Gangs of London. Brian McDonald

Decades before the Krays, London was plagued by gang warfare as vicious and terrifying as anything that was to come. Territorial tribes fought pitched battles for honour and pride. As the Bethnal Green Boys hunted Hackney''s Broadway Boys, Clerkenwell fought Somers Town, the Red Hands haunted Deptford and the Silver Hatchets terrorised Islington. The first ever history of these intriguing street mobs is a riveting journey through the violent underbelly of one of the world''s great cities.