Limehouse Boys

Background Information The story in this book is set around 1830 in the East End of London in an area known as Tower Hamlets, specifically Limehouse and the parish of St Anne’s, which is where all births, deaths and marriages that occur on British flagged ships anywhere in the world are recorded, then and now. Some of the major characters in the book are the bargemen who plied their barges loaded with cargo up and down the Thames Estuary. The Thames sailing barge is a flat-bottomed sailing vessel of up to 250 tons’ burden with two masts carrying a unique rig. It is said to be designed to be sailed by two men, a boy and a dog. Sailing barges are very seaworthy, though designed for coastal and river work, not the open ocean, and were the heavy hauliers of the east coast of England well into the 1950s. This map depicts the Thames Estuary on the east coast of England, and the map below depicts the Thames River winding its way through the London Environs and their boundaries in 1830. Both maps depict key locations mentioned in the book.