- Steven Berkoff
Steve has directed five independent films including large-scale movies produced in community contexts, and has won an Industrial Society directing award for corporate video. He was Director of Training for Glasgow Film and Video Workshop, and has directed television programmes for Anglia and Granada Television, where he also produced an arts series. - Jack Cohen
Sir John Edward Cohen (6 October 1898 - 24 March 1979), born Jacob Edward Kohen and commonly known as Jack Cohen, was a British businessman who founded the Tesco supermarket chain. He was born in Whitechapel in the East End of London, the son of a Avroam Kohen, an immigrant Polish-Jewish tailor, and his first wife, Sime Zamremba. - Peter Jones
Peter Jones was an English actor, playwright and broadcaster. He was best known as the voice of The Book in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", for his lead role in the TV sitcom "The Rag Trade", and for his elegant repartee on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Just a Minute" (where he excelled at the amusing one liners, but seldom scored many points). - Souleymane Bamba
Souleymane Bamba is a French-Ivorian professional footballer currently playing for Scottish Premier League club Dunfermline Athletic. Nicknamed Sol, Bamba began his career with French Ligue 1 club Paris Saint Germain at the age of 14. Despite impressing for the youth and B teams, he failed to feature for the first team. He did however make his mark on the international stage, featuring in the 2005 African Youth Championship for his parent’s home land Côte d'Ivoire. - Arthur Morrison
Arthur George Morrison (November 1, 1863 London - December 4, 1945) was an English author and journalist, known for his realistic novels about London's East End and for his detective stories. Morrison was born in the East End of London, on November 1, 1863. His childhood and education is unknown, though he was probably educated in the East End. By 1886 he was working as a clerk at the People's Palace, in Mile End. - Lee Hurst
Lee Hurst is a stand-up comedian who runs his own club, "Lee Hurst's Backyard Comedy Club", in London's East End. Lee first became known to television viewers as a regular team member on the BBC comedy sports quiz "They Think It's All Over". Lee’s other TV credits include presenting "Shark Tank", "Salvage Squad" and "The Warehouse", and guest appearances on "That’s Showbusiness", … - Marty Feldman
Martin Alan "Marty" Feldman (8 July 1934 - 2 December 1982) was an English writer, comedian and BAFTA award winning actor, famous for his bulging eyes, which were the result of a thyroid condition known as Graves Disease. - Ronnie Biggs
Ronnie Biggs (born Ronald Arthur Biggs August 8, 1929 in London's East End) is an English prisoner who is known for his minor role in the Great Train Robbery of 1963. - David Bomberg
David Bomberg was a painter, born in Birmingham, England. Bomberg grew up in Whitechapel, in the East End of London. After studying art at City and Guilds, Bomberg was at first apprenticed to a chromolithographer, training as a lithographer, but quit to concentrate on preparing for entry to the Slade after only a year. Simultaneously Bomberg took night classes at the central Westminster School of Art (where he was taught by Walter Sickert), … - Matt Johnson
Matt Johnson (born 15 August 1961, in London, England) is the founder and only constant member of the multimedia band, The The. Matt Johnson / The The rose out of the post-punk industrial music scene of late 1970s Britain. Over the years he has proven himself a prolific songwriter on various subjects. On 1986's "Heartland (51st State of the USA)" he railed against the Americanisation of the UK. - Jamie Foreman
Jamie Foreman (born 1958) is a British actor best known for his roles as Duke in "Layer Cake" (2004) and Bill Sykes in Roman Polanski's "Oliver Twist" (2005). He played opposite Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke in Gary Oldman's "Nil by Mouth" and also featured in "Elizabeth" and "Sleepy Hollow". He appeared in the 2006 "Doctor Who" episode "The Idiot's Lantern". He also featured as a racist taxi driver in "The Football Factory". - James MacDonald
James MacDonald (1857 - fl. 1914) was a British trade unionist. Born in Edinburgh, MacDonald trained as a tailor and moved to London in 1881. He joined the "Central Marylebone Democratic Association", but it was reading Friedrich Engels' articles in the "Labour Standard" that convinced him of socialism. As a result, he joined the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), but left in 1885 to join the Socialist Union. However, he rejoined the SDF in 1887. - Anna Wing
Anna Wing (born 30 October 1914) is an English actress. She has had a long career in television and theatre. She was born in Hackney, London, and started out as an artist's model and later, during the Second World War, she worked in East End hospitals. She was married at thirty to Peter Davey, but divorced three years later. She later had a long relationship with the poet Philip O'Connor. Anna is also the mother of the actor-director Mark Wing-Davey. - Billy Hill
Billy Hill (1911 - 1984) was a famous British gangster and criminal mastermind from the 1920s through the 1950s. Hill was born into a London criminal family and began as a house burglar in the late 1920s, then specialized in "smash-and-grab" raids targeting furriers and jewelers in the 1930s. During World War II, he moved into the black market, specializing in foods and gasoline. He also supplied forged documents for deserting servicemen. - Barbara Nadel
