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 corner shop of Edward Lewonskei and his family, an oil and colourman originally from Barnes, Surrey, believed to have been 56 by the time of the 1901 Census. It is possible he is the man shown leaning on a stepladder. The neatly dressed boy also shown standing by the shop door holding a bucket may have been a grandson or other relative as his children are thought to have been young adults by this time. The shop was at number 74 Albert Road on the corner of Glenister Street, on the north side of the road opposite Park Terrace and the Royal Victoria Gardens where the rear gardens of the terrace of post-war houses stands today on Albert Walk. Lewonskei's three storey corner shop is shown with half-urns decorating the brickwork above the hoarding, well-stocked windows displaying oil lamps, tins, metal buckets, baskets, and brushes. Signs above the doorway advertise Zebra Grate Polish, Albert Road Oil and Color Stores [sic], Ship Chandler, and John Knight & Sons Primrose household and toilet soaps, presumably supplied by their nearby works in Silvertown. The adjoining house of similar construction at number 78 Albert Road is also shown.