ref>Andrew Davies (1990) ''The East End Nobody Knows'': 15–16</ref>

On 4 May 1978, three teenagers murdered [[Altab Ali]], a 24 year old Bangladesh-born clothing worker, in a racially motivated attack, as he walked home after work. The attack took place on Adler Street, by St Mary's Churchyard, where St Mary Matfelon had previously stood. The reaction to his murder provoked the mass mobilisation of the local Bengali community. The gardens of the former churchyard were later renamed [[Altab Ali Park]] in his memory.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.london-footprints.co.uk/wkaldgateroute.htm |title=Aldgate |publisher=London-footprints.co.uk |access-date=29 April 2014 |archive-date=4 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204083623/http://www.london-footprints.co.uk/wkaldgateroute.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.worldwrite.org.uk/londonbehindthescenes/bricklane/altabalipark.html |title=Brick Lane Tour :: Stop 10: Altab Ali Park |publisher=Worldwrite.org.uk |date=4 May 1978 |access-date=29 April 2014 |archive-date=31 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151031174902/http://www.worldwrite.org.uk/londonbehindthescenes/bricklane/altabalipark.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[Metropolitan line]] between Hammersmith and Whitechapel was withdrawn in 1990 and shown separately as a new line called the [[Hammersmith & City line]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Rose |first=Douglas |title=The London Underground: A Diagrammatic History |edition=8th |date=December 2007 |orig-year=1980 |publisher=Capital Transport |isbn=978-1-85414-315-0}}</ref><ref name="T90">{{cite web |title=London Underground map 1990 |url=http://www.clarksbury.com/cdl/maps/tube90.jpg |work=The London Tube map archive |access-date=21 November 2012 |archive-date=16 August 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120816005041/http://www.clarksbury.com/cdl/maps/tube90.jpg |url-status=live }}</ref>