Named after Beckton and its park, recalling Simon Adams Beck of the Gas Light and Coke Company.
Beck was the company's governor when work on Beckton Gas Works began in 1868, on remote Thameside marshland called the East Ham Levels. By 1881 the workers' estate at Cyprus was known as New Beckton. Besides gas, the works made by-products such as ink, dyes and fertilisers.