Welcome to my new blog - short pieces on aspects of London's history that interest me! Today's offering is about 19th century London's sizeable German community and was inspired by a visit to the German Church in Whitechapel during the 2015 Open House Weekend.

London’s German community in the 19^th century

Although emigration from Germany did occur during the 17^th and 18^th centuries, it was in the second half of the 19^th century that London’s German community grew dramatically. Census information reveals the size of this population: in 1851 there were 9,556 German-born London residents. Within ten years, this number had risen to 12,448; by 1891 there were some 26,920 Germans – excluding those who had been naturalised - living in the city. The pattern of migration was not one of steady movement but a series of peaks, the biggest occurring in 1846-57 when agricultural failures affected the whole of Europe.
Unsurprisingly, the US – having experienced economic booms in the 1860s and then again in the 1880-90s - was by far the most popular destination for those fleeing other countries at this time. However, many of the German migrants passing through London en route to America either found a job here, were attracted to join the already well-established German colony, or simply ran out of funds to continue their journey across the Atlantic. Britain too was booming, her Empire at its height, whereas Germany was still largely agricultural. In all, around five million people left Germany during the 19^th century. Fifty percent of all the Germans who came to Britain in the 19^th century ended up in London.

But there were more than just economic reasons for leaving Germany. Britain was attractive in that it offered an atmosphere of greater religious tolerance, wider political freedom and was willing to offer shelter to intellectual outcasts, dissidents and revolutionaries, including figures such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. There were 3 main waves of political refugees. These occurred in the 1830s, following the abortive revolution of 1848, and after the passing of Germany’s anti-Socialist laws in 1878. Several political organisations sprang up in the city as a result. We know that a branch of Young Germany existed in London in 1834. 1840 saw the emergence of the communist German Workers Educational Association, aimed at making workers more politically conscious. The Communist League operated in London during the 1840s and 1850s. Liberal exiles from 1848 established the German Agitation Union of London, providing a forum for debates on Germany’s political future, and the Emigration Club. Following the passage of the Anti-Socialist Laws in 1878 several anarchist groupings set up clubs in London, not only for discussing politics but providing education and social activities.

The first areas of London to be settled were Whitechapel, St George-in-the-East, and the western part of Mile End Old Town. There had been a German population here since the 18^th century, drawn by work in the sugar refineries. Before long part of this area (the district bounded by Whitechapel Road, Leman Street, the Highway - formerly St George Street - and New Road/Cannon Street Road) became known as ‘Little Germany’. It was not until the end of the 19^th century that this community started to disperse further east into Hackney, due to the decline of the sugar industry. However, a German community remained around Leman Street until the turn of the century.

But the Germans did not just settle in the East End. The mid-19th century also saw the establishment of a sizeable working-class community around Goodge Street and Mortimer Street, principally because of their proximity to the big West End houses these German tradespeople – such as tailors - served. Until quite recently there were still many German-named shops and businesses operating in this area. At one time, so many were clustered around Fitzrovia that Charlotte Street was known as Charlottenstrasse. It was in fact named (in 1787) after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of George III. Only small numbers of Germans settled south of the river, notably in Lambeth, which had a German church and an Anglo-German school in Brixton (with 70 pupils in 1881).  The main middle-class communities (mainly bankers and merchants) were to be found in Sydenham and Forest Hill, with others in Islington and Hampstead, Highbury and Kentish Town.

Though many came to London for the political reasons already mentioned, the vast majority of Germans who came here were economic migrants. Many took up work as clerks in German businesses and banks. There is much evidence of chain migration, with Germans from certain states coming to particular areas of Britain - east London tended to be a focus for natives of Hanover and Hesse. Germans also made up a substantial part of the workforce involved in east London’s sugar refining industry in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, processing raw cane sugar from the West Indies. At this time the English labour market was depleted because of recruitment of men to fight in the Napoleonic Wars, and many of the German refinery owners preferred anyway to employ their fellow countrymen. There were few objections to this among the locals as the work was notoriously arduous, unpleasant and dangerous – Friedrich Engels described the Germans who worked in the bakeries in and around Leman Street as “pallid and consumptive”. Records of the time show that of the 697 Germans who married in London in the 1860s, 197 were sugar bakers, thus forming the largest occupational group. Other trades in order of importance were: tailors, bakers and shoemakers.
Towards the end of the 19^th century, London’s German community became more dispersed throughout east London. By the 1880s the sugar refining industry had undergone rapid decline due to foreign competition. Some Germans returned home but the majority diversified into bread-baking, a trade which was almost monopolised by Germans in the east End by 1896, as well as waiting, butchering and hairdressing. These workers clearly made a good impression. An article in the Spectator described how ”…the German workman is more industrious, moderate and skilled; this is a bitter grievance to the English workman, who has not yet learned to fight the intruder with his own weapons, by practising greater economy, industry, and self-denial”.

