Albert Road is a spinal route running parallel to this stretch of the Thames, which served the substantial commercial and residential development built around the Royal Docks during the late nineteenth century. Parts of the road were either in North Woolwich, Kent, or East Ham, Essex, originally having sequences of street numbering in two directions, but all is now within the London Borough of Newham. This view shows the stationer and tobacconist shop of Edwin Smith, originally from Mile End, which by the time of the 1901 Census was run by his widow Eliza. The three-storey building was at 88 Albert Road on the corner of Storey Street, the name displayed on a street sign above the shop's hoarding, which also shows BOOKSELLER, STATIONER & NEWSAGENT, E.SMITH, and TOBACCONIST across its three facades. The well-stocked windows display an array of picture frames, books, and other stationery goods, and news boards are shown leaning in and around the doorway. A boy stands on the pavement in Albert Road, his image blurred by the long photographic exposure time. Cracks can be seen in the brickwork between the windows above the shop doorway and alarmingly a brick appears to be missing from above the upper-floor window, indicating subsidence in a relatively new structure, possibly due to it being built recently on marshland.
