WHERE OUR ANCESTORS LIVED

Our branch of the Cavalier Family which originally came over from France with dispossessed Huguenot families from France settled in and around London.
The following excerpts from later writings give details of Mile End, Stepney, Whitechapel and Spitalfields where the family lived, and worked. We begin with Spitalfields and the others will be found on the pages that follow.

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Spitalfields
Re-printed from From: "The Copartnership Herald", Vol. I, no. 10 (December 1931)

With the exception of its inhabitants and of those who have business there to attract them, Spitalfields is but little known even to a large number of the population of East London, whose acquaintance with it is often confined only to an occasional journey in a tramcar along Commercial Street, the corridor leading from Whitechapel to Shoreditch. By them the choice of the site of the church, as well as that of the market, may very easily be attributed to the importance of the thoroughfare in which they are both now found; but such is not the case, for until the middle of the last century Commercial Street had not been cut through the district. The principal approach to Spitalfields had previously been from Norton Folgate by Union Street, which, after a widening, was referred to in 1808 as "a very excellent modern improvement." About fifty years ago this street was renamed Brushfield Street, after Mr. Richard Brushfield, a gentleman prominent in the conduct of local affairs.
The neighbourhood has undergone many changes during the last few years owing to rebuilding and to the extension of the market, but the modern aspect of the locality is not, on this occasion, under review, for the references which here follow concern its past, and relate to the manner of its early constitution.
In 1728 the parish of Christ Church, Middlesex (to give the legal appellation), was formed out of a portion of the old parish of Stepney. The vicinity, however, continued to be called by the name established by long usage, and which originally had been bestowed on a small area included in it, that is to say, the fields which once had been at the back of and adjoining the Priory of St. Mary Spital. This priory was founded by William Brune, a citizen of London, and his wife Rosia, in the year 1197 on the highway outside Bishopgate in the parish of St. Botolph. Although its lands had extended northwards to the boundary of the parish of Shoreditch, the site of the Spital was between what is now Spital Square and White Lion Street, where until recently there could be seen built in the first house on the north side a stone jamb marking where once stood an ancient gate.
This religious house, in the course of the years that followed its foundation, received many benefactions from the citizens of London, and at its dissolution in 1534, when its property was surrendered to King Henry VIII, there is evidence that its revenues had been at least partially appropriated to good uses, for, according to the historian John Stow "besides ornaments of the church and pertaining to the hospital, there was found standing one hundred and eighty beds well furnished for the poor, for it was an hospital of great relief." The date when the Priory and Spital - described as strongly built of timber with a turret at one corner - was demolished is not known, but sixty years after its dissolution, in 1594, the site was occupied by "many fair houses, builded for the receipt and lodging of worshipful and honourable men" (Stow)
On the east side of the churchyard of the Hospital (now Spital Square) there was a large field formerly called Lollesworth, and later Spital field, which came into the possession of the Bishop of London in the sixteenth century. It formed no part of the liberty of Norton Folgate, which anciently belonged to St. Paul's Cathedral, and which derived its name from the important Foliot family, one of whom, Gilbert, was Bishop of London from 1163 to 1186.
When the Spital field was broken up in 1576, for clay to make bricks, an interesting discovery was made. Many urns, coins, bones and vestiges of coffins were found, indicating that it had been used as a place of burial by the Romans. During the eighty years that followed the discovery there was very little change in the appearance of this and the adjoining fields, over which the archers and men with the cross-bow practised in Tudor days, and where then and long afterwards the citizens took their walks to Bethnal Green and Mile End amid rural surroundings.
In Cromwellian times here was the place of an occasional fair such as that to which allusion is made in the satirical verse of an anonymous writer who mocked the differences in the prognostications of those astrologers and mountebanks who:
"to try
In one poore day to vent their foolerie;
Whereupon resolved to constitute a faire
In Spittlefields, exposing each man's ware
To public view."
A change was soon about to take place. In 1657 an Act was passed which contained a clause enabling "William Wheler Esquire, who is by lease and contract engaged to build certain houses in and upon lands in Spitalfields in the parish of Stepney, at any time before 1 October 1660 to erect, new build, and finish, upon eight acres of the said fields, on part whereof divers houses and edifices are already built and streets and highways set out, several houses, and other appurtenances." This marks the beginning of the transformation of the district, for by 1660 the field was covered with buildings, and the remembrance of the occurrence is perpetuated in the name of Wheler Street.
Spital Square occupies the plot of ground on which there once stood, at the north-east corner, a pulpit cross, first found mentioned in 1398, from whence were preached for many years the celebrated Spital sermons during the Easter holidays. At these,the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Sheriffs always attended, robed in violet gowns on Good Friday and Easter Wednesday, and on the other days in scarlet. Near the south side of the pulpit was a two-storeyed house, built in 1488 at the expense of an Alderman, the first floor being for the accommodation of the Lord Mayor and the second for the bishops who might attend.
On such occasions persons of distinction became the guests of the Lord Mayor for the rest of the day, and were "lovingly and honourably both welcomed and entertained with a most liberal and bountiful dinner."
It is recorded by Hughson, the topographer of London, that in 1559 Queen Elizabeth I came into the City from St. Mary Spital "in state attended by 1000 men in harness with sheets of mail, corslets, and morrice pikes, and ten great pieces (cannon) drawn through the city, to her palace; the cavalcade was attended with drums, flutes and trumpets, two morrice dancers, and two white bears in cart." This was in the mayoralty of Sir William Hewett, and as probably was usual on such occasions, the Queen in the first year of her reign, honoured the Spital sermon with her presence.
The Spital sermons were here preached until the Pulpit Cross was destroyed in the troublous days of Charles I. From the Restoration to the year 1797 they were preached at St. Bride's Church, and since that time at Christ Church, Newgate Street.
