East India Docks

The East India Docks was a small group of Docks in the Blackwall area of East London, just north of the Isle of Dogs.

History

Following the successful creation of the West India Docks which opened in 1802, an Act of Parliament in 1803 set up the The East India Dock Company, promoted by the Honourable East India Company.

The docks were located to the north east of the West India Docks. They were based on the existing Brunswick Dock, which had been used for fitting out and repairing ships as part of Blackwall Yard. The Brunswick Dock, which had originally been connected directly to the Thames to the south, became the Export Dock. To the north the company built a larger 18 acre Import Dock. Both were connected to the Thames via an eastern entrance basin.

The Company was rapidly profitable, with commodities such as tea, spices, indigo, silk and Persian carpets. The tea trade alone was worth £30m a year. The docks spawned further local industry, with spice merchants and pepper grinders setting up around the dock to process goods.

In 1838 the East and West India Companies merged. In 1886, in the last act of a ruinous game of leapfrog with the London & St Katharine Dock Company they built the Tilbury docks. In 1909 the docks were taken over by the Port of London Authority, along with the other enclosed docks.

While much smaller than the West India Docks or the later Royal Docks, the East India Docks could still handle East Indiamen of 1000 tons and up to 250 ships at one time. However the advent of steam power and larger ships reduced the importance of this dock and by the mid-20th Century most of the trade had left.

The docks played a key role in the Second World War as a location for constructing the floating Mulberry harbours used by the Allies to support the D-Day landings in France.

Following the Second World War, in which all the docks were badly damaged, the East India Docks were confined to occasional Channel Islands traffic and to the maintenance of dredger equipment etc. . It ceased generation in 1984 and was demolished in the late 1980s.

The docks were the first London docks to close, in 1967.

East India Docks today

Today the docks have been mostly filled in. Only the entrance basin remains, as a wildlife refuge and an attractive local amenity. The area is predominantly residential with several major developments either complete or under construction around it. One, the Leamouth Peninsula will form the western boundary of the dock, and is intended to be completed by 2012.