It was historically a rural parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex, stretching from Hainault Forest in the north to the River Thames in the south.

Dagenham remained mostly undeveloped until 1921, when the London County Council began construction of the large Becontree housing estate.

Following the decline of industry, the southern part of Dagenham adjacent to the River Thames forms part of the London Riverside section of the Thames Gateway redevelopment area, with a new district of Beam Park under construction on the former site of Ford Dagenham.

[3] The charter was made to reflect a transfer of land from Aethelred, kinsman of King Saebbi of Essex, to Barking Abbey.

Like most Essex Thames-side parishes, Dagenham was laid out on a N-S axis to give it a share of the marshes by the river, the agricultural land in the centre and the woods and commons on the poorer soils on the high ground in the north.

The custom appears to have been started by the King's Commissioner of Works to celebrate the closure of the breach in the seawall around 1714–20, and was held every subsequent spring, on or around Trinity Sunday.

Thereafter it became an obligatory ritual of government for the entire cabinet to come to Dagenham and celebrate the security of the Thames and over time this simple but hearty meal based on Whitebait and local Essex Ale grew more lavish, including turtle, grouse, champagne and a range of other luxury food and drink.

[7] In 1931 the Ford Motor Company relocated from Trafford Park in Manchester, to a larger new plant in Dagenham, which was already the location of supplier Briggs Motorway Bodies.

At its peak the Dagenham plant had 4,000,000 square feet (370,000 m2) of floor space and employed over 40,000 people, although this number gradually fell during the final three decades of the 20th century as production methods advanced and Ford invested in other European factories as well.

Some of Britain's best selling cars, including the Fiesta, Escort, Cortina and Sierra, were produced at the plant over the next 71 years.

[10] The movie Made in Dagenham (2010) is a dramatisation of the 1968 Ford sewing machinists strike at the plant, when female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination and unequal pay.

Sterling, who manufactured British Army weapons and Jaguar car parts, were also based in Dagenham until they went bankrupt in 1988.

Other industrial names once known worldwide were Ever Ready, whose batteries could be found in shops throughout the Commonwealth, Bergers Paint and the chemical firm of May & Baker who in 1935 revolutionized the production of antibiotics with their synthetic sulfa-drug known as M&B 693.

The May & Baker plant, owned and run by Sanofi-Aventis, occupied a 108-acre site in Rainham Road South, near Dagenham East Underground station.

In 1885 a new direct route from Barking to Pitsea, via Upminster, was built with Dagenham station opened just north of the village.

Dagenham was still an undeveloped village, when building of the vast Becontree estate by the London County Council began in the early 1920s.

[20] The building of the enormous council estate, which also spread into the neighbouring parishes of Ilford and Barking,[14] caused a rapid increase in population.

At the time of the 2011 census, the Alibon ward (north of Heathway station) was 61% White British and 15% Black African.

c2c, part of National Rail operated by Trenitalia since February 2017, runs a train service through Dagenham Dock station.

Bus routes 5, 103, 128, 150, 173, 175, 499, and N15, and East London Transit service EL2 operate from Becontree Heath, north of Dagenham.

In the post town of Romford and the pre-1965 borough of Dagenham, on the corner of Whalebone Lane and the Eastern Avenue, diagonally opposite the Moby-Dick public house, is the site of Marks Manor House, a large 15th-century moated building demolished in the early 19th century.

During World War II the adjoining fields were used by the Royal Artillery for an anti-aircraft battery; later a prisoner-of-war camp for Germans was erected there.

This stands on the site of the milestone which marked the ten miles (16 km) limit from the City of London and the turnpike toll-gate.

Notable performers at the pub included Jethro Tull, Supertramp, Queen, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Status Quo, and Led Zeppelin (on 5 April 1969).

[39] Given the influence of U.S. blues on the English musicians who played at the Roundhouse, journalist Nik Cohn called the London of the late 1960s and early 1970s the "Dagenham Delta".

The speedway club ran various events from 1932 to 1939 and a team called the Dagenham Daggers took part in challenge matches and the Sunday Dirt-Track League.

[42] In the early hours of 26 August 2024, a fire blazed through the Spectrum Building, a tower block mostly of flats on Freshwater Road, Dagenham.