Westwards of the Spital field there was an enclosed piece of ground which had belonged to the dissolved Priory, and which was called Tasel Close because teazles, a prickly plant, were grown there for the cloth-workers who used them in dressing their cloth. (A machine now used to carry out this process is still called a teazle.) Henry VIII granted this land to the Fraternity of the Artillery for their exercise ground, and here they shot at the popinjay with the cross-bow. The charter incorporating the Fraternity granted by the King was surrendered for a new one with larger powers given by Queen Elizabeth in 1585 during the Spanish threat of invasion. Here merchants and other citizens trained themselves and others in the management of guns, pikes and halberds, and to take command of the common soldiers. When the City troops mustered at the camp at Tilbury in 1588 the captains were selected from the Artillery Company and called Captains of the Artillery Garden.
"Well, I say, thrive brave Artillery Yard,
.....that has not spar'd
Powder or paper to bring up youth
Of London in the military truth."
-----Ben Jonson, Underwoods, xii.
The danger being past, the assemblies were neglected, and the artillery ground, enclosed by a brick wall, was reserved for the gunners of the Tower of London, who "levelling certain pieces of great artillery against a butt of earth made for that purpose, they discharged them" (Strype). When the members of the Artillery Company renewed their activities, and obtained the permission of King James I, weekly use of the ground was made by "divers worthy citizens, gentlemen and captains using martial discipline...to their commendation in so worthy an exercise."
About 1640 the Artillery Company, having greatly increased in number, removed from Spitalfields to Finsbury, and the two artillery grounds, the "Old" and the "New," were respectively so distinguished.
The use of the old Ground was continued by the London Trained Bands, and it was the place where the Parliamentarians enlisted their first soldiers against the King. Clarendon, referring to the battle of Newbury, wrote that "the London Trained Bands and auxiliary regiments, of whose inexperience of danger, or any kind of service beyond the easy practice of their postures in the Artillery Gardens, held till then too cheap in estimation, behaved themselves to wonder, and were in truth the preservation of the army that day."
Samuel Pepys recorded a visit to Spitalfields:
"20 April 1669. In the afternoon we walked to the Old Artillery Ground near the Spitalfields, where I never was before, but now by Captain Deane's invitation did go to see his new gun tryed, this place being the place where the officers of the Ordnance do try all their great guns."
In consequence of the Old Artillery Ground being subject to the Tower, it became one of its liberties, and, with the adjoining liberty of Norton Folgate, it was included among the Tower Hamlets, and ultimately the former liberty and part of the latter were incorporated in the Borough of Stepney.
In those times when open country lay around the City, it was, in fine weather, a pleasant walk of a little less more than four miles by lane and field path, from Stepney to Islington. The Red Lion inn by the Spital Field was known as the Half-way House, but when all around was built over, it stood at the corner of Red Lion Court, east of Spitalfields Market. Nearly three hundred years ago in this rural spot lived Nicholas Culpeper. He was born of good family, and after studying at Cambridge, became an apprentice to an apothecary in Bishopsgate. To the study of physic he added that of astrology, and in 1640, when he was twenty-four years old, set himself up here as an astrologer and physician. He joined the Parliamentarian army and in one of the battles was wounded in the chest, which contributed to his untimely end in 1654 at the age of thirty-eight years. He was a writer and translator of several books, of which the most known is The Complete Herbal, a work "being an astrologo-physical discourse of common herbs of the nation; containing a complete Method or Practice of Physic whereby a Man may preserve his Body in Health, or cure himself when sick with such things only as grow in England, they being most fit for English Constitutions."
As an astrological doctor, many came to him for advice which he gave to the poor without fee or reward, although he appears to have been in necessitous circumstances. Of him, Dr. Johnson said, "the man that ranged the woods, and climbed mountains in search of medicinal and salutary herbs, has undoubtedly merited the gratitude of posterity." This statement, however, is not borne out by facts, for Culpeper lived the greater part of his brief life in the eastern part of London.
When the Huguenot weavers landed at the various English seaports and resorted to Spitalfields, preparations had already been made for their reception and their immediate relief. The concourse comprised over 13,500 persons, including women and children, besides which there were a number of ministers of religion, lawyers and physicians. To understand how this settlement came to be made in a new neighbourhood, and by whom it was arranged, a few references will have to be made to the silk industry in England previous to that time.
Until the latter part of the sixteenth century the weaving of silk in this country was confined to the production of small wares such as laces, girdles, fringes, ribands and the like. The religious troubles in the Netherlands at that time caused many merchants and artizans who were engaged in the silk manufacture to take refuge in England where they pursued their occupation. The raw silk, which was imported from the Continent in skeins, had to pass through the hands of the throwster before the weaver could be employed upon it. The throwster, by means of a machine, twisted lightly the silk into a slight kind of thread known as singles, and these singles were combined to form tram. By a larger series of operations the raw silk was unwound from the skein; each individual thread was spun, twisted or "thrown," and two or more of these spun threads were twisted to form organzine. All these operations are included in the general term "silk throwing" and are entirely distinct from weaving.
Before the arrival of these Dutch refugees, the fabrics known as broad silks, such as lustrings, satins, brocades and velvets, had been imported. With the object of introducing into England this flourishing industry, for the advancement and the benefit of the realm, James I warmly supported a project for the culture and rearing of silk worms, and with this end in view he encouraged the planting of mulberry trees. The project, similar to that which had proved profitable in France, failed, but the king succeeded in inducing many silk throwsters, dyers, and broad silk weavers to come to England.
