Tower division in the context of "Middlesex"

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a borough in London, England. Situated on the north bank of the River Thames and immediately east of the City of London, the borough spans much of the traditional East End of London and includes much of the regenerated London Docklands area. The 2019 mid-year population for the borough is estimated at 324,745.

The borough was formed in 1965 by merger of the former metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal Green. 'Tower Hamlets' was originally an alternative name for the historic Tower Division; the area of south-east Middlesex, focused on (but not limited to) the area of the modern borough, which owed military service to the Tower of London. The Tower of London itself is located in the borough, adjacent to its western boundary with the City of London.

The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have universally accepted boundaries on its northern and eastern sides, though the River Lea is sometimes seen as the easternmost boundary. Parts of it may be regarded as lying within Central London (though that term too has no precise definition). The term "East of Aldgate Pump" is sometimes used as a synonym for the area.

The East End began to emerge in the Middle Ages with initially slow urban growth outside the eastern walls, which later accelerated, especially in the 19th century, to absorb pre-existing settlements. The first known written record of the East End as a distinct entity, as opposed to its component parts, comes from John Strype's 1720 Survey of London, which describes London as consisting of four parts: the City of London, Westminster, Southwark, and "That Part beyond the Tower". The relevance of Strype's reference to the Tower was more than geographical. The East End was the urbanised part of an administrative area called the Tower Division, which had owed military service to the Tower of London since time immemorial. Later, as London grew further, the fully urbanised Tower Division became a byword for wider East London, before East London grew further still, east of the River Lea and into Essex.