Spitalfields key dates

Question 1

Evil May Day

Answer 1

• 1517
• xenophobic riots

Question 2

Huguenot migration

Answer 2

• 1570s-1700s
• 1680s: King Louis XIV overturned a law protecting Protestant’s rights causing many Huguenots to come over
• By 1700 there were about 500 master weavers and 15000 looms around Spital square

Question 3

African migration

Answer 3

• 16-17th centuries
• seemed to settle easily: at this time discrimination was religious not racial

Question 4

cutter’s riots and executions

Answer 4

• 1769
• Louis Chauvet
• !

Question 5

The Spitalfields acts

Answer 5

• 1773 and 1793
• regulated weavers’ work and pay
• employers were punished if they paid workers anything other than the set wage
• weavers could negotiate pay
• combinations banned
• imports of foreign silk controlled

Question 6

Jews readmitted to England

Answer 6

• allowed 1655
• came over in 1656 under Oliver Cromwell

Question 7

Irish immigrants

Answer 7

• 1600-1800s
• Catholic repression starts in 1691 after Jacobite defeat

Question 8

Assassination of Czar Alexander in Russia

Answer 8

• 1881
• causes violent pogroms against Jews in Eastern Europe
• Many Jews flooded to Britain
• By 1899, 1/4 Spitalfield’s population was Jewish

Question 9

Great Yiddish Parade

Answer 9

• 1889
• unemployed workers and ‘sweater’s victims’ marched to the Great Synagogue in Aldgate, to demand that the Chief Rabbi speak against the employer’s treatment of workers.
• When they arrived, the Chief Rabbi was not there. He denied that he had ever agreed to speak on that day and refused to denounce the employers

Question 10

Jewish tailor strikes

Answer 10

• 1889
• lasted 6 weeks
• demanded reduced work hours
• they successfully agreed not to strike again in return for reduced work hours

Question 11

Lascar Sailors

Answer 11

• 17-18th centuries
• they then brought their families
• came with companies such as the EIC
• one way journey, became stranded in London
• became beggars, pedlars, street performers

Question 12

Aliens act

Answer 12

• 1905
• restricted immigration to prevent overcrowding especially in the East end

Question 13

British Nationality act

Answer 13

• 1948
• Britain had major labour shortages
• allowed commonwealth subjects to live and work in Britain as British citizens

Question 14

South Asian migrants

Answer 14

• 1947: India separated into India and Pakistan: this left many people finding it difficult to find jobs so they came to Britain with the 1948 nationality act

Question 15

Somali migrants

Answer 15

• 1960s onwards
• In 1960 the newly independent Somalia had brought together 2 territories previously colonised by Britain and Italy
• In the early 1990s a terrible civil war forced many people to flee and arrive as refugees in many countries including the UK
• Whilst most Somali immigrants had been working class seafarers, many were middle class with professional backgrounds
• There were a significant number of women and children

Question 16

The Commonwealth Immigrants act

Answer 16

• 1962
• work ‘vouchers’
• restricted commonwealth migration

Question 17

altab ali murder

Answer 17

1978

Question 18

somalia civil war

Answer 18

began in 1991

Question 19

Bengali squatters movement

Answer 19

• 1975
• a practical solution to housing and also a political protest

Question 20

Fascist Blackshirts were physically stopped from marching through the East End

Answer 20

• 1936
• blocked by anti-facsists including Jews
• they were an openly racist and anti-semitic group

Question 21

Sptalfield’s acts were repealed

Answer 21

• 1824
• made it easier to import textiles from elsewhere e.g. India
• these were much cheaper than Spitalfields silk

Question 22

Dona Luisa

Answer 22

• 1613 had her house raided

Question 23

Huguenot Churches

Answer 23

by 1700, Spitalfields had at least 9 Huguenot churches