In 1629 the Silk Throwsters were incorporated, and no one was allowed to set up in that occupation without serving an apprenticeship of seven years and becoming free of the Company. Ten years later, the Weavers Company (one of the oldest City Companies, founded when wool was the staple of English trade) admitted into their body a certain number of silk weavers. In 1661 the Company of Silk Throwsters, it was said, employed 40,000 men, women and children, but this statement doubtless was exaggerated. Many so employed lived and worked in the immediate vicinity of Aldgate, Bishopsgate and Shoreditch, from whence they gradually spread towards Spitalfields. The Act of Parliament empowering the erection of houses there by Sir George Wheler was the result of the increase of the population engaged in the industry, for the building over the fields lying outside the City was prohibited in the absence of statutory authority.
The appearance of the neighbourhood in 1669 can be inferred from an Order in Council made in that year, which states "the inhabitants of the pleasant locality of Spitalfields petitioned the Council to restrain certain persons from digging earth and burning bricks in those fields, which not only render them very noisome but prejudice the clothes which are usually dryed in two large grounds adjoyning, and the rich stuffs of divers colours which are made in the same place by altering and changing their colours." In 1681 Charles II, constrained by public opinion, which was partly based on religious sympathies and partly on the knowledge of the advantages that would ensue to trade and commerce from the exercise of "a noble and valuable industry," ordered that all Protestant refugees should be allowed to enter the country with their goods free of duty, and that they should enjoy the same privileges as his own subjects. The way was thus prepared (though the event itself, of course, could not be foreseen) for the influx of French weavers six years later, when the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove so many Huguenot families of Lyons and Tours from their native land.
In April 1686 an Order in Council authorised a public collection for the relief of French Protestants, and in one year £40,000 was raised, and this sum was subsequently increased to over £63,000; single persons giving as much as £500 or £1,000 each. Most of these immigrants were in a destitute condition on their arrival in England, but as generous assistance was forthcoming for their immediate wants, and the means were provided to earn a livelihood, it is apparent that the arrangements for their welfare had been made carefully beforehand by the Protestant throwsters and weavers and their co-religionists.
The refugees showed that they were determined to help themselves, for, being industrious, thrifty, and self-reliant, they soon settled down to work in a strange land. With a roof over their heads, a warm hearth and a stewpot on the fire, they were content and happy. They knew the art of cooking, that of obtaining the greatest amount of nutriment and at the same time presenting the food in a savoury manner. To them is owed the introduction of eating ox-tail, for before their coming the tails were thrown away by London butchers as offal. Being foreign folk, and therefore having no claim to relief under the poor laws, they formed mutual benefit societies against sickness and for burial. These societies were the first of their kind, and years afterwards suggested the formation of Friendly Societies now so widespread. They were a simple and gentle people, loving flowers and birds. On Sundays they took their children to church where the French tongue was spoken, and it was hoped that they would thus retain familiarity with their native language. At their religious devotions and in family intercourse French remained long in the the expression of love and affection, but it gradually gave way to the English speech when the old generation passed away.
The Huguenots brought with them the art of weaving many kinds of fabrics including those which were then in everyday demand, such as lustrings and alamodes, but which, unfortunately, soon went out of fashion. Another blow was the discontinuance of the use of tapestry and hangings in the interiors of great houses. These were manufactured in the district before the settlement of the refugees. The result was that the skill of the weavers was for some years afterwards principally confined to the production of silks and velvets. In 1713 it was stated that silks, gold and silver stuffs and ribbon made here were as good as those from France, and that £300,000 worth of black silk for hoods and scarves was made annually. In 1721 the value of the silk manufactured in England amounted to £700,000 more than in 1688, when wrought silks were imported from France to the annual value of half a million sterling.
The prosperity of Spitalfields reached its height about the time when it ceased to be a hamlet of Stepney and became the parish of Christ Church, Middlesex. It was then that many of the large commodious houses were built for the weavers and the silk merchants. The church, an imposing edifice designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Wren, was consecrated on 5 July 1729. Its spire, one of the loftiest in London, is 225 feet high, or twenty-three feet higher than the Monument.
Previous to the erection of the parish church, English inhabitants attended a chapel built long before by Sir George Wheler. It stood in the street that was named after him. When the parish became separated from Stepney it had its own Vestry, which numbered 195 members. In Quaker Street, where on the south side the Friends had their meeting-house, there was a charity school for thirty boys and thirty girls. The boys were taught to read and write and to "cast accompts," and the girls to read (nothing is said about writing), knit and sew. In Rose Lane and Crispin Street were the almshouses of the poor. In Bell Lane (which led from Wentworth Street to Crispin Street), stood the workhouse, wherein the poor, about 120 in number, were employed and maintained. Their chief work was winding silk for throwsters. A surgeon attended twice weekly, and was allowed £12 per annum for physic. To the credit of the French inhabitants there was in Grey Eagle Street, adjoining their chapel, a hospital in which they maintained their own poor.
In those times when open country lay around the City, it was, in fine weather, a pleasant walk of a little less more than four miles by lane and field path, from Stepney to Islington. The Red Lion inn by the Spital Field was known as the Half-way House, but when all around was built over, it stood at the corner of Red Lion Court, east of Spitalfields Market. Nearly three hundred years ago in this rural spot lived Nicholas Culpeper. He was born of good family, and after studying at Cambridge, became an apprentice to an apothecary in Bishopsgate. To the study of physic he added that of astrology, and in 1640, when he was twenty-four years old, set himself up here as an astrologer and physician. He joined the Parliamentarian army and in one of the battles was wounded in the chest, which contributed to his untimely end in 1654 at the age of thirty-eight years. He was a writer and translator of several books, of which the most known is The Complete Herbal, a work "being an astrologo-physical discourse of common herbs of the nation; containing a complete Method or Practice of Physic whereby a Man may preserve his Body in Health, or cure himself when sick with such things only as grow in England, they being most fit for English Constitutions."
