Today

As work to raise funds and improve buildings continues, Dockland Settlements remain at the heart of their local communities and host an ever increasing range of social activities including; childcare provision, parenting courses, scout & cub packs, judo, aerobics, ballroom & rock ‘n’ roll dancing, singing & music classes and a pensioners’ club. Church groups and a Computer Fair also operate each weekend in the Isle of Dogs and Stratford centres respectively.

Our remaining three centres have buildings which have now reached the stage where the Trustees are having to consider them being redeveloped or relocated. Schemes are being drawn up for the Isle of Dogs and Rotherhithe Settlements which will see them rebuilt on their existing sites in order to provide modern facilities which will add value to the lives of the people living in the local communities.

Stratford Settlement is being moved as part of the regeneration of the Carpenters’ estate which surrounds the centre and because of the impact of 2012 Olympics. All these schemes will require significant funding but the Trustees and staff are confident that all the plans will come to fruition.

In 1895 Malvern College in Worcestershire started a school mission – as did most other public schools during that period – at Canning Town in London’s East End, for the purpose of bringing welfare and recreation to the youth of the dock area slums, who were mostly unemployed and extremely poverty stricken.

The founder of the Dockland Settlements, Sir Reginald Kennedy-Cox, was then a Malvern school boy and during his holidays made several visits to the mission. In due course he went to Oxford and became immensely interested in the theatre, writing plays for West End theatres.

Upon his return to the Canning Town slums he purchased property and coined the word “Dockland”. The Dockland Settlements started shortly thereafter and was linked by the backyards to the Malvern Mission cottages. It became known as The Dockland Settlement and Malvern Mission Boys’ Clubs, with Sir Reginald in charge. Over the next few years the Settlement Mission became extremely popular with the local people as a haven of friendship, warmth and refuge from the squalid poverty outside.

There was a full time nursery school, twelve childrens clubs to which hundreds of unkempt boys and girls poured in early every evening. During the afternoons the rooms were occupied by mothers and grandparents. Those out-of-work used the carpentry workshop or were taken to the gymnasium for physical training. In the evenings hundreds of young men split into age groups came to play various indoor games and to learn the so called “noble art of self defence”. Many famous boxers learned their trade at the Mission. There was even a fully equipped dental surgery operating two evenings a week as most East Enders, because of malnutrition and lack of care, had dreadfully bad teeth.

The Settlement’s work gained such a reputation that social workers flocked in from around the country with requests for Sir Reginald to open branches in their areas and though funds were still hard to come by an expansion scheme started with the opening of Dockland Settlement No. 2 on the Isle of Dogs in 1923.

The following year No. 3 started at Bristol and others then followed at Rotherhithe, Southampton, Poplar, Dagenham, Glasgow and a Holiday Home at Herne Bay to provide facilities for needy mothers and their children. After World War II an outward bound centre was opened in the western highlands of Scotland.

View or download a Dockland Settlements

pamphlet from the '60's

View or download the

Island History leaflet
 from 2005

During this period of development King George V and Queen Mary became interested in the work and paid many visits to the Settlements around the country. The Chapel at Canning Town was formally opened by Her Majesty Queen Mary in 1929. The interest and patronage of the Royal family continued into the reign of King George VI and when he died in 1952, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother continued as a keen supporter, she was joined by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth who remains our Patron.

Throughout the war years the work of Dockland Settlements played a major role in maintaining a community spirit. Amazingly the London buildings, though shaken, survived the devastation of the East London ‘Blitz’. The success of these ‘Community Centres’ continued into the 1950’s and 60’s, but, as local authorities progressively developed their own facilities and reduced or withdrew essential funding, a large number of settlements across the country were forced into closure. Those that remained had old buildings which were in need of significant investment. Over the past 3 decades thanks to the dedicated work of the trustees, staff and volunteers, generously supported by corporate neighbours, regeneration agencies and charitable trusts, three of the centres have managed to survive.