Silvertown is a district in the London Borough of Newham, in east London, England. It lies on the north bank of the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

and was historically part of the parishes of

West Ham West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham. The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancient ...

and East Ham, hundred of Becontree, and the historic county of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

. Since 1965, Silvertown has been part of the London Borough of Newham, a

local government district The districts of England (also known as local authority districts or local government districts to distinguish from unofficial city districts) are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the st ...

of Greater London. It forms part of the London E16 postcode district along with Canning Town and Custom House. The area was named after the factories established by Stephen William Silver in 1852, and is now dominated by the

Tate & Lyle Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business i ...

sugar refinery and the John Knight ABP animal rendering plant. A £3.5billion redevelopment of part of the district was approved in 2015.

History

In 1852 S.W. Silver & Company moved to the area from Greenwich and established a rubber works, originally to make waterproof clothing. This subsequently developed into the works of the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company, which constructed and laid many

submarine cable Submarine cable is any electrical cable that is laid on the seabed, although the term is often extended to encompass cables laid on the bottom of large freshwater bodies of water. Examples include: *Submarine communications cable *Submarine power ...

s. By the 1860s a number of manure and chemical works and petroleum storage depots had been set up. In 1864, the area became an ecclesiastical parish of its own, centred on the church of St Mark's. Sugar refiners in the area were joined by

Henry Tate Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet (11 March 18195 December 1899) was an English sugar merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the Tate Gallery in London. Life and career Born in White Coppice, a hamlet near Chorley, Lancashire, Tate was ...

in 1877 and

Abram Lyle Abram Lyle (14 December 1820 – 30 April 1891) is noted for founding the sugar refiners '' Abram Lyle & Sons'' which merged with the company of his rival Henry Tate to become Tate & Lyle in 1921. Early life He was born on 14 December 1820 i ...

in 1881, whose companies merged in 1921 to form

. Prior to the merger, which occurred after they had died, the two men were bitter business rivals, although they had never met. Tate & Lyle still has two large refineries in the area. In 1889 Silver's factory was the scene of a twelve-week-long strike by the majority of its 3,000 workers. The strikers were demanding higher pay and were inspired by the recent successes of New Unionism in the East End of London. Management refused to negotiate with the strikers who had immense popular support. Leading figures in the strike included

Tom Mann Thomas Mann (15 April 1856 – 13 March 1941), was an English trade unionist and is widely recognised as a leading, pioneering figure for the early labour movement in Britain. Largely self-educated, Mann became a successful organiser and a ...

and

Eleanor Marx Jenny Julia Eleanor Marx (16 January 1855 – 31 March 1898), sometimes called Eleanor Aveling and known to her family as Tussy, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a socialist activist who sometimes worked as a ...

. The workers were eventually starved back to work, with many being victimised for their role. In the aftermath of the strike, Silver's declared a half-yearly dividend of 5 percent. The rest of the industry congratulated Silver's management for holding a line against New Unionism. On 19 January 1917, parts of Silvertown were devastated by a massive

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

explosion at the Brunner-Mond munitions factory, in what is known as the

Silvertown explosion The Silvertown explosion occurred in Silvertown in West Ham, Essex (now part of the London Borough of Newham, in Greater London) on Friday, 19 January 1917 at 6:52 pm. The blast occurred at a munitions factory that was manufacturing explos ...

. Seventy three people died and hundreds were injured in one of the largest explosions ever experienced in the British Isles. In the early 20th century the area suffered greatly from road congestion due to being located between the

and the Royal Docks, then the largest and one of the busiest dock groups in the world. The area was cut off for much of the time by lifting bridges over dock entrances and

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...

s which were closed for up to three-quarters of each hour by train movements. This led in the early 1930s to the construction of the elevated ''Silvertown Way'', one of the earliest urban flyovers. On the first night of

The Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

, Tate and Lyle's sugar refinery, John Knight's Primrose Soapworks, and the Silvertown Rubber Works were all badly damaged by bombing. Silver's was eventually taken over by the British Tyre and Rubber Co, later known as

BTR Industries BTR plc was a British multinational industrial conglomerate company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1924, grew strongly by acquisition under Sir Owen Green's leadership, and merged with Siebe plc in 1999 to form BTR ...

. The site closed in the 1960s and is now the Thameside Industrial Estate. Another major local employer was the Loders and Nucoline plant at Cairn Mills, a traditional port oleo industry and formerly part of

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy dri ...

. This originally milled seeds but later concentrated on production of fats from

palm kernel oil Palm kernel oil is an edible plant oil derived from the kernel of the oil palm tree ''Elaeis guineensis''. It is related to other two edible oils: ''palm oil'', extracted from the fruit pulp of the oil palm, and ''coconut oil'', extracted from ...

. The area was part of the ancient parishs of

and East Ham,

, from the 12th century onwards. The Local Government Act 1894 created East Ham Urban District. West Ham became a

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent te ...

in 1900, before merging with East Ham to create the new London Borough of Newham in 1965.

