Sir John Cass was an English merchant, Tory Member of Parliament and philanthropist. He was also a key figure in the Royal African Company, which was involved in the Atlantic slave trade.

St Mary Matfelon church, popularly known as St Mary's, Whitechapel, was a Catholic then after the English Reformation a Church of England parish church on Whitechapel Road, Whitechapel, London. It is repeatedly supposed by many works and oral histories that the church was covered in a lime whitewash, which gave the chapelry (district) its common name, Whitechapel. Around 1320, it became called St Mary Matfelon. About that time it became a parish in its own right but its priest for many years was a nominee of the Rector of Stepney. The church's earliest known priest was Hugh de Fulbourne in 1329. Last rebuilt in the 19th century, the church was firebombed during the Blitz leading to its demolition in 1952. Its nave's stone footprint and graveyard – its headstones removed – are the basis of Altab Ali Park on the south side of the thoroughfare.