page_title: Sands End
section_title: Industrialisation
hierarchical_section_title: Sands End / History / Industrialisation
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Evelyn de Morgan and her husband William De Morgan
context_page_description: Sands End is an area of the ancient parish of Fulham, formerly in the County of Middlesex, which is now the southernmost part of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England. In a deep loop of the River Thames, between the tidal Chelsea Creek and the old Peterborough estate, west of Wandsworth Bridge, its northern edge is New King's Road. While wharves, industrial acres and workers' cottages gave way to intensive re-development such as Chelsea Harbour and Imperial Wharf in the last quarter of the 20th-century, it still contains some 300-year-old cottages and 19th century streets.
context_section_description: In spite of its rural charms, the area was affected by flooding, dampness and the effluent descending from Counter's Creek, sometimes referred to as a sewer, so by the early 19th-century, the estate was in decline. Dr Barton MD, author of 'the Lost Rivers of London', quotes a colleague from the West London Medical Journal, who had observed that rheumatism was unusually common on both sides of Counter's Creek from Shepherd's Bush to Chelsea.
  In 1824, twenty acres of the estate were bought by the Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company, the first public utility enterprise in the world. So began almost two centuries of industrialisation and manufacturing. Craftsmen and artists were still attracted to its fringes, most notably, William De Morgan, a friend of William Morris and a member of the Arts and Crafts movement.
  The growth of the Temperance movement produced yet another brewery in Fulham, only without any alcohol content. On an eight-acre site in Sands End, just east of Wandsworth Bridge, the Polish-born entrepreneur, Henry Lowenfeld built the Kops Brewery that started production in 1890. It lasted to the dawn of World War I when it was turned into a margarine factory and later turned to food logistics.
  In 1901, Fulham Council built its gasworks here, while MacFarlane Lang had established its biscuit factory nearby. Sands End became noted as a close knit working class community in the industrial heartland of Fulham with its gas works, power station and petrol depot providing work for generations of local families.
caption: William and Evelyn De Morgan lived and worked in Sands End
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