24 & 25 Whitechapel Road

[Debra Arif]

I discovered today that a 3 x great grandmother of mine (an Essex girl) was working as a waitress at an eating house on Whitechapel Road in 1861. The address given in the 1861 census was 24 & 25 Whitechapel Road, I tried to look up the address but seem to get conflicting information about it. One source has No 24 and 26 as next to each other and 25 elsewhere, presumably across the road. Can anyone help me - how is it 24 and 25 in the census?

[Phillip Walton]

The numbering system on British streets was not settled until the Edwardian period. The odd one side (left) and even on the other (right) side was then adopted. Before then it was not uncommon for the numbers to run consecutively if indeed they were numbered at all.

[Gary Barnett]

I discovered today that a 3 x great grandmother of mine (an Essex girl) was working as a waitress at an eating house on Whitechapel Road in 1861. The address given in the 1861 census was 24 & 25 Whitechapel Road, I tried to look up the address but seem to get conflicting information about it. One source has No 24 and 26 as next to each other and 25 elsewhere, presumably across the road. Can anyone help me - how is it 24 and 25 in the census?

Debs

The Goad Map shows 24 (shop) and 25 (restaurant) next door to each other on the north side of the street.


Gary

[Gary Barnett]

The numbering system on British streets was not settled until the Edwardian period. The odd one side (left) and even on the other (right) side was then adopted. Before then it was not uncommon for the numbers to run consecutively if indeed they were numbered at all.

Horwood's map of the 1790s shows that most significant streets in London were numbered by that time. As Philip days, the convention was usually to number consecutively along one side of the street and then along the other.

For example, the south side of Pennington street was numbered 1 - 78 (east to west) and the numbering of the north side started on the NE corner at 79 (our favourite) and continued east from there. 79, and 78 were not exactly opposite each other because the last bit of the North Side, the sugar refinery, was numbered (I think) as part of the Highway.

[Debra Arif]

Thanks Gary and Philip.
I was confused because there are photographs online supposedly showing 24 to 26 Whitechapel Road and number 25 Whitechapel Road but they didn't look like the same set of buildings to me. I know Whitechapel Road had been renumbered once at least so wanted to check with someone with better knowledge of the area...you know what I'm like
There was some interesting stuff written in those confusing links, one being that Fasham Venables owned 24-26 WR, the man related to Thomas Hayne Cutbush who I found also had premises on Whitechapel High Street in 1888, a few doors down from where Catherine Eddowes was arrested on the evening of her death. Small world.

https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/121/detail/

https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/151/detail/