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 19th century
Although emigration
from Germany did occur during the 17th and 18th
centuries, it was in the second half of the 19th 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 19th century. Fifty percent of all the Germans who came to Britain in the 19th 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 18th
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 19th 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 18th and 19th 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 19th 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-19th
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’).
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.
 |
| The German Hospital |
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 19th
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.
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 19th
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.
The London Compendium by Ed Glinert (2012)
The German Community in 19th 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
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)
Bibliography:
The East End Nobody Knows by Andrew
Davies (1990)The London Compendium by Ed Glinert (2012)
The German Community in 19th 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.comReview 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)