Barbara Nadel is an English crime-writer, and previous winner of the CWA Silver Dagger (for Deadly Web). Many of her books are set in Turkey. Born in the East End of London, Barbara Nadel trained as an actress before becoming a writer. Now writing full-time, she has previously worked as a public relations officer for the National Schizophrenia Fellowship's Good Companion Service and as a mental health advocate for the mentally disordered in a psychiatric hospital. - Lionel Blue
Lionel Blue (born 6 February, 1930) is a British Reform rabbi, journalist and broadcaster. He was the first openly gay British rabbi. Born in the East End of London, he was the only son of a master tailor. Blue read History at Oxford and Semitics at London University before being ordained as a rabbi in 1960. He spent time in the Army but was discharged after a nervous breakdown brought on by anxiety over his homosexuality. - David Widgery
David Widgery (27 April 1947 - 26 October 1992) was a British Trotskyist writer, journalist, physician, and activist. Widgery was born in Barnet and grew up in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He contracted polio as a child and was expelled from sixth form for publishing a magazine. In 1965, Widgery met Allan Ginsberg, then visited Watts, where he encountered the civil rights movement, followed by Cuba. - David Herbert
David Alexander Reginald Herbert was a British socialite, memoirist and interior decorator. He was the second son of Reginald Herbert, 15th Earl of Pembroke. He spent his first few years in Castletown, Ireland. At the age of four, he moved to the family home of Wilton, near Salisbury. Attending preparatory school at Wixenford, he later was sent to Eton. He had brief stints as both a film actor, appearing in 1930's "Knowing Men", and as a cabaret performer. - Robert Barltrop
Robert Barltrop (born 1922) is an English socialist activist, essayist, and biographer. Barltrop grew up in the East End of London, descended from a long line of blacksmiths, although his father was a horse fodder dealer; he educated at the Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow. During World War II, he served with the Royal Air Force. He was for many years a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. - Charles Robert Ashbee
Charles Robert Ashbee (London, May 17, 1863-Sevenoaks, Kent, May 23, 1942) was a designer and entrepreneur who was a prime mover of the English Arts and Crafts movement that took its craft ethic from the works of John Ruskin and its co-operative structure from the socialism of William Morris. He was the son of businessman and erotic bibliophile Henry Spencer Ashbee. He received his education at Wellington College. - Bud Flanagan
Bud Flanagan (14th October 1896 - 20th October 1968) was a popular English wartime entertainer, born Chaim Reuven Weintrop in Whitechapel, in the East End of London. - Dick James
Dick James (born Reginald Leon Isaac Vapnick, 12 December 1920, in East End, London - died 1 February 1986) was the singer of the "Robin Hood" and "The Buccaneers" theme songs, from British television in the 1950s, and was a friend and associate of renowned record producer George Martin. - Basil Henriques
Basil Lucas Quixano Henriques (1890-1961) was a Jewish philanthropist, concentrating his work in the East End of London during the first half of the 20th century. From a prominent Jewish family, Henriques was educated at Harrow School and University College, Oxford. After serving with distinction in the Tank Regiment during the World War I, he married in 1917 Rose Loewe, she was to assist him in his work throughout their marriage. - Lena Kennedy
Lena Kennedy (June 15, 1914 - 1986), was an English author. Her books were mostly historic romantic fiction set in and around the East End of London where she lived for all her life. Some of her books, including her autobiography, were published posthumously. She appeared, as a subject, on the television programme "This Is Your Life" shortly before her death in 1986 - Morris Cohen
Morris Abraham "Two-Gun" Cohen was a London-born Jewish soldier who became aide-de-camp to the Chinese leader Sun Yat-sen and a major-general in the Chinese army. According to a 1954 biography written by Charles Drage with Cohen's assistance, Morris Cohen was born in London in 1889 to a family that had just arrived from Poland. However, a 1997 revisionist account wrongly speculates<sup>1</sup> that Cohen was actually born into a poor Jewish family in Radzanów, … - Roger Delgado
Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto (March 1, 1918 - June 18, 1973) was a British actor, best known for his role as the Master in "Doctor Who". He was born in Whitechapel, in the East End of London - Delgado often remarked to "Doctor Who" actor Jon Pertwee, a close friend, that this made him a true cockney, as he was born within the sound of the Bow Bells - although his mother was Spanish and his father French. - Smiley Culture
Smiley Culture - real name David Emmanuel - is a British reggae singer and DJ. Although his period of fame and success was brief, he did produce two of the most memorable reggae singles of the 1980s, in which he displayed a remarkable verbal dexterity. Emmanuel, born and raised in South London, is the son of a Jamaican father and South American mother. Prior to his recording career he worked as a DJ with the Saxon Sound system, … - Terrance B. Lettsome