For the large numbers of Germans settled in London, religion played a key part in maintaining their ethnic roots. In 1815 the city had five German Protestant churches and one Catholic place of worship. The majority of London’s Germans were Lutherans and a significant minority were of the Reformed Church.

St George's Lutheran Church

The first church to open (in 1763) was St George’s German Lutheran Church in Alie Street, Whitechapel. Today the only German church to survive in its original building, it was built to provide a place of worship for the emigré merchants who dominated the city’s sugar industry. By the mid-19^th century, around 400-500 people were attending Sunday services here.

St George’s didn’t remain the only German church for long. A new Reformed Church of St Paul was consecrated in 1819 in Hooper Square. It then moved in 1887 to Goulston Street and was finally destroyed by bombing in 1941.

Hamburg Lutheran Church

The Hamburg Lutheran Church originally stood in Trinity Lane in the City until 1871, when it was demolished to make way for Mansion House station. In 1876, a new church was built near the German Hospital in Alma (later Ritson) Road in Dalston. The church set about carrying out a programme of social work in the community, e.g. setting up a German Orphanage in 1878. The building is still in use today by the local West Indian congregation.

St Boniface’s German Catholic Church was originally established in 1862 in Union Street (now Adler Street). It is mentioned by Charles Booth in his Life and Labour of the People in London: “The German Catholics have a special church in Union Street, Whitechapel, which is filled every Sunday morning and evening with a very devout congregation, drawn largely from the working classes. The remarkable feature of this church is the [adjoining] bachelors’ club. It is open every evening, but its activities are greatest on Sunday. The entertainments of the club include lectures, concerts and dramatic performances.” It was rebuilt in 1875 with an adjoining primary school. This was then destroyed in the war and now a new church, dating from 1960, caters for London’s German-speaking Catholics.

German Sailors' Home

Given that the German pastors saw it as their role to attend to their congregation’s social as well as spiritual welfare, it is not surprising that a vast philanthropic network developed around the German community. Schools, orphanages and old people’s homes were built and charities were established, such as the ‘Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress’ (established in 1806 by Dr Christian A.E. Schwabe, pastor of St George’s, and still operating today as one of London’s oldest charities), and the ‘German Society of Benevolence’. Both of these bodies offered Germans financial assistance. In 1849 the pastors of the German churches in London established the ‘German Mission Among the Poor in London’. Then in 1889 a German Sailors’ Home (‘Deutsche Seemannsmission’) was founded in the East India Dock Road with the aim of protecting German sailors visiting England from the dangers they faced and caring for their physical and spiritual well-being. The mission subsequently moving to the West India Dock Road, then Limehouse, where it was bombed in 1940. During the 20 years after it opened, around 15,000 German sailors used its services.

Christian Home for German Artisans

Another significant institution was the ‘Christian Home for German Artisans’ (full name: ‘Handwerker, Heim und Hospiz und Vereinslokal des Christlichen Vereins Junger Männer, London Ost’), which opened in 1887 at 90 Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch, E.C. After two years, the hostel transferred to 88/90 Leman Street, Whitechapel. It opened initially with room for 36 beds, but by 1892 this number had increased to 63. There were also dining facilities and a meeting room.

The German Catholic Church also sponsored a number of ‘Gesellenvereine’ (journeymen’s unions), offering a varied programme of lectures, classes and “convivial conversation”. The aim: to provide religious, moral, and professional guidance to young men living peripatetic existences or, for whatever reason, finding themselves far from home. St Boniface’s also ran a ‘Vinzenzverein’ to support poor families, a burial fund and a home for girls. There were also separate organisations to cater for Germans working in particular occupations: the Association of German Governesses, established in 1876, acted as both a benevolent society and employment agency. Similar organisations existed for barbers, hairdressers and waiters.

But by far the most important welfare institution for London’s German community was the German Hospital in Dalston Lane, Hackney (nicknamed ‘The German’). 

The German Hospital

It was built with subscriptions and donations from Germany and the German community in England to cater for ‘all who spoke the German tongue, without distinction as to religion and origin, from Switzerland to the Rhine and Oder and from the Baltic to the North Sea’. A major cause of death among the German community at this time was lung disease and sugar bakers formed a large proportion of those admitted to the hospital. In emergency cases it also catered for the local English-speaking population. Housed in the buildings of the Dalston Infant Orphan Asylum, the hospital opened on 15th October 1845 with 4 men’s wards, a few rooms for female patients and a superior ‘sanatorium’ for patients of a higher social standing.  The nurses came from the Kaiserswerth Institute near Wessendorf. When Florence Nightingale visited in June, 1846 she was so impressed by the work of these Protestant nursing staff that she enrolled for a three month training course in Germany in June 1851.  In the first year, 10,000 patients came through the hospital doors, so the site was developed. The hospital was finally incorporated into the NHS in 1947. 