Regeneration

The residential area of Britannia Village was developed in the 1990s. On 21 April 2015,

Newham Council Newham London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Newham. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a ...

gave planning permission to The Silvertown Partnership for a new £3.5 billion redevelopment in the area. The development will provide offices, a tech hub, 3,000 new homes and brand experience pavilions. A school, health centre and shops are also included in the plan and a new bridge will cross the Royal Docks to get people to Custom House station and

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway l ...

London, view from Shooters Hill, Silvertown

The Silvertown Partnership were selected as the development partner to take forward the regeneration of the site. Their plan was to develop the site with homes, restaurants, commercial buildings, local convenience retail facilities, and significant public realm for community use. They predicted that it would provide up to 20,700 new jobs, up to 3,000 homes and contribute £260m each year of gross value to the London economy. The redevelopment is planned to include the restoration of former flour factory

Millennium Mills The Millennium Mills is a derelict turn of the 20th century flour mill in West Silvertown on the south side of the Royal Victoria Dock, between the Thames Barrier and the ExCeL London exhibition centre alongside the newly built Britannia villa ...

. In January 2015, the

Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first directly elected mayor in the United Kingdom. The current m ...

announced an initial £12m of government funding to start work on demolishing part of

and clearing it of asbestos. Prior to this latest development, the area was transformed in the 1970s by the construction of the

Thames Barrier The Thames Barrier is a retractable barrier system built to protect the floodplain of most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. It has been operational since 1982. When needed, it is c ...

, an adjacent park, new housing areas and

London City Airport London City Airport is a regional airport in London, England. It is located in the Royal Docks in the Borough of Newham, approximately east of the City of London and east of Canary Wharf. These are the twin centres of London's financial ...

. In the mid-1990s much of the business activity in the area was centred on the brewing firm Bass. In 2007

Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, (Richard Alexander Walter George; born 26 August 1944) is a member of the British royal family. He is the second son of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, as wel ...

visited Silvertown, to formally open the new Silvertown Ambulance Station on North Woolwich Road.

Education

Maritime

The

Thames Refinery is a

safeguarded wharf Safeguarded wharves are those wharves in London which have been given special status by the Mayor of London and the Port of London Authority (PLA) which ensures they are retained as working wharves and are protected from redevelopment into non ...

in the

Port of London The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent) with the North Se ...

. It is one of the largest sugar refineries in the world, with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per annum. The Raw Sugar and Refined and Shore Berth jetties include two bulk-handling crane. The terminal commodities are sugar, as dry bulks, and edible and vegetable oils, as liquid bulks: it exports globally and imports from Fiji, Caribbean,

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

Transport

From 2020/21 a new station at Custom House station will provide transport to and from the area, using the trackbed of the old North London Line. There is passive provision for a stop serving Silvertown to be built in future. The nearest Docklands Light Railway stations is West Silvertown. Access was much improved by an extension of the

Docklands Light Railway The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light metro system serving the redeveloped Docklands area of London, England and provides a direct connection between London's two major financial districts, Canary Wharf and the City of Lo ...

from Canning Town to Woolwich Arsenal, which opened on 2 December 2005. However, the old

Silvertown railway station Silvertown railway station was on the North London Line (NLL) serving the Silvertown area of east London, until the station and the eastern section of the line it was on were closed in 2006. It was situated between Custom House (now a Dockland ...

on the North London Line, was closed in 2006. The London Cable Car connects Silvertown with the

Greenwich peninsula The Greenwich Peninsula is an area of Greenwich in South East London, England. It is bounded on three sides by a loop of the Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east. To the south is the rest of Greenwich, to the s ...

is located on the eastern edge of Silvertown. A new bridge to connect Silvertown with Crossrail's Custom House station is one of the features of a £3.5bn redevelopment plan for London's Royal Docks. The

Silvertown Tunnel The Silvertown Tunnel is a road tunnel under construction beneath the River Thames between the Greenwich Peninsula and west Silvertown. It is being promoted by Transport for London and will be delivered through a design, build, finance and mai ...

is a road tunnel under the Thames which will open in 2025 and provide a toll route to the Greenwich peninsula.

Popular culture

Silvertown is featured in a ballad by

Mark Knopfler Mark Freuder Knopfler (born 12 August 1949) is a British singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Born in Scotland and raised in England, he was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits. He pursued a s ...

, titled '' Silvertown Blues'', which describes the area as it was before redevelopment. The district also features in Charlie Connelly's book, ''Attention All Shipping''. In the first chapter "Sea, Soup and Silvertown" the author describes his grandparents' flight from the area during

and the inspiration for the book. Melanie McGrath's book ''Silvertown'' is a novelistic account of her grandmother's life in the area, where she and her husband ran a cafe. '' The Sugar Girls'', by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, tells the true stories of women who worked at

's Silvertown factories, and features much detail on the area.

Notable people

* Frank Bailey (1925–2015), firefighter

References

External links

Silvertown Official Redevelopment Website

Project Silvertown: A film by Ravensbourne students

Stories from Silvertown - Eastside Community Heritage

''The Sugar Girls'' official website
{{Authority control Districts of the London Borough of Newham Areas of London Food processing in London Cable manufacture in London Districts of London on the River Thames Port of London