Bethnal Green & Spitalfields 

Bethnal Green and Spitalfields in the 1700s

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John Bay’s places

John Bay was a silk weaver. He was the middle of five children born to Louis De Bay and Elizabeth Grosse; French Huguenot refugees who fled France sometime before 1721. Here are the dates and places associated with John:

• John or Jean was baptized in 1725 at the French church known as La Patente at Spitalfields.  

• In 1748 he married Elizabeth Planque at St Mathews Church, Bethnal Green.   

• In 1794 there is a hospital record for Sarah Bay, daughter of John Bay which states his address to be No 2 Old Nichols Street, Bethnal Green.   

• I think that John was probably buried in Gibraltar Row Burial Ground; a protestant dissenters' burial ground in Bethnal Green. 

In 2019, I visited Spitalfields and Bethnal Green to gain more insight into this area. I went on a fascinating walking tour hosted by the ‘Huguenots of Spitalfields’. Here is a very brief snapshot of the area where John lived and worked.

Spitalfields

Spitalfields had been relatively rural until the Great Fire of London. By 1666, traders had begun operating beyond the city gates – on the site where today’s market stands. The landmark Truman’s Brewery was opened in 1669 and in 1682 King Charles II granted a Royal Charter to hold a market on Thursdays and Saturdays in or near Spital Square. The success of the market encouraged people to settle in the area. Following the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, Huguenots refugees fleeing France brought their silk weaving skills to Spitalfields. “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.” 

The legacy of the Huguenots can still be seen in many buildings and street names. Spitalfields has several streets of grand Georgian houses in the conservation area of Fournier Street. Today these houses are home to many artists including Gilbert and George. A visit to Denis Severs’ house on Folgate Street gives a flavour of eighteenth-century life. These houses usually have long attic windows which gave ample light for weaving.

The Huguenots built many churches including “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. It is now a mosque, serving newer immigrant communities. Hanbury Hall was the church known as ‘La Patente’. There were at least nine other Huguenot Chapels in Spitalfields.

Bethnal Green

Up to the 18th century Bethnal Green was a small rural hamlet with market gardens and arable land. During the 18th century, the silk-weaving trade spread eastwards from Spitalfields into Bethnal Green. A high number of the Protestant Huguenots ‘journeymen’ silk weavers lived in Bethnal Green. This area was much poorer than Spitalfields. ​“The town-part of this parish is extremely populous, being inhabited principally by journeymen weavers, who live three or four families in a house, and work at home at their looms and reels for the master weavers in Spitalfields"[1].

John lived in Old Nichol Street; the 'Old Nichol’ was an area of slum housing between Shoreditch High Street, Hackney Road in the north and Spitalfields in the south. The main streets within the Old Nichol were developed between the 1680s and 1708.  Many houses in the Old Nichol had "long lights", also known as weaver windows, so as to maximise daylight in the upper storey of the house where handloom weavers worked. The area was a notorious slum with unstable walls, poor foundations and damp. The ‘journeymen’ lived in these houses; their houses were both dwellings and workplaces. These were silk weavers paid by the day, often with very precarious employment. Several families often occupied one house with maybe one family per room.  

John was married at St Mathews Church in 1748, the church had only been completed two years earlier. The tranquil church and gardens we see today were somewhat different in the 1700s. The problems of a poorer community and a cultural distrust and disinterest in religion have been as much a part of the priests’ work at St Matthew’s historically as they are today. Very soon after the church’s consecration Vestry records show that several hundreds of the local people were holding their Sunday pastimes of bull-baiting and dog-fighting in the field adjacent to the churchyard. There was particular outrage on the day the terrified bull ran into church during the morning service!

I visited Spitalfields and Bethnal Green in 2019, including Denis Severs' house which recreates a Huguenot silk weaver's family house.  I also took part in a fascinating walking tour, organised by the Huguenots of Spitalfield charity.