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Charlie Brown’s at Limehouse |
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The Railway Tavern, known to everyone as "Charlie Brown’s",
stood outside the Main Gate to the West India Docks and in the shadows of
the London and Blackwall Railway: One of its arches formed part of the
public house. A pub had been built on the site in the early 1840s and had
been damage by enemy bombing in the First World War. After the War a new pub
was built and opened in 1919.
Charlie Brown, the proprietor had taken over the Railway Tavern in 1893 and held the licence until his death in June 1932. He had built his reputation on his friendliness to sailors, dockworkers and other customers and became "the uncrowned King of Limehouse". He was always proud and loyal to Limehouse. However, Charlie Brown was particularly proud of his charity work both inside and outside the pub and would proudly boast to anybody who would listen that he was a Life Governor of the London Hospital, an honour given to him by the Hospital itself. The pub being in the middle of Chinatown attracted visitors from the West End who would come east to sample East End life at Charlie Brown’s. However what really made him famous and brought in the customers were the large amount of curios displayed in the bars: fabulous Ming vases, carved ivories, monstrosities floating in glass jars, Venetian glass, human skulls, old weapons, opium pipes and so on. Contrary to legend, these curios were not all bought from sailors but, the overwhelming majority, from antique dealers who would search the salesrooms for suitable curios for him. Charlie Brown was born in Hardinge Street, Stepney, off the Commercial Road, where his father, a baker, had a shop. In his early teens Charlie ran away to sea but came ashore after only one trip. Before becoming a publican, he did a variety of different jobs. He was also a boxer. When he died in 1932, his funeral was a big event with 14,000 people at Bow Cemetery and many more thousands along the route and outside the Railway Tavern. He left property worth £17,612. The Railway Tavern was demolished in 1989 to make way for the Limehouse Link Road. |
