Huguenots in London

Ever wondered what Nigel Farage, Simon Le Bon, Eddie Izzard, Laurence Olivier and Daphne du Maurier all have in common? Answer: they are all of Huguenot descent. The arrival of these skilled French artisans in late 17^th century Britain was to have a substantial economic and cultural impact, particularly in London where the newcomers laid the foundations of the ‘rag trade’ that was to become so important for the capital’s prosperity.

Protestants had already suffered persecution in Catholic France for over a century before what limited privileges they had were finally removed by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a law which had been enacted to protect the rights of Protestants after the Massacre of St Bartholomew. Its removal led to terrible carnage, with Protestant houses and businesses destroyed and people threatened with violence if they refused to convert to Catholicism.

Huguenot immigrants arriving in Dover, 1685

Although emigration was effectively outlawed, about 200,000 Huguenots left France to settle in non-Catholic Europe - the Netherlands, Germany, especially Prussia, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and even as far as Russia where Huguenot craftsmen could find customers at the court of the Czars. The Dutch East India Company sent a few hundred to the Cape to develop the vineyards in southern Africa. About 50,000 came to England, perhaps about 10,000 moving on to Ireland.

Exit routes taken by fleeing Huguenots

Some 13,000 Huguenots came to London, most from the cities of Tours and Lyon. William III guaranteed the incomers’ rights of worship and issued a proclamation granting them: “all privileges and immunities for the liberty and free exercise of their trade and craft… to render their living here comfortable and easy to them”. This was very welcome as those who did leave their homeland were not allowed to bring any money or possessions with them. They called their flight Le Refuge and themselves réfugiés, hence a new word (refugee) was coined.

By 1700 there were around 25,000 French Huguenots in a London of over half a million people. The refugees settled in three principle areas – Spitalfields, Wandsworth and Soho. By 1711 probably two in five inhabitants of the parish of St Anne’s Soho were French, with dense clusters around Old Compton Street.

Silk merchant's shopfront in
Artillery Lane, 1756

The new arrivals  were mostly well-educated, middle-class artisans and journeymen silk weavers. These were the ones who settled in Spitalfields. Silk weaving was already going on in this area and was highly lucrative given that silk  was used for everything from clothes to headwear and domestic hangings. But the Huguenots’ particular skills with fine French silks transformed the industry. Some of the weavers amassed huge fortunes, hence the large houses you can still see today on Spital Square and in Fournier Street.

Weavers' houses in Fournier St

Weavers’ house are always easy to recognise as they have ‘long lights’, windows that maximised daylight in the upper storeys where the work was carried out.

But not all Huguenots were weavers. Some made a living from market gardening in Chelsea and Battersea, calico printing and felt hat-making in Wandsworth or clock and watchmaking, gun-making, silversmithing and cabinetmaking in Soho. There were also Huguenot glass-blowers, jewellers and locksmiths throughout the West End.

 Of all these occupations, silk-weaving was the most susceptible to frequent periods of interruption due to a lack of raw materials or changes in fashion, each downtime leaving workers in financial difficulties. The Huguenots chose not to be a burden on the poor law authorities, preferring to make their own arrangements for those of their number who were in need. La Maison de Charité de Spitalfields (or ‘La Soupe’) was founded in 1689-90 to serve meals for Huguenots around Spitalfields and Bethnal Green who could not provide for themselves.

 They also established many self-help Friendly Societies, often based on the regions of France the immigrants had originally hailed from. In 1718 came the Hospital for Poor French Protestants, known affectionately by inmates as La Providence, off Old Street. Initially it could manage 80 inmates but by 1760 extensions to the building allowed for up to 234 residents.

Hogarth's 'Noon', 1738

This willingness to be self-sufficient meant that the Huguenots were generally welcomed by the local population, especially given that the English also hated the Pope! Despite threatened riots against foreign weavers in the East End in 1675, 1681 and 1683, , there appears to have been little physical violence directed against the French refugees and they were generally respected and accepted. In his painting and subsequent print The Four Times of Day: Noon, created in 1738, William Hogarth contrasts the prosperous, smartly-dressed and sober Huguenot churchgoers – seen leaving the French Chapel in Bog Lane, Soho - with the more chaotic group of English outside the tavern on the opposite side of the street. 

Freedom to worship was, of course, paramount and French Protestant churches soon sprang up everywhere. By 1700 there were around 24 Huguenot churches in London, with at least nine in or close to the Spitalfields area and fourteen in Soho. In 1711 the vestry of St Anne’s Soho reckoned that 40% of its population was French, such that in the mid-eighteenth century William Maitland could claim: "Many parts of this parish so greatly abound with French that it is an easy matter for a stranger to imagine himself in France".

L'Eglise Neuve, now Brick Lane Mosque

Three former Huguenot chapel buildings still survive in the Spitalfields area: L’Eglise de L’Artillerie, built in 1766 on the old artillery ground, later taken over by Ashkenazi Jews to become the Sandys Row synagogue; La Patente in Hanbury Street, built in 1719 and now the Hanbury Hall arts centre; and L’Eglise Neuve on the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane, dating from 1743, which became a Wesleyan chapel, then a synagogue in the late 19^th century and finally a mosque in the 1980s.

 

L'Eglise Protestante de Londres,
Soho Square

Today the Huguenot presence in Soho is represented by the Grade II-listed L’Église Protestante Française de Londres on Soho Square, the last remaining Huguenot church in London offering French-speaking services and cultural events. Though this building dates from 1893, the original French Protestant church can be traced back to the reign of Edward VI who authorised the founding of a Strangers’ Church for those of French and Walloon origin in 1550.

 Within a few decades of their arrival in this country, the Huguenots had fully integrated and lost many of their outward ethnic trappings. By the second half of the 18^th century, French was being used much less and large numbers chose to anglicize their names: Lenoir became Black, Blanc became White and Bonenfant became Goodchild, for example. But their influence is still very much evident in the history and architecture of significant areas of London and it is estimated that as many as two in every three English people has Huguenot blood in their veins.  Eh bien, dis donc!   

 

References:

London in the Eighteenth Century Jerry White

The East End Chronicles Ed Glinert

Website: https://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/history.html