Ratcliff Highway

A street in the East End, near the river, with a very ugly history and reputation.

Dickens' Dictionary

This, which until within the last few years was one of the sights of the metropolis, and almost unique in Europe as a scene of coarse debauchery, is now chiefly noteworthy as an example of what may be done by effective police supervision thoroughly carried out, though the dancing-rooms, music-halls, and foreign cafés of the Highway -- now re-christened St. George-st. -- are still well worthy of a visit from the student of human nature. The performances in the various places of entertainment are, perhaps, not of a refined description, nor is the audience; but it is just possible that, from an exclusively moral point of view, the advantage may even be proved to be not altogether on the side of the higher refinement. The casual ward of St. George's Workhouse, at the bottom of Old Gravel-la[ne], is well worth a visit, and so, if it be not too late in the evening, is the mission church of St. Peter's, London Docks, hard by, where you will find in full work an agency which, if the people of the neighbourhood are to be believed, has had in the marvellous transformation which has taken place a more potent influence even than police and parliament combined. Returning thence to Shadwell High-st, you may visit the "White Swan," popularly known as "Paddy's Goose," once the uproarious rendezvous of half the tramps and thieves of London, now quite sedate, and, to confess the truth, dull -- very dull. Down to the right here, again, is the little waterside police-station where the grim harvest of the "drag," the weird flotsam and jetsam of the cruel river, lies awaiting the verdict that will -- let us hope -- "find it Christian burial." And so back into the Highway again, and up Cannon-st-rd, where stands St. George's Church [ StGeorgesInTheEast ], the scene of the famous riots of 1858-59, which gave the first popular impulse to the "ritualistic" movement, and out into wide Commercial-rd, the boundary of "Jack's" dominion, beyond which again lie the bustling "Yiddisher" quarter of Whitechapel^? and the swarming squalor of Spitalfields^?.

• Dickens, Charles Jr. Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1888. S.v. "Ratcliff Highway." See LondonGuidesAndMaps.

-- ChrisLehrich^? - 17 Jan 2005