Three German dispensaries were also established – one at the front of the German Hospital, one in Bishopsgate and a third in Oxford Street.

As with all aspects of Victorian society, the German community too was highly stratified: working-class Germans would not have attended the same churches, schools and clubs as their middle-class countrymen. Class divisions also affected the social activities enjoyed by these Germans. Hundreds of clubs (or Vereine) existed across Britain for both middle and working class Germans, catering for a wide variety of interests. Charles Booth’s survey of London at the end of the 19^th century identified several organisations in the East End, including the United German Club (with 400 members in 1881), the Sonnenscheine and Niremberg’s in Whitechapel, the German Club and a German Bakers’ Club (at 78, Christian Street off Commercial Road) in St George’s, and a German Social Club and German Dramatic Club in Shoreditch. Clubs frequented by the upper echelons of German society included the British Wagner and Goethe Societies, the German Athenaeum and the Turnverein, or German Gymnastic Society, which was set up in 1861 by Ernst Ravenstein to improve the physical well-being of middle-class Germans in London.

Still in its original location opposite St Pancras Station, the grade ll-listed German Gymnasium (built 1864-5) is believed to have been the first purpose-built gym gymnasium in the UK. Designed by Edward Gruning and paid for by the German Gymnastics Society and London’s German community, the building also originally had a library, music club and rooms for literary meetings. The National Olympian Association held the indoor events of the first Olympic Games here in 1866 and this continued until the White City games in 1908. The main exercise hall was a grand and elegant space with a floor to ceiling height of 57ft. Long forgotten sports were practised here, including Indian club swinging and broadsword practice. The vast laminated timber roof trusses, with their original cast iron hooks from which budding Olympians swung from ropes, are still in place today. The German Gymnastics Society also had a forward-thinking approach to women’s exercise, with classes taking place here from as early as 1866. In 1882, the gym had over 1,000 members, two thirds of them English, but it ceased operation in the lead-up to the First World War. Since that time it has been used variously as offices, for storage and, more recently, as an arts and exhibition space.

Working-class clubs often met in pubs. Activities on offer included bowling and singing, billiards etc.

Expats looking for home-grown cuisine could find a number of shops, bakeries and restaurants across London to cater to their needs, including the popular ‘Schartner’s’ German pub on Long Acre.

There were also several German bookshops, including one run by George Thimm in the West End and this one (pictured) in Charlotte Street. The Germans also had their own newspapers, including the Londoner Generalanzeiger (from 1889) and the Londoner Zeitung (which started as the Hermann in 1858).

Schauer's German Bookshop

Several small, private hotels catered for Germans, such as the one at 114 Leman Street “L. Triebel - Deutsches Haus”. As well as offering accommodation, it also acted as an employment exchange for those in the hairdressing trade.

 

Triebel's 'Deutsches Haus'

Although happiest ‘among their own’, London’s Germans lived in peaceful co-existence with local Londoners throughout the 19^th century. Relations between the two national groups were good and there was frequent intermarriage. The turning point in the relationship came with Prussia’s defeat of France in 1871, fuelling fears that Britain might be the next country within Germany’s sights, and intensified in subsequent years with British suspicions of what were perceived as pro-Boer sympathies amongst the Germans living here. The continued decline in the relationship between our two nations is, of course, well documented. From 1914 all Germans were registered as ‘enemy aliens’ and within a week of war being declared, shops and other businesses with German names – until now a familiar and accepted part of London’s landscape – were being attacked. A further deterioration occurred in May 1915 when anti-German riots broke out in London following the sinking of the Lusitania. Between the wars, London’s German population dwindled markedly, with large-scale migration to the outer suburbs. The ‘Deutsche Kolonie’ – for the time being, at least - had moved on.

 

Bibliography:

The East End Nobody Knows by Andrew Davies (1990)
The London Compendium by Ed Glinert (2012)
The German Community in 19^th Century East London by Jerome Farrell (Article in The East London Record no.13 1990)
London Surprises by Adrian Marston & John Blandy (2006)
Images of London Hidden Interiors by Philip Davies (2014)
Bloody Foreigners by Robert Winder (2004)
Germans in Britain since 1500 by Panikos Panayi (1996)
The Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain during the First World War by Panikos Panayi (1991)
The Settlement of Germans in Britain during the Nineteenth Century by Panikos Panayi

Poster images from: Michelle Johansen's London Past and Present blog (originally from the London Collection, Bishopsgate Library and Archive).

Image of German Hospital Dalston from website Derelict London.com
Review of Die Deutsche Kolonie in London in the Spectator 28.1.1882
My East End: Memories of Life in Cockney London by Gilda O’Neill (2000)
London: The German Connection by Kay Mann (1993)