White’s Row is a narrow thoroughfare running east-west from Commercial Street to Crispin Street.
The roadway and northern side of White’s Row formed part of the Wheler estate. The southern side was in the late seventeenth century owned by Nathaniel and John Tilly and in the eighteenth century by the Shepherd family. It formed the northern boundary of the tenter ground stretching south to Wentworth Street, which remained an open space until the nineteenth century. The southern side was built up by Nathaniel Tilly quickly in the 1650s.
The line of the street appears to be shown, without buildings, on Faithorne and Newcourt’s map which was published in 1658 but probably surveyed in the 1640s. In 1675 it was said that houses had been built on the south side of the street by ’Mr Tilly’ about twenty-five years before.
The street was apparently not designedly laid out nor its northern side, at the southern end of Spital Field, built up until about 1673, when building at this southern end of the field was undertaken by Nicholas and Cooke, the Wheler trustees.
In the summer of 1675 Sir Christopher Wren made a report to the Privy Council on a complaint against Nicholas and Cooke from Nathaniel and John Tilly, the owners of houses on the south side of White’s Row. He reminded the Council that when permission to build had been granted to Nicholas and Cooke in November 1672 for ye Builders better direction there was annexed a design to ye said Grant … whereby a 24 foot Street is directed to be layd out and left open before the houses of Mr. Tilly which formerly fronted ye said fields on the South.
Wren reported that Nicholas and Cooke, instead of making a street open on its northern side and twenty-four feet wide, had begun to build another row of houses fronting ye houses of ye said Mr. Tilly and had obliged the lessees to enclose sixteen feet of the proposed width of the street in front of the new houses and to convert ye same to private yards, leaving open only a passageway ten feet wide in front of Tilly’s houses. They had also failed to provide sewers, as was required in their patent, and had raised the ground in front of Tilly’s houses in such a way as to obstruct their ground floor and make them damp.
The northern side followed suit in the 1670s. By the late 1600s, the street was known as ’New Fashion Street’.
By 1707, the Tilly properties were owned by Nathaniel Shepherd (their names were commemorated in Shepherd Street - now Toynbee Street - and Tilley Street, now demolished) and under Shepherd’s lease, No.5 White’s Row was built in the 1730s (and is still standing). Access to the Tenter Ground Estate was also accessible by a large covered arch known as Shepherd’s Place, constructed in the early 1800s.
By the late 19th century, White’s Row had become considered part of the slums of Spitalfields. It was home to a number of lodging houses, Nos. 8 (Spitalfields Chambers), 26, 35 and 36, although the latter three had been closed by 1854.
Spitalfields Chambers was home to possible Ripper victim Annie Millwood at the time she was attacked on 25 February 1888.
The ’Paul’s Head Tavern’ public house on the northern corner with Crispin Street was where the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee held a meeting on 13 November 1888 in order to consider how they may be able to assist the police following the murder of Mary Jane Kelly.
Apart from No.5, much of White’s Row was redeveloped in the 20th Century. The western end was destroyed by bombs during the Second World War. The most significant change came in 1963 with the demolition of the northern side to make way for a van and lorry park, opened in April 1964. The current White’s Row Multi-storey car park was built c.1971 in its place.
