Jack London, Photographer
Jack London took photographs alongside his work as a writer throughout his life, creating a distinguished body of photography that stands upon its own merits beside his literary achievements. In 1903, the first edition of his account of life in the East End, The People of the Abyss, was illustrated with over a hundred photographs complementing the text which were omitted in later reprints.
Homeless people in Itchy Park, Spitalfields
“In the shadow of Christ Church, Spitalfields, I saw a sight …
… I never wish to see again”
“Tottery old men and women were searching in the garbage thrown in the mud”
Drunken women fighting on a rooftop
Frying Pan Alley, Spitalfields
Before Whitechapel Workhouse in Vallance Rd
Casual ward of Whitechapel Workhouse
“Only to be seen were the policemen, flashing their dark lanterns into doorways and alleys”
Homeless sleepers under Tower Bridge
“For an hour we stood quietly in this packed courtyard” – Salvation Army Shelter
London Hospital, Whitechapel
In Bethnal Green
Working men’s homes, Wentworth St
A small doss-house
An East End interior
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Maria Pellicci, Meatball Queen Of Bethnal Green
With the arrival of the first chills in Spitalfields, my mind turns to thoughts of steaming meatballs. So last week, I hot-footed it up the road to Bethnal Green and the kitchen of Maria Pellicci, cook and beloved matriarch at E. Pellicci, the legendary cafe that has been run by her family since 1900. Although I find it hard to believe, Maria told me that meatballs are not always on the menu here because people do not ask for them. Yet she graciously assented to my request, and even granted me the honour of permitting my presence in her kitchen to witness the sacred ritual of the making of the first meatballs of the season.
For many years, meatballs and spaghetti comprised reliable sustenance that could deliver consolation on the grimmest winter day. If I found myself in a cafe and meatballs were on the menu, I had no reason to think further because I knew what I was having for lunch. But then a fear came upon me that drove away my delight in meatballs, I began to doubt what I was eating and grew suspicious of the origins of the ingredients. It was the loss of an innocent pleasure. Thus began the meatball famine which lasted ten years, that ended when Maria Pellicci made meatballs specially for me with fresh meat she bought from the butcher in the Roman Rd.
Maria has worked daily in her kitchen in Bethnal Green since 1961, preparing all the dishes on the menu at E.Pellicci freshly as a matter of principle. More than this, reflecting Maria’s proud Italian ancestry, I can confirm that for Maria Pellicci the quality of her food is unquestionably a matter of honour.
Maria mixed beef and pork together with eggs, parsley, onion and other herbs, seasoned it with salt and pepper, letting it marinate from morning until afternoon. Then, as we chatted, her hazel eyes sparkling with pleasure, she deployed a relaxed skill borne of half a century’s experience, taking bite-sized pieces from the mixture and rolling them into perfectly formed ruby red balls, before tossing them playfully onto a steel baking tray. I watched as Maria’s graceful hands took on independent life, swiftly rolling the meatballs between her flattened palms and demonstrating a superlative dexterity that would make her the virtuoso at any card table. In no time at all, she conjured one hundred and fifty evenly-sized meatballs that would satisfy thirty lucky diners the following morning.
I was at the snug corner table beside the serving hatch in Pellicci’s immaculately cosy cafe next day at the stroke of twelve. After more than ten years of waiting, the moment was at hand, as Anna Pellicci, Maria’s daughter proudly delivered the steaming dish, while Salvatore, Maria’s nephew, brought the Parmesan and freshly ground pepper. The wilderness years were at an end, because I had spaghetti and meatballs in front of me, the dish of the season. Maria made the tomato sauce that morning with garlic, parsley and basil, and it was pleasantly tangy and light without being at all glutinous. As a consequence, the sauce did not overwhelm the subtle herb-inflected flavour of the meatballs that crumbled and then melted in my mouth, the perfect complement to the deliciously gelatinous spaghetti. Sinking my teeth into the first meatballs of the twenty-first century, I could only wonder how I lived through all those years without them.
Outside a cold wind was blowing, so I took courage from ingesting a syrup pudding with custard, just to finish off the spaghetti and meatballs nicely, and restore substance to my attenuated soul. The special quality of E. Pellicci is that it is a family restaurant, and that is the atmosphere that presides. When I confided to Anna that my last living relative had died, she told me at once that I was part of their family now. Everyone is welcomed on first name terms at Pellicci’s in an environment of emotional generosity and mutual respect, a rare haven where you can enjoy honest cooking at prices everyone afford.