As an astrological doctor, many came to him for advice which he gave to the poor without fee or reward, although he appears to have been in necessitous circumstances. Of him, Dr. Johnson said, "the man that ranged the woods, and climbed mountains in search of medicinal and salutary herbs, has undoubtedly merited the gratitude of posterity." This statement, however, is not borne out by facts, for Culpeper lived the greater part of his brief life in the eastern part of London.
When the Huguenot weavers landed at the various English seaports and resorted to Spitalfields, preparations had already been made for their reception and their immediate relief. The concourse comprised over 13,500 persons, including women and children, besides which there were a number of ministers of religion, lawyers and physicians. To understand how this settlement came to be made in a new neighbourhood, and by whom it was arranged, a few references will have to be made to the silk industry in England previous to that time.
Until the latter part of the sixteenth century the weaving of silk in this country was confined to the production of small wares such as laces, girdles, fringes, ribands and the like. The religious troubles in the Netherlands at that time caused many merchants and artizans who were engaged in the silk manufacture to take refuge in England where they pursued their occupation. The raw silk, which was imported from the Continent in skeins, had to pass through the hands of the throwster before the weaver could be employed upon it. The throwster, by means of a machine, twisted lightly the silk into a slight kind of thread known as singles, and these singles were combined to form tram. By a larger series of operations the raw silk was unwound from the skein; each individual thread was spun, twisted or "thrown," and two or more of these spun threads were twisted to form organzine. All these operations are included in the general term "silk throwing" and are entirely distinct from weaving.
Before the arrival of these Dutch refugees, the fabrics known as broad silks, such as lustrings, satins, brocades and velvets, had been imported. With the object of introducing into England this flourishing industry, for the advancement and the benefit of the realm, James I warmly supported a project for the culture and rearing of silk worms, and with this end in view he encouraged the planting of mulberry trees. The project, similar to that which had proved profitable in France, failed, but the king succeeded in inducing many silk throwsters, dyers, and broad silk weavers to come to England.
In 1629 the Silk Throwsters were incorporated, and no one was allowed to set up in that occupation without serving an apprenticeship of seven years and becoming free of the Company. Ten years later, the Weavers Company (one of the oldest City Companies, founded when wool was the staple of English trade) admitted into their body a certain number of silk weavers. In 1661 the Company of Silk Throwsters, it was said, employed 40,000 men, women and children, but this statement doubtless was exaggerated. Many so employed lived and worked in the immediate vicinity of Aldgate, Bishopsgate and Shoreditch, from whence they gradually spread towards Spitalfields. The Act of Parliament empowering the erection of houses there by Sir George Wheler was the result of the increase of the population engaged in the industry, for the building over the fields lying outside the City was prohibited in the absence of statutory authority.
The appearance of the neighbourhood in 1669 can be inferred from an Order in Council made in that year, which states "the inhabitants of the pleasant locality of Spitalfields petitioned the Council to restrain certain persons from digging earth and burning bricks in those fields, which not only render them very noisome but prejudice the clothes which are usually dryed in two large grounds adjoyning, and the rich stuffs of divers colours which are made in the same place by altering and changing their colours." In 1681 Charles II, constrained by public opinion, which was partly based on religious sympathies and partly on the knowledge of the advantages that would ensue to trade and commerce from the exercise of "a noble and valuable industry," ordered that all Protestant refugees should be allowed to enter the country with their goods free of duty, and that they should enjoy the same privileges as his own subjects. The way was thus prepared (though the event itself, of course, could not be foreseen) for the influx of French weavers six years later, when the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove so many Huguenot families of Lyons and Tours from their native land.
In April 1686 an Order in Council authorised a public collection for the relief of French Protestants, and in one year £40,000 was raised, and this sum was subsequently increased to over £63,000; single persons giving as much as £500 or £1,000 each. Most of these immigrants were in a destitute condition on their arrival in England, but as generous assistance was forthcoming for their immediate wants, and the means were provided to earn a livelihood, it is apparent that the arrangements for their welfare had been made carefully beforehand by the Protestant throwsters and weavers and their co-religionists.
The refugees showed that they were determined to help themselves, for, being industrious, thrifty, and self-reliant, they soon settled down to work in a strange land. With a roof over their heads, a warm hearth and a stewpot on the fire, they were content and happy. They knew the art of cooking, that of obtaining the greatest amount of nutriment and at the same time presenting the food in a savoury manner. To them is owed the introduction of eating ox-tail, for before their coming the tails were thrown away by London butchers as offal. Being foreign folk, and therefore having no claim to relief under the poor laws, they formed mutual benefit societies against sickness and for burial. These societies were the first of their kind, and years afterwards suggested the formation of Friendly Societies now so widespread. They were a simple and gentle people, loving flowers and birds. On Sundays they took their children to church where the French tongue was spoken, and it was hoped that they would thus retain familiarity with their native language. At their religious devotions and in family intercourse French remained long in the the expression of love and affection, but it gradually gave way to the English speech when the old generation passed away.
