People lived their squalid lives against a background of immorality, drunkeness, crime and violence. Robbery and assault were commonplace and the streets ruled by gangs. The streets were most unpleasant places, the many alleyways were unlit at night and prostitutes and brothels were common place. In an attempt to overcome these problems William Booth, founded the Salvation Army in Whitechapel, close to Christopher Wren's Trinity House Almshouses. Opened in Whitechapel Road in 1750, the London Hospital is the largest general hospital in the country.
Early engravings show it appearing as a stately home looking over the neighbouring countryside.
One of its first surgeons was a Huguenot refugee, Gabriel Risoli re, but it was another well known East End figure, taking a medical degree who has become a household name. In December 1870 he opened his first Childrens' Home at 18 Stepney Causeway under the patronage of Lord Shaftesbury. He died in 1905 through overwork, having rescued and trained 60,000 destitute children and assisted 250,000 more in want. Virtually next door to the hospital, few people know that beneath the large Post Office Building is the starting and finishing point of the six mile Post Office Railway tunnel. Opened in 1927, it is the only one of its kind in the world, an environmentally friendly means of transporting mail underneath our capital through Mount Pleasant to Paddington.