timeline

Rest of the world		Canning Town
Queen Victoria accedes to the throne	1837
introduction of penny post	1840
Metropolitan Buildings Act	1844
	1846	North Woolwich Branch of the Great Eastern Railways opens
	1846	CJ Mare opens
	1848	a school for local children is opened by the vicar of Plaistow in a shed in Hallsville Road
Great Exhibition	1851
Singer patents first sewing machine	1851
cholera epidemic sweeps Britain	1852
	1855	Alfred Dickens publishes a report on the "Sewerage, Drainage and Supply of Water and the Sanitary Condition of the Inhabitants of West Ham"
Florence Nightingale brings hygiene to nursing during the Crimean War	1855
beginning of the American Civil War	1861
	1861	Holy Trinity School opens at 166 Barking Road
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice in Wonderland	1865
	1866	Stratford Express founded and becomes leading local newspaper
working men in towns get the vote	1867
Forster’s Elementary Education Act	1870
first typewriter invented	1873
	1875	building of St Luke’s, Victoria Docks, known as the ‘Cathedral of Canning Town’
Bell invents telephone	1876
	1877	Henry Tate opens sugar refining factory in Silver Town
	1878	South Hallsville School opens
	1880	Rathbone Market opens - traders set up stalls in Victoria Dock Road
England and Australia begin cricket contest known as the Ashes	1882
first skyscraper built in Chicago	1883
Queen Victoria celebrates Golden Jubilee (50 years)	1887
Jack the Ripper murders women in the East End of London	1888
matchgirls at Bryant and May go on strike	1888
	1889	Mansfield House
	1889	Will Thorne organises workers at Beckton Gasworks, and succeeds in reducing working day from 12 hours to 8 hours
Dock Strike - workers win right to pay of 6 pence per hour	1889
James Keir Hardie elected MP for West Ham South	1892
tinned pineapple goes on sale for first time	1892	opening of Canning Town Women’s Settlement
	1893	opening of Canning Town Library, the borough’s first permanent library building
	1894	opening of Canning Town Public Hall
	1894	iron church erected by Malvern College Mission in Cooper Street
	1894	opening of Canning Town Recreation Ground, known locally as Becton Road Park. This was one of the first public parks run by West Ham Corporation.
	1894	Malvern College Mission
	1895	Thames IronWorks football club founded (known as West Ham United after 1900)
Queen Victoria celebrates Diamond Jubilee (60 years)	1897	West Ham opens Memorial Grounds to celebrate Victoria’s jubilee?
	1899	Hermit Road Park bought for the town by JH (later Lord) Bethell with the aid of private subscriptions
Queen Victoria dies	1901
invention of the ‘teddy bear’, named after US President Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt	1902
Gordon H Selfridge opens new department store in London’s Oxford Street	1909
	1909	one of the country’s first purpose-built cinemas opens in Rathbone Street, Canning Town
	1912	Thames IronWorks closes
Titanic sinks on maiden voyage across the Atlantic	1912
beginning of World War I	1914
	1917	Silvertown Explosion
	1918	Docklands Settlements and Malvern College Clubs expanded by Sir Reginald Kennedy Cox
	1920	Coloured Men’s Institute opened by Pastor Chunchie
General Strike	1926
sound is synchronised with pictures in the cinema, leading to introduction of the ‘talkies’	1927
enfranchisement of all women over 21	1928
BBC begins broadcasting daily programme of television shows.	1929
Wall Street Crash	1929
Amy Johnson is first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic	1930
central government subsidies are made available to rehouse people affected by slum clearance schemes	1930
	1932	building of Silvertown Way, the new ‘Road to the Empire’ through Canning Town
foundation of British Union of Fascists	1932
Hitler becomes German Chancellor	1933
Celebration of Silver Jubilee of King George V	1935`
King Edward VIII abdicates in order to marry American divorcee, Mrs Simpson	1936
beginning of world’s first television service, broadcast from London	1936
the ‘Jarrow marches’ - unemployed shipyard workers from the north east of England march to London to protest against their plight	1936
death of King George V	1936
outbreak of Spanish Civil War	1936
coronation celebrations for King George VI	1937
	1937	open-air swimming pool opens in Canning Town park
Britain declares war on Germany	1939
first showing of The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland	1939
(May) Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister	1940
(Aug- Oct) Battle of Britain	1940
(Sept-May)	1940-41	Canning Town suffered heavy bombing during the Blitz
VE Day celebrations	1945
National Health Service founded	1945
invention of the ‘bikini’ - the two-piece bathing costume	1946
	1947	West Ham council begins post-war rebuilding, including the Keir Hardie estate
India achieves independence	1947
Festival of Britain	1951
coronation of Queen Elizabeth II	1953
	1953	Great Flood -
food rationing ended	1954
Clean Air Act passed, banning smoky chimneys in cities	1956
Britain’s first motorway - the M1 - built	1959
first ever Barbie doll goes on sale	1959
Sean Connery stars in first James Bond film, Dr No	1962
President Kennedy assassinated	1963
	1964	West Ham wins FA Cup
	1965	West Ham wins European cupwinners cup
	1965	West Ham and East Ham join together to become the London Borough of Newham
USA enters Vietnam war	1965
broadcasting of first television programmes shown in colour	1967
Martin Luther King assassinated	1968	3 people die in Ronan Point tower block explosion
Neil Armstrong is first man on the moon	1969
introduction of first jumbo jets	1970
introduction of decimalised coins	1971
Elvis Presley dies	1977
‘Walkman’ personal stereos launched by Japanese company Sony	1979
Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first woman Prime Minister	1979
Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer	1981
Falklands conflict	1982
Chernobyl nuclear disaster	1986
fall of the Berlin wall	1989
beginning of the Gulf War	1990