The Huguenots brought with them the art of weaving many kinds of fabrics including those which were then in everyday demand, such as lustrings and alamodes, but which, unfortunately, soon went out of fashion. Another blow was the discontinuance of the use of tapestry and hangings in the interiors of great houses. These were manufactured in the district before the settlement of the refugees. The result was that the skill of the weavers was for some years afterwards principally confined to the production of silks and velvets. In 1713 it was stated that silks, gold and silver stuffs and ribbon made here were as good as those from France, and that £300,000 worth of black silk for hoods and scarves was made annually. In 1721 the value of the silk manufactured in England amounted to £700,000 more than in 1688, when wrought silks were imported from France to the annual value of half a million sterling.
The prosperity of Spitalfields reached its height about the time when it ceased to be a hamlet of Stepney and became the parish of Christ Church, Middlesex. It was then that many of the large commodious houses were built for the weavers and the silk merchants. The church, an imposing edifice designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Wren, was consecrated on 5 July 1729. Its spire, one of the loftiest in London, is 225 feet high, or twenty-three feet higher than the Monument.
Previous to the erection of the parish church, English inhabitants attended a chapel built long before by Sir George Wheler. It stood in the street that was named after him. When the parish became separated from Stepney it had its own Vestry, which numbered 195 members. In Quaker Street, where on the south side the Friends had their meeting-house, there was a charity school for thirty boys and thirty girls. The boys were taught to read and write and to "cast accompts," and the girls to read (nothing is said about writing), knit and sew. In Rose Lane and Crispin Street were the almshouses of the poor. In Bell Lane (which led from Wentworth Street to Crispin Street), stood the workhouse, wherein the poor, about 120 in number, were employed and maintained. Their chief work was winding silk for throwsters. A surgeon attended twice weekly, and was allowed £12 per annum for physic. To the credit of the French inhabitants there was in Grey Eagle Street, adjoining their chapel, a hospital in which they maintained their own poor.
Among the picturesque features which remain in the neighbourhood and remind the passer-by of its days of prosperity is, notably, that of the beautiful shop front - a grocer's - of 56 Artillery Lane. As there are few frontages of the kind left to be seen in London, it is hoped that this attractive specimen will be long preserved. The large house to which it belongs contains much of architectural beauty, and it suggests that the original occupant must have been a cultured merchant. Besides, there is Elder Street, full of tall, staid-looking houses with distinguished doorways showing variety and charm of design. This street has an air of detachment, not to say aloofness, as though it did not desire the acquaintance of the market which has contributed to the disfigurement of Spital Square. All that is left of the latter place presents a melancholy sight, yet it can still be proud of the fine house in which for a while lived Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, a famous figure in the political world of his day, whose writings, once freely quoted, are well-nigh forgotten. His name will always be associated with that of Alexander Pope, of whom he was friend and patron.
It was in another house in the Square which, by the way, had never the shape of one, that Thomas Stothard, R.A., whose mother lived on Stepney Green, served his seven years' apprenticeship as a designer of silk fabrics. He became a profuse illustrator of many popular books such as Robinson Crusoe and The Pilgrim's Progress, and his pictures are known to many who do not know the artist's name, though it appeared often enough below the steel engravings in publications issued in the early nineteenth century. He exhibited numerous pictures at the Royal Academy, of which institution he became librarian. Of all his pictures, his "Canterbury Pilgrims" is perhaps the best known.
When Spitalfields became a parish (in 1729), nearly a half-century had passed since the coming of the Huguenots, and in the meantime not only had the aspect of the neighbourhood been altered in its appearance, but the inhabitants themselves had undergone a marked change. Of the refugees a few remained, and they were mostly represented by adults who as young children had accompanied their parents from France. The descendants of the old people formed the majority of the population, and those of the artisan class particularly were fast losing the characteristics of their foreign origin, except an excitability which may be taken into account when considering their subsequent excesses against law and order.
The manufacture of silk was esteemed, and rightly so, to be of national importance. It was the solitary industry of the Metropolis, and the centre of it and of the trade generally was Spitalfields. From the earliest days, Parliament was constantly agitated by proposals to assist it against the danger of foreign competition. In order to encourage it, high protective duties were imposed not only against the goods from France but also those from India. From the latter, the East India Company not only imported beautiful silks but printed calicoes which became fashionable.
"Our Ladies all were set a-gadding;
After these Toys they ran a-madding.
And like gay Peacocks proudly strut it,
When in our Streets they foot it."
Weavers attacked in the open street wearers of cotton stuffs - the "Calico Madams" - even tearing the clothes off their backs. In petitions to Parliament the calicoes were denounced "as a worthless, scandalous, unprofitable sort of goods embraced by a luxuriant humour among the women, prompted by the art and fraud of the drapers and the East India Company to whom alone they are profitable." In 1721, to encourage the woollen and silk industry, Parliament passed what is known as the Calico Act which prohibited the use and wear of all such printed stuffs. (This Act was repealed in 1774.) The protection from importation of fabrics from the East, except silk and velvet from India, and crepe and tiffany from Italy, gave rise to much turmoil among the woollen weavers who exported their goods in exchange. It also caused dissensions among the other branches of commerce whose vested interests were at variance with those of the weavers.
It must not be thought that the silk industry was merely confined to weaving, for all branches of the trade were represented in Spitalfields. There was the silkman, or merchant, who bought and sold raw silk, and who was the actual importer of it - principally from Italy and Turkey, and after 1741 from Persia, Russia and China. Then there was the throwster to whom reference has already been made.
Some silk was thrown or spun locally, and some at Braintree, Bocking, and other places in East Anglia. After 1720, silk mills worked by water power began to be erected in various parts of the country. The establishment of these mills originated the factory system which years afterwards spread to other industries on the application of steam power to machinery. It may here be remarked that the English spun "organzine" was not considered by the weavers of high-class material to be as good as that supplied from Italy. Then there was the dyer, a man of importance in the locality. To these are added the designer and the pattern maker. Finally, there were the master weaver, the journeyman weaver, and the persons engaged in a number of subsidiary occupations. Some were skilled - highly skilled - and some were engaged in work to which no apprenticeship was necessary.
