Ilford, United Kingdom

Ilford straddled the important road from London to Colchester. The Middlesex and Essex Turnpike Trust controlled and maintained the road from 1721. The River Roding was made navigable for barges as far as Ilford Bridge from 1737. Ilford remained largely rural until its expansion in the 19th century. This brought about brickworks, cement works and coal yards to service the new buildings, largely centred on the River Roding. In 1839, a railway station was opened on the line from Romford to Mile End. The early businesses gave way to new industries, such as paper making and services such as steam laundries and collar making, to provide for the new commuting class created by the railway.

A number of major businesses have been founded in the town, including the eponymous photographic film and chemicals manufacturer Ilford Photo. This was founded in 1879 by Alfred H. Harman, a photographer from Peckham, who established the business in a house in Cranbrook Road making gelatino-bromide 'dry' plates. The business soon outgrew these premises, and its headquarters moved to a site at Roden Street until 1976 when the factory was closed. Many Ilford Limited products are displayed at Redbridge Museum.

The radio, electronics and telecommunications company Plessey, founded in 1917 in Marylebone, moved to Cottenham Road in Ilford early in 1919 and then to Vicarage Lane where it became one of the largest manufacturers in its field. During World War II, the factory was heavily damaged by bombing and the company carried out much of its manufacture, with 2,000 workers servicing a production line, located in the underground railway tunnel between Wanstead and Gants Hill. In 1955 the company employed 15,000 workers, in sites throughout Ilford and neighbouring areas, with an extensive research department. BAL-AMi Jukeboxes were manufactured at 290–296 High Road, Ilford, during the 1950s, which also served as the headquarters of the Balfour (Marine) Engineering company. The Exchange is the main shopping centre.

By 1653, Ilford was a compact village of 50 houses, mostly sited north and south of the current Broadway and the area was distinctly rural. In 1801 the population of Ilford was 1,724 and by 1841 it had grown to 3,742. It had a population of 41,244 in 1901 and occupied an area of 8,496 acres (34 km2). 2,500 houses of the vast Becontree Estate, built by the London County Council from 1921, were within the boundaries of Ilford; the addition caused a rise in population of 11,600 by 1926.

The Central line service of the London Underground to new and former main-line stations in the area began in 1947 and the population of the Municipal Borough of Ilford peaked in 1951 at 184,706, declining to 178,024 in 1961 before being absorbed into Redbridge and Greater London in 1965. At the 2001 Census the combined populations of the Ilford North and Ilford South constituencies was 196,414.

John Logie Baird, who invented the television, moved to Ilford in the mid to late 1920s to work on his new invention. He worked in a workshop on the roof of the Plessey premises in Ley Street, which has long since been demolished to make way for new housing.

In 1922, Ilford became notorious for being the site of the Thompson-Bywaters case, a cause célèbre in the United Kingdom that later influenced the debate around capital punishment in the UK.

Ilford was also the birthplace of the actor Maggie Smith who left for Oxford at the age of four.

During World War II an Ilford man lost his life when his Royal Air Force training aircraft crashed in the United States. Local residents living near the site, in the State of Oklahoma, erected a monument in 2000 honouring the lives of all four RAF fliers who perished. The event was attended by the Mayor of Redbridge and his mace-bearer, to much local acclaim. The residents, who include Choctaw Indians and the Choctaw Nation government, continue honouring the lives of all four on each anniversary of the crashes, which took place in February 1943.

Its proximity to the Olympic Park in Stratford meant that in 2011, Ilford was the fastest-growing tourist destination in Europe due to the London 2012 Summer Olympics.