ABSTRACT
Bethnal Green was one of the most uniform, as well as one of the smallest of metropolitan boroughs a narrow strip, about two miles from west to east, and half to three-quarters of a mile from North to South. In the early nineteenth century, Bethnal Green and Spital fields had been the centre of silk-weaving in London. The Church of England in Bethnal Green was a missionary church, its ministers isolated by the suspicion of the natives and by the differences in language and custom that made the life of the local population repugnant to them. The Independent chapel in Bethnal Green Road dated from 1662, and since then several large Baptist and Congregational chapels had been added, with the help of local magnates as James Link, a wholesaler dealer in sausage meat. The large membership attracted to the clubs at Oxford House suggests that there was a considerable demand for entertainments not provided by public houses and working men's clubs.