The relations which had formerly existed between masters and journeyman became with the new generation which had grown up less cordial, and were at times strained. The master weaver might be one who employed many operatives, or he might be in quite a small way of business, but each existed side by side in distinction to the journeymen. The latter, if he were fortunate, might acquire a loom, but usually he was too poor to possess one of his own.
There was a progressive tendency as time went on towards capitalisation, somewhat due to the fact that the mercers who bought the wrought silks demanded long credit - usually not less than twelve months. There were slight banking facilities in those days for the small man, and at times it would happen that the master weavers were straightened for money, and payment of wages was withheld. This economic condition brought into the industry certain persons who were solely, and for the time being only, financially interested in the production of the goods for a monetary return, which relaxed the once close interests between master and man. It may be added, however, that the manufacture while it was carried on in Spitalfields was never organised into large units, and perhaps it would have been well if this had been possible, at least if there had been some co-operation between the master weavers for the pooling of their resources.
The industry was subject to the fluctuations produced by the demands of fashion, and it was often arrested by the difficulty of obtaining raw silk, a fact that may appear surprising until the uncertainty of the passage of sailing ships is brought to mind. A sudden stoppage of a number of looms would cause immediate distress throughout Spitalfields. The wages were never high enough to enable the journeyman weaver to tide over periods of unemployment. Time of prosperity due to the expansion of trade attracted into the neighbourhood persons who worked in the less skilled branches of the industry, many of whom had not served an apprenticeship, which added to the difficulties of affording relief to the unemployed when work was scarce.
The work of the old craft weaver engaged on plain fabric included three distinct operations: First, the winding or quilling, which was the initial operation; secondly, the pulling of the warp on the loom beam; and thirdly, the actual weaving or passing the shuttle through the warp. The first two operations required considerable skill, but the last demanded little more than reasonable ingenuity. It was said that an apt person who had never seen a loom would be able to figure out the nature of the operation in the course of an hour without any help, and with a week of practice might become a journeyman worker. If this were so, and it would appear to have been the case, it is not surprising that an invasion by Irishmen at the time of pressure, and their subsequent swelling the ranks of the distressed, should have provoked resentment and ill-will.
The rivalry of England and France in America and India, and the efforts of both nations at colonial expansion produced open hostilities between them during the years 1740-48 and 1756-1763, which stopped the importation of French silk fabrics and gave the great opportunity for the development of the industry in Spitalfields. At the end of the war in 1763 trouble occurred by the appearance of French goods in large quantities in the English market despite the high duties levied upon them. In fact, for the greater part they were smuggled. A commission was appointed to inquire into the grievances of the Spitalfields silk-weavers, and it recommended the exclusion of foreign silks. A bill to that effect was brought into the Commons and passed by them, but it was rejected by the Lords. The disappointment of the weavers took the form of a riot. A deputation waited on the King with a petition representing the miserable condtition of the silk manufacture from the clandestine importation of French silks, praying for relief. They were kindly received by the King, and soon afterwards a large number of French patterns were seized by the Government, containing several thousand patterns ranging in value from 5s. to £5 a yard, which were being handed about to the mercers by French emissaries. As the weavers appeared ready to commit any kind of outrage, the principal silk mercers, fearing riot, undertook to countermand all their orders for foreign silk. The discontent of the weavers, which was encouraged by the masters, was only at length pacified by the promise of the redress of their grievances, and in the following year a Bill passed through Parliament prohibiting the importation of foreign silks.
The journeymen had for some years, under the guise of their benefit societies, combined with the object of compelling the masters to raise wages, and on one occasion several thousand journeymen assembled in Spitalfields, "and in riotous manner broke open the house of one of their masters, destoyed his looms, and cut a great quantity of silk to pieces, after which they placed his effigy in a cart, with a halter about his neck, an executioner on one side, and a coffin on the other; and after drawing it through the streets they hanged it on a gibbet, then burnt it to ashes and afterwards dispersed." [From the "Gentleman's Magazine", November 1763] Throughout the years 1765-70 there was serious trouble. The protection from foreign competition did not bring about the increase of wages as immediately expected, and this, and certain dislocations in the industry, disturbed the centre of the trade and caused it to be in a state of ferment and riot. In 1768 an Act was passed declaring it to be a felony and punishable with death to break into any house or shop with the intention of maliciously damaging or destroying silk goods in the process of manufacture, but the frequent acts of violence upon the employers continued.
Some evidence of the organisation among the journeyman weavers is afforded by the incident in September 1769, when an attempt was made to arrest an entire meeting. An officer with a party of soldiers invested an alehouse, the "Dolphin," in Spitalfields, "where a number of riotous weavers, commonly called cutters, were assembled to collect contributions from their brethren towards supporting themselves in order to distress their masters and oblige them to advance their wages." (Annual Register, 1769.) Meeting with desperate resistance, the soldiers fired on the weavers and killed two, and captured four. The remainder fled and lay concealed in cellars of houses and in the vaults of the churches throughout the night of terror not only for them but for their womenfolk. Two of the captured weavers were sentenced to death and were hanged at the cross roads on Bethnal Green.

