Shadwell

From "The Copartnership Herald", Vol. V, no. 57 (November 1935)

Some years before the little township was formed there came into the Highway a certain John Shakespear, who established a rope-walk. He settled down to his business, which flourished. For his first wife in 1642 he chose Margaret Judd, widow, of Stepney. He married a second time in 1658 at the age of thirty-five, "Martha Seeley of Wapping Wall, mayde, 19 years." The register of Stepney Church records, in 1652, the burial of Margaret, wife of John Shawespeare of Ratcliff Highway, ropemaker." The variation in the spelling of the surname is one of the many to be found in the books of St. Paul's, Shadwell, and St. Dunstan's, Stepney, where members of three generations of the family were baptised, married, and, having lived life's little day, were interred. Even the name of the rope-walk became corrupted and was vulgarly called Shagsby's Walk after it had ceased to be used for its original purpose. It became a residential quarter - a court some 850 yards long with trees planted down the middle... It reached from the Highway to Wapping Wall, but has now entirely disappeared, the greater portion of it having been taken to form the Shadwell Basin of the London Docks. There has always existed a supposition that this John Shakespear of Ratcliff Highway was descended from one of the poet's uncles - Henry or Thomas - who may have had children that have not been traced. Despite close search of records all efforts to prove the relationship have been in vain.

Supplied by Mike Shakespeare