Welcoming the World

Welcoming the World: Nowadays

Ilford Lane has historically been the most culturally diverse part of Ilford.

This shop opened at 30 Ilford Lane in about 1932. By the 1930s, Ilford Lane was home to a small Jewish community. Most had grown up in the East End and came from families who had escaped the Russian empire. As their economic circumstances improved, they moved out of the East End and settled in Ilford town centre.

Samuels Kosher Butcher, 30 Ilford Lane, 1935

Redbridge Heritage Centre

Dr Bhatia was a G.P. doctor at 207 Ilford Lane from 1935. Dr Bhatia had trained at the University of the Punjab, Lahore (now in Pakistan). By 1939, Dr Bhatia had been joined in his Ilford Lane practice by Dr Jai Deo Prasad, who had trained in Lucknow, northern India. At this time, there were only around 200 Indian doctors in London so they would have been an unusual sight.

Dr Ganpat Rai Bhatia and Dr Jai Prasad, 207 Ilford Lane, 1939

1939 Register, The National Archives / Ancestry

James Alexander set up a housing association on Ilford Lane in 1971. He had been born in Trinidad & Tobago and settled in Seven Kings in 1963, where he worked as an insurance salesman. Interviewed by Redbridge Museum, he said:

“I decided to set up the Trinity Housing Association which moved to Ilford Lane in 1971. It was rather difficult for black people to get a house to rent…
Redbridge Council gave me a hundred derelict houses in Ilford town centre that we refurbished and rented to coloured people, Irish, anybody who couldn’t get it themselves.”

Interview with Redbridge Museum in 2005 (OR101)

Trinity Housing Association, 73 Ilford Lane, 1972
© Alexander Archives

Anwar Hussain ran Anwar’s Halal Butcher’s on Ilford Lane, opened by his father in 1972:

“My dad came to this country in 1958… and came to Ilford in 1972, where I’ve lived ever since. At that time there were no Asian shops on Ilford Lane. Slowly, slowly, they started increasing and now we have all Asian shops on Ilford Lane which is good for business.
It wasn’t as multicultural as what it is today. In them days you only had the Asians from Kenya or Uganda, and the West Indians, but now you’ve got Somalians, Bengalis, Pakistani’s, Indians, Eastern Europeans – we cater for all of them now.”

Interview with Redbridge Museum in 2005 (OR121)

Bag from Anwar’s Halal Butcher, 2005

Redbridge Museum 2006.4041

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