Spitalfields (Part V)
From: "The Copartnership Herald", Vol. I, no. 14 (April 1932)
The unrest among the journeymen weavers, and the frequent outbreaks of violence, led, in 1778, to the passing of an Act generally known as the Spitalfields Act. This was brought about by the masters in the hope that it would bring to an end disputes regarding wages, and that better relations would ensue. It provided that wages should be settled by local justices. In practice, the representatives of the masters and the men met together, and, after they had argued and reached an agreement as to what constituted a fair price of labour, the wages list was submitted to the magistrates. Upon ratification by them it became by law a fixed rate until altered by subsequent agreement. Masters paying more or less wages than that decreed were liable to a penalty of £50 which would be distributed among distressed journeymen. On the other hand, if the journeymen should ask or take greater or less wages, or enter into combinations to raise them, or assemble to petition on the subject of them in numbers of more than ten (except when going to the magistrates), they were subjected to a fine of 40 shillings.
The original Act, which applied to silk weavers, was extended in 1792 to those engaged in the manufacture of mixed goods, such as those which were formed of silk and worsted; and in 1811, to women as well as men. These Acts were intended to protect both masters and wage earners from injustice, but they incidentally involved restrictions on the conduct of the trade, and, being considered to have done more harm than good, they were repealed in 1824. Until then, the magistrates had the power of limiting the number of threads to an inch in the fabric, of deciding the widths of many sorts of work, and of determining the quantity of labour not to be exceeded without extra wages. In a petition to Parliament to repeal these statutes, it was set forth that "these Acts by not permitting the masters to reward such of their work man as exhibit superior skill and ingenuity, but compelling them to pay an equal price for all work well or ill-performed, have materially retarded the progress of improvement and repressed industry and emulation."
That the operation of these Acts was confined to a prescribed locality was extremely unfavourable to Spitalfields; for manufacturers were at liberty to undertake elsewhere the same kind of work and pay for it, without breaking the law, at a great reduction. There was also no medium between full regulation wages and the total absence of employment. The wages were only enough to eke out a bare existence, and there was a continuous state of distress, for the weavers were dependent on the fluctuating basis of trade in respect of the different sorts of material which included those of the richest quality - as well as the poorest and thinnest. Among the former were the costly brocades, damask, velvets, gauzes and satins, and those termed mixed goods, because of the fabrics being woven with the warp of silk and the woof, or shute of worsted such as bombazines and poplins, all of which employed intermittently a vast number of looms. About 1790 the industry began to spread to other parts of the country, at first to the Eastern Counties, where it could be carried on without statutory restrictions.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century attempts were made through the leaders of fashion to provide steady employment for the Spitalfields weavers by inducing the wearing of silk fabrics at balls and assemblies. A lady, if she had not a silk dress, felt she had forfeited her self-respect. Under the influence exerted for so good a purpose, bombazine, once used solely for the making of mourning garments, threw off its sombre hue, became gay in divers colours and adorned not only the living fair but those within the pages of the romances of the day. This fabric, with the poplins and the gauzes, once employed a vast number of looms in Spitalfields, but their manufacture respectively passed afterwards to Norwich, Dublin, and Paisley.
The fashionable demand for silk promoted smuggling on an extensive scale from France, the importation of which was prohibited. So audacious was this illicit trading, that the payment of a premium of £28 on stuff to the value of one hundred pounds would guarantee delivery in London. In 1826 the prohibition of their importation was removed and a duty of 80 per cent. imposed. It was perhaps better that the Customs should receive the money rather than that it should go into the pockets of the intermediate agents.
In 1831 there were working 14,000 to 17,000 looms in the Spitalfields district, which had a population of about 100,000 persons, half of which number were entirely dependent on the weaving industry. This district comprised parts of Mile End New Town and Bethnal Green where the erection of many one-storied cottages had been already begun for the weaving families who were employed as out-workers. By the invention of the steam engine, mechanical power challenged hand-loom weaving as a commercial undertaking, and the trade of Spitalfields suffered. Many weavers of technical skill in the spirit of enterprise went to Macclesfield, Coventry, Braintree and other places where, after 1880, steam machinery had been set up, by which the output was not only increased but cheapened, and where the drudgery of long hours of labour was removed and the uncertainty of irregular employment was to a large extent lessened.
This was followed by another blow in 1860, when in consequence of the commercial Treaty with France the English market became overcrowded with attractive and low-priced foreign-made fabrics. Thousands of Spitalfields weavers found their livelihood taken from them. Some migrated to the centre of textile manufactures in the North, but many remained in an impoverished state, to be relieved by public charity. The distribution of funds raised for this purpose attracted into the neighbourhood persons who claimed to be distressed weavers and who further pauperised the district.
A few large firms, who had adopted the factory system, and some master weavers continued to find work for some of the best skilled weaving families. They were engaged in the production of high grade fabrics, the manufacture of which was not so much affected by foreign competition. These employers gradually left the neighbourhood, and one of the firms last to leave transferred, in 1895, some sixty families to their works at Braintree.
This brief account of the Spitalfields silk industry is of a somewhat gloomy nature, but it is the aspect from the economic point of view. Another, and one more agreeable, will probably be presented if the reader will visit the Bethnal Green Museum where are shown pieces of brocade and figured silks which offer a fairly representative survey of the work done by the Spitalfields weavers between the years of 1698 and 1875. These fabrics, exquisitely designed and executed with technical skill, will bring to mind the thought that Art and Industry are not merely assessable in terms of money, but that there is a different kind of value to be found in the appreciation and enjoyment of beauty and craftsmanship.

