The Shocking East End
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The now fashionable East End was a sprawling mass of closely built houses and homes that created a labyrinth of lanes, snicketts and alleyways that would confuse even the most intrepid traveller. Mix in some fog with soot and pollution ‐ the famous London smog ‐ then you can really start appreciating how the area became notorious for pickpockets, crime, mobs and gangsters (e.g. The Krays), unsolved mass murders (as in Jack the Ripper) as well as a place where freaks and misfits (e.g. The Elephant Man) could hide almost unnoticed. It gained notoriety as an ‘exotic’ nation of its own and was usually left off Victorian maps of London.
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