A British-Jewish academic who spent his career telling the stories of marginalised communities in London’s East End in the 19th and 20th centuries, has died aged 93.

As a teenager, East End-born Mr Fishman, the son of Russian-Jewish tailors, joined the Labour League of Youth and was one of many who prevented Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascist marching into Jewish neighbourhoods at the 1936 Battle of Cable Street.

After service in the Far East during the Second World War, he taught English and history at a school in Bethnal Green, later becoming principal of Tower Hamlets Further Education. He gained a student fellowship at Balliol College Oxford, and became the Barnet Shine senior research fellow in labour studies with special reference to Jews at Queen Mary, University of London.