I found another interesting piece of information; but this begs as many questions as it does answers. From the Times on the 14th and 22nd February 1933, there are classified adverts from Reynolds and Eason, Auctioneers and Surveyors. They sold the freehold of Blackwall Buildings, Fulbourne Street for £21,300. The seller is the London & North Eastern Railway. This actually makes sense as the Rail line by the flats is the Great Eastern Railway and in 1923 this section was taken over by the London & North Eastern. I get a suspicion from this that Booth may have been wrong and the buildings might have been owned by the Great Eastern Railway. I wonder who bought it? I am sure more will follow. The rent role for the flats is £3226. Allowing for 156 flats this gives a weekly rent in 1933 of 8 shillings per flat. The other buildings sold in the same sale by the London & North Eastern were the Great Eastern Buildings. I know a little more about these and so I can make an assumption; however it is only an assumption!

When the Great Eastern Railway Company began an enlargement of Liverpool Street Station in 1887, the number of persons displaced by the demolition of ninety-three houses in St. Botolph’s Bishopsgate was estimated at 600 for whom the Company was required to provide alternative accommodation by the General Powers Act of the same year. There were 3 sets of Buildings built in 1888 to 1890 to compensate for these displaced people. One was Great Eastern Buildings (quoted from ‘The estate of Sir Charles Wheler and the Wilkes family’, Survey of London: volume 27: Spitalfields and Mile End New Town (1957), pp. 108-115. for full article click here); I think it is one possibility that Blackwall Buildings was another.

There is an alternative possibility and this has some advantages to it. In 1885 The London & Blackwall railway applied to Parliament to widen their track between Fenchurch Street and Stepney. This was granted. Most of the widening was on the North side of the viaduct, and even though Leman Street and Stepney stations were on the South side (slow line) they were redeveloped as a result of this widening. The Blackwall applied to Parliament again in 1888 and in 1891 to extend the time for the completion of the widening and this would put the time scale exactly to when Blackwall Buildings were built. If there were a substantial number of displaced people then the Blackwall Railway would have had to build philanthropic flats. Even if this is the case then there is a good likelihood that they would have been built by the Great Eastern. After all the Great Eastern leased the Blackwall Railway in 1866 for a total of 999 years and so were nominally in charge of them, Blackwall railway did very little building of their own and most was carried out by the Great Eastern. This theory would explain their name (Blackwall Buildings as opposed to Great Eastern Buildings) and also why Booth wrote that they were owned by the Blackwall Railway. So either way, if they were built because of the expansion of Liverpool Street or for the widening of the Blackwall Railway, they would have been built by the Great Eastern. Assuming this is right, then we know who built them (Great Eastern Railway), why and when. We also know London & North Eastern Railway owned them in 1933 and at that date they sold them. What we don’t yet know is who owned them after that.

Tower Hamlet’s rating rolls for 1935 has the owner listed as “Challoner’s”. It gives no more information than that. However there was a Challoner’s (D.W. Hann & E.E. Valentine) house and estate agent listed in the 1937 Kelly’s directory, 1 Challoner Street, West Kensington, London W14 and again in the 1934-6 directory, Challoner’s (F.C. Muddiman). However they don’t appear to be in existence today. I still am looking for possible other owners at other dates and also information as to rent etc.