by Sydney Maddocks
Reprinted with permission of David Rich, Tower Hamlets History On Line.

In his own introduction to his book, The Great Train Robbery, Michael Crichton gives a very vivid and descriptive view of London during the mid 1800's during which period the story in the book is set. The detail is evocative of how our own ancestors, who are otherwise detailed on this site, were living and a great feeling of warmth is brought about when we remember our own Great Great Grandparents as well as their siblings.

I quote from the introduction and pages of the book.

Victorian England was the first urbanized, industrialized society on earth and it evolved with stunning rapidity. At the time of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, Georgian England was a pre-dominately rural nation of only thirteen million people. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the population had nearly doubled to twenty four million. Half the people lived in urban centres.

Victorian England was a nation of cities; the conversion from agrarian life seemed to have occurred almost overnight; indeed, the process was so swift that no one really understood it.
Victorian writers, with the exception of Dickens and Gissing, did not write about the cities, Victorian painters did not portray urban subjects.
There were conceptual problems as well - during much of the century, industrial production was viewed as a kind of particularly valuable harvest, and not as something new and unprecendented. Even the language fell behind. For most of the 1800's, "slum" meant a room of low repute, and "urbanize" meant to become urbane and genteel. There were no accepted terms to describe the growth of cities or the decay of portions of them.

This is not to say that Victorians were unaware of the changes that were taking place in their society, or that these changes were not widely, and often, fiercely, debated.
But, the processes were still too new to be readily understood. The Victorians were pioneers of the urban industrial life that has since become commonplace throughout the Western World. If we find their attitudes quaint, we must nonetheless recognize our debt to them.

The new Victorian cities that grew so fast glittered with more wealth than any society had ever known - and they stank of poverty as abject as any society had ever suffered. The inequities and glaring contrasts within urban centers provoked many calls for reform.
Yet, there was also widespread public complacency, for progress - progress in the sense of better conditions for all mankind - waqs inevitable. We may find that complacency particularly risible today but, in the 1850s it was a reasonable attitude.

During the first half of the 19th century, the price of bread, meat, coffee and tea had fallen; the price of coal was almost halved; the cost of cloth was reduced 80 per cent and per-capita consumption of everything had increased. Criminal law had been reformed, personal liberties were better protected; Parliament was, at least to a degree, more representative and one man in seven had the right to vote. Taxation had been reduced by half. The first blessings of technology were evident: Gaslight glowed throughout the cities; steamships made the corssing to America in ten days instead of eight weeks; the new telegraph and postal service provided astonishing speed in communications.

Living conditions for all classes of Englishmen had improved. The reduced cost of food meant that everyone ate better. Factory working hours had been reduced from 74 to 60 hours per week for adults and from 72 to 40 for children. The custom of working half-days on Saturday was increasingly prevalent and the average life span had increased by five years.

There was, in short, plenty of reason to believe that society was, "on the march," that things were getting better and that they would continue that way. The very idea of the future seemed more solid to the Victorians than we can comprehend. It was possible to lease a box in the Albedrt Hall for 999 years and many citizens did so.

But of all the proofs of progress, the most visible and striking were the railways. In less than 25 years they had altered every aspect of English life and commerce. It is only a slight simplification to say that, prior to 1830 there were no railways in England. All transportation between cities was by horse-drawn coach or cart and such journeyw were necessarily, uncomfortable, unpleasant, dangerous and expensive. Cities were consequently isolated from one another.

The social impact was extraordinary, so was the howl of opposition. There was opposition on aesthetic grounds, Ruskin's comdemnation of all the bridges over the Thames to accommodate the railways echoed a view widely held by his less refined congtemporaries. The aggregate disfigurement of town and countryside was uniformly deplored. Landowners everywhere fought the railways as deleterious to property values (Nothing has changed) and the tranquility of towns was disrupted by the thousands of rough, itinerant, camp living "navvies" who arrived to shift the tons of earth necessary to build these railways.

This was the time of great upheaval from the last centuries of living in one place and the beginning of the dissipation across this country and of the world of the familes.

In the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st different technology, the internet has once again brought the families closer together.