Hackney is a district in East London, England, forming around two-thirds of the area of the modern London Borough of Hackney, to which it gives its name. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Charing Cross and includes part of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Historically it was within the county of Middlesex.
In the past it was also referred to as Hackney Proper to distinguish it from the village which subsequently developed in the vicinity of Mare Street, the term Hackney Proper being applied to the wider district.
Hackney is a large district, whose long established boundaries encompass the sub-districts of Homerton, Dalston (including Kingsland and Shacklewell), De Beauvoir Town, Upper and Lower Clapton, Stamford Hill, Hackney Central, Cambridge Heath, Hackney Wick, South Hackney and West Hackney.
Governance
Hackney was an administrative unit with consistent boundaries from the early Middle Ages to the creation of the larger modern borough in 1965. It was based for many centuries on the Ancient Parish of Hackney, the largest in Middlesex.
Hackney was a sub-manor of the Manor of Stepney, and the ancient parish of Hackney was an early daughter parish of Stepney, though the date the Hackney parish was established is not known. Hackney's church is first recorded around 1275 and Hackney may have been an independent parish by that time. The parish would have been based on the boundaries of the sub-manor of Hackney at the time it was created. Any boundary changes to the manor after around 1180 would not be reflected in changes to the parish boundaries as, across England, they became fixed at around that time, so that boundaries could no longer be changed at all, despite changes to manorial landholdings – though there were examples of sub-division in some parishes.History of the Countryside by Oliver Rackham, 1986 p19 The manorial system in England had largely broken down in England by 1400, with manors fragmenting and their role being much reduced.
The area was part of the historic (or ancient) county of Middlesex, but military and most (or all) civil county functions were managed more locally, by the Tower Division (also known as the Tower Hamlets), a historic 'county within a county', under the leadership of the Lord-Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets (the post was always filled by the Constable of the Tower of London). The military loyalty to the Tower meant local men served in the Tower garrison and Tower Hamlets Militia, rather than the Middlesex Militia. This arrangement lasted until 1900.The London Encyclopaedia, 4th Edition, 1983, Weinreb and HibbertEast London Papers, Volume 8, Number 2, The Name 'Tower Hamlets'. M.J. Power, December 1965
The ancient parishes provided a framework for both civil (administrative) and ecclesiastical (church) functions, but during the nineteenth century, there was a divergence into distinct civil and ecclesiastical parish systems. In London, the ecclesiastical parishes sub-divided to better serve the needs of a growing population, while the civil parishes continued to be based on the same ancient parish areas.
The Metropolis Management Act 1855 merged the civil parishes of Hackney and Stoke Newington under a new Hackney District. This proved unpopular, especially in more affluent Stoke Newington, and after four unsuccessful attempts, the two parishes regained their independence when they were separated by mutual consent under the Metropolis Management (Plumstead and Hackney) Act 1893 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 55).
The London Government Act 1899 converted the parishes into metropolitan boroughs based on the same boundaries, sometimes with minor rationalisations. Neighbouring Stoke Newington was smaller than the desired size for the new boroughs, and there were proposals to re-merge Stoke Newington and Hackney, or to detach the northern part of Hackney and join it with Stoke Newington. These proposals were rejected due to the experience of "intolerable and interminable feuds" between the districts when they were previously "forced together", and because the First Lord of the Treasury, Arthur Balfour recognised that there was "great ill-feeling and mutual ill-will... between the inhabitants of the two districts".Arthur Balfour, Hansard:Vol 71, Col 979,
In 1965, Hackney merged with Shoreditch and Stoke Newington to form the new London Borough of Hackney.
Prior to 1994, a small part of Victoria Park was in Hackney, but a minor boundary alteration was made so that the whole park came under the control of Tower Hamlets.
Place name origin The first surviving records of the place name are Hakney (1231) and Hakeneye (1242 and 1294). The name is Old English, but the meaning is not certain. It seems clear however that the 'ey' element refers to an island or a raised or otherwise dry area in marshland. The term 'island' in this context can also mean land situated between two streams.The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, Eilert Ekwall, 1990
The 'island' may have been beside the Lea or perhaps near the confluence of the Hackney Brook and Pigwell Brook in the Hackney Central area.
The Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names examined various interpretations of the place name and favoured the interpretation that Hackney means 'Haka's island', with Haka being a notable local person The Dictionary suggests that the 'Hack' element may also derive from: The Old English 'Haecc' meaning a hatch – an entrance to a woodland or common. Or alternatively from 'Haca' meaning a hook, and in this context, a bend of the river. The Biblical scholar James Rendel Harris theorised that 'Hack' means 'woodpecker'.Picus Who Is Also Zeus, J. Rendel Harris, 1916
Ecclesiastical parish
The ancient parish, was originally dedicated to St Augustine. By 1660 it was rededicated to St John the Baptist and usually referred to as St John at Hackney., 'Hackney: The Parish Church', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 10: Hackney (1995), pp. 115-122. Date accessed: 13 March 2014. It and its successors are in the Diocese of London. From 1825, building and the population of Hackney increased rapidly and new parishes were formed, a few of which have since been dissolved:, 'Hackney: List of Churches', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 10: Hackney (1995), pp. 122-128. Date accessed: 13 March 2014. St John of Jerusalem, South Hackney in 1825 St James, West Hackney aka (West Hackney Church) in 1825 St Thomas the Apostle, Stamford Hill in 1828 St Philip, Dalston in 1841 St Peter, De Beauvoir Town in 1841 St Barnabas, Homerton in 1846 St James the Greater, Clapton in 1863 St Augustine of Canterbury, Hackney Wick in 1867 St Matthew, Upper Clapton in 1866 Christ Church, Clapton in 1871 All Saints, Lower Clapton in 1873 St Luke, Homerton in 1873 Holy Trinity, Dalston in 1879 All Souls, Clapton Park in 1884 St Michael and All Angels, Stoke Newington Common in 1886 St Paul, Lower Homerton in 1889 St Mary of Eton, Hackney Wick in 1893 St Bartholomew, Dalston in 1897
Periphal parts of the ancient parish contributed to three other new parishes as follows: St Michael and All Angels, South Hackney London Fields in 1865 — with parts of St Jude, Bethnal Green Christ Church, South Hackney in 1871 — with parts of St James the Less, Bethnal Green, St John, Bethnal Green, and St Stephen, Haggerston St Mark, Dalston in 1871 — with parts of St Matthias, Stoke Newington
History Pre-Roman Hackney is a mostly low-lying area in proximity to two rivers, the Lea and the Hackney Brook. This would have made the area attractive for pastoral and arable agriculture, meaning most of the area is likely to have been deforested at an early date. There is archaeological evidence for settlement and agriculture as far back as the Stone Age.
During the late Iron Age, the area was part of the territory of the powerful Catuvellauni tribe.
Roman There will have been a network of probably minor, local roads in Hackney before the Romans conquered southern Britain after 43AD, but the area's proximity to the provincial capital, Londinium, meant that it was soon crossed by two large long-distance routes. The first was Ermine Street (modern A10) which emerged from Bishopsgate and headed north to Lincoln and York. The second was a route which branched off Ermine Street just outside Bishopsgate and headed SW-NE across Hackney, across the Dalston, Hackney Central and Lower Clapton areas to cross to the Lea on its way to Great Dunmow in Essex. This crossing appears to have crossed the Lea 168 metres south of the Bridge at Mandeville Street near Millfields Road (sometimes known as Pond Lane Bridge). Three Roman sarcophagus burials have been found, two of stone and one of marble. These, particularly the marble example indicate a high-status settlement of some sort. The stone examples had a coin hoard found nearby.
Anglo-Saxon The area around Millfields Park, Lower Clapton, is sometimes described as the site of a battle in which Aescwine, having rebelled against Octa, King of Kent, defeats him in battle and became the (reputed) first King of Essex. The ford over the Lea neighbouring Leyton is referred to in the (much later) accounts of the battle. Historical records describing this period are extremely sparse, so the historicity of the battle and even Aescwine himself is disputed.
The place name Hackney is Old English, so was probably first applied in this era.
Hackney was part of the territory of the Middle Saxons, a people who seem to have formed a province of the East Saxons, albeit not part of their core territory. The area was a part of the huge manor of Stepney, an area owned by the Bishop of London, and its great size and proximity to the City means it may have been part of the grant of land made when the Diocese of London (The East Saxon Diocese), was re-established in 604 AD.
Later, the Middle and East Saxon area would become subject to various other Kingdoms, last among them Wessex, which sought to unite England and roll back the partial Viking conquest of the country. A coin of Egbert of Wessex was found on Stamford Hill. The Kings of Wessex divided their kingdom into shires, with Hackney becoming part of the shire of Middlesex, an area named after the Middle Saxons.
The Norman Conquest After their victory at Hastings, the Normans needed to secure London. To this end, they burned Southwark, crossed the river upstream and harried much of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. The Manor of Stepney was less badly hit than much of the rest of Middlesex, though the area along Ermine Street (the A10), in Hackney, is believed to have been badly affected.Medieval London Suburbs, Kevin McDonnell, Phillimore Publishing, 1978 p 14
The Domesday Book of 1086 covered England at manorial level, so Hackney is only assessed as part of Manor of Stepney, of which it was a sub-manor. The landscape at this time was largely agricultural, Domesday returns for Middlesex indicate that it was around 30% wooded (much of it wood-pasture), about double the English average.Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape, Rackham, p50 Hackney would have had a lower proportion than the county as a whole, consisting of mostly lower land, close to rivers that made it more attractive for farming. The proportion of woodland in England decreased sharply between the Conquest and the Black DeathTrees and Woodland in the British Landscape, Rackham, p55 due to the pressure of a rapidly increasing population, and the same pressures would have been experienced here.
Post-medieval From the Tudor period onwards, the various settlements in Hackney grew as wealthy Londoners moved to what they saw as a pleasant rural alternative to living in London which was, nonetheless, close to the capital; in some ways it was comparable to a modern commuter town.