Coordinates: 51°32′05″N 0°00′28″E / 51.5347°N 0.00769°E
West Ham is in the London Borough of Newham in London, England. In the west it is a post-industrial neighbourhood abutting the site of the London Olympic Park and in the east it is mostly residential, consisting of Victorian terraced housing interspersed with higher density post-war social housing. The area has been one of the most deprived in the country and as part of the New Deal for Communities programme it forms, with neighbouring Plaistow, a regeneration area. The place lends its name to West Ham United F.C. and West Ham Church School.
A settlement in the area named Ham is first recorded as Hamme in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 958 and then in the 1086 Domesday Book as Hame. The earliest recorded use of West Ham, as distinct from East Ham, is in 1186 as Westhamma. It is formed from Old English 'hamm' and means 'a dry area of land between rivers or marshland', referring to the location of the settlement within boundaries formed by the rivers Lea, Thames and Roding and their marshes.
West Ham could be:
West Ham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Lyn Brown, a member of the Labour Party.
1997-2010: The London Borough of Newham wards of Bemersyde, Forest Gate, Hudsons, New Town, Park, Plaistow, Plashet, Stratford, Upton, and West Ham.
2010-present: The London Borough of Newham wards of Canning Town North, Canning Town South, Custom House, Forest Gate North, Forest Gate South, Green Street West, Plaistow North, Plaistow South, Stratford and New Town, and West Ham.
The constituency covers the western half of Newham stretching from the Thames just east of Canary Wharf to Stratford.
The boundary changes that took effect at the May 2010 election expanded the constituency by adding Canning Town from the Poplar and Canning Town constituency, whilst losing Silvertown to East Ham. The boundary with the East Ham constituency was modified to align with local government ward boundaries.
The seat was created in 1997 by the fourth periodic review (following the first such review in 1945), undertaken by the Boundary Commission, from portions of the Newham North West and Newham South seats.
West Ham United Football Club, commonly known as West Ham, is a professional football club in Upton Park, East London, England, that competes in the Premier League, England's top tier of football. They have played home games at the Boleyn Ground since 1904.
The club was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United. The club has traditionally played in a claret and blue home strip with white shorts. West Ham competed in the Southern League and Western League before joining the Football League in 1919; they were promoted to the top flight in 1923, when they also played in the first FA Cup Final at Wembley.
In 1940, the team won the inaugural Football League War Cup. The club has won the FA Cup three times, in 1964, 1975 and 1980, and been runners-up twice, in 1923 and 2006. In 1965, they won the European Cup Winners Cup, and in 1999 the Intertoto Cup. They are one of eight clubs never to have fallen below the second tier of English football, spending 58 of 90 league seasons in Division 1, or the Premier League. The club's best final league position was third place in the 1985–86 First Division.
West Ham was a local government district in the extreme south west of Essex from 1886 to 1965, forming part of the built-up area of London, although outside the County of London. It was immediately north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea.
The borough included Plaistow, West Ham, Stratford, Canning Town and Silvertown – all of the current-day London Borough of Newham west of Green Street. At the time of the 1901 census it was the ninth most populous town or district in England with a population of 267,308.The borough formed part of London's built-up area, was part of the London postal district and the Metropolitan Police District.
From 1934 to 1965 it was surrounded by the County Borough of East Ham to the east, the municipal boroughs of Wanstead and Woodford and Leyton to the north, and the metropolitan boroughs of Poplar to the west and Greenwich to the south.
West Ham underwent rapid growth from 1844 following the Metropolitan Building Act. The Act restricted dangerous and noxious industries from operating in the metropolitan area, the eastern boundary of which was the River Lea. Consequently, many of these activities were relocated to the other side of the river and to West Ham, then a parish in Essex. As a result, West Ham became one of Victorian Britain's major manufacturing centres for pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and processed foods. This rapid growth earned it the name "London over the border". The growth of the town was summarised by The Times in 1886: