Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1666-2000 (British Politics Society)

239 Pages·2005·1.78 MB·English

by  Anne Kershen

Strangers, Aliens and Asians
For centuries Spitalfields in East London has been a first point of settlement for new
immigrants to Britain. Proximate to the affluence of the City of London and the poverty
of what is now the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Spitalfields has been, and still is,
an area ‘on the edge’. This book examines the settlement, integration and assimilation
processes undergone by three different immigrant groups over a period of almost 350
years, assessing the relative successes and failures. The groups looked at are the French
Huguenots who arrived in significant numbers in the closing decades of the seventeenth
century; Eastern European Jews coming from the Russian Empire in the last third of the
nineteenth century; and Bangladeshis whose large-scale settlement began in the late
1950s.
Strangers, Aliens and Asians sets out to investigate at grass-roots level the migrant
experience and the processes by which the outsider may become the insider. The book
explores the dynamics which drive the processes of immigrant settlement and
assimilation and looks at whether these are solely the outcome of the temporal setting,
cultural background and the contemporaneous socio-economic and political conditions,
or whether there are factors which, irrespective of the prevailing environment, are
constant features in the symbiosis between the outsider and the insider. The central
themes under discussion include the reconstruction of home in an alien environment;
migrant religiosity in an alien society; the role of the mother tongue in the assimilation
process; and the expressions of xenophobia, anti-alienism and racism that emerged over
the centuries in Spitalfields.
Anne J.Kershen is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen Mary,
University of London. Although starting out as an AngloJewish historian she has now
broadened her ethnic and temporal framework to embrace more general patterns of
immigration and settlement in London.
British politics and society
Series Editor: Peter Catterall
ISSN: 1467–1441
Social change impacts not just upon voting behaviour and party identity but also the
formulation of policy. But how do social changes and political developments interact?
Which shapes which? Reflecting a belief that social and political structures cannot be
understood either in isolation from each other or from the historical processes which form
them, this series will examine the forces that have shaped British society. Cross-
disciplinary approaches will be encouraged. In the process, the series will aim to make a
contribution to existing fields, such as politics, sociology and media studies, as well as
opening out new and hitherto neglected fields.
The Making of Channel 4
Edited by Peter Catterall
Managing Domestic Dissent in First World War Britain
Brock Millman
Reforming the Constitution
Debates in twenty-first century Britain
Edited by Peter Catterall, Wolfram Kaiser and Ulrike Walton-Jordan
Pessimism and British War Policy, 1916–1918
Brock Millman
Amateurs and Professionals in Post-war British Sport
Edited by Adrian Smith and Dilwyn Porter
A Life of Sir John Eldon Gorst
Disraeli’s awkward disciple
Archie Hunter
Conservative Party Attitudes to Jews, 1900–1950
Harry Defries
Poor Health
Social inequality before and after the Black Report
Edited by Virginia Berridge and Stuart Blume
Mass Conservatism
The Conservatives and the public since the 1880s
Edited by Stuart Ball and Ian Holliday
Defining British Citizenship
Empire, commonwealth and modern Britain
Rieko Karatani
Television Policies of the Labour Party, 1951–2001
Des Freedman
Creating the National Health Service
Aneurin Bevan and the Medical Lords
Marvin Rintala
A Social History of Milton Keynes
Middle England/edge city
Mark Clapson
Scottish Nationalism and the Idea of Europe
Atsuko Ichijo
The Royal Navy in the Falklands Conflict and the Gulf War
Culture and strategy
Alastair Finlan
The Labour Party in Opposition 1970–1974
Prisoners of history
Patrick Bell
The Civil Service Commission, 1855–1991
A bureau biography
Richard A.Chapman
Popular Newspapers, the Labour Party and British Politics
James Thomas
In the Midst of Events
The Foreign Office diaries of Kenneth Younger,
February 1950-October 1951
Edited by Geoffrey Warner
Strangers, Aliens and Asians
Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1660–2000
Anne J.Kershen
The building on the corner of Brick
Lane and Fournier Street which has
been a Huguenot Church, a synagogue
and is now a mosque.
Strangers, Aliens and Asians
Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1660–2000
Anne J.Kershen

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York,
NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis
or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.”
© 2005 Anne J.Kershen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the
information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any
errors or omissions that may be made.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been
requested
ISBN 0-203-64243-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-69088-5 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0-714-65525-2 (Print Edition)
For my grandson, Alexander Fisher

Contents

Acknowledgements x

Introduction 1
1 People, place and a phenomenon 6
2 Home 24
3 Spitalfields: a place on the edge 48
4 Religion 66
5 Charity and welfare 95
6 Mother tongue as a bridge to assimilation? 117
7 Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis and the spirit of capitalism 146
8 Xenophobia, anti-alienism and racism 168
Conclusion 198

Bibliography 205
Index 214