[1] The pub takes its name from the ballad and legend The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green.

In 1865, William Booth preached his first open-air sermon outside the Blind Beggar, which led to the establishment of the East London Christian Mission, later to become the Salvation Army.

On 9 March 1966, Ronnie Kray shot and murdered George Cornell, an associate of a rival gang, the Richardsons, as he was sitting at the bar.

[7] The pub takes its name from the ballad and legend The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green.

The story of how he went from landed gentry to poor beggar became popular in the Tudor era, and was revived by Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published in 1765.