Lavender Place was situated just along Pennington Street from where my dad was born in August 1900.
Lavender Place had 11 Houses where 134 people were listed on the 1901 census including 21 children under 14.
It was a multinational community, if it thought of itself as a community, with birthplaces including Russia, Germany, Ireland, Palestine, and Scotland as well as those born in London. The occupations were also diverse including dock workers, boot makers, rag sorters, tailors, tent makers, as well as the inevitable carmen and van boys.
The southern side of Pennington Street was the high wall that encircled the London Docks and was the outer boundary of the Parish of St. John of Wapping. Pennington Street was therefore not in Wapping despite the hundreds of images on the internet which describe it as such because of the problems that arose when the notorious Murdoch moved his printing presses to the newly industrialized London Docks and thus set off a dispute with the print unions. It was easy for the Murdoch newspapers to describe the strike pickets at the gates in Pennington street as being in Wapping because it took up less room in a column than St. George in the East, although it would have been just as easy to say Stepney.+