I call upon my readers to help me keep meatballs on the menu at E. Pellicci now, because we need them to help us get through the winter and the rest of the twenty-first century that is to come. Let us send a collective message to the Pelliccis, that we love their meatballs with spaghetti, because when we have a cook like Maria Pellicci, the meatball queen of Bethnal Green, we cannot forgo the privilege of her genius.
Maria Pellicci has been making meatballs in Bethnal Green for half a century
Anna Pellicci with the first meatballs of the season in Bethnal Green
The coveted corner table, next to the serving hatch at E. Pellicci
E.Pellicci, 332 Bethnal Green Rd, E2 0AG
You may like to read my other Pellicci stories
Christmas Ravioli At E Pellicci
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits ( Part One)
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part Two)
How To Eat A Pomegranate
Now is the season for pomegranates. All over the East End, I have spotted them gleaming in enticing piles upon barrows and Leila’s Shop in Calvert Avenue usually has a particularly magnificent display at this time. Only a few years ago, these fruit were unfamiliar in this country and I do remember the first time I bought a pomegranate and set it on a shelf, just to admire it.
My father used to tell me that you could eat a pomegranate with a pin, which was an entirely mysterious notion. Yet it was not of any consequence, because I did not intend to eat my pomegranate but simply enjoy its intriguing architectural form, reminiscent of a mosque or the onion dome of an orthodox church and topped with a crown as a flourish. This was an exotic fruit that evoked another world, ancient and far away.
As months passed, my pomegranate upon the shelf would dry out and wither, becoming hard and leathery as it shrank and shrivelled like the carcass of a dead creature. A couple of times, I even ventured eating one when my rations were getting low and I was hungry for novelty. It was always a disappointing experience, tearing at the skin haphazardly and struggling to separate the fruit from the pithy fibre. Eventually, I stopped buying pomegranates, content to admire them from afar and satiate my appetite for autumn fruit by munching my way through crates of apples.
Then Leila McAlister showed me the traditional method to cut and eat a pomegranate – and thus a shameful gap in my education was filled, bringing these alluring fruit to fore of my consciousness again. It is a simple yet ingenious technique of three steps. First, you cut a circle through the skin around the top of the fruit and lever it off. This reveals the lines that naturally divide the inner fruit into segments, like those of an orange. Secondly, you make between four and eight vertical cuts following these lines. Thirdly, you prise the fruit open, like some magic box or ornate medieval casket, to reveal the glistening trove of rubies inside, attached to segments radiating like the rays of a star.
Once this simple exercise is achieved, it is easy to remove the yellow pith and eat the tangy fruit that is appealingly sharp and sweet at the same time, with a compelling strong aftertaste. All these years, I admired the architecture of pomegranates without fully appreciating the beauty of the structure that is within. Looking at the pomegranate displayed thus, I can imagine how you might choose to eat it one jewel at a time with a pin. It made me wonder where my father should have acquired this curious idea about a fruit which was rare in this country in his time and then I recalled that he had spent World War II in the Middle East as a youthful recruit, sent there from Devon at the age of nineteen.
Looking at the fruit opened, I realised I was seeing something he had seen on his travels so many years ago and now, more than ten years after he died, I was seeing it for the first time. How magical this fruit must have seemed to him when he was so young and far away from home for the first time. They call the pomegranate ‘the fruit of the dead’ and, in Greek mythology, Persephone was condemned to the underworld because of the pomegranate seeds that she ate yet, paradoxically, it was the fabled pomegranate which brought my youthful father back to me when he had almost slipped from my mind.
Now, thanks to this elegant method, I can enjoy pomegranates each year at this time and think of him.
“its intriguing architectural form, reminiscent of a mosque or the onion dome of an orthodox church and topped with a crown as a flourish”
First slice off the top, by running a sharp knife around the fruit, cutting through the skin and then levering off the lid.
Secondly, make radiating vertical cuts through the skin following the divisions visible within the fruit – between four and eight cuts.
Thirdly, split open the pomegranate to create a shape like a flower and peel away the pith.
Leila’s Shop, 15 Calvert Avenue, London E2 7JP
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Vegetable Bags from Leila’s Shop
George Dickinson, Sales Manager
George Dickinson, Sales Manager at Jackie Brafman’s in Petticoat Lane
Through the nineteenth and twentieth century, Petticoat Lane market was one of the wonders of London, until deregulation in the eighties permitted shops across the capital to open and the market lost its monopoly on Sunday trading.
One of the most celebrated and popular traders was Jackie Brafman, still remembered for his distinctive auctioneering style, standing on a table in the Lane and selling dresses at rock bottom prices.
George Dickinson worked as Sales Manager for Jackie Brafman for thirty-three years during the heyday of the sixties, seventies and eighties. Losing his father when he was still a child and coming to London from Newcastle as a teenager, George discovered a new family in Petticoat Lane and a surrogate father in Jackie Brafman.
“I was born as George Albert Dickinson in Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne, one of six brothers and a sister. We had a very good family life and we were happy until my father died when I was nine. In those days, they did not know whether it was cancer or tuberculosis. He was manager of a brewery and a very good piano player. He used to get behind the piano in the dining room and play the chords.
My mother had to sell our four-bedroomed house and we moved in with an aunt. After three months, the aunt died and we had to get out again. We moved to a small terraced house in Scotswood, and my mother did cleaning and worked in a pub in the centre of Newcastle. Our neighbour was a retired miner and every month he got a ton of coal from the coal board. His wife used to come ask, ‘George, Would you like to shovel it into the coal hole? If anybody wants to buy some coal, it’s sixpence a bucket.’ I used to do that for her and she gave me a shilling.
I lived there until I was fourteen when I was allowed to leave school and go to work because of the situation. My eldest brother became a fireman in Newcastle during the war and another was sent to Burma as a medic. There’s only me and my younger brother left now.
I had two jobs in Newcastle. First in a bedding company, making divans, and then I had a go at French polishing, but I got the sack from that – why I do not know. So I went to try to get a job at a fifty shilling tailors and I think I lasted about two days, I did not like it at all.
At fifteen years old, I decided to come to London. My sister met me at King’s Cross and took me to Camden Town. I was just mesmerised by it all. It was Irish and Greeks. A nice place to live at the time. She had a dairy in Pratt St and I lived with her for a little while. I got a job at a textile firm in the West End as a storeman and travelled back and forth by bus.
Then I got my call-up papers at the age of eighteen in 1956. I did ten weeks training at Winchester Barracks and from there we flew from Luton airport to Singapore where we were given a week’s jungle training before being sent to a rubber plantation which was a base for an army camp.
When I came out of the forces, I returned to the old firm but they went into liquidation, so I went to another firm which I did not like at all. I was walking around the West End and I bumped into a driver from a dress company, Peter. I had known him from the old firm. I said, ‘I’m looking for a job, Peter.’ He asked, ‘Do you mind what you do?’ I replied, ‘No, not at all.’ So he told me, ‘There’s a job going. It’s a Mr Brafman, he owns a place in Petticoat Lane.’ I did not know what Petticoat Lane was. Evidently it was a market but, coming from Newcastle, I did not have a clue.
So I phoned him up, went down the same day for the interview and met him in the dress shop. He asked me, ‘What are you doing now?’ I explained who I had worked for and he must have phoned them up, because he told me, ‘Mr Flansburgh thought a lot of you.’ After that, he said, ‘When can you start?’ ‘Any time,’ I replied. ‘Start on Monday,’ he told me.
Jackie Brafman was a terrific boss. At first, I did general things, sweeping and clearing up hangers. There were two shops, a small one which was retail and the large one was wholesale, full of stock. Over the course of time, I started selling in the wholesale department. Eventually, I met Mrs Brafman who was a pet lover. They bought two dogs and called them George & Albert after me. I built up a reputation as a good salesman and I never had to ask for a rise all the years I was there. If the boss was going to a boxing match, he always took me, even if it was Mohammed Ali. I was ringside with him when Cooper fought Ali and he split his glove. A very good man. He was like another father to me. He insisted I call him ‘Jack’ from the second week at work, so eventually I called him ‘JB.’ He did not mind that at all.
On Sunday, he used to stand on a table and auction goods to the public in Petticoat Lane. I arranged for a special desk to be made that was big enough and strong enough to stand on. We had iron rails suspended above from the ceiling where we could hang dresses, a few of each in different sizes. I used to stand on a ladder and feed the clothes to him. I even picked up a bit of Yiddish, I could count the dress sizes in Yiddish. He would tell the customers he had sizes from ten to eighteen and they put their hands up, asking ‘Have you got a ten? Have you got a twelve?’ and I would be feeding the dress out to the crowd. On two occasions, he was in hospital so I got up and auctioneered. It was at Christmas time and we did very well. He was so well known and liked.
One of his favourite sayings was ‘You’ve heard of Christian Dior, I’m the Yiddisher Dior!’ He always had a bottle of whisky on the shelf and he would say, ‘George, get the paper cups.’ Maggie, a regular customer, would come in and he would ask, ‘Would you like a drink, Maggie?’ He poured whisky into these paper cups and topped it up with cola. He would tell her, ‘I’m only doing this to get you a little but tipsy so you don’t know what you are buying.’
There was another guy who used to come in and stand on the side of the shop, and I realised what he wanted. I asked, ‘Can I help you, Sir?’ and he said, ‘No, I’m waiting for one of the ladies to serve me.’ So I called, ‘Celia, Can you come and look after this gentleman?’ Eventually, I gained his trust and he showed me his photographs of him in dresses with wigs and makeup. He looked brilliant. He was a drag artist, but he did not want the lads to know. He used to spend a lot of money and only Celia could serve him.
I became manager of the wholesale department, a double-fronted shop in Wentworth St, opposite the public toilets. People came from all over the world. Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Saudi Arabia and Arabia, as well as from all over this country. There were five girls working in the retail shop and we used to employ schoolkids to stand outside by the stall and make sure nothing got pinched.
Jack would go to the West End and buy stuff from Clifton, which was very big fashion house for larger size women, and Peter Kay and Remark and Kidmark. These were all top names years ago. He would buy ‘over-makes’ from them. If they were given an order from Marks & Spencer for a thousand garments, they might make twelve hundred in case of any problems. Jack would buy the extra at a knock-down price. We might sell a dress for four-fifty retail and three-fifty wholesale, but Jack got them for seventy pence each. He done so well Jackie.
Jackie’s father Maurice Brafman lived in Nightingale House, a home for the elderly.It was a beautiful place and he had his own room. The dining room was just like a hotel. He used to phone me up on a Friday morning and say, ‘George, Can you get me some groceries?’ I would go to Kossoff’s and buy cholla for him, and collect his kosher meat from the butcher. He did like his salami and occasionally a bit of fruit. I would put it all in a bag and, when I was going home, I would make a stop in Nightingale Lane to deliver his groceries. He would always check them and pick an argument about something. He would say, ‘You haven’t brought me so and so!’ and I would reply, ‘Mr Brafman, it’s in the bottom of the bag.’ ‘Alright,’ he would concede but he would always find fault. It was lovely seeing him. He lasted about five years there.
In the end, Jack took very ill. He was only coming in occasionally. He had a silver cloud Rolls Royce and I drove it a couple of times up to the West End to pick up stuff when he was not too well. He ran the business from home and his wife would come in occasionally to collect the takings. Sometimes, he would turn up in his wife’s car and stagger in to say, ‘Hello.’
He had two sons and two daughters and eventually Mark, the eldest brother, opened clothes shops all over London called ‘Mark One.’ His wife caught him with another woman and took him for everything. He was worth a fortune and he had a house with a ballroom in the middle. The youngest son, David, went into the business in Petticoat Lane and closed the shop.
Working at Jackie Brafman’s was the best part of my life, apart from getting married and having daughters. When I first came to London to find work at fifteen years old, I was rather shy and a bit inward. By working with Jack and talking to him, I changed. When he was not too busy, Jack would call me into the retail shop and ask me questions, ‘What do you think of this?’ I would give him my opinion and gradually I built up a bit of confidence. Mrs Brafman told me one day, ‘You know, Mr Brafman says you are the backbone of the business.’ I felt so good about it.”
Jackie Brafman, Petticoat Lane (Photograph courtesy of Jewish East End Celebration Society)
George Dickinson, Sales Manager at Jackie Brafman’s
Read these other stories about Petticoat Lane
Laurie Allen of Petticoat Lane
The Wax Sellers of Wentworth St
At The Drapers’ Hall
The Drawing Room
As long ago as 1180, the Drapers in the City of London formed a Guild to protect their interests as small traders and help members who fell into distress. The full title of the company was, “The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of the Drapers of the City of London.” More than eight hundred years later, it still exists to administer charitable trusts, inheriting headquarters that have been rebuilt over the centuries upon the site of Thomas Cromwell’s house – taken by Henry VIII after Cromwell’s execution at the Tower in 1540 and sold to the Drapers in 1543.
For years, I walked down Throgmorton Avenue and peered through the railings at the Mulberry trees growing there with out knowing that this tiny enclave of greenery in the heart of the city was the last remnant of Thomas Cromwell’s garden. Consequently, I was fascinated to visit the Drapers’ Hall and explore the chambers of the ancient livery company arranged around a hidden courtyard, following the ground plan of the great medieval hall that once stood upon this site. Until then, I had no idea that these palatial spaces existed, sequestered from the idle passerby.
Cromwell’s mansion was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666, then rebuilt to designs by Edward Jarman in the sixteen seventies and later remodelled in each of the subsequent centuries to arrive at the rambling construction I encountered, which delivers some breathtaking architectural contrasts as you walk from one space to another. Offices occupy the ground floor that give no hint of the grandeur above, unless you step into the courtyard and raise your eyes to peer through the tall windows upon the first storey where the gleam of vast chandeliers reveals lofty painted ceilings. Standing there in the stone yard surrounded by an arcade embellished with heads of the prophets, you might be in Venice or Rome.
A magnificent eighteen-nineties staircase by Thomas Graham Jackson, lavishly encrusted with alabaster and red emperor and green chipolina marble, and light by a five thousand piece chandelier, offers a suitable introduction to the wonders at the top, where the grand Dining Room awaits on your left and the even grander Drawing Room on your right. Overlooking the garden, the Dining Room is one of the oldest chambers at the Drapers’ Hall, dating from the seventeenth century yet heavily embellished with coats of arms in the mid-nineteenth century to create a shining firmament overhead, glistening in diffuse chandelier light.
Crossing the landing, you enter the Court Room where Nelson and Wellington face each other from full-length portraits at either end. Lit by tall windows overlooking the courtyard, even the grandeur of this space gives no indication of the vast Livery Hall beyond. In the sepulchral gloom, larger than life-size portraits of British monarchs line up around the walls of this cathedral-like space, where no sound of the city penetrates and the depth of silence hums in your ears. Incredibly, the embellishment in this ornate room was simplified in the eighteen nineties because the original decoration was so elaborate that it prevented the entry of light.
A narrow corridor leading from the hall and overlooking the courtyard holds the company’s succession of charters including Edward III’s Patent of 1364 followed by those granted by James I, Elizabeth I and our own Elizabeth II. Facing the Livery Hall across the courtyard is the Drawing Room, a chamber worthy of any of the royal palaces of Europe. Created by architect Herbert Williams and interior designer John G. Crace, it remains as they left it in 1868, – an exquisitely modulated symphony of gilt panelling and mirrors, glowing golden in the cool northern light.
Over-awed by the majesty of the building and distracted by the collection of old paintings worthy of any museum, I rubbed my bleary eyes when I found myself back in the dusty streets around Liverpool St Station in the grey dusk of the late afternoon, and it caused me to question whether my visit to the Drapers’ Hall had, in fact, been an apparition conjured by a daydream.
Bearded Persians by Henry Pegram flank the Throgmorton St entrance.
Staircase designed by Thomas Graham Jackson in the eighteen nineties.
A five thousand piece chandelier lights the staircase.
Jason and the Golden Fleece, portrayed upon the celiing of the Court Dining Room
Looking from the Drawing Room through to the Dining Room.
The Drawing Room by architect Herbert Williams and interior designer John G. Crace, 1868.
The Drawing Room c. 1920
The Shepherd Boy by Thorwaldsen, 1893.
The Livery Hall, c. 1920
The Livery Hall
The Livery Hall c.1920
The Livery Hall
The Livery Hall, c. 1890
This dial in the Livery Hall indicates the wind direction.
The Courtyard c. 1920
The last remnant of Thomas Cromwell’s garden.
The Garden, c. 1920
Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Eleanor Crow’s ‘Step Inside’
A few places are available for my last-ever course HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ on November 20th & 21st. This is your final chance to come to Spitalfields and spend a weekend with me in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Fournier St, enjoy delicious lunches from Leila’s Cafe, eat cakes baked to historic recipes by Townhouse and learn how to write your own blog. Email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com to book a place.
Portrait of Eleanor Crow at E. Pellicci by Colin O’Brien
I am delighted to present this preview of Eleanor Crow‘s exhibition A Step Inside opening at Townhouse, Spitalfields, next Saturday 20th November. Readers will be familiar with Eleanor’s illustrations that we published in a book as Shopfronts of London, but now she has turned her hand to paintings of interiors and still lifes.
‘I became interested in the play of light across the interiors of shops, kitchens and domestic settings, and this forms the basis of my new work,’ Eleanor admitted to me. ‘I am fascinated by the way light falls from windows across chairs and tables, over pots, brushes and baskets, across lines of bottles and jars – as well as the particular quality of a room. I am attracted to views through doors, a glimpse, a step inside.’
Kitchen at the George Tavern, Stepney
‘I was struck by the asymmetric shape of the kitchen and the huge window casting a soft light across the interior. I love the cream panelled walls and array of pots on the dresser, as well as the blues of the utilitarian plates, bowls and teapot, and the hanging shirts.’
Leila’s Shop, Calvert Avenue
‘The display of wares, backlit by light falling on the ranks of containers and the wedges of cheeses, the pats of butter, the upended bottles, and the arrivals of new produce still in their boxes, exude a calm, quiet beauty. I want to convey how it feels to enter this shop, with its sense of timelessness. I have always admired Dutch interior paintings, and to me this place embodies some of these qualities.’
Straw, Columbia Rd
‘This is a small shop that sells baskets, pots, brushes, candles – items of utility and beauty, new and old. Each basket has its individual form. The daylight is subdued, with a glancing light coming from the west, catching the shapes in the window display. The edges of the room and the baskets frame the composition.’
Berry Brothers Rudd, St James
‘I was delighted to visit the historic rooms at Berry Bros. & Rudd, the family-run wine and spirit merchant founded in the seventeenth century. This interior at No.3 St. James’s St, lit by huge arched windows, is little changed since it opened in 1698. The array of antique wine bottles above the waiting table and chairs, and the wide bench, all attest to the history.’
Courtyard at the Lacquer Chest, Kensington Church St
‘This antique shop opened in the fifties, put on the map by customers including David Hockney, Ossie Clarke, Alan Bennett and Jean Shrimpton. I first encountered it when seeking items for a photograph for a book cover, and have returned to buy pots and vases. I am particularly drawn to this yellow-painted hallway, looking through to the courtyard. Antique shops lure us in with the promise of serendipitous discoveries and this place never disappoints.’
At the George Tavern
‘I am interested in natural light and I liked the brightness of the yellow couch and stool against the soft greys of the room, and the pots not quite symmetrically placed on the mantelpiece. This is a house filled with life and people.’
Kitchen at Sutton House
‘This is the view from the Tudor kitchen of the five hundred-year-old manor house in Hackney. I chose to depict a domestic setting, looking through to a courtyard beyond, and only the face mask and trainers on the woman standing there indicate the modern era.’
Bethnal Green Library
‘Only one door into the library from the entrance hall was open and the library’s future was hanging in the balance of council decision-making. During the pandemic, the library became a vaccine trial centre, causing concern locally whether it would ever reopen. This beautiful building has served the East End for nearly a hundred years, offering the opportunity of reading to countless children and adults, including through the Blitz.’
Kitchen at Townhouse, Spitalfields
‘This basement kitchen is a warm and inviting place, with wooden walls and ceiling painted in muted greys, and copper pans and jelly moulds catching the light. I like the mixture of beauty and utility – the cakes under their glass cloches, the oranges on the counter top and the dark shapes of the cake mixer, coffee grinder and coffee machine, crowned by a pile of white cups.’
Sweetings, City of London
‘This is London’s oldest fish and oyster restaurant, which opened in 1830. The beautiful corner site on Queen Victoria St has been little changed for over one hundred years and is a much-loved institution in the City. I chose this corner because of the light cast from the frosted windows with their blue roller blinds, reflected in the tall mirrored wall panel and bouncing off the rows of glasses and cutlery.’
Bowl of Lemons
‘I like the acidic yellow of the lemons against the blue and white glaze of the bowl, and the imperfections of both.’
So Long, Huguenots Of Spitalfields
A few places are available for my last-ever course HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ on November 20th & 21st. This is your final chance to come to Spitalfields and spend a weekend with me in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Fournier St, enjoy delicious lunches from Leila’s Cafe, eat cakes baked to historic recipes by Townhouse and learn how to write your own blog. Email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com to book a place.
After more than ten years, the cultural organisation devoted to the Huguenots of Spitalfields is closing down. This unexpected imaginative flourishing was the brainchild of the estimable Charlie De Wet, who worked voluntarily for a decade, inspiring us with stories of this first wave of immigrants and, by doing so, transformed our perceptions of the Huguenots’ contribution to our society.
The wooden spools that you see hanging in the streets of Spitalfields indicate houses where Huguenots once resided. These symbols were put there in 1985, commemorating the tercentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes which brought the Huguenots to London and introduced the word ‘refugee’ to the English language.
I set out in search of any visual evidence that remains of the many thousands who once passed through these narrow streets and Dr Robin Gwynn, author of The Huguenots of London, explained to me how they came to be here.
“Spitalfields was the most concentrated Huguenot settlement in England, there was nowhere else in 1700 where you would expect to hear French spoken in the street. If you compare Spitalfields with Westminster, it was the gentry that stayed in Westminster and the working folk who came to Spitalfields – there was a significant class difference. And whereas half the churches in Westminster followed the French style of worship, in Spitalfields they were not interested in holding services in English.
The Huguenots were religious refugees, all they needed to do to stop the persecution in France was to sign a piece of paper that acknowledged the errors of John Calvin and turn up at church each Sunday. Yet if they tried to leave they were subject to Draconian punishments. It was not a planned immigration, it was about getting out when you could. And, because their skills were in their hands, weavers could leave whereas those whose livelihood was tied up in property or land couldn’t go.
Those who left couldn’t choose where they were going, it was wherever the ship happened to be bound – whether Dover or Falmouth. Turning up on the South Coast, they would head for a place where there were other French people to gain employment. Many sought a place where they could set their conscience at rest, because they may have been forced to take communion in France and needed to atone.
The best-known church was “L’Eglise Protestant” in Threadneedle St in the City of London, it dealt with the first wave of refugees by building an annexe, “L’Eglise de l’Hôpital,” in Brick Lane on the corner of Fournier St. This opened in 1743, sixty years after a temporary wooden shack was first built there. There were at least nine other Huguenot Chapels in Spitalfields by then, yet they needed this huge church – it was an indicator of how large the French community was. I don’t think you could have built a French Church of that size anywhere else in Britain at that time.The church was run by elders who made sure the religious and the secular sides tied up so, if you arrived at the church in Threadneedle St, they would send you over to Spitalfields and find you work.
It was such a big migration, estimated now at between twenty to twenty-five thousand, that among the population in the South East more than 90% have Huguenot ancestors.“
Sundial in Fournier St recording the date of the building of the Huguenot Church.
Brick Lane Mosque was originally built in 1743 as a Huguenot Church, “L’Eglise de l’Hôpital,” replacing an earlier wooden chapel on the same site, and constructed with capacious vaults which could be rented out to brewers or vintners to subsidise running costs.
Water head from 1725 at 27 Fournier St with the initials of Pierre Bourdain, a wealthy Huguenot weaver who became Headborough and had the house built for him.
The Hanbury Hall in Hanbury St was built in 1719 as a Huguenot Church, standing back from the road behind a courtyard with a pump. The building was extended in 1864 and is now the church hall for Christ Church, Spitalfields.
Coat of arms in the Hanbury Hall dating from 1740, when “La Patente” Church moved into the building, signifying the patent originally granted by James II.
In Artillery Lane, one of London oldest shop fronts, occupied from 1720 by Nicholas Jourdain, Huguenot Silk Mercer and Director of the French Hospital.
Memorial in Christ Church.
Memorial in Christ Church.
At Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St.
Graffiti in French recently uncovered in a weavers’ loft in Elder St
Former Huguenot residence in Elder St.
The Fleur de Lis was adopted as the symbol of the Huguenots.
Sandys Row Synagogue was originally built by the Huguenots as “L’Eglise de l’Artillerie” in 1766.
Sandys Row Photograph copyright © Jeremy Freedman
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