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Improved Dwellings for the Working Classes also demolish, but, fortunately
for our increasing population (who do not spend the whole of
their time in Board Schools), they also erect dwellings in large
numbers, and provide accommodation of a vastly improved character
in place of the small houses they remove.
With regard to the Metropolitan Board of Works, the last portion
of the magnificent plan of Street improvement sanctioned by Parliament
in 1872 is now completed so far as this Parish is concerned.
It commences at the Great Eastern Railway Company's Goods
Station, Shoreditch, and connects Great Eastern Street with the wide
portion of Bethnal Green Road by the formation of a new Street,
continuous with that Road, 60 feet in width and about 2000 feet in
length. This is undoubtedly a great sanitary improvement, as it
necessitated the pulling down of numbers of houses, the sanitary
defects in many of which had long since rendered them unfit for
human habitation, and which could only have been remedied by the
expenditure of large sums of money. This we could hardly expect
the owners to do, as they were daily expecting notice from the Board
that the property would be required for the improvements in hand.
The following is a list of the houses demolished :—
No. of Houses. Where Situated.
22 Sclater street
25 Bacon street
13 Little Bacon street
3 Brick lane
44 Bethnal Green road
14 Club row
4 Great York street
2 Little Anchor street
10 Swan street
13 Little York street
16 Shacklewell street
11 Tyssen street
Total 177
The new Street was declared open on the 29th of March by Sir J.
McGarrell-Hogg, M.P., and already Messrs. Allen and Company have
built and opened the first block of 64 dwellings, containing 256
rooms.