One question often asked in the East End is ‘What is a Cockney’?

Well, a common definition of a cockney is a person who has been born within the sound of Bow bells. This has nothing to do with the suburb of Bow to the east of London but to the church of Saint Mary le Bow, Cheapside, in the City of London.

A study carried out in the Millennium Year 2000 tried to determine just how far the Bells of Bow could be heard, (given the noise levels of today would not have been so prevalent when the term was originally coined!)

The conclusion was that they would have been heard for six miles to the east, five miles to the north, three miles to the south, and four miles to the west. Today, that is an area that covers Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Stepney, Wapping, Limehouse, Poplar, Millwall, Hackney, Hoxton, Shoreditch, Bow, and Mile End, and even Bermondsey which is actually south of the River Thames.

One of the defining features of a being a Cockney, however, is use of the dialect known as Cockney Rhyming Slang.

No quite knows when Cockney rhyming slang originated in the East End of London, but it is thought to have started to be used from around 1840 onwards.

There is some thought that it came into being as an alternative form of dialect – a bit of a ‘code’ between the street traders and costermongers with unsuspecting customers being completely unaware of what was being said about them. Others believe that it may have been used by the criminal fraternity as a way of confusing the Police force of the time.

John Hotton produced a ‘Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant & Vulgar Words’ in 1859 which included, for the first time, a Glossary of Rhyming Slang – some of which are reproduced below. Try it out for yourself.