Uncovering the seedy and salacious history of London’s most notorious quarter

Written by Callum McKelvie

ABOVE Soho legend Paul Raymond poses with one of his dancers in 1962 

The name Soho conjures images of peep shows, all-night drinking and a hive of radical alternative culture. The London area’s sensational reputation began in the 1920s when there were some 295 registered clubs within one mile of Piccadilly Circus. Scotland Yard’s Vice Squad even had a book listing the various venues through which officers could familiarise themselves with the less-salubrious nightspots. Over successive decades this number would only expand and the area would become a haven for bohemians, artists, members of the LGBT community and darker elements of society such as organised crime. Join us as we take a journey down the long-forgotten side streets of Soho’s past…

Where to begin? Well, perhaps with a bite to eat? And since the 1950s there’s only been one place in which to get a good, hearty (and cheap) meal: Chinatown. Soho’s Chinatown really began in the 1920s, when a small cluster of Chinese restaurants started to open in the area. Previously, the centre of the capital’s immigrant Chinese community had been in Limehouse, East London, which, despite having very little recorded crime soon developed a nefarious reputation thanks to works such as Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. These books portrayed the area as full of opium dens, brothels and criminal masterminds. Following WWII, the immigrant population relocated first to Gerrard Street, Soho, where soon other non-culinary related businesses began to thrive. As historian Peter Speiser explains in Soho: The Heart of Bohemian London: “It was the communist takeover in 1949 that led to an influx of Chinese refugees into war-scarred Soho. They quickly established restaurants that were increasingly popular with theatre-goers, students looking for a cheap meal, and former British servicemen who had acquired a taste for Chinese food when serving in Asia.” Many of the immigrants developed their own names for the street, including ‘Tong Yahn’, which in Cantonese roughly translates as ‘Chinese People’s Street’, and the quarter itself was referred to as the ‘Imperial City’. In the 1970s businesses began to move to Wardour Street, where contemporary Chinatown can be found today.

Of course, in Soho one has to be careful of organised crime. The Krays? Pah, move over. In Soho, Jack ‘Spot’ Comer was king. He often boasted that his nickname came from the fact that, if you were in trouble, he was always ‘on the spot’. More than likely, however, it referred to the large mole on his face. Born in 1913, Spot spent his childhood hanging around in gangs, and one event in particular had a large impact on the soon-to-be gangster. After a run-in with some rivals he was severely beaten but obtained revenge when he found the leader of the gang alone, pounding him to a pulp. “I discovered that I had to be patient to exact a full toll of vengeance,” Spot would later explain. “That fight taught me the desperation of being hounded and for the first time it taught me fear. Terrible, gibbering fear!”