Terrance B. Lettsome (March 11, 1935 - January 12, 2007) was a politician for whom the British Virgin Islands main airport is named. Born Terrance Buckley Lettsome, in Long Look to Francis Henry and Frances Lettsome, he was one of the Territory's longest-serving legislators and the ninth of 11 children. He married the former Claudia Frett, a retired school principal, and was the father of four children, Bertrand Lettsome, Baines Bradley Lettsome (deceased), … - Ralph Davenant
Reverend Ralph Davenant founded Davenant Foundation School in 1680, when he left £100 in his will to start up a school for the poor boys of Whitechapel, London. Ralph Davenant was Rector of St Mary's in Whitechapel in the East End of London. - Abs Breen
Richard Abidin "Abz" Breen (June 29, 1979-) is an English DJ and musician, formerly a singer and rapper in the boy band Five. He attended the Italia Conti Stage School in London before starting his musical career. Besides singing and rapping, Abz was a dancer, a DJ and played several instruments. Breen was born in London's East End to Turan, who is Turkish while his mother, Kay, is Irish. After Five disbanded in September 2001 after nearly five years, … - Richard Calder
Richard Calder (born 1956, London) is a notable British science fiction writer who lives and works in the East End of London, but who spent over a decade in Thailand (1990-1997) and the Philippines (1999-2002). He began publishing stories in 1989, and first came to wider notice with the post-cyberpunk novel "Dead Girls" (1992). "Dead Girls" expanded into an acclaimed trilogy of books, for which he was compared to William Gibson, J.G. Ballard and Alfred Bester. - Geraldine Swayne
Geraldine Swayne born in England in 1965. After studying for a degree in Fine Art, she became a painter and film maker. In the late 1990's she won a Northern Arts Travel Award, and moved to New Orleans USA and then on to Languedoc in France for a year, where she was represented by Stanislaw Demidjuk. On her return, she worked in London's growing film industry, making special effects for any number of commercials and movies. - Ben Wicks
Ben Wicks, CM, (October 1, 1926-September 10, 2000) was a Canadian cartoonist, illustrator, journalist and author. Wicks was a Cockney born into a poor, working class family in London's East End near London Bridge. He learned to play the saxophone in the British Army and toured Europe with a band. He emigrated to Canada in 1957 with his wife Doreen Wicks with just $25. - Tommy Flowers
Thomas (Tommy) Harold Flowers, MBE (22 December 1905 - 28 October 1998) was a British engineer. During World War II, Flowers designed "Colossus", an early electronic computer, to help solve encrypted German messages. Flowers was born in London's East End on 22 December 1905, the son of a bricklayer. After an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering, he earned a degree in electrical engineering at the University of London. - Donna Ewin
Donna Ewin (4 June 1970 Bethnal Green, London, England) is an English model. She has appeared in plenty of top shelf publications and she also appeared regularly in the BBC's "Fast Show". She is now a cabbie in London's East End, following in a family tradition. Also Donna can be found on match days down at Upton Park the home of West Ham United, where she is a regular with her family on match days. - Abba P. Lerner
Abba Ptachya Lerner (October 28, 1903-October 27, 1982) was an American economist. Lerner was born on October 28, 1903 in Bessarabia (territory now in Ukraine or Moldova). He grew up in a Jewish family, which emigrated to Great Britain when Lerner was three years old. Lerner grew up in the London East End. From the age of sixteen he worked as a machinist, a teacher in Hebrew schools, and as a businessman. He entered the London School of Economics in 1929. - William Walsham How
William Walsham How (December 13, 1823 - August 10, 1897) was an English bishop. The son of a Shrewsbury solicitor, How was educated at Shrewsbury School and Wadham College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1846, and for upwards of thirty years was actively engaged in parish work at Whittington in Shropshire and Oswestry (rural dean, 1860). He refused preferment on several occasions, but his energy and success made him well known, … - Pearl Binder
Lady Elwyn-Jones née Pearl Binder (born 1904, died 1990). Author, playwright, stained-glass artist, lithographer, sculptor, ceramicist and champion of the Pearly Kings and Queens, she was a legendary character who had a lifelong fascination with the East End of London where she settled in the 1920s. She was born in Salford and studied art at evening classes. - Arthur Winnington-Ingram
Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram (January 26, 1858 - 1946) was Bishop of London from 1901 to 1939. He was born in Worcestershire, the fourth son of Rev. E. Winnington Ingram and of Louisa (daughter of Henry Pepys, Bishop of Worcester). Ingram was educated at Marlborough College and Keble College, Oxford. He was a private tutor, 1881-84; curate at St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, 1884-85; private chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield, 1885-89; head of Oxford House, Bethnal Green, … - Harry Levene
Harry Levene was a boxing promoter, active in London between the 1950s and 1980s. Nicknamed "The Merchant of Menace", Levene was a long-term professional rival of Jack Solomons on the London boxing scene. Levene first came to prominence as the manager of East End Jewish boxer Jack Kid Berg.
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