Editing Ilford (section)

==History==
===Prehistoric natural history===
The only complete skull of a [[mammoth]] discovered in the United Kingdom was unearthed in 1864 close to where Uphall Road is today. The skull can now be seen in the [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] and a cast of the skull and other prehistoric animal remains can be seen at Redbridge Museum, Central Library, Ilford.

===Iron Age===
Redevelopment has destroyed much of the evidence for early Ilford, but the oldest evidence for human occupation is the first- and second-century BC [[Iron Age]] earthwork known as Uphall Camp. This was situated between the Roding and Ilford Lane and is recorded in 18th-century plans.<ref name=bho_borough>{{cite book | url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=42730 | chapter=The borough of Ilford |title=A History of the County of Essex |volume=5 | year= 1966 | publisher= [[Victoria County History]] |pages=249–266 | via=[[British History Online]] | editor-last=Powell |editor-first=W.R. | access-date=28 August 2009 }}</ref> [[Roman Britain|Roman]] finds have also been made in the vicinity.<ref name=Barking>{{cite book | url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=42722 | chapter=The ancient parish of Barking: Introduction |title=A History of the County of Essex |volume=5 | year= 1966 |pages=184–190 | publisher= [[Victoria County History]] | via=British History Online | editor-last=Powell |editor-first=W.R.  | access-date=28 August 2009 }}</ref>

===Lavender Mount===
A nearby mound called Lavender Mount existed into the 1960s, when it was removed during building work at Howards chemical works. Excavation has shown that Lavender Mount may have been a 16th-century 'beacon-mound'. Archaeological discoveries are displayed at Redbridge Museum.<ref name="redbridge.gov.uk">{{cite web|url=http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/museum |title=Redbridge Museum |publisher=Redbridge.gov.uk |access-date=2 March 2014}}</ref>

===Economic development===
[[File:High Road, Ilford IG1 - Redbridge Town Hall - geograph.org.uk - 394524.jpg|thumb|255px|High Road Ilford with Waterstones bookshop in the foreground on the left and the town hall in the background]]
[[File:High Road, Ilford IG1 - Redbridge Town Hall - geograph.org.uk - 394521.jpg|thumb|255px|Redbridge Town Hall, High Road, Ilford]]
Ilford straddled the important road from London to [[Colchester]]. The Middlesex and Essex [[Turnpike trust|Turnpike Trust]] controlled and maintained the road from 1721. The [[River Roding]] was made navigable for barges as far as Ilford Bridge from 1737.<ref name=Barking/> Ilford remained largely rural until its expansion in the 19th century. This brought about brickworks, cement works and coal yards to service the new buildings, largely centred on the River Roding. In 1839, a railway station was opened on the [[Great Eastern Main Line|line from Romford to Mile End]]. The early businesses gave way to new industries, such as paper making and services such as steam laundries and collar making, to provide for the new commuting class created by the railway. 

A number of major businesses have been founded in the town, including the eponymous [[photographic film]] and chemicals manufacturer [[Ilford Photo]].<ref>{{cite web | title=Ilford History and Chronology | url=http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Ilford/Chronology.html | access-date=27 July 2007}}</ref> This was founded in 1879 by Alfred H. Harman, a photographer from [[Peckham]], who established the business in a house in Cranbrook Road making gelatino-bromide 'dry' plates.<ref name=bho_borough/> The business soon outgrew these premises, and its headquarters moved to a site at Roden Street until 1976 when the factory was closed. Many Ilford Limited products are displayed at Redbridge Museum.<ref name="redbridge.gov.uk"/>

The radio, electronics and telecommunications company [[Plessey]], founded in 1917 in [[Marylebone]], moved to Cottenham Road in Ilford early in 1919 and then to Vicarage Lane where it became one of the largest manufacturers in its field. During [[World War II]], the factory was heavily damaged by bombing and the company carried out much of its manufacture, with 2,000 workers servicing a production line, located in the underground railway tunnel between [[Wanstead]] and [[Gants Hill]].<ref name=bho_borough/> In 1955 the company employed 15,000 workers, in sites throughout Ilford and neighbouring areas, with an extensive research department.<ref name=bho_borough/> [[BAL-AMi Jukeboxes]] were manufactured at 290–296 High Road, Ilford, during the 1950s, which also served as the headquarters of the Balfour (Marine) Engineering company.<ref>{{cite web | title=BAL-AMi Jukeboxes | url=http://www.bal-ami.com/balhtml/history.shtml}}</ref> [[Exchange Ilford|The Exchange]] is the main shopping centre.

[[File:Ilford Central Library.JPG|thumb|255px|Central Library and Museum, Clements Road, Ilford]]

===Suburban expansion===
[[File:Ilford buildings.jpg|thumb|High buildings in central Ilford]]
By 1653, Ilford was a compact village of 50 houses, mostly sited north and south of the current Broadway<ref name=bho_borough/> and the area was distinctly rural. In 1801 the population of Ilford was 1,724 and by 1841 it had grown to 3,742.<ref name=bho_borough/> It had a population of 41,244 in 1901 and occupied an area of {{convert|8496|acre|km2|0}}. 2,500 houses of the vast [[Becontree Estate]], built by the [[London County Council]] from 1921, were within the boundaries of Ilford; the addition caused a rise in population of 11,600 by 1926.<ref name=bho_borough/> 

The [[Central line (London Underground)|Central line]] service of the [[London Underground]] to new and former main-line stations in the area began in 1947<ref name=rose>{{cite book | last=Rose | first=D | title=The London Underground: A diagrammatic history | year=1999 }}</ref> and the population of the Municipal Borough of Ilford peaked in 1951 at 184,706, declining to 178,024 in 1961 before being absorbed into Redbridge and Greater London in 1965. At the [[United Kingdom Census 2001|2001 Census]] the combined populations of the [[Ilford North (UK Parliament constituency)|Ilford North]] and [[Ilford South (UK Parliament constituency)|Ilford South]] constituencies was 196,414.<ref name="ukpollingreport.co.uk"/><ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite web |url=http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seat-profiles/ilfordsouth |title=UKPollingReport Election Guide 2010 » Ilford South |access-date=2 March 2014 |archive-date=4 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140104164710/http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seat-profiles/ilfordsouth/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Notable events===
[[John Logie Baird]], who invented the [[television]], moved to Ilford in the mid to late 1920s to work on his new invention. He worked in a workshop on the roof of the [[Plessey]] premises in Ley Street, which has long since been demolished to make way for new housing.

In 1922, Ilford became notorious for being the site of the [[Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters|Thompson-Bywaters case]], a ''[[Cause célèbre|cause celebre]]'' in the United Kingdom that later influenced the debate around [[Capital punishment in the United Kingdom|capital punishment in the UK]].

Ilford was also the birthplace of the actor [[Maggie Smith]] who left for [[Oxford]] at the age of four.

During World War II an Ilford man lost his life when his [[Royal Air Force]] training aircraft crashed in the United States.  Local residents living near the site, in the [[State of Oklahoma]], erected a monument in 2000 honouring the lives of all four RAF fliers who perished.  The event was attended by the Mayor of Redbridge and his mace-bearer, to much local acclaim.  The residents, who include [[Choctaw Indian]]s and the [[Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma|Choctaw Nation]] government, continue honouring the lives of all four on each anniversary of the crashes, which took place in February 1943.<ref>[[AT6 Monument]]</ref>

===Olympics===
Its proximity to the [[Olympic Park]] in [[Stratford, London|Stratford]] meant that in 2011, Ilford was the fastest-growing tourist destination in Europe due to the [[London 2012 Summer Olympics]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8940417/TripAdvisor-Ilford-is-Europes-fastest-growing-tourist-destination.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8940417/TripAdvisor-Ilford-is-Europes-fastest-growing-tourist-destination.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live| author=The Daily Telegraph| author-link=The Daily Telegraph| newspaper=The Daily Telegraph | title=TripAdvisor: Ilford is Europe's fastest growing tourist destination|date=December 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref>