Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green, a parish of 750 acres in the East End of London, which in 1885 was made a parliamentary borough, returning two members. Lying beyond Spitalfields, it boasted in the time of Pepys pleasant gardens and country houses. It is now the most poverty-stricken and squalid quarter of the metropolis, but it is the scene at present of many beneficent experiments for the improvement of the humbler classes, and among these the Bethnal Green Museum may be regarded as the most successful.