Tottenham (pronounced "tot-num" by locals) is an urban area of north London, England in the London Borough of Haringey, situated north-east of Charing Cross.

History

There has been a settlement at Tottenham for over a thousand years. It grew up along the old Roman Road, Ermine Street, (some of which is part of the present A10 road) and between High Cross and Tottenham Hale, the present Monument Way.

Etymology

Tottenham is believed to have been named after Tota, a farmer, whose hamlet was mentioned in the Domesday Book; hence Tota's hamlet became Tottenham.

Early Tottenham

In 1894 Tottenham was made an urban district and on 27 September 1934 it became a municipal borough. As from 1 April 1965 the municipal borough formed part of the London Borough of Haringey.

The River Lee formed the eastern boundary of the Municipal Borough of Tottenham with the Municipal Borough of Walthamstow. It was the ancient boundary of Middlesex with Essex and the boundary of Danelaw. Today it forms the boundary between the London Borough of Haringey and the London Borough of Waltham Forest. A major tributary of the Lea, the River Moselle, also crosses the borough from west to east—this often gave rise to serious flooding until it was mostly covered over in the 19th century.

From the Tudor period onwards Tottenham became a popular recreation and leisure destination for wealthy Londoners. Henry VIII is known to have visited Bruce Castle and also hunted in Tottenham Wood. A rural Tottenham also featured in Izaak Walton's book The Compleat Angler published in 1653 2. Tottenham remained a semi-rural and upper middle class area until the 1870s.

Modern Tottenham

In late 1870 the Great Eastern Railway introduced special workman's trains and fares on its newly opened Enfield and Chingford branch lines. Tottenham's low-lying fields and market gardens were then rapidly transformed into cheap housing for the lower-middle and working classes, who were able to commute cheaply to inner London. This fare policy stimulated the relatively early development of the area into a London suburb.

An incident occurred on 23 January 1909, which was at the time known as the Tottenham Outrage. Two armed robbers of Russian extraction held-up the wages clerk of a Rubber Works in Chesnut Rd. They made their getaway via Tottenham Marshes and across the Lea where they hijacked a Walthamstow Corporation Tramcar, hotly pursued by the police on another tram. The hijacked tram was stopped but the robbers continued their flight on foot. Being eventually cornered by the police, they shot themselves to evade capture. Two were shot and killed - PC Tyler and Ralph Joscelyn, a boy of ten; fourteen were wounded during the chase. The incident later became the subject of